Gabriel "Gabby" Fidel Gallegos

Gabriel Fidel Gallegos, known to everyone since he was born as Gabby, passed away at Providence Hospital in Waco, Texas on Tuesday, September 5, 2017, at age 53. A Memorial Service will be held at 2:00 P.M. on Saturday, September 9, 2017 at the Church of Christ in Groesbeck, with Chaplain Jon Honea officiating. Gabby was born on February 10, 1964 to Pedro Gallegos and Ramona Rivera Gallegos in Bellaire, Texas, and he grew up in the Houston area. He worked in the pipeline and water well industry many years. His work took him all over Texas and Louisiana and overseas for months at the time. He has worked in Russia, Korea, and Amsterdam, Holland. When Gabby met his future wife, Mary Flores in Houston, his family had moved next door to her family when they were in their twenties. He was outside working on his truck and Mary came over and invited him out for cocktails. It is a family joke now that he had to go inside and ask his sister what cocktails were (as he was thinking of fruit cocktail in a can.) Anyway, they went out, dated for the next year and were united in marriage in the Methodist Church in Houston on September 5, 1993. He passed away on his anniversary this year, and had looked forward to their 25th. year of marriage before his final illness. Gabby and Mary moved to Groesbeck in 1998. He worked for many people doing home improvements and painting houses. He was an amazing worker and also made craft furniture out of barn wood. He helped his wife Mary, building furniture for her shop at the corner of Navasota and Ellis St. and the Flores family shop before that, as well as sold furniture items he made from home. Gabby had always loved fishing, whether deep-sea fishing in the Gulf, or in Florida, or even at Lake Limestone. He would wake the family up at 2:00 in the morning when a storm was blowing in, to fish at Freeport. He loved taking the family out when there was a storm, since he said that was the best time to catch fish, even when he had to tie his sister-in-law to him to not let her get blown away in the storm. He also loved playing golf. And he loved to BBQ on Friday nights with the family and anyone else invited for a “party”. He was known in Groesbeck as the “Sizzling Fajita Man” from cooking fajitas at the trade days at the Courthouse and several times a year outside the craft shop. Gabby had so many friends. He never met a stranger and whoever he met automatically became “his friend.” He loved to help his family and anyone else, even strangers. Just in the past month, with one leg amputated, he helped a man whose eighteen-wheeler carrying perishable food had broken down, by getting all the lettuce, bananas, and other items delivered to the local nursing home, spending over 2 hours to do so. If a person had a need, he would always find a way to help them. Gabby’s health had been declining for some time, but he had remained active and productive except for the period of time during the past year when he was in a coma. During the period that he lay in a coma for eight months, in Kindred Care Hospital in Houston, his mother, his brothers and sisters, and his wife Mary never gave up on him. Mary would tell him over and over to think “I am going home.” He woke from the coma one day, with his Mom by his side, and the first thing he said was “I am going home.” He remembered hearing Mary telling him this while in the coma. He had to relearn to walk, and he fought to get well and come home. The doctors and staff at Kindred Care named him their “Miracle Patient” and an article was printed about him in the Medical Journal. Gabby had a leg amputated three months ago, and after that, his lawn mower, which he loved using, became his automobile. He never gave up. The love and determination of Gabby, Mary, his Mom and all the family should be a living legacy of inspiration for all who hear of their life story. Gabby was preceded in death by his father, Pedro Gallegos, his sister, Martina Gallegos, father-in-law, Santiago “Jimmy” Flores, and niece, Jenny Mae Adams. He is survived by his wife, Mary Flores Gallegos of Groesbeck; son, Gabriel Fidel Gallegos, II of Houston; son, Isaac Antonio Gallegos of Houston; his mother, Ramona Gallegos of Houston; his mother-in-law, Shirley Flores of Groesbeck; brother and sister-in-law, Pedro and Maria Gallegos of Houston; sister and brother-in-law, Maria and Robert Zapata of Placedo; brother and sister-in-law, Felix and Victoria Gallegos of Houston; sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law, Laura and Rex Adams of Branson, Missouri, Joseph and Jill Heras of Spring, Juanito and Terrie Flores of Kingsville, and Casamiro and Norma Flores of Dallas; several nieces and nephews, along with several great nieces and nephews.