If you live in Fowler, Vera Lopez was the one who made sure your Pueblo Chieftain arrived every morning for the past 37 years.
And the paper was delivered exactly where you asked.
Lopez, who died on June 24 at age 74, missed deliveries only if weather was so bad the papers didn’t get to Fowler. If she got them, the customers got them, no matter what kind of storm she had to drive through between 2 and 3 a.m.
Vera Lopez rarely saw a doctor, saying she didn’t need one. She died of a brain aneurysm.
“She was a trouper,” said Art Valdez, state circulation district manager for the Chieftain. “She was the champion.”
The next-longest delivery tenure for the Chieftain was an Alamosa couple, who delivered for 35 years, he said.
Lopez picked up chocolate milk and a doughnut or burrito at a convenience store before starting her route, said her niece, Elizabeth Lopez of Fowler.
After the route, she cleaned the local post office. Three nights a week she worked in a liquor store while the owner took a break.
Most afternoons she sat with her brother, Lee Lopez, who is disabled.
She wore out a few pickups over the years. She bought only Fords but didn’t care about the color, said Elizabeth Lopez.
Alvera “Vera” Lopez was born in Manzanola on Sept. 2, 1934, and graduated from high school there.
She worked in the fields as a kid, picking onions, watermelon and cantaloupe, said her niece Lola Neuerburg of Douglas, Wyo.
After high school, she worked in a gas station in Fowler and drove a truck, delivering fuel to farmers.
Eventually, she and her brother Jess Lopez had their own gas station, which they ran for 20 years.
Vera Lopez never married. She doted on her nieces and nephews, slipping money to them or bringing gifts, such as huge jars of peanuts or cases of pop. “It was always like Santa Claus when Aunt Vera came,” said Neuerburg.
Vera Lopez shopped garage sales and often found items she knew someone in the family wanted. “Take it,” was her response if someone admired something in her house.
She wanted family members to go to college, saying, “You don’t want to be delivering papers like I do,” said Elizabeth Lopez, who just graduated from Otero Junior College in La Junta with a nursing degree.
“She told me she would carry papers until I finished college,” Elizabeth Lopez recalled. “I finished June 13, and that’s the day she took sick.”
In addition to her nieces and brothers, Lopez is survived by two other brothers: John Lopez of Corona, Calif., and Pete Lopez of Ordway, and her sister, Elisia Lopez of Crowley.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
