JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Padrica Mendez, a legendary opera singer and entertainer with deep roots in Jacksonville, died on Feb. 26.
Mendez grew up in the LaVilla neighborhood. Her father, Pedro Mendez immigrated from Cuba to New York, then to Jacksonville where he opened a tailor business that still stands today.
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Padrica Mendez went from singing at Bethel Baptist Institutional Church to performances in Italy.
She was the featured soloist for the Emancipation Proclamation Services at age 12, featured soloist for the world convocation for the National Council of Negro Women’s Brotherhood Luncheon in Washington D.C. at 17, and she was the leading soloist of the Bethune-Cookman College College Concert Chorale for the entire period of her matriculation.
She also performed in the Florida Symphony in Daytona Beach.
She left for Columbia University 11 years after her father died of double pneumonia in 1957. She earned a master’s degree and a Fulbright Scholarship to study opera in Italy.
According to an article by Jax Psyco Geo, one night as she left the opera in Rome, a photographer took a picture of her and wrote, “in omaggio alla sua bellezza,” or “in homage of your beauty,” on the back of the photograph, and gave it to her.
While in Europe, she performed at festivals, operas, orchestras and movies.
In the late 1960s and early ‘70s, she starred in three Italian films, 7 Donne D’oro Contro Due 07, or Seven Golden Women against Two (1966), Missione Apocalisse (1966), and II Sergent Rompilgioni (1975).
She also toured with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company.
Padrica came back to Jacksonville in 1977 to take care of her dying mother. As the only daughter of three children, unmarried and without children, she felt a responsibility toward her mother.
While she was back home, she took over the tailoring business from her brothers, a business that her father had started 50 years before. “P. Mendez, Cuban Tailor” was on 408 Broad Street into the early 2000s. The P stood for Padrica and not Pedro.
She used this as an opportunity to grow her interest in fashion design.
Her nephew, Jacksonville City Councilman Rahman Johnson made a Facebook post to honor her.
Funeral services will be held March 6 at 11 a.m. at Bethel Baptist Institutional Church on 215 Bethel Baptist Street.
Visitation is March 5 from 5-7 p.m. at Coleman Walker Berry Mortuary.