Victoria Garrón de Doryan

Victoria María Garrón Orozco was born on 8 October 1920 in San José, Costa Rica to Claudia Orozco Casorla and Estanislao Garrón Lermitte. Her grandfather, François Garrón Lafont, was a pioneer in soap manufacture in Costa Rica. Her father's family were originally from France and she was encouraged to study European humanism and developed a passion for art and culture.[1] She completed her primary education at Escuela Julia Lang and then graduated from secondary school at the Colegio Superior de Señoritas. Studying to be a teacher, she attended normal school, before completing a degree in literature and philosophy from the University of Costa Rica in 1937.[2][3] Winning a scholarship to study abroad, she went to Paris and completed post-graduate work at the Central American Advanced School of Public Administration (Spanish: Escuela Superior de Administración Pública para la América Central (ESAPAC)) in social pediatrics.[2]

Returning to Costa Rica, Garrón began working as a teacher in secondary education, teaching at the Normal School of Heredia and the Anastasio Alfaro Lyceum and the Colegio Superior de Señoritas, both in San José.[2] She worked with Emma Gamboa Alvarado to develop pedagogy in the country.[4] She became the principal of the Anastasio Alfaro Lyceum[2][4] and later joined the faculty of the University of Costa Rica, as president of the Graduate College of Letters and Philosophy.[4][5] Garrón was a member of the Costa Rican Association of University Women, serving in numerous positions on the board and eventually serving as president of the organization.[4] In 1949, she returned to France as a UNESCO fellow and became the Permanent Secretary of the Costa Rican Cooperative Commission for the organization.[4] Garrón married Edward Doryan, and in 1951, the couple had their only child Eduardo.[6]

In 1986, Garrón was elected to serve as the Second Vice President of Costa Rica under Óscar Arias Sánchez.[1] Since 1949, the Costa Rican Constitution has provided that the Executive consist of an elected president and two vice presidents, as well as nineteen appointed cabinet members.[7] Garrón was the first woman elected to the vice presidency and during her tenure to 1990 served as acting president fourteen times.[1][8]

Garrón wrote poetry and one novel, but she was most known for her biographies of historic personalities of Costa Rica.[1][2] She published a biography of Joaquín García Monge in 1971,[5][9] Anastasio Alfaro in 1974,[5][10] José María Zeledón "Brillo" in 1978,[5][11] María Teresa Obregón Zamora in 1985,[5][12] and in 2003 published a biography on her grandfather François Garrón, with the title La canción de la vida (Song of Life).[1]

Garrón died on 30 July 2005 at the Blanco Cervantes Hospital in San José, Costa Rica. She was buried in the Cemetery of Santo Domingo in Heredia.[1] She is remembered as the first woman in either Central America or North America to hold the post of second vice president of a nation.[2]