| Maria Teresa Fontela Goulart | |
|---|---|
| First Lady of Brazil | |
| In office September 7, 1961 – April 1, 1964 |
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| Preceded by | Sílvia Pitaguari Serra |
| Succeeded by | Sílvia Pitaguari Serra |
| Personal details | |
| Born | August 23, 1940 São Borja, Rio Grande do Sul |
| Nationality | Brazilian |
| Political party | Brazilian Labour Party |
| Spouse(s) | João Goulart (1956-76) (his death) |
| Children | João Vicente and Denize Goulart |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
Maria Teresa Fontela Goulart (born August 23, 1940) was the wife of the 24th president of Brazil, João Goulart, and served as First Lady during his presidency from 1961 until 1964, when he was deposed by a military-led coup d'état.
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Maria Teresa was born on August 23, 1940 in São Borja, Rio Grande do Sul. She was educated at the Colégio Metodista Americano (American Methodist School), a traditional boarding school in Porto Alegre. Her parents lived next door to Jango in São Borja. According to her, despite the fact that they were neighbors, she only met him personally at the age of 14, when Dinarte Dornelles, uncle of then President Getúlio Vargas, asked her to deliver a letter to Jango, which was the Minister of Labour and Employment at the time. Maria Teresa tried not to fall in love for Jango, because she though someone as important as him would not be interested in her.[1]
Maria Teresa encountered Jango once again at her debutante ball, which happened in the house of her aunt América Fontela, the wife of Vargas' brother Spartacus Dornelles,[2] in Rio de Janeiro. One of América's daughter and, thus, Maria Teresa's cousin is Yara Vargas, which later helped Leonel Brizola establish the Democratic Labour Party and was elected for Rio Grande do Sul's Chamber of Deputies.
In 1955, when Maria Teresa finished her studies, she and Jango started dating. They got married in the following year when Maria Teresa was 17 and Jango was competing the Vice Presidency. At that time, there were elections for both President and Vice President in Brazil and Jango would receive more votes than Juscelino Kubitschek, which was elected President. After her marriage, Maria Teresa became sister-in-law of Leonel Brizola, which was married to Jango's sister Neusa.
In 1960, Jango was re-elected Vice President, which made Maria Teresa serve as Second Lady from 1955 to 1961, when Jânio Quadros resigned from the Presidency. When her husband assumed office, Maria Teresa became the youngest First Lady of the history of Brazil, at 21 years old.
Maria Teresa and Jango had two children: the former congressman João Vicente and the historian Deize. When she served as Second Lady, her family lived in the Chopin Building, next to Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro. During the time she served as First Lady, she lived in the Granja do Torto in the then recently-built capital Brasília. She lived in Palácio da Alvorada, the official residence, for six months, but preferred the Granja do Torto because she liked horse racing.[3]
In August 1961, Maria Teresa and her children were guests in a Spanish hotel owned by a friend of the Goulart family, while her husband was in a diplomatic mission in the People's Republic of China. One day, at breakfast, she was told that Jânio Quadros resigned and that her husband would become the new President. Shortly after, journalists started calling incessantly to her room.
Quadros advised her to stay at the hotel until the situation with the military ministers, which refused to recognize Jango as the new President because of his connections with members of the Brazilian Communist Party and the Brazilian Socialist Party, was solved. Maria Teresa only returned to Brazil when her husband assumed the Presidency.[4]
As First Lady, Maria Teresa was responsible for the foundation of the headquarters of the Legião Brasileira de Assistência (Brazilian Legion of Aid) -- an organization founded in 1942 by then First Lady Darcy Vargas to help poor families—in Brasília. She hosted a large number of charitable events, being responsible for bringing members of the high society to participate in such events.[5]
Maria Teresa chose to wear haute couture outfits to public events, and became a fashion icon, being compared to Jacqueline Kennedy and appearing in the cover of a large number of magazines. Her personal stylist was Dener Pamplona de Abreu. Prior to the coup, she was named one of the ten most beautiful women in the world by People magazine.[6][7]
After the deposition of Jango on April 1, 1964 by the military, the Goulart family was forced to live in exile. Jango, Maria Teresa and their children lived in Uruguay. Later, Denise and João Vicente moved to London, while Jango and Maria Teresa went to Argentina, where Jango had business affairs. Jango died in the city of Mercedes in the night of December 6, 1976. The official version of his death is that he suffered a heart attack. This is uncertain once his body was not submitted to an autopsy and the pediatrician who declared his death wrote only the Spanish word enfermedad (sickness) as the causa mortis on his medical chart. He was buried in his native São Borja. Thirty thousand people participated in his funeral, whose media coverage was censored by the military regime. Maria Teresa and her children were forbidden to return to Brazil until 1979's Amnesty law.
On November 15, 2008, Maria Teresa and Jango received political amnesty from the Federal Government. The former First Lady will receive an indemnification of R$ 644,000 (around US$ 322,000) to be paid in pensions of R$ 5,425 (around US$ 2,712) per month for Jango being restrained from practicing his job as a Lawyer. She will also receive an indemnification of R$ 100,000 (around US$ 50,000) for the 15 years in which her family was forbidden to return to Brazil.[8]
| “ | The government recognizes its mistakes of the past and apologizes to a man that defended the nation and its people of whom we could not have prescinded | ” |
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— President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
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