Don Odilo, 95 years old and high -free, the businessman that Pedro Sánchez would like to clone

At 95, this jeweler and watchmaker of those of before, an alchemist in the art of sprouting jewels of a piece of metal, is the second generation of an artisan saga that began his father, when he emigrated to Cuba in the early twentieth century.Now it is he who has become the oldest active merchant in Ourense, still high in the payment of his self -employed fee.

"The business is your life.He never wanted to ask for retirement and has barely had work losses, in 77 years he has been working on the business.Ask him when you plan to take vacations this year, ”your two children joke."Never!", the father replies with determination.

Odilo and María Concepción, their two children, are already a third generation of a trade that they have learned from their father, who, so much surrounding them, has acquired the hardness of the diamond."The first was always at the door, before the opening time of trade, morning and afternoon, and as he studied as a young mercantile expert, he continues to carry invoices and accounts in the office," explains the daughter.

Odilo Fernández, at the door of the jewelry the Chronometer 1928.// Iñaki Osorio

Although he walks only with a cane, and totally erect, “he is no longer going by bus and the banks since, a year ago, a cast van backed up in the Praza del Hierro, he did not see him, passed him over himand fractured the two legs ".A few weeks later it was already fit.The one who is made of iron is Don Odilo, not the Praza de Ferro, and the veteran entrepreneur continues.

From Cuba to Calle de la Paz

The story of this saga of "Odilos", which perpetuates the spoils of manufacturing unique watches and jewels and on commission, began in Aguada de Passejeros, in the Cuban province of Cienfuegos.To that post -colonial tar of the early twentieth century, grandfather Odilo Fernández traveled from Ourense, and there the first jewelry mounted.

“During the pandemic we order papers and found abundant documentation when the grandfather emigrated in 1911, from his ticket of passage vapors with which he left, photos, invoices..."They even found" the requests for badges and other distinctions commissioned by the Galician Center of Havana and others, "explain the grandchildren of the founder.

Don Odilo, 95 años y de alta en autónomos, el empresario que Pedro Sánchez querría clonar

Passenger Aguada took its name, they indicate, for being the place where the only train stopped, built by Spaniards, so that it would drink the passage and for the steam machine replacement.There was born in 1925 Odilo Fernández, and in the island family business of jewelry he came out the first teeth.

Local trade resistance

When the Nonagenarian jeweler turned two years old, the family returned from Cuba to Ourense and founded the first jewelry in Rúa de Paz, today Chronometer 1928, in memory of the year of Opening.

In moments of anxiety for local commerce, with dozens of closures last year for the crisis, and with the pressure of digital and multinational platforms, Odilo Fernández No Claudica."I retire?And for what? ”He replies.The key to resistance seems to reside, in this case, in the high -level and personalized offer, and in perseverance.That is what the head of the house knows."I've carried this in my veins.I can't leave it, ”he confesses.And that at home he continues to wait for his wife, Conchita.

The nonagenarian Odilo Fernández, with his children, inside the jewelry.// Iñaki Osorio

"The work table is their way of life.A few years ago we decided to organize a trip to London to leave him, my mother and a group of friends.He gave the morriña two days after arriving in London.He lacked cry.Look that they traveled around the world! But as it was to travel to fairs in the sector, nothing happened, it was work, ”recalls the daughter with humor.

They are examples of an extinction line, for which work was not a burden, but a way of life.Life.His children, even if they scold him for so much and so long delivery, pamper him and admire him.

In that workshop of the back room, in which they continue to manufacture 80% of their jewels on request and to taste of the client, the story is treasured.They keep pieces of jewelry since the 20s, the now listed vintage pieces."They were simpler if possible," Odilo recalls.Platinum, sapphires, diamonds, in pieces of the "crazy years 20", decade of end in the economic, but that left unique strokes such as Art Decó.

That is what this ourensana saga of El Chronometer narrates: the local history of the last hundred years, summarized in jewelry, which condense the beauty canons of each generation.

The boy who grew between gems and "jewels" of the Nós group: "Pedrayo or Cuevillas were neighbors, friends and customers"

Chronometer 1928, current name of this example of local trade resistance, has its location in the emblematic Rúa da Paz."People like Otero Pedrayo, or Cuevillas, were neighbors, customers and also friends of Delabuelo, who sympathized with the Nós group," explains María.His father Ascentay remembers that Otero Pedrayo's wife used to take care of his jewels and "she was a very elegant woman".

This magical environment of an Ourense in full boiling allowed the now "patriarch", by age, of local merchants to grow in the business of his father surrounded not only of precious gems, gramophones of "the voice of her master", another of theCaprichos of classes then more solvent, and watches, but some of the cultural "jewels" that gave name to a generation of Galician intellectuals.

"Sometimes it also had to be discreet," they say, because in that Ourense in which the chasm between rich and poor was more accused, sometimes the passionate design commission that was made to the jeweler was not for the wife.Right now, among the many curiosities that this historical jewelry treasures, there is the manufacture of rope watches “handmade by hand.I think they are already unique in their kind, but we only manufacture one per month, because it is very laborious, and we do it so as not to lose the brand, ”explains OdilThe craftsman for watchmaking and jewelry will not get lost in Ourense.