Fro left to right: Eva Van Horn, Ines Horlacher, Josephine Fernandez

Fro left to right: Eva Van Horn, Ines Horlacher, Josephine Fernandez

It is 3,426 miles, give or take, from Perry Hall in the rolling hills of northeast Baltimore County to the rustic coastal village of Sirves, in the Spanish province of A Coruña, part of the Galicia region in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula.

In between – at least for the three Fernandez sisters, Ines, Eva, and Josefa – are three lifetimes of happy experiences, relics, and memories. Of joy in their Spanish heritage, and of warm family dinners of traditional Spanish food. Of handmade prom dresses and wedding gowns. Of annual trips back to the Galician coast. Of a carved marble dalmatian named Oscar.

And of individual journeys that eventually brought each of the three sisters together, the proud only children of Jose and Ramona Fernandez, to the classrooms of Baltimore County’s public schools, where they all teach Spanish.

“It’s a godsend that we’re all in the county together,” says Josefa, who mostly goes by Josephine these days.

Today, the three sisters form a close bond, sharing not only history, heritage, and family but career advice, support, and lesson plans.

The eldest at 43, Ines was the first, naturally. At Stemmers Run Middle School, she celebrates her 20th anniversary as a teacher this year. Eva, the youngest at 39, followed her older sister, becoming a teacher 12 years ago at Dulaney High School, where she still teaches. The middle child, Josefa, just celebrated her 41st birthday. She became a teacher 10 years ago and today teaches at Patapsco High School and Center for the Arts.

“This is hard, what we’re doing, and so having each other to bounce our ideas off of, it’s amazing,” says Eva Van Horn, as she is now known. “Being the youngest, I look up to both of my sisters so much. We’re all close. We’re all talking all the time; our group messages go on all day.”

Adds her big sister, now Ines Horlacher, “It’s nice to have someone you can trust 100 percent to talk to. You can have close colleagues, of course, but they’re not the same as family. With us, you don’t have to sugarcoat. . . . You always have a cheering section.”

Dulaney High Principal Sam Wynkoop knows this family; he has worked with two of the “three amigas,” as he calls them, Ines and Eva. He tells the story of meeting Ines in 2004 at a meeting at Sparrows Point High, describing her as “this fiery, boisterous, and energetic young lady from Spain.”

“It took very little time to see that not only was her personality and drive infectious among the team, but to her students as well,” Wynkoop says. “It was evident that she had a direct line to each of her students, their needs, and what she needed to do to open their world to the beauty of the Spanish language.”

Eleven years later, during his first staff meeting after becoming principal at Dulaney, Wynkoop says he had “an overwhelming feeling of déjà vu” upon meeting “this fiery, boisterous, and energetic young lady by the name of Eva.” As with Ines, he soon discovered Eva to be an “infectious, thorough, caring, and welcoming . . . pied piper of Spanish instruction.”

“Once I learned the connection between these two all-stars, I felt very lucky to have been blessed to work among such incredible individuals twice in my career,” Wynkoop says. “Perhaps one day I will have the blessing of working with Josephine, too. They are amazing educators, sisters, and people.”

While it may be unusual to have three sisters, all with Spanish roots and all teaching their native language in the same school system, it’s no surprise for those who know the Fernandez family. Always close, they all speak of the same satisfactions found in teaching, and in teaching part of their own heritage.

For Ines, there is pride in her work. “My heart belongs in Spain; it’s a different way of life,” she says. “And when I can share that with students, they realize there is something outside of where they live. When I am able to get them to understand and see what happens in other cultures, that there is more than what they read about or see on TV, they (become) a little more interested in it.”

Josephine agrees with the idea that her work expands the world for her students. “It unlocks doors and gets you out of your boxes,” she says. “I see it differently because of my daughter (Elsa, who was born in Spain) as well. I see it through her and in her making those connections between Spanish culture and America. She is living one aspect of it. . . . It is important to let people know there is more out there.”

Going into education, however, wasn’t a sure thing for the Fernandez sisters. Neither parent had been a teacher, and teaching wasn’t on Jose’s mind when in the early 1970s he set out for America from his hometown of Aquiño, another village close to Sirves on the lush northern Spanish coast. But there were few opportunities there for young people other than farming or fishing, say his daughters, and Jose Fernandez wanted more.

Landing in New York, it wasn’t long before the boy from the tiny Galician town felt overwhelmed by the Big Apple. Moving to New Jersey for a time didn’t help; it was still too big. It wasn’t until a friend from his hometown called and suggested coming to Baltimore – a smaller, homier town with a sea-going heritage and vibrant Hispanic community.

Jose found his fit, both with Baltimore and, soon thereafter, with Ramona Perez, a girl from Sirves he met on a return visit to Spain. The couple dated, fell in love, married, and had their first daughter, Ines, while living in Spain. The young family returned to Baltimore when their first-born was five months old.

For a time, Jose found work at the renowned Tio Pepe’s restaurant in the city. Later, he was employed by a pizzeria at the old Golden Ring Mall. Living in Highlandtown, the family grew with the addition of Josefa and Eva, and Jose began to take jobs in the construction industry, working as a mason with bold materials such as marble. Ramona, meanwhile, began working as a factory seamstress, though soon she also began fashioning her own dress-making business.

As the sisters grew, Ramona Fernandez turned her dress-making business into “this little alterations empire,” Ines says, creating prom dresses or wedding dresses for women throughout the Baltimore region. “Most of my friends’ prom dresses were ‘Ramona Originals,’ as we called them,” Ines says.

Adds Eva, “The kids knew our house. Our house stuck out; there was marble everywhere. There were marble columns, marble tiles. There was even a marble sculpture our dad made of our dog, Oscar, that he put outside. It’s still there, too. For us, (growing up) was either a piece of marble or a dress.”

The sisters, meanwhile, attended St. Elizabeth’s of Hungary Catholic School near Patterson Park, reflecting the family’s faith. But as they approached high school, the family faced a choice: The girls would have to attend either a city public school or a pricey parochial high school. Their decision: They would move to Baltimore County, to Perry Hall, there to take advantage of the excellent public schools. At 15, Ines became a Perry Hall High School Gator, with her sisters not far behind.

The three sisters still didn’t know what the future held, however. One by one, they began their post-secondary careers at CCBC in Essex, unsure about what direction to head. As the eldest, Ines eventually enrolled at Towson University, but her plans were still unsure. It wasn’t until a professor announced an opening for a long-term Spanish substitute teacher at Ridgely Middle School that life began to come into focus. Ines applied for the job and got it.

“It was like a light switch for me,” she says. “Being in the classroom and seeing these kids, and then seeing all these little light bulbs of their own go off. That was it. I said, ‘Nope, I know what I want to do now. I want to be a Spanish teacher. That did it for me.” Finishing her studies, she started at Gen. John Stricker Middle in Dundalk, followed by stints at Sparrows Point High, Chesapeake High, and Cockeysville Middle before finally coming to Stemmers.

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