Eloy Placer Papers

Eloy L. Placer Martínez de Lecea was born in Ozaeta (Araba/Álava) in 1914. He was one of the fifteen children of Gerardo Placer and Feliciana Martínez de Lezea. His father was a doctor born in Zaragoza, where he met Sabino Arana Goiri, founder of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV). His older brother, José Placer (1896-1937), was one of the chief commander of the artillery of the Basque Government . He was also a leader of the political party Basque Nationalist Action (ANV); after the bombing of Gernika, he was taken prisoner and executed.

Eloy L. Placer started his studies in Philosophy and Linguistics in Valladolid. In 1936, he stopped studying at the start of the Spanish Civil War and joined the Gudaroste or Basque army. He was taken prisoner and released after the Gernika bombing. In 1938, he was imprisoned again and condemned to death. Before being released in 1940, Placer learned the Basque language from another prisoner from Gipuzkoa. After leaving prison, he relocated to Valencia, where he ended his university studies and married Amparo Perogordo. In 1949, they decided to run away from the dictatorship and start a new life in Texas, where Placer worked as a Spanish language teacher.

After arriving in the United States, he worked at Saint Mary's University. Later on, he worked at Alamo High School and several Air Force bases. He received his Ph.D. in 1958 from Louisiana State University. He worked as a professor at several universities, including the Sacred Heart University Center in Grand Cotreay, Louisiana, the University of Syracuse in New York, the University of Kentucky and Southwestern University of Louisiana, until 1969, when he joined the staff at the University of Nevada, Reno. In Nevada, he taught Spanish literature in the Department of Foreign Languages. He collaborated in the Basque Studies Program, where he participated in the summer courses in Basque literature with some other well-known researchers and writers like Koldo Mitxelena, William A. Douglass, Robert Laxalt and Jon Bilbao.

During his time in exile, he carried on correspondence with other exiled Basque nationalists such as Galíndez y Landáburu, the brothers Andrés and Pello Irujo and Andoni Urrestarazu. He died in Reno in 1974.

Source:

DE LA GRANJA, José Luis. “Los fondos documentales vascos de la Universidad de Nevada Reno: el archivo de Ramon Goñi”. In: JIMÉNEZ DE ABERASTURI, Juan Carlos (Coord.). El programa de Estudios Vascos de la Universidad de Nevada, Reno: su biblioteca, su hemeroteca y sus fuentes documentales. Donostia-San Sebastián: Eusko Ikaskuntza, 1987, pp. 222-252.

HAMAIKABIDE ELKARTEA. Eloy Placer Martínez de Lecea [Online] http://www.hamaikabide.eus/biografias/name/eloy-placer-martnez/