page_title: María Rosa Urraca Pastor
section_title: Family and youth
hierarchical_section_title: María Rosa Urraca Pastor / Family and youth
caption_attribution_description: English: PE at school
context_page_description: María Rosa Urraca Pastor was a Spanish Carlist politician and propagandist. She is known mostly as a thrilling orator, one of the best public speakers of the Second Spanish Republic. She is also noted as head of Delegación Nacional de Frentes y Hospitales, the Nationalist wartime organization catering for the wounded.
context_section_description: María Rosa Urraca Pastor's paternal family originated from La Rioja. Her grandfather, Modesto Urraca Victoria, a native of Grañón, was the first reservoir keeper of the pantano de la Grájera. Her father, Juan Urraca Sáenz (1873-1965), was born in Nalda, near Logroño. He joined the army and took part in unspecified combat missions, probably during the Spanish–American War. Back in Spain he first served in Madrid, assigned later to Burgos and finally in the early 20th century to Comisaría de Guerra de Bilbao. In 1913 he was transferred to Cuerpo Auxiliar de Intervención Militar, an intendancy and fiscal administration structure of the military. He first served as modest rank of auxiliar de tercera clase, shortly before retirement promoted to auxiliar mayor in 1928. At unspecified time he married Rafaela Pastor Ortega (died 1941) a native of Villahoz (Burgos). It is not clear how many children the couple had; none of the sources consulted refers to María's siblings.
  Though María Rosa was born in Madrid, at the age of 3 she followed her father's professional lot and in her early childhood the family moved from the capital to Burgos and then to Bilbao. She was raised in fervently Catholic ambience, as her father was member of a number of local religious societies like Hermandad de Nuestra Señora de Valvanera; he passed the pious zeal to the daughter. Nothing is known of political views of María's parents, except that her father was a non-Carlist monarchist. Another feature of her upbringing was profound respect for the military, considered „backbone of the nation". Her early formation was completed by books; she later admitted that at the age of 14 she had been profoundly moved by the works Concepción Arenal and Graciano Martínez. The former advocated active public stance of women in the modern society; the latter, a Catholic friar, pursued the regenerationist path by focusing on social work of the Christians, also underlining the role of females.
  It is not clear where María received her primary education; she later frequented Escuela Normal Superior de Maestras de Vizcaya, graduating in 1923. It is also not evident whether she has ever pursued the university path; herself she claimed having studied Filosofía y Letras, though neither the timing nor location are known; according to her later account, she followed the classes of Miguel de Unamuno and Julián Besteiro. Vivacious, straightforward and vibrant, Urraca commenced her professional career by teaching at La Obra del Ave-María, a network of Catholic schools founded by Andrés Manjón and focused on poverty-stricken children, at unspecified time in the 1920s acting as directora of the Bilbao branch. She also became auxiliary teacher at Escuela Normal de Bilbao, at that time considered „universidad femenina". Urraca Pastor has never married and has had no children.
caption: PE at Escuelas Ave Maria
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