This room is devoted to marriage, one of the institutions that shaped the families of El Santuario and, with them, the whole town. Here you can glimpse the way our grandparents lived love and life as a couple: the ceremonies and the wedding photographs, but also the most intimate objects of the home, the ones that were not shown to visitors.

There is the bed, the centre of the bedroom. There is the dressing table, where people got ready in front of the mirror; the toiletry case, with the things for personal grooming; and the sewing box, where clothes were mended, embroidery was done and the trousseau was prepared. There is also the washstand, with the jug and basin people washed with every morning, in the days when water did not yet reach the houses through pipes.

If you have come from the chapel, you will remember that its pews were once marriage beds. Here you can see what those beds were like in their original place: the bedroom where every family began.

For much of the twentieth century, getting married in El Santuario had its own rules. Look at the photographs: many brides are not in white. It was common for brides and grooms to wear dark, tailored suits.

Monsignor José Ignacio Botero —the same man linked to the portrait of Ezequiel— promoted this custom as a reminder that marriage was for life, with its joys and also with its sacrifices and hardships. Some couples sought a middle ground and combined white with black, in what was called semiluto (half-mourning): black for the sacrifices, white for the joys.

Weddings were held very early, almost at dawn. In those days, to receive Communion you had to fast from midnight, and since the couple received Communion at their wedding Mass, marrying early was the way to avoid going the whole morning without eating.

But not everyone followed the rules. At the top you will see a couple who chose to marry at night and in formal evening dress, defying the customs of their time. An image that reminds us that every generation also changes traditions.

In this room you will also find other QR codes with stories of couples and families from El Santuario. Listen to them: they are what bring these objects to life.

SERNA ZULUAGA WEDDING

The sun was just beginning to burn through the early-morning mist when don Miguel Antonio Serna Gómez and doña Blanca Fabiola Zuluaga Gómez, now married, set off on the traditional wedding procession through the streets of El Santuario. It is the same custom described in this room’s audio track: weddings at dawn.

Antonio Botero took this photograph at around six in the morning, on the corner of the parish house and the Farmacia Santa Cruz, on Calle 50, José María Córdova street. Early as it was, the town was already awake. Look closely: barefoot children, girls dressed for the occasion, men in hats, women watching from the pavement, neighbours who left what they were doing for a few minutes.

No one seems indifferent to the newlyweds passing by. In those days a wedding was not just a family matter: it was an event for the whole town.

The photograph also holds a portrait of the town as it was then. In the background you can see a corner of the main square, where the house of don Julio Giraldo stood. For a time it housed the Escuela Industrial, and years later the Teatro José María Córdova was built there, fondly remembered by several generations of people from El Santuario. Further on, the south side of the plaza is still lost in the mist, and a few cars stand parked in the square.

Every face on the pavement, every curious child and every building in the background tells its own story. Together they make up the portrait of a town that still lived its joys as a community.

More than half a century later, that mist has long since lifted. But thanks to Antonio Botero’s lens, the memory of a town that came out into the street to accompany the beginning of a new life remains intact.

GÓMEZ GIRALDO WEDDING · 1958

Don Antonio Botero took this photograph on 25 July 1958, the day don Luis Ángel Gómez Ramírez and doña Helda Myriam Giraldo Gómez were married. In a town where almost everyone was called Gómez, Giraldo or Zuluaga, surnames were not enough to know who was being talked about, so each branch of the family had its nickname.

He belonged to the Gómez family known as “los Salteños”, and she to the Giraldo family everyone called “los Avelinos”. So just by saying the nickname, anyone in El Santuario knew which family was meant.

Among the children of this marriage were Dr Óscar Gómez, a prolific writer; Ancízar Gómez, a well-remembered barkeeper in the town; and Raúl Gómez Giraldo, who went on to become mayor of the municipality. A single couple gave the town letters, tertulia and government.

ZULUAGA ARISTIZÁBAL WEDDING · 1928

On 27 December 1928, the photographer Floro Ezequiel Zuluaga portrayed the newlyweds Francisco Zuluaga Salazar, whom everyone affectionately called “el maestro Pacho”, and Julia Rosa Aristizábal Ramírez. They were married by Monsignor José Ignacio Botero, parish priest of El Santuario from 1917 to 1962.

The first thing that strikes you about this image is how modern it is. It was taken in a small town in eastern Antioquia, but it could pass for a studio portrait from Medellín, Buenos Aires or New York. It looks like a scene from the silent films of those years.

Look at Julia Rosa. She wears a cloche hat, the most representative piece of women’s fashion of the 1920s all over the world. Pearls, earrings, a simply cut dress and discreet make-up.

Beside her, Francisco wore a three-piece suit, a high collar, a tie with a tie pin and a pocket watch whose chain just shows over the waistcoat. The carefully set hair and the thin moustache complete the image. Nothing is improvised.

The families of El Santuario were not rich in those days, but for important occasions they dressed with the greatest care. Appearing with dignity before the community and before the camera was part of the celebration. Perhaps that is why El Santuario still keeps a very strong culture of personal presentation: beauty salons, fashion shops, photo studios and event companies remain an important part of the town’s life.

Floro Ezequiel Zuluaga, known in the town as “Florito”, was the same man who installed El Santuario’s first power plant, the one brought by Father Pablo Tulio Pineda: a man who gave the town both electric light and photography, and who understood that sensibility very well. Rather than filling the scene with furniture and ornaments, he chose a sober background and close framing so that everyone would focus on the faces.

Their gaze is calm; they do not smile. In the photography of the time, seriousness was a form of respect for a moment that would last for ever. Almost a century later, the image still looks current. In it we recognise something that has accompanied the people of El Santuario for generations: the conviction that the important moments of life deserve to be lived and remembered with elegance.

SERNA GÓMEZ WEDDING · 1959

On 21 May 1959, Antonio Botero photographed Pedro Enrique Serna Gómez, aged 33, and Mariela Gómez Serna, aged 23, on their wedding day. He was the son of Luis Serna and Rosario Gómez; she was the daughter of Laura Serna and Manuel José Gómez, known in El Santuario as “Cacao”. They were married by Father Francisco Luis Gómez.

At first sight the image conveys calm. There are no exaggerated gestures or theatrical poses. That restrained expression is not coldness: in the formal portrait of the time, seriousness was a way of showing respect and dignity on one of the most important days of one’s life.

Antonio Botero took care over every detail. The painted backdrop, slightly out of focus, barely suggests a landscape. The old studio door and the wooden floor add depth without stealing the limelight. Everything is arranged so that the eye stays on the couple.

Pedro Enrique has the elegance of the men of El Santuario at the end of the 1950s: a wide-brimmed hat, a well-cut dark suit, a patterned tie with a tie clip and shiny shoes. Mariela, by contrast, brings a new air. You may remember that in this room’s audio track we spoke of brides dressed in dark colours.

She is already in white: short puffed sleeves, fine pleats across the chest and a wide dark sash at the waist. A small handbag, pale heels, a wristwatch and a few pieces of jewellery complete her look. She is a young woman following the fashion of her time, when dressing for one’s wedding was also beginning to be a personal choice.

Notice their posture. She takes her husband’s arm gently, and he stands firm and calm. There is no stiffness between them, but no display of affection either. That simple gesture is enough to express the trust with which they were beginning their life together.

This photograph portrays a generation living between two worlds. It still kept the solemnity of inherited customs, but was already opening up to the new ways of dressing and celebrating that would come with the 1960s. As in many of Antonio Botero’s works, its strength lies in simplicity: two people, a well-considered background and just the right light.

OROZCO QUINTERO WEDDING

On 30 April 1956, Monsignor José Ignacio Botero married don Eladio Orozco Gómez, aged 51, to María del Carmen Quintero Montes, aged 31. Born in El Santuario in 1905, he was the son of Rafael Orozco and Hortensia Gómez, and the widower of Filomena Ramírez. She was the daughter of Fidel Quintero and María Jesús Montes.

Don Antonio Botero took this photograph of them. They pose with the solemnity of the portraits of the time: he sober; she calm and steady. From the photograph alone we could not tell what they felt, but this image has a story.

For decades it lay unclaimed in an old photographic archive in the town. When it finally reached doña María del Carmen, she saw it for the first time since her wedding day. She burst into tears and, kissing the photograph, could only repeat: “My Mono, my beautiful Mono.”

She had married late for her time, when many women in El Santuario married when they were little more than girls. He was 20 years older than her and had already known widowhood.

It all began in the simplest way. María del Carmen saw him walk past her house every day. They knew who the other was, but they hardly spoke: they only looked at each other, until one day he broke the silence with a question: “Carmen, shall we?” And she answered just as simply: “Let’s.”

Over the years, doña María del Carmen would tell, laughing, how innocent she had been when she married. She believed that being married meant cooking for her husband and looking after his clothes. So whenever don Eladio came close to her with affection, she would climb up into the loft of the house.

From below he would say: “Come down from there, Carmen,” and she would answer: “For now, I’m not coming down.” When people asked her how they had started their family, she would smile modestly and reply: “We got to know each other along the way.”

Don Eladio died in 1974. She lived to the age of 100, and towards the end of her life she said that some nights she would wake with a start, struck by a thought. Her Mono had had another wife before her, and she wondered: “Who will God give my Mono to when I die?”

This photograph is no longer just the record of a wedding. It is the trace of a love that was born of glances, grew with patience, humour and respect, and lasted a lifetime in the memory of a woman who never stopped calling her husband by the same name: “My beautiful Mono.”

BOTERO GÓMEZ WEDDING · 1961

On 23 February 1961, Father Jairo Pineda married Martín Emilio Botero Serna, son of Alberto Botero and Carmen Eva Serna, to Blanca Fabiola Gómez Serna, aged 22. She was the daughter of Manuel José Gómez, “Cacao”, and Laura Serna, and the sister of Mariela, the 1959 bride you can see in another photograph in this room. Like his father and grandfather, Martín Emilio was a butcher, one of the town’s traditional trades.

Antonio Botero portrayed them at the moment of cutting the cake. Their hands are joined on the knife and both are looking at the first slice about to come away. Neither looks at the camera: it seems a moment being lived, not a pose.

But it is impossible not to look at the cake. It is set on several tables to make it look even taller, with several stacked tiers, columns, sugar flowers and a little bride and groom in the centre. It is almost a work of architecture.

In El Santuario there was a question people always asked, with a smile, after a wedding: “How many tiers did the cake have?” The answer was not only about the dessert: it was the way of measuring the size of the party, how many guests there were and how much effort the families had made.

Look also at Blanca Fabiola’s outfit: a fitted jacket, a brooch, a straight skirt and a very elaborate hairstyle. It is the urban fashion of the early 1960s, which was reaching the town and leaving behind the voluminous dresses of earlier years. Martín Emilio wears a dark suit of classic cut and a discreet tie.

Behind them, a mirror enlarges the space and doubles the cake. There are ribbons hanging on the wall, a plant to one side and the wooden floor of a house, because that is how these parties were: for one day, the family’s living room became a reception hall.

More than six decades later, the photograph preserves that custom many people in El Santuario still remember: measuring a wedding with a single question. How many tiers did the cake have?

CASTAÑO ZULUAGA WEDDING · 1962

On 2 June 1962, Father Marcos Gómez married José Jesús Castaño Ramírez, aged 32, son of Jesús María Castaño and Dolores Ramírez, to Rosalba Zuluaga Zuluaga, aged 17, born in Granada and daughter of Ramón Emilio Zuluaga and Judith Zuluaga. Antonio Botero took this photograph of them.

At first sight it is a studio portrait like so many of the time: the couple standing, calm, in front of the painted backdrop, the prop door and the curtain with which Antonio Botero set up his stage. But the important detail is Rosalba’s dress. It is not black, like that of so many brides in El Santuario for decades. Nor is it white, like Mariela’s in the 1959 photograph you can see in this room.

It is a printed dress in dark tones, what in El Santuario was called semiluto or, as many families said, similuto. Customs do not disappear overnight. For some years the town saw three ways of getting married side by side: in black, in semiluto and in white. This photograph bears witness to that moment when the past and the new crossed paths.

Look at Rosalba too: she was 17, and it shows. She is not striking a pose or putting on a solemn expression. In her gaze there is youth, calm and a little shyness. She wears a simple hairstyle, a pearl necklace and white shoes, and holds a small bag in her hands.

Beside her, José Jesús wears the black wide-brimmed hat, the dark suit and the tie, like the men of his generation on important occasions. Antonio Botero needs nothing more: two people, a backdrop, a door and a story that is beginning. More than 60 years later, this image holds the exact instant when tradition was beginning to change, when the black of before and the white of afterwards fitted into a single dress.

ALZATE ZULUAGA WEDDING · 1961

On 28 August 1961, Father Alejandro Pineda married Pastor Hernando Alzate Giraldo, aged 26, son of Justo Alzate and Carmen Giraldo, to Blanca Emma Zuluaga Pineda, aged 20, daughter of Manuel Zuluaga and Graciela Pineda. The photograph captures the traditional moment of cutting the cake, like the one of the Botero Gómez wedding, which is also in this room.

The couple pose calmly, surrounded by flowers. But now look at the mirror in the background. There, almost hidden, is don Antonio Botero, the author of the photograph, bent over his large-format camera. Through a reflection he surely did not seek, the man who photographed half the town ended up inside his own work.

It is one of the few records we have of how a photographer worked in El Santuario in the 1960s, and it is also a small act of justice: the man who spent his life keeping the memory of others ended up becoming part of it. More than 60 years later, the mirror still shows the same scene: a couple beginning their life together and, behind the camera, the man who made that instant outlast time.

BOTERO GÓMEZ WEDDING · 1949

On 21 May 1949, Marco Emilio Botero Gómez, aged 28, son of Abel Botero and Josefa Gómez, married Amelia Margarita Gómez Gómez, aged 22, daughter of Diego Gómez and Laura Gómez. After the wedding they made their home in the rural district of Portachuelo.

The photograph is deeply sober. The couple stand framed by the simple doorway of a country house, with no props. Marco Emilio wears a double-breasted suit of classic cut. Amelia Margarita holds a large bouquet of white lilies, and the veil, the flowers in her hair, the gloves and the pearl necklace bring delicacy to the whole.

But what is most surprising today is the colour of her dress: it is black. At first sight it might look like mourning or sadness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Until the mid-1950s, many brides in El Santuario married in black.

The custom was encouraged by Monsignor José Ignacio Botero, parish priest of the town from 1917 to 1962 and one of the most influential figures in its history. Monsignor used to say that life was marked by suffering —an idea that recalls the philosopher Schopenhauer— and that marriage was not the pursuit of a cloudless happiness, but the decision to find a companion with whom to walk that road together.

Seen this way, black did not speak of the death of love, but of a love willing to share life’s burdens with faithfulness, patience and hope. And the white lilies, the flower of Saint Joseph, complete the idea: the purity of the flowers and the sobriety of the dress say the same thing. To marry was to begin a shared life, accepted with serenity and responsibility.

This photograph is more than the portrait of two newlyweds. It bears witness to a time when faith and custom gave marriage a meaning that may seem distant today, but that shaped many families in El Santuario.

ZULUAGA LÓPEZ WEDDING · 1965

On 26 February 1965, in Alejandría, Jorge Augusto Zuluaga Gómez, aged 23, son of Miguel Ángel Zuluaga and Teresa Gómez, married Berta Lía López. Jorge Augusto was a teacher and had worked in several towns of eastern Antioquia.

As in other photographs in this room, Antonio Botero chose the moment of cutting the cake, but this time there is no studio and no backdrop. The scene takes place in the corridor of an old house, with the morning light coming in between walls and columns. The columns, the door at the back, the plants and the tiered cake all seem to be exactly in their place. The couple do not look at the camera: they are focused on that simple gesture with which life together begins.

And now look at Berta Lía: she is wearing dark glasses. In a wedding portrait of the time, that was almost unthinkable. Far from breaking the solemnity, they give the image a surprising modernity.

This photograph sits right between two worlds. The house, the religious ceremony and the family customs still belong to a very traditional society. But the modern cut of the dress, the hairstyle, the glasses and the naturalness of the scene announce a generation that was already looking elsewhere. That is why it feels so different from the stiff portraits of earlier years.

More than 60 years later, the cake is still intact and the couple’s hands are still joined on the knife. Antonio Botero stopped an instant that, more than a memory, feels like the quiet beginning of a story.

PINEDA JIMÉNEZ WEDDING · 1965

On 30 January 1965, Liborio Pineda Zuluaga, aged 39, son of Luis Pineda and María del Carmen Zuluaga, married Elvia Jiménez Mejía, aged 30, daughter of Roberto Jiménez and Isabel Mejía. Antonio Botero photographed them at the moment of cutting the cake.

The first thing to notice is the dress: white, made of lace. If you have walked around this room, you know that for decades many brides in El Santuario married in black, and that at the end of the 1950s the first white dresses and the semiluto ones began to appear. By 1965, as this photograph shows, white was here to stay.

But look up. The couple take up only the left side of the image, and the rest is a wide wall that leads the eye to a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, hanging right above them. It is not a decoration: it is the centre of the photograph. It is the same image that was seen in so many homes in El Santuario, like those in the chapel’s corner of popular devotion, and here it seems to bless in silence the family that is beginning.

Below, on a table with a velvet cloth, lace and fringes, a two-tier cake decorated with flowers and ribbons is waiting. Everything is order, calm and simplicity.

More than 60 years later, the photograph holds the moment when a tradition had been completely transformed. Between the black dress of our grandmothers and the white we take for granted today, this image holds a special place in the history of weddings in El Santuario.

PORTRAIT OF DON JESÚS ZULUAGA HOYOS

Don Jesús Zuluaga Hoyos was known to the people of El Santuario in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as “Jesús el Negro”. He was born on 26 August 1828 and died in 1926, just short of his hundredth birthday.

His long life was marked by patriotism and civic spirit: he took part in almost all the civil wars of the nineteenth century. He was a prosperous farmer and cattle rancher, with land that reached as far as today’s municipality of San Carlos, and a great benefactor of the church: he helped build the parish church and bring Spanish religious images that are still listed in the parish inventories.

He was the father of José María Zuluaga Gómez, “Chepito”, whose funeral you will see in the Cemetery room, and the grandfather of Dr Baudilio Zuluaga, the first doctor from El Santuario and father of the comedian Guillermo Zuluaga, “Montecristo”.

The portrait is also valuable for its author: the self-taught master Francisco Duque Ramírez.

PORTRAIT OF DOÑA MARIANA GÓMEZ ZULUAGA

Doña Mariana Gómez Zuluaga was born in El Santuario in 1834, the daughter of don Alberto Gómez García and doña Florentina Zuluaga. On 26 February 1851 she married don Jesús Zuluaga Hoyos, “el Negro”, whose portrait is also in this room.

Doña Mariana had a deep knowledge of the medicinal properties of plants. That is why, together with don Ignacio Botero Palacio, she was the “doctor” her neighbours consulted most.

Perhaps it was that love of understanding illnesses and their remedies that led her grandson, Baudilio Zuluaga, to study medicine and become the first doctor from El Santuario.

Doña Mariana died on 22 November 1915. This portrait was painted in 1907 by the El Santuario artist Francisco Duque Ramírez.

In the homes of El Santuario, the living room was the place for gathering. Relatives, neighbours and friends were received here. Here people talked, listened to music, discussed what was happening in town and spent time together. That is why we have dedicated this space to the families of El Santuario and to the things that were part of their daily life.

Let us begin with this set of furniture. In 1895 it belonged to a British diplomat living in Colombia. When his mission ended, he sold it to a family in Bogotá descended from the Gómez de Castro, the family of Captain Antonio Gómez de Castro, founder of El Santuario. So, in a way, when it was donated to this house in 2022, it came back to the town of its former owners.

Above the furniture hang a mirror dated 1929 and a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, an image that was never missing from the living rooms of many local families. And speaking of families, on the walls you will see photographs of families named Vásquez, Botero, Castaño, Gómez, Pineda, Zuluaga, Aristizábal and Salazar, among many others. Some have been in El Santuario since its earliest years; others arrived later and became part of its history. Each photograph has a QR code: scan it to find out who appears in it, when it was taken and what stories it holds.

There are also everyday objects from other times. This sewing machine, from the nineteenth century, belonged to Solina Zuluaga. For a long time, sewing was a fundamental task in the home and the livelihood of many families.

The gramophone, from the late nineteenth century, played sounds recorded on flat discs. It was donated by the Aristizábal Gómez family. The pendulum clock, from the 1960s, was brought from La Guajira by a local merchant named Serna.

The rotary telephone dates from around 1970. Before mobile phones, devices like this changed the way people talked to those far away. And this television set, from 1975, was one of the first sold by the El Baratón shop, the subject of the last room on the tour. It belonged to the Zuluaga Giraldo family.

Each object comes from a different time, but they all have something in common: they were once inside a home and part of a family’s life.

PINEDA SERNA FAMILY

This photograph shows the family of maestro Roberto Pineda Duque and his wife, Enriqueta Serna Gómez. From left to right are their children: Beatriz, Cecilia, Consuelo, Leonardo, Robertico, Amparo, Teresita, Ricardo and Orlando.

Maestro Pineda Duque was born in El Santuario on 29 August 1910 and is one of the great composers in the history of Colombia. His path began here: at the age of 12 he joined the parish choir and, on the recommendation of its director, went to Medellín to study music.

He was an organist, chapel master, teacher and conductor. He studied in Medellín, Cali and Bogotá and at the Juilliard School in New York. He wrote more than 170 works, among them sacred music, an opera and the anthem of Bogotá, and he conducted the Orquesta Sinfónica de Colombia.

He was also the first Colombian composer to explore twelve-tone music successfully, one of the most modern currents in twentieth-century music. He was not always understood in his time, but today he is recognised as one of the most original creators of his generation. He died in Bogotá in 1977.

This photograph shows him in another role: as the father of a family of nine children from El Santuario.

ZULUAGA RAMÍREZ FAMILY

On 2 October 1964, don Delio Zuluaga Duque and doña Inés Ramírez Orozco celebrated their silver wedding anniversary, 25 years of marriage. To mark it, they gathered the family in front of don Antonio Botero’s camera. They had married in 1939, in the years when many brides in El Santuario went to the altar dressed in black, as you saw in the wedding room.

Twenty-five years later, here is what they built. Don Delio was the founder of El Baratón, the shop that for almost a century has been one of the most emblematic in town. Doña Inés also had her place there: in the shop’s sewing room she made the First Communion dresses of many girls in El Santuario. You will find the full story in the last room of the tour, dedicated to El Baratón.

From left to right are Ramón Guillermo, Nohemí del Socorro and Saulo Antonio Zuluaga Ramírez; then don Delio and doña Inés, the parents; after them, Jaime and Otilia Zuluaga Ramírez, and Otilia’s husband, Iván Serna Gómez. Seated in front of everyone is doña María Jesús Duque Aristizábal, the paternal grandmother.

Three generations in a single image: the grandmother, the couple celebrating their love and the children that love had brought.

PINEDA ARISTIZÁBAL FAMILY

Baltazar Pineda Salazar and María Ignacia Aristizábal Gómez were married on 27 December 1932. Years later, don Antonio Botero photographed the family they had formed: children, son-in-law and grandchildren.

The parents, don Baltazar and doña María Ignacia, appear among their children: Luis Juan, Consuelo de Chiquinquirá, Liliam del Socorro, José Jairo, Aura and Lucía de Jesús Pineda Aristizábal.

Notice the names: Chiquinquirá, Socorro, de Jesús. Many families in El Santuario named their children after their devotions, as a way of entrusting them to that protection from the cradle.

Next to Aura is her husband, José Gilberto Zuluaga Gómez, and their sons, Gilberto and Álvaro Zuluaga Pineda: the grandchildren, the third generation of the family.

ZULUAGA ZULUAGA FAMILY

In 1940, Malaquías Zuluaga Serna and Susana Zuluaga Gómez reached 25 years of marriage and, to celebrate, had their portrait taken with their children. The photograph was taken by Luis Eduardo Ramírez, another of the photographers who preserved the town’s memory. The family lived in Las Cuevas, between El Santuario and El Peñol.

All the children carry the same surname twice, Zuluaga Zuluaga, because both their father and their mother were Zuluagas, something very common in a town where almost everyone shared surnames. Here are Elvia Rosa, Jesús Antonio, María Alicia, Carlos Emilio, José Bertulfo, Julia Inés, María Ernestina, Carmen Eva and Juan Manuel, together with their parents, don Malaquías and doña Susana.

But is there someone else? One of the children in the photograph has not been identified. We know the child is a Zuluaga Zuluaga, but we do not know the name.

If you recognise anyone in this picture, or if you belong to this family, please tell us. In this way, every photograph in this room keeps completing its story with the help of those who visit it.

GIRALDO GARCÍA FAMILY

On 13 May 1954, the family gathered to celebrate the 80th birthday of doña María Dolores Ramírez Ramírez, and don Antonio Botero took this photograph of them. In the centre is the guest of honour, with her son, José Joaquín Giraldo Ramírez, and her daughter-in-law, Margarita García Montoya.

Around them are the grandchildren: Jesús Antonio and Marco Tulio, who became lawyers; Margarita Oliva, who devoted her life to teaching; Carlos Julio, who became a priest; and Ramón María. It is an image of celebration, but the story of one of them ended early and is linked to one of the most remembered tragedies in the region.

As people in town recall, a chiva bus full of passengers was returning from a wedding. On reaching the bridge over the El Ocho river, people had to get off and cross it on foot. As they were getting off, the bridge broke and many people died. Since then it has been known as the Tragedy of El Ocho.

Years later a monument was built in memory of the victims. Ramón María Giraldo García was helping to build it when, on 9 September 1959, he drowned in that same river. He had his whole life ahead of him, and he lost it honouring the memory of others.

That is why this photograph holds more than a birthday: it is one of the last portraits of Ramón María with his whole family.

BOTERO PINEDA FAMILY

On 7 January 1957, Francisco Luis Botero Giraldo and María Jesús Pineda Jiménez celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, 50 years of marriage. They had married in 1907. For the occasion they gathered 21 members of the family, including sons, daughters, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, in front of don Antonio Botero’s camera.

Doña María Jesús holds a special place in the town’s memory: she is credited with the recipe for the famous buñuelo santuariano. It is not like other buñuelos, or fritters. It is neither round nor perfect but misshapen, and it is saltier, because it is made with cuajada curd cheese and capio maize, and it is eaten, as custom dictates, with white gelatina de pata, a calf’s-foot jelly sweet. If you have ever tasted it, part of that recipe began in this family.

Everyone knew don Francisco Luis as “Pacho”. He was a butcher by trade and a great promoter of the devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel in the town. Also among those portrayed is his son, José Abelardo Botero Pineda, who was twice mayor of El Santuario.

Fifty years of marriage, a large family and a recipe still eaten in El Santuario today. Few photographs tell so much about a single family.

GÓMEZ GIRALDO FAMILY

On 26 February 1963, Vicente Gómez Giraldo married María Lucelly Salazar Salazar, and for the occasion 20 members of his family gathered in front of don Antonio Botero’s camera: parents, children, siblings and their partners. In El Santuario this family was known as the Melejeras.

As you have seen in other photographs in this room, in a town where so many people shared the surnames Gómez, Giraldo or Zuluaga, nicknames were the way to know exactly which family was meant. Saying Gómez Giraldo could mean anyone. Saying the Melejeras said it all.

A wedding was also one of the few occasions when the whole family came together. That is why photographs like this are so valuable: several generations of the Melejeras were captured in a single image.

GÓMEZ BOTERO FAMILY

On 13 March 1928, Floro Ezequiel Zuluaga, the same photographer who brought electric light to El Santuario, photographed this family on the second birthday of María Libia Gómez Gómez, the eldest granddaughter of the family the town called Los Cacao. In the centre are the grandparents, Carlos Heriberto Gómez Salazar and Clara Rosa Botero Giraldo, surrounded by sons, daughters, sons- and daughters-in-law and grandchildren. The birthday girl is at the front, next to her grandmother, wearing a white bow.

Look at the photograph as a portrait of its time. Everyone has their place: the men in suits and ties, the women with carefully styled hair, the children dressed for the occasion, and behind them the furniture, the plants and the photographer’s backdrop.

Also in the picture is a baby only a few months old, Francisco de Paula Gómez Giraldo. He died seven months later, on 31 October 1928, of colic. This photograph is one of the few mementoes left of his short life.

And there is a detail that escapes you at first glance: one of the children, Jorge Ernesto Gómez Botero, is barefoot. Years later, Jorge Ernesto and his sons would be among the founders of Calzado Bucaramanga, a well-known Colombian shoe company.

The family tells, with humour, that his siblings’ teasing about appearing barefoot in this photograph made him dream that one day no one would go without shoes. We do not know whether it happened that way, but the story has stayed in the family’s memory.

Almost a hundred years later, this photograph keeps the faces of a family and, with them, small stories of life in El Santuario in 1928.

SALAZAR SERNA FAMILY

On 28 October 1972 Gilberto León, the eldest son of Fernando Salazar Gómez and Berta Serna Salazar, was married, and the whole family posed for this photograph. And it was a large family: 12 children.

Standing are Fabiola, Luis Fernando, Marta Lucía, Gilberto León, Óscar Alonso, Jairo, Margarita and Gildardo, together with their parents. In the centre are Francisco, Rosita, Olga María and Beatriz. Families like this were common in El Santuario and throughout Antioquia, where a household with 10 or 12 children surprised no one.

This is one of the most recent photographs in the room, and you can tell that times had changed. It was no longer taken by don Antonio Botero or another local photographer, but by a professional photographer from Medellín whose name we do not know. The suits, the hairstyles and the way of posing already belong to the 1970s.

If you have seen the 1928 photographs in this room, compare them. In little more than 40 years, the way people dressed and had their portraits taken changed completely.

SERNA GÓMEZ FAMILY

On 13 October 1944, Miguel Antonio Serna Aristizábal and Carmen Flora Gómez Botero reached 25 years of marriage. They had married in 1919. To celebrate, they had their portrait taken with their children by Luis Eduardo Ramírez, the same photographer who portrayed the Zuluaga Zuluaga family.

The couple are in the centre. Around them, from left to right, are Elcira, Julia, Rosa, Ignacio, Hernando, Octavio, Julio Alfredo, Próspero, Miguel and Graciela. The photographer arranged them roughly by age, from the eldest down to little Graciela, so you can see at a glance how the family grew.

Look at the details too: the dresses, the suits, the age gaps between the siblings and some barefoot children, as was common at the time, even in the most important photographs.

But there is someone in this picture you cannot see. When the photograph was taken, doña Carmen Flora was expecting Blanca, the last of her children. So, in a way, they are all in this portrait: 10 children in view and a daughter not yet born, 11 in all.

More than a silver wedding anniversary, the photograph holds 25 years of a life built as a family, and the promise of the one who was on her way.

GÓMEZ DUQUE FAMILY · 1958

Don José Elciario Gómez and doña Fidelina Duque were married on 25 February 1933. Twenty-five years later, in 1958, they celebrated their silver wedding anniversary and, to mark it, gathered all their children in front of don Antonio Botero’s camera.

The photograph shows, among others, Pascual Jacinto, Lucila Rosa, Eusebio María, Luis Enrique and Blanca Marina. As in so many photographs in this room, the celebration of a marriage becomes the portrait of a whole family.

Welcome to the Country Kitchen, a tribute to our campesinos, the soul and sinew of life in El Santuario. When we think of a country kitchen, we think of much more than a place to prepare food. We think of the lit hearth, of work done by hand, of the fruits of the land and of the family gathered around the table.

For generations, the kitchen was also a school. Recipes and ways of growing crops were learnt there, but also stories, customs and ways of living.

That is why in this room we have recreated some of the elements of the kitchens of the past: the wood-fired hearth, where food was cooked and where the family sat to warm themselves and talk; the pilón (a wooden mortar), where maize was pounded to remove its hull; the grinding stone, where that maize was ground to make the dough for arepas; and the wooden basins, where grain was washed and dough was kneaded. Simple objects, but full of meaning.

Kitchens like these also gave us the recipes that still define us, such as the buñuelo santuariano, made with maize and cuajada curd cheese, that we told you about in La Sala, the living room. Much of who we are as people of El Santuario is rooted in country life, in working the land and in the knowledge our campesinos have kept and passed down.

To say goodbye to this room, we leave you with a poem by Diana Gutiérrez dedicated to the one who was the heart of these kitchens: the mother.

The audio ends with a reading of that poem by Diana Gutiérrez.

We have reached the last room of the tour. It is a tribute to the commerce of El Santuario and, above all, to the El Baratón shop, which since 1928 has been part of the lives of several generations. For many families, El Baratón is more than a shop. It was there that their parents bought them their clothes, and there you could find fabrics, dresses, shoes, hats and so many things of everyday life.

The story began with don Delio de Jesús Zuluaga Duque. Around 1925, after doing his military service in Sonsón, he joined his father, don Ramón Emilio Zuluaga, working as a muleteer. If you have been through the Sala de Tertulia, the tertulia room, you already know him: he is Ramoncito, the Palabrero Mayor, the one who left his stories hanging so that the children would come back the next day.

Father and son travelled with their animals to Medellín. The journey took two days: on the first they reached what is now the Sajonia roundabout, and on the second they went down to Medellín by way of Santa Elena. There they met other merchants and discovered an opportunity.

Textile mills such as Coltejer, Fabricato and Rosellón sold second-rate remnants, with small flaws or faulty prints. They began buying them and selling them, along with cotton yarn, in the José María Córdova square in El Santuario. Little by little, the business grew. The remnants gave way to better-quality fabrics and later to a shop that opened mainly at weekends, where people from El Santuario bought cloth to make their own clothes.

Doña Celia Inés Ramírez Orozco, don Delio’s wife, whom you may have seen in La Sala, the living room, celebrating their silver wedding anniversary, was essential to this story. In her sewing room she made shirts, aprons, coats and the First Communion dresses of many of the town’s girls, for the neighbours and for the shop itself.

Over time, El Baratón moved from selling fabric to selling ready-made clothes, brought from Medellín and Bogotá, and it kept pace with the changes in the way people in El Santuario dressed. Then came hats, ruanas, shoes, boots and even household appliances, like the 1975 television set you saw in La Sala.

The story was carried on by don Jaime Zuluaga Ramírez, don Delio’s son. At 22 he left the seminary and began working with his father on the accounts, the stock and serving the customers. When don Delio died, he took charge of the shop. He is the same don Jaime who, years later, founded with his family the Fundación Aurum, to which this house belongs.

But El Baratón was also made by those who worked there. Don José Duque, for example, served in the shop for 40 years. On Saturdays and Sundays he stood behind the counter, and during the week he worked the land. Sometimes even his children helped him at weekends.

That is why, when we think of El Baratón, we do not think only of a shop: we think of our parents, our clothes, family shopping trips and moments of our own history. And there is something more: the family that began by selling fabric remnants in the square now promotes, through the Fundación Aurum, an academy to train those who work in garment making. The thread of this story goes on.

Commerce is memory too, and in El Santuario many stories began behind a shop counter. Thank you for touring the Casa Museo de El Santuario with us.

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