The Patagonia Museum
Oral Histories
2009 -2012
Funded by a Grant from the Patagonia Regional Community Foundation, in
affiliation with the Arizona Community Foundation.
1
Acknowledgements:
The Patagonia Museum is grateful for the support from the Patagonia Public
Library, Arizona State Library (Public Records and Archives Division) and the
Patagonia Regional Community Foundation, in affiliation with the Arizona
Community Foundation, for providing resources to complete this project.
Thanks go to Abbie Zeltzer, Patagonia Public Librarian, Laura Palma-Blandford
and Carlos Lopez of the Arizona State Library Office of Public Records and
Archives for providing support and technical assistance in completing this
project.
Thanks go to the twelve interviewees who were willing to subject themselves to
this interview process and Kate Ervin of Typewell who provided the
transcription service.
In 2009, a grant was secured with the assistance of the Patagonia Public
Library from the Arizona State Library Office of Records and Archives to collect
oral histories in eastern Santa Cruz County. Ralph Schmitt and I, German
Quiroga, proceeded to collect as many oral histories as we could. At times, I
worked alone and sometimes my mother, Elena Quiroga, accompanied me in
collecting some of these interviews.
Along with these twelve interviews, Arizona State Library personnel transcribed
two other oral histories: (1) Doug Thaemert and (2) Guillermo Matus with Mike
Yourgules. They are available online through the Arizona Memory Project.
The Patagonia Museum is a nonprofit, 501c3, organization dedicated to the
preservation and collection of the history and culture of eastern Santa Cruz
County.
The Patagonia Museum
PO Box 919
Patagonia AZ 85624
www.thepatagoniamuseum.org
2
Table of Contents
Interview 1:…Cynthia Matus Morriss …………………Pages 4-37
Interview 2:… Donnie Lewis Martin…………………….Pages 38-60
Interview 3:… Elena DeLaOssa Quiroga……………….Pages 61-88
Interview 4:…George Proctor…………………………….Pages 89-106
Interview 5:...Jeanette Swyers……………………………Pages 107-139
Interview 6:... Lucy Valenzuela Mihalik…………………Pages 140-167
Interview 7:…Lydia DeLaOssa Dojaquez………………Pages 168-189
Interview 8:…Michael Cervantes…………………………Pages 190-210
Interview 9:...Ramon S. Quiroga…………………………Pages 211-238
Interview 10:…Carmen Astorga Soto……………………Pages 239-276
Interview11:…Paul Mihalik…………………………………Pages 277-281
Interview 12:…Jesus A. Lopez………………………………Pages 282-311
3
Interview 1
Cynthia Matus Morriss
Cindy Morriss was born and raised in Santa Cruz County. Part of her
childhood she spent in Harshaw, attending elementary school there. Her father
Guillermo Matus worked various jobs as a cowboy, miner and handyman.
Cindy has spent most of her life in Patagonia where she volunteers for various
organizations.
4
Cynthia Matus Morriss
March 9, 2011
Patagonia, AZ
GERMAN QURIOGA: Well, good afternoon. We’re at the home of Cynthia Matus
Morriss. It’s her Patagonia home and I’m German Quiroga from the Patagonia Museum
and I’ll turn it over to Ralph.
RALPH SCHMITT: I’m Ralph Schmitt from the Patagonian Museum. This is our guest.
CYNTHIA MATUS MORRISS: And welcome to my home.
GQ: Thank you.
CM: This is where my husband and I live, Ron Morriss. And we’ve been living here in,
in this home for about 21 years now. But we’ve lived- I’ve lived in Patagonia all of my
life, all 58 years. I was born in Nogales in January 1953.
GQ: Okay.
CM: January 26, 1953 at the old Nogales Hospital, Saint Joseph’s Hospital that’s on
Terrace Avenue at that time. It’s now a Burger King. And my parents are Carmen
Rivera and Guillermo Yourgules Matus. My dad was born in Harshaw in 1928. My
mom was born in Duquesne in 1928. They are– My dad is ten days older than my mom,
so those ten days are misery for my dad [ LAUGHTER] because she married an “older
man”, but they’re both born in April.
And I have a sister, Emma. She was born in Nogales also on June 15, 1950. And she
lives in Tucson and has a daughter Amy. And... Let’s see. I’m– I have a son named
Billy, John William Montanez. He was born in Tucson in 1973. And Ron and I have a
daughter, Samantha, born February 5, 1988, in Tucson also, both at TMC.
Ron has two children from a previous marriage. They’re my kids. Charlie Morriss lives
in Bisbee and Rhonda Morriss just got married... [LAUGHS] and I can’t remember her
last name right now. Oh, oh … Bothwell. (Sorry about that, Rhonda.) Bothwell, and
lives in Dallas, Texas, in that area.
RS: Were you a Doctor Mock delivery, too?
5
CM: I was not. I was I think Doctor Moody. Doctor Moody.
GQ: Okay. So can you tell us more about your ancestry as far you know– How far back
can you go, with you know your grandparents and you know what–?
CM: Yes, pretty much. I can– On my dad’s side, his father was Manuel Matus and his
mother was Francisca Yourgules and the parents of Francisca Yourgules was Josefa
Martinez and her father was Nicolas Yourgules.
The parents of Manuel Matus, my grandfather, my great grandparents was Florentino
Matus and his wife was Josefa Cruz. And Josefa and Florentino are both buried in the
Mowry Cemetery. So and they’re pretty well marked. For a long time my parents
knew where they were and the graves were marked, but now they’re marked with
actual crosses.
GQ: Okay, that’s the cemetery that’s just off that Forest Service road then –
CM: Yes.
GQ: After you pass the pioneer—coming back toward into the valley in sort of that
little flat place, right?
CM: Yes, uh huh. For a long time it was very well hidden because of the manzanita
bushes and very few people knew where it was. But you know, if you’ve got family
members there, you would know. And sometimes we’d miss the turn going to the
cemetery but we’d know where it is.
RS: What– What brought them to the area, your grandparents? Do you know?
CM: The probably ranching and farming and cowboying. Nicolas Yourgules is from
Greece and he came along with two cousins and a friend, I believe. The cousins’ names
were...if I can find this...
RS: Do you know how old he was when he came?
CM: He had to have been a teenager. He was born in 1878 and he met Josefa Yourgules
in Cananea. My grandfather was working as a delivery man, like a dairy, delivering.
And they met in Cananea, and I recently found out that they were married there on
6
June 16, 1906, and the name of the church is Iglesias Santa Maria de Guadalupe in
Cananea.
RS: In Cananea.
CM: Right. One of my family members found the actual marriage certificate of them.
But Josefa was born here in the United States.
GQ: She was a Martinez, right? And they had a homestead in the valley, is that
correct?
CM: Yes.
GQ: I think your uncle spoke about that.
CM: Right.
RS: When we interviewed him.
CM: Yes.
GQ: Okay. Are they indigenous people, or native of...?
CM: She is. Josefa would be, yeah, and he’s of course from Greece. And then they
had– They had like 12 children.
GQ: Mm hmm, Yourgules, right? Grandmother, mm hmm.
CM: Yeah. One of them is my grandmother, my dad’s mother. Fair, very fair people,
blue-eyed, green-eyed people. And on my mother’s side, her- her mother was
Concepción Soto and her father was José Rivera. And Concepción, I think, lived here–
GQ: In Patagonia?
CM: In the valley, in the valle. And José Rivera was born in Ímuris or San Ignacio.
There are a lot of Rivera family there in that area, in Ímuris. So we have a lot of
relatives.
7
And they are, the Riveras, Don Augustin Rodriguez knew my mom’s dad, José Rivera,
and his brothers. And they were fair complexioned with some red hair. So I’m not sure
how that came about, but some of the Riveras are that, that complexion. They’re in
Ímuris. Yeah. And that’s pretty much what I know about that family of Rivera.
GQ: Okay. Yeah. So okay. Well that’s nice to get a little background on your
ancestors. Can you tell us what it was like growing up in Patagonia?
CM: In Patagonia? Oh, okay. Well, interesting being raised– My first home right from
the hospital was in Tubac, so I’ve lived there for– My parents were there for maybe a
year or so and then moved to Patagonia and then to Baca Ranch as my dad was saying
and then went to the Trench Mine.
When I was five years old, we lived at the Trench Mine and they needed another
student to open the school. I think they had an enrollment number that they had to
reach and so I was five and they said, “Oh, she can go.” So I started school, first
grade—we didn’t have kindergarten—first grade and that was Escuelita in Harshaw
and we had 18 students there. And I can give you those names a little later.
But we– we crossed– my sister and I would walk to the bus stop that was down on the
road like that goes out to–
GQ: Harshaw Road?
CM: Harshaw Road, yeah. But we lived close to the tailings, so every day we took a
shortcut. We walked across the tailings. It was a real hard surface, almost– When you
walk you could almost crunch; you could hear the crunching of the tailings, and then
when it rained the tailings would form like a lake, a red lake, so there was this eerie red
water there and a real acrid smell of- of the chemicals on that. That was... But after a
while of being there, you kind of get used to it, so it didn’t bother us.
But we would walk to the bus stop and wait for the bus to come from Lochiel and it
had– That bus carried the students that were also going to Patagonia High School. So
they would drop us off in Harshaw.
Sometimes our dog Kenny would go to school with us. He would just get on the bus
and go and [LAUGHS] and my mom would have to go to the school and pick him up.
But you know she knew if he didn’t come back. But we had a lot of the neighborhood
kids that also walked to school and we’d meet down at the lean-to covered shed that
my dad built for us to keep the rain–
8
GQ: Like a bus shelter?
CM: Yeah, he did that. Of course you didn’t do building permit, you just did it because
it needed to be done.
GQ: Right.
CM: And the bus would come down. I believe our bus driver, one of them, was
Dave...Dave Martin. I remember him being a bus driver. And then take us to school in
Lochiel. My first teacher was–
GQ: In Harshaw?
CM: Yeah, Harshaw. I’m sorry, Harshaw. My first teacher was Anna Lopshire,
Lopshire. She was our teacher. And they there were all little “mijitas”. It seems like we
were all from rural communities.
GQ: This is a one, one room school house. Right?
CM: One room.
GQ: 1 through 8?
CM: It was 1 through 8. There were 18 of us there enrolled that first year that I went to
school. And Anna Lopshire was our teacher; and our music teacher was Mrs. Hale who
lived right next door and she would come and play the piano and we would sing. That
was our music.
GQ: So back in 19–
RS: The school was located up the road that the Hales live on?
CM: Right next to where the Hales live.
RS: Right next to where she’s living now?
CM: Mm hmm, right there. It’s at that flat surface now, I think that’s where there’s
some building facility going on for the proposed mine. You’ll see that.
9
RS: Okay. Yeah, I noticed that.
CM: Okay. So that’s where the school was. We had– We had our swings, we had
teeter totters, we had the rings. And the rings was this tall pole that had these metal
chains that would hang down and then form a ring at the end, and then you get on that
and the kids would start to run and it would twirl you and–
RS: Stick you up?
CM: Yeah, yeah, and pretty soon you were actually flying. You know, we couldn’t–
We could not do that today [LAUGHTER] because several times we did let go of it and
we went sailing through the air, quite a ways; but that was great fun.
GQ: Can you recall what buildings or what establishments were in Harshaw back in
those days?
CM: Yeah. There was a church. I remember a church. And the homes of the- some of
my classmates, the Verdugos. We’d go by there. There were some other buildings,
some homes there, and the Hale Ranch, and then the big home that is still there at, in
Harshaw, with the porch all around.
RS: [INAUDIBLE]?
CM: Yeah.
GQ: [INAUDIBLE] home? Mm hmm.
CM: Yeah, so that was still there, and then we did have inside plumbing.
RS: At the school?
CM: At the school. Yeah. We didn’t have it at home, but we had it at- [LAUGHTER] at
the school.
GQ: At the school. Okay.
CM: And then my second grade teacher I believe was Mrs. Till. She was our teacher
there. But my classmates, there were 18 of us and it was the Lopez family, the Verdugo
10
family and the Quirogas and the O’Briens. They were our neighbors up there at the
Trench Mine.
RS: And back in 1958 that– Well, the mine already had stopped. Right? The
production had that had already closed by 1950, the Trench Mine?
CM: No, my dad was still working there.
RS: Was he still working there? Okay.
CM: Yeah, he was working there at the mine. And then later we moved up to
Hardshell, and my dad worked the midnight shift and... Kind of a scary place up there.
GQ: I think you mentioned that before. Yes.
CM: Yeah. My dad worked midnight so my mom would drive him over because he
couldn’t see then and she would drive him and leave us there and--but we were asleep
if it was the graveyard shift you know that he worked. But...interesting time, and then
the bus would pick us up there, too. Mom would drive us down to the bus stop at the
very bottom of the hill by the Hardshell Road. There was an old building. Was that an
old Post Office? It’s an old adobe building by the road.
GQ: Mm hmm, that was the Post Office?
CM: I believe it was a Post Office. I’m not sure and I may be wrong, but that’s where
we would pick up the bus and go to school in Harshaw. Then after that we moved to
Patagonia and you’ll know that my dad had mentioned that they sawed the house in
half and brought it down.
GQ: The Hardshell?
CM: The house at the Trench Mine, yeah.
GQ: They sawed it in half?
CM: Yeah, maybe he didn’t mention that, but well my parents owned the home and
they had bought the lot here in Patagonia, I think for $400.
GQ: On Pennsylvania?
11
CM: On Pennsylvania Avenue. And so it was just the foundation. My dad and all of
his brothers in laws got together and they formed the foundation for it and Mr. Quiroga
had a flatbed truck and they– My dad cut that house in half and they brought the back
half first, loaded it onto that flatbed truck and drove it to Patagonia and set it down and
then the next day went back for the other half with–
GQ: This was the home that probably belonged to the mines?
CM: Yes, uh huh.
GQ: Originally and then they had sold it to your family?
CM: No I think they might have bought it from Bob Lennon but I could check on that.
But my mom still has the ivy hanging onto [LAUGHTER] the front window of that
house and they still have that ivy today.
RS: I saw that.
GQ: It’s still growing?
CM: It’s still growing, yeah today. But that’s how they got that–
GQ: So what year did that happen? Do you recall?
CM: This happened in 1961 or ’62. Jack Quiroga was the man that brought the house
down in his flatbed. And that big tree there by Brush Hill as you’re near Harshaw, that
big tree that kind of goes over? It’s like an oak tree. That was one question they had
whether they were going to be able to get the house through there, so.
GQ: By right there on Harshaw Road there? Uh huh, right.
CM: So I think they had to do some cleaning up on that.
GQ: Trimming on the tree?
CM: Trimming on that tree to get the house through.
GQ: Wow, I had never heard that story. That’s interesting.
12
CM: And that’s the same house where my parents live today. It’s just been added onto.
GQ: And they just sewed it back up? [LAUGHTER]
CM: Yes, put it back together. It was just really two rooms that– The kitchen and the
living room and bedroom. And when we lived up there at the Trench Mine, my mom
had, she had chickens. And they had cows.
GQ: Milk cows?
CM: Milk cows. She told me a story about that someone had given her 3 duck eggs and
she had a chicken that was brooding so she was sitting on eggs. And so they just put
those 3 duck eggs beneath her, right? Well time came, some 20 days, 21 days later, they
started to hatch.
And my dad knew about the little ducks coming on so he said well he had this pan and
he buried it in the ground down about 4 inches and filled it and it had about 4 inches of
water. And so when those little ducks were hatched out, a couple days later they went
for a swim. And of course the mama chicken was just beside herself [LAUGHTER]
because these little– Her babies were in the water and they were going to drown.
But it was- it was quite an interesting time growing up there. We had a lot of fun. We
played with– We built houses like little outlined with rocks and we played pretended
horses and things like that with our neighbors, Leona and Bobby and Billy O’Brien were
our neighbors.
GQ: Okay, so you had some neighbors up around–
CM: That were right next to us. Red O’Brien was the gentleman that was electrocuted
that my dad had mentioned in his story, but it was the father of these children. And I
remember in June, my sister was born in June, so her birthdays were wonderful. There
was outdoors and piñatas and everything, and mine was in January and we were
freezing and you know I had two kids over [LAUGHTER] whereas she had 30
[LAUGHTER].
But we had some wonderful times living out there, learning how to ride a bike for one
thing...and a lot of hiking and exploring, things like that that we did.
GQ: Is there a lot of wildlife there, that you remember being there?
13
CM: I remember cochi javelinas and to this day I’m still afraid of them because I
remember a story that one did, or several came to the door where my mom was in her
house and- and they wouldn’t let her out. She needed to go out but they were- They
were staying close by. So I had heard all these horror stories about javelinas and how
they chase you and you climb a tree and you will be there for a long time. So I don’t
remember anything like lions or anything. But we walked to school and we weren’t
ever really afraid of anything.
GQ: Okay.
RS: Ever sneak into the mines or anything?
CM: Yeah, we would go—not – with my dad and he would show us, and he would
take us and it was just so loud. I remember the —
RS: Oh, when they were working.
CM: I remember the noise, yeah, the noise.
RS: Sure. Yeah, deafening.
CM: Right. And I remember seeing the vats, huge, huge tanks.
GQ: In the mills?
CM: Mm hmm, the vats, and that’s where my dad worked. And you walk on these
little tiny planks and all the stuff that you can see. And I remember the conveyor belt,
this huge, long conveyor belt that would take samples or rocks or whatever up. It’d be
going up from the bottom on up.
GQ: Carrying the ore, the crushed ore?
CM: Guess so, yeah. Yeah, so.
GQ: Would they blast, too, or did you hear...?
CM: I never heard that. Yeah.
GQ: But they did?
14
CM: And it was just for a few years. My dad did mostly cowboying. And then when
we moved to Patagonia, I started 4th grade up on the hill at Old Main. Mr. Rye was my
teacher there.
GQ: Mr. Rye?
CM: Yes. And then my parents started working for the Rail X Ranch, working for Ray
and Virginia Rich. And we lived here in Patagonia and went to school then on into
high school.
GQ: Since 4th grade. Okay. And what was it like back then as far as...do you
remember?
CM: Living in a small community is fun and it’s also very frustrating for a kid and for a
kid growing up, because everybody knows you. Everybody knows you.
GQ: If you do something wrong...right?
CM: Oh yeah [LAUGHTER]. I just remembered one of them. [LAUGHTER]. But it’s,
it’s a good safety net for our kids. They don’t realize it; I didn’t realize it. It was a
safety net for me —
GQ: That everybody does know you.
CM: — because it deterred me from doing things because of how would so-and-so feel
if they found out that I did something that I shouldn’t have been doing?
But I do remember my dad bought me a 1956 Chevy. It was nice!
GQ: OK. And you were 16?
CM: I was 16. It was very nice and I was so excited and I picked up all of my volleyball
teammates and so we drove around town, it’s about what you can do. It takes about I
think 14 minutes or so [LAUGHTER] to do Patagonia, but if you’re doing it and I’m
driving, you’re doing it in about 12! [LAUGHTER]
Until one of my uncles saw me and called my dad, and he said, “You know, she’s going
to kill herself and everybody in it. She’s got that car...” And by the time I got home—
15
and this is the honest to God truth—by the time I got home my dad had sold the car.
[LAUGHTER] And he never got paid either...and you know who bought it!
[LAUGHTER].
But at any rate that was a story of having family, having several people look after you
to see that you’re okay. And– But growing up...in high school, the border’s very close
by and we did a lot of going across the line.
GQ: You had families?
CM: No. No, but we’d go across the line as teenagers, you know, and there were
nightclubs and things like that that we did, yeah. And something that I just wonder
now if that wasn’t very good in growing up and seeing it. But you don’t know, you
know, the dangers of it. But you had the Cinco de Mayo, the peralas and things are
going on and that was all great fun, too.
And you’re—you’re always—you get to the age where everybody’s together, so you’re
hanging out with the seniors and you might be a junior or a sophomore and—but that
was interesting.
GQ: Yeah, Abby [ph] did ask me to ask you about what you did in high school to get in
trouble, so...
CM: My senior year [LAUGHTER] my senior year we did one thing. Four of us
decided to ditch. We decided we were going to do our own Senior Ditch Day and of
course it backfired on us and the principal told us that we weren’t going to graduate
unless we made up the time. And I’m very fond. I always think of Mrs. Sullivan,
Frances Sullivan, who just recently passed away. She was the one who was in charge of
my time and I was making up my time in the library. She was our librarian. And after
about 4 hours she said, “Cindy, that’s okay. You’re okay. I’ll just sign you out.” And
she did. But–
GQ: So where did you go on your Ditch Day?
CM: We went to Tucson. We played some golf or something. It was rather innocent
but it was something just, all of a sudden you were a senior and did things was like
that.
GQ: You had “senioritis”.
16
CM: Yeah. We thought, “Well let’s do it.” Yeah. We got caught. [LAUGHTER] And
on our senior trip we went to Disneyland. We worked hard. We served concessions,
we worked at concessions and we raised a lot of money that way. We had raffles.
GQ: How many were in your graduating class?
CM: We were 28. We were 28.
GQ: And you still keep in touch? You had the Fourth of July?
CM: Yes. We had our Fourth of July Class Reunion. We have actually had three class
reunions here at the house. And being so small, one- one- the first time we did it here I
suggested we bring family members, everybody, kids, so we had– This whole living
room was just full of kids you know. And it was great fun to get know the families and
we do keep in contact.
GQ: That’s nice. Do you want to take a break or are you okay?
CM: I’m okay.
GQ: Okay. I was wondering. Maybe we could go back. How did your parents meet?
Did we find that out?
CM: My parents—no, I don’t think my dad mentioned it. But my mom knew the
familia, the Matus Familia, Rivera Familia. You know when you live in a small
community, in the Duquesne and Washington Camp Area–
GQ: Mm hmm, everybody knows each other.
CM: Everybody knows everybody.
GQ: Your mom was still in Duquesne, her family?
CM: Yes. Yeah, they were in Duquesne and my dad lived here in Patagonia. And it–
This– My dad’s family and my mom’s family and the way that they got together– If I
even try to explain it to you, it’s– It is so intertwined and it almost, almost would feel
like it’s incestual and it’s not.
17
But my- my dad’s mother, Francisca Yourgules, she left her own husband and two
children when my dad was like two years old and his sister was about four. And so
here’s this man Manuel Matus raising these, these kids. Well my mom’s– now
remember my mom is the baby of twelve, so her older sister, Mercedes Matus,
married—well, Mercedes Rivera—she married Manuel Matus and raised these little
kids.
So that would make my mom my dad’s aunt. Right? [LAUGHTER] If you think about
it that way. No blood relation whatsoever and they really didn’t see each other too
much as little kids except when Mercedes and Manuel would come and visit the family
and they’d bring these kids and they’d all play.
So later in growing up, my mom went to high school here in Patagonia and got together
visiting, and my dad would go and visit them here in Patagonia, would visit my mother
and her dad. And that’s how they started going out.
GQ: So they were in the same class, the same year of class?
CM: Yeah. My dad didn’t graduate here. He had dropped out of school earlier than
that. But then they got married and when I tell folks that- that my aunt is my dad’s
mother and that’s who he considers as his mother but it’s my mom’s sister, how does
that work? But that’s about the best as I can explain that situation. And they got
married in... In May 1, 1948.
GQ: Here is Patagonia?
CM: In Nogales. Judge Farley, Judge Farley was at the court when they got married.
Later they got married by the Church. But that’s- that’s how... And they’re both going
to be 83 in April, so...
GQ: Next month?
CM: Yeah.
GQ: Wow. Cool. And they’re still doing pretty well.
CM: Pretty well.
18
GQ: And your mom you know was a regular worker out there at the cleanup of
Lochiel. I mean, you know she’s in good–
CM: Right. She loves to rake. My mom loves gardening; that’s kind of her hobby is
gardening. She’s an avid reader and lifelong learner; she loves learning new things all
the time.
GQ: Researching in the history of the Patagonia Library, I noticed that she was
involved for some time with the Patagonia Library. Do you recall any of her
involvement?
CM: I don’t. I- This was probably while I was in school and I didn’t realize what she
was doing, you know, during the day.
GQ: She was mentioned a few times in the early, the beginning years of the library that
she was part of the Board or did something I know, but that–
CM: It may have been—because I do have a picture of her as a young woman and there
was a gentleman from Phoenix that had come down and I don’t know if he was a
candidate for some office or whatever. But maybe they had gotten that group together.
But one of the men in that picture was Jack Sullivan. That would be the husband of
Frances Sullivan and it was Frances that gave me the picture and it’s a very young 20s
woman is my mom.
GQ: Was she involved with the Women’s Club, too, because they were instrumental in
the public library.
CM: She may have been if that was a part of it, and I was involved in that, in the
Women’s Club later on, for a few years.
GQ: Sure. Okay, very good. So did we cover a lot? Did we miss anything?
CM: Well there was something I wanted to mention.
GQ: Okay then.
CM: My mom is– I had said that she was a baby of twelve. Right? Well, when she was
born—she was born April 29th and 28 days later, because of the pregnancy and the
birth, my– Her mother passed away. So my mother was raised by an older sister, so she
19
never had a mother and that’s been something that I’ve always felt a sadness for her in
that she would never have someone she would call Mom.
But she was very well raised by her siblings and enjoyed, you know, having the older
brothers take care of her. And when they lived out in Washington Camp and the
Duquesne area there, too. So that was something that my mom being raised by her
older sister, who by the way, passed away January 2nd of this year. She was 100 years
old.
GQ: Oh wow.
CM: She was 100.
GQ: And she raised your mom, basically.
CM: And she raised my mom, basically. Yeah.
GQ: And she’s the one that went to—your aunt, that went Lochiel schoolhouse?
CM: Yes. Uh hah. She’s the one in the–
GQ: The pictures of the school bus, the Lochiel school bus?
CM: Bus. Uh huh, the little girl wearing the hat, along with two other sisters, and
they’re in that bus.
GQ: Okay. So your mom lived in the Washington-Duquesne area until after- through
high school then? Or–
CM: Through, I would say... because they went to school in...in Washington Camp and
then went to school here in Patagonia on the hill and then high school down by Dr.
Mock. That’s where they went to school, the high school there.
GQ: But all this time her family was living in Washington?
CM: Yeah they had moved to– The Sinouhi family, her sister Angelita had married
Pancho Sinouhi and they- they lived on Pennsylvania Avenue, that house where the
Cervantes, right on the corner. Now it’s owned by someone else. It’s been remodeled,
across from the Seves. I don’t know, the Seve home. And so they lived there and Mom
20
would walk to school from there, so they were here. And then also that’s where she
met, got together with my- my dad.
GQ: Okay. So was her father– Had her father passed away, too, then?
CM: Her father passed away in 19...I want to say 1950. I’m not sure. And he– They’re
buried up there in Lo- in Duquesne, José Rivera and his wife Concepción. That’s where
he buried her after she had the- died from birth.
GQ: Okay. Okay well Ralph, do you have any thoughts, any questions? No? Or
Cynthia, anything else that we may have overlooked? You had the computer there for
your record– it was your classmates?
CM: Yeah, I did. You know, I was going to give you the name of my classmates.
GQ: At the Harshaw School?
CM: Yeah.
GQ: Okay.
CM: And this is cute, too. So it says, “I started school on September 2, 1958. I was five
years old. And so we had 18 students, so we had my sister, Emma, and Leona O’Brien,
Lupita Majalca, Ernesto Majalca, Rosie Quiroga, Frances Tapia, Mary Hale, Molly
Lopez, Olivia Lopez, and Danny Quiroga, Augustín Verdugo, Angelita Verdugo, Marta
Verdugo, Teresa Verdugo, Carmen Verdugo [LAUGHTER], Olga Lopez and José Luis
Lopez.
So that’s a total of 18 of us there, and I remember some of these older– Like Angelita
Verdugo, I thought she was the mother. You see, some of these kids were pretty old
that were going– that were in 8th grade.
GQ: What happened to the Verdugo family? Are they still here?
CM: They’re in Tucson. I understand that they’re living in Tucson. And the Lopez
families, the parents are living here. The Majalca family moved here to Patagonia. And
Ernesto’s little sister is Irma, who owns the Patagonia Market. So…. grew up with that,
with the Majalca family, very close. Our parents were very close.
21
And of course, Danny Quiroga’s daughter lives here in Patagonia. And the O’Briens–
they did move away. I’m not sure where they went after, after Red was electrocuted
there at the mine. But we have seen them once before; a few years ago they were down.
GQ: Mm hmm. You mentioned I think the electrocution incident. Do you remember
it? Were you here when that happened?
CM: Yeah, well I remember hearing about it, my parents talking about it, you know,
and the kids... I have a fond memory of Ruth O’Brien. She’s the wife of Red O’Brian,
the gentleman that was electrocuted. Because we always–
At our home, living up there at the Trench Mine, well we had all our food was Mexican
food, you know —tortillas and chili con carne and all of that. But I remember havinggoing over to the O’Briens and having lunch with the kids and it was, it was white
bread, like the Holsum or the Rainbo, with mayonnaise—and that was it! But it was the
best thing I’d ever had!
RS: It was different.
CM: And I couldn’t wait to go—it was like eating cake or dessert or something. But
that was great fun. And also, you know, my mom would pack our lunch when we
would go to school at- in Harshaw. We always traded our lunch because everyone
wanted the burros, you know like chili con carne burros or the bean burros, and I
wanted the white bread [LAUGHTER]. So that, that was great fun.
GQ: Okay. And I regretted I didn’t ask your dad this because we interviewed him on
Pearl Harbor Day and I wanted to know what he could recall on that, that day. And IBut what, for example– I guess for our generation it would have been maybe the
President Kennedy Assassination.
CM: Yeah.
GQ: Does that date–?
CM: Yeah, that day is something that you never forget. I was at the school up on the
little Old Main School. Mr. Sears was our principal and our teacher and we had 4th, 5th
and 6th graders in one, one room, one classroom. And I remember Mr. Sears coming out
real solemn-looking face and he told us that there had been an accident and that the
president had been killed. And all I could think of was the Russians are coming. We’ve
22
got to get under our desks. Something terrible is going to happen. And they let school
out; we walked home.
Interestingly, my parents at this time—and you’ve probably– my dad would recall—
they went to Nogales. My dad went across the line; I think my mom went with him to
go get a haircut. That’s where he got his hair cut there in Nogales, Sonora.
And while they were there they always had the radio on, the barber always had the
radio on and it came out that the assassination– And they did announce that the
borders were going to close in 30 minutes. So he didn’t get his hair cut and they had to
get back. And so they were fortunate that they had heard about it, because if they had
stayed there, they would have stayed in Mexico for the 48 hours or whatever it was that
the border was closed and we would have been home alone and not knowing. But yeah
that was...
GQ: Is there any other time period like that that you can recall that was a significant
historical moment?
CM: Well, let... You know, with the Vietnam War there was just a lot going on with the
protests. The– hearing about the hippies and the flower children and the Woodstock.
RS: Were you here in Patagonia at that time?
CM: I was here in Patagonia. Mm hmm, yeah. And the same thing with Kent State.
During that I was here in Patagonia.
RS: Okay. So you brought up the Cold War. What was it like growing up in Patagonia
during the Cold War? My wife, for instance, you know, went to school in Chicago so
they actually trained them, you know, in ducking under—I forget what the terminology
was—but you would actually, you know, cover your head and duck under the desks.
CM: Right. Yeah, as if that would really do a lot [LAUGHTER] but we didn’t know–
RS: Exactly but– I wonder if it was the same...
CM: Yeah, we had a drill or two about that. And just knowing that there was a foreign
entity that may want to take over, it was– But I was– This was– Kennedy’s
assassination was in ’63, so I was 10 you know, and it just maybe had a couple of- not
really not understanding the situation.
23
But it was scary, this foreign thing of not knowing what to do and then seeing the
family, the adults, the women crying, very emotional. And everybody in our family
that we would know, that we’d go visit, had the old velvet Kennedy painting on there
and I remember going through families’ homes where they had the candles lit for
Kennedy, like a- like a saint almost, was what it was. You know they revered him.
GQ: The first Catholic president, was he?
CM: Yes.
GQ: That was something to be proud of, if you were a Catholic.
CM: Right.
GQ: I notice now you’re—speeding up to modern day— you’re involved a lot with the
educational system. How did you get–?
CM: Oh, get involved? Okay, well I’ve- I’ve been on the School Board now for 22 years.
I- I didn’t seek this– this position out at all. Actually I was involved, have been
involved with the Santa Cruz County Young Audiences since 1980 and have served as
Chair of that organization a couple of times.
And what Young Audiences is is it’s a national organization that has several chapters
across the U. S. There’s only one in Arizona. We used to have two, but there’s just one
existing now. And what it does, it brings music and art and other art programs into
rural schools so our children can get exposed to these different types of genres.
And so I would go to the school and introduce the artist or make sure that the gym is
clean or make sure that the teachers are aware that this program is coming and our kids
have been exposed to this whether it’s mime, Russian dance, opera things this way.
So there was a vacancy on the elementary board occurred. Somebody moved out of the
district, so it would be an appointment. And I got a call from Jack Heiss and at that
time the County School Superintendent was Lito Belindo. And they talked to me about
serving in that capacity as an appointee. I didn’t know what it meant. I had never
heard of Robert’s Rules of Order. When we ran our meetings at Young Audiences it’s
pretty much, you know, follow the agenda but we don’t have that protocol.
GQ: That procedure, mm hmm.
24
CM: So they lied to me. [LAUGHTER] I asked them, “How much time is this going to
take?” And they said, “Oh, it’s only one hour. [LAUGHTER] It’s one meeting a month
and it’s only one hour, you know, so not to worry.” And I had a boy that was 14 and a
daughter that was 8 months, and they said, “Before you know it, she’ll be in school and
you know, and you’re at school all the time anyway because you’re there with Young
Audiences, so you’ll just be at school an extra hour a month.” So that was 22 years ago
and yes, they lied and that’s what I do to recruit new board members. I lie to them too.
[LAUGHTER]
GQ: You’re not—going back to Young Audiences, how did you find out about it? What
drew you to that organization?
CM: I met this lady in Nogales. I worked in Nogales for the attorneys for several years
and I met a lady there, Carmen Nichol who said, “Cindy, you need to get involved with
Young Audiences.” I had been involved with things like Very Special Arts,
organizations like that, and so she says, “Come to this meeting here.”
And so I was the representative from Patagonia and we’d go to the meetings there. We
made a lot of friends, met a lot of people and enjoyed that gift of- of– It’s a gift to me to
see kids see something for the first time whether it is opera or whether it’s a mime
show, to see their eyes just get excited about it.
And it’s also exciting to me when they come and tell me, “I hated that program
[LAUGHTER] you brought! I didn’t like it at all!” And I did have one- one kid come
and tell me that and it was I believe it was an opera program. And I said, “Well, that’s
great because now you know that you don’t like it rather than, ‘I don’t like it because my
friend doesn’t like it.’” And that was a learning experience for that kid, too.
GQ: So are you an artist yourself? Or that’s what leading up to.
CM: I’m- I’m not.
GQ: Into music, or in art, I mean like a musician?
CM: My sister got all the talents. She is musically inclined, played the drums in school.
She, she paints; some of her paintings are up there on the wall. She’s very creative. You
know, I think I’ve just got the gift of gab, is about all.
25
But I love kids and the school boarding has opened many doors for me, many
opportunities where I’ve met a lot of people and have brought information back to our
school, too, to strive for student achievement which is our focus on our kids here.
GQ: Okay. Did your sister paint this one as well or–?
CM: No, this is actually Guadalupe de la Torre that painted this. This gentleman that I
used to work for, Bernie Salisbury, gave this to me many years ago, so it’s nice to- to
have that, as a remembrance of her and remembrance of Mr. Salisbury. And my sister
did the pen and ink, the black and white of the Big Foot Feed & Supply, the feed store.
GQ: Mm hmm. That was– When did you– had that store for awhile?
CM: Yeah. Actually, that’s an interesting story about how Big Foot Feed & Supply
came about. My son Billy was involved in 4H. We lived here and we actually got this
land from Jim Leather. It’s an acre. And we lived in a mobile home here for eight
years before we were able to build this home.
So he was in 4H raising a lamb and this little boy down the street, Cory Marino, also
raised lambs. So it was a weekend and their responsibility is to check their feed and
see how much feed they have left or when it’s time to buy more feed. Well, it came a
Friday afternoon and my son came and said, “Well, I just fed the lamb the last can of
oats,” [LAUGHTER] and I go, “Oh, it’s Friday!” [LAUGHTER]
Well, I said, “Go down and ask Cory; see if he’s got any oats.” Well he didn’t have
enough to share. So Ron and Billy got in the car that Friday afternoon and they drove.
Sonoita’s feed store was closed, so they drove to Sierra Vista. And late, after hitting
four places there to buy oats for this lamb, they did find a feed store that was open but
it was far, towards Naco.
They got home that evening and we’re having dinner [LAUGHTER]. The whole
family’s having dinner and I’m talking to Ron and my parents are here and I’m saying,
“You know, I would like to have a small business, you know maybe a card or a
bookstore, start something up like that.” And Ron said, “Well if you’re going to start
anything, you ought to open a damn feed store [LAUGHTER] that’s open on
weekends!” And that was just a light bulb that struck us and I said, well, who would
run it and how would we do it and what do we need? And it just started that way.
GQ: And that was– What year was that? Do you remember? In the ‘90s was it?
26
CM: It was, and I told Ron to stay in here so he could help me with that. I’m not sure
what year it was. It was in– It was in ’86.
GQ: ’86.
CM: As a matter of fact, I have- I did have this. [Holds up a newspaper clipping with
headline] “Big Foot Feeds providing service to Patagonia.” So this was in 1986. There’s
a picture of my mom and Ron, and that was when we opened.
GQ: 1986?
CM: Yeah, 1986, that’s the feed store.
GQ: And you went for about ten or so years, ten or twelve years?
CM: We had it for- for quite a while. As a matter of fact we– My mom actually ran the
store. Ron was the County Supervisor and we also owned the Patagonia Cable TV at
the time, so we were very busy.
GQ: Mm hmm. It was also a feed store and a hardware store.
CM: Well it started out as a feed store. But then the folks would say, “Could you carry
some pipe? Could you carry some plumbing supplies?” Pretty soon, we were carrying
more than just feed, more than the chicken feed and the dog feed. But it was a– We
didn’t make a lot of money on this thing, but it was a great service to the community.
GQ: It was, yeah.
CM: It really was. We got to know a lot of the animals, their names. We knew the
horses or Mrs. so-and-so’s dog’s name. We knew who needed help in delivering. We
would deliver Milo to this one lady that would buy 4 sacks of Milo, 50 lb. sacks, every
month for her wild birds. And we had another lady that had big dogs but she couldn’t
lift a 50 lb. sack of feed, so we knew and we would go to her house and we had the
garbage cans and we knew where to put it in there for her.
So it’s just a real great public service thing, and plus it was a wonderful gathering place
like the gas station is today. It was a gathering place at the feed store under that old
mesquite bank where the old timers would come and visit with my dad. So we had
27
Juan Yourgules, Vito Moreno, Juan Laguna, Candelario Anaya, a lot of those old folks
would come and we’d fix a pot coffee and they’d be down there and talking and just
enjoying. So it was a great service.
And we sold it, and it wasn’t two years later we got it back, and so then we had to
restock everything and the inventory was pretty much sold out of it. And then we
couldn’t use the name Big Foot Feed because, well, things hadn’t been paid and so
from—from the owner—and so then we thought well, we’ll go with what’s around
Patagonia, Los Alamos. That’s all it is, it’s the cottonwood trees and that’s the Spanish
word for cottonwood is “alamo”.
So we named it Alamo Country Store and then we—and that was great fun. We were
there quite a while, sold it I think in 1997. But we– That was a place where the
community could gather. We would have a Dog Dip Day, so everybody would bring
their dog. It was a free dog dip day and then they would come in and they would buy,
you know, tick powder or dog shampoo or dog treats or whatever.
And so that’s interesting because this [ She holds up an article] little article here talks
about how the things that we sold ranged from salt blocks, hay, and straw. And I
remember having my son there, we were even selling skateboards [LAUGHTER], you
know, things like that that the kids wanted. “This is what we want you to carry,” so we
would do that.
GQ: All service–
CM: All service, you know things for Christmas gifts. And then in October we would
go to Willcox and just bring a truckload of pumpkins down so we would do that. We
had a great relationship with the Ajo Way Nursery wholesale group in Tucson where
we bought all of our plants there, our pansies and petunias and things like that. And
we had vegetable plants, too, so there’s always some kind of display going on there at
the store for- for the community.
GQ: That was great. I remember it was a good store and it was right there.
CM: It was right there.
GQ: Didn’t have to go to Nogales or Sonoita or Sierra Vista or Tucson.
28
CM: And we would– I remember holidays here or Easter and a lot of the holiday family
events here, we’d be in the middle of some family event and we’d get a phone call that
somebody had run over their water line and they needed–
GQ: Mm hmm, some parts.
CM: Some stuff, so we’d say, “Well, we be there in a few minutes.” You know so–
GQ: You’d open up the store just for them?
CM: Yeah, we’d open up. There was never any question that we wouldn’t do that.
And we learned that, you know, if your doors are open you’re going to do business; but
if they’re closed...you know, animals still need to eat and we would be available to that
and so I think that was our success with that—plus the fact that my parents were there
and it brought in a lot of the older folks that wanted to visit with my parents so they
were pretty well loved.
GQ: I think we’re almost out of time, but you brought up something about the
celebrations. Like do you remember, you know, either family celebrations or
community celebrations? What were they like? What are your best memories of–?
CM: Well the dances at Harshaw were great fun to watch the adults dance, as little
kids. And we had a camper truck and they had a mattress in the back of it so that when
the parents wanted the kids to get out of the way now, we would all head off to the
camper truck and we’d sleep there. So that was great fun watching the adults.
GQ: You were four or five or six when you were watching?
CM: Yeah, four, five, six years old there in Harshaw. Here, the- the Camp House at the
Rio, that’s one thing that we did a lot is the families. We’d gather the Rivera family and
friends like the Majalcas.
GQ: Is that like for Easter Weekend?
CM: For Easter, for Fourth of July. You see that whole Rio area was open.
GQ: Before the Nature Conservancy? Um hmm.
29
CM: Mm hmm, yeah. And but we would go down and stay three or four days you
know, and I figure that and you can really tell a native Patagonian. They’ve got a cut on
their foot or a scar of some sort from growing up out there because I do, [LAUGHTER] I
have that. My mom has that too. I think my sister. I mean you know you always end
up stepping on a piece of glass.
But we had wonderful celebrations, a lot of birthday parties down there at the– I called
it the “Lion’s Den” there. Families would pitch in, bringing food and there was always
a menudo you know that you’d put on at night and have it for breakfast the next
morning.
GQ: Wow.
CM: So and that was fun. There was one time when somebody left the tortillas out and
the raccoon came and took them, took them to the creek and, you know, they wash ‘em.
[LAUGHTER] So we didn’t have tortillas, but the raccoon washed their food.
Another family story is that my mom was the one that made the menudo and then she
would give the instructions as to you know how much fire and when it was going to be
done. This one particular time we were down there she instructed, “Whoever gets up
first in the morning, you need to salt the menudo.” So she left the salt there and so that
way it will be ready.
Well, my Uncle Mike got up early and went to the bathroom and salted the menudo
and my Uncle Tom got up [LAUGHTER] early, salted the menudo [LAUGHTER] I
mean, pretty soon and my mom gets up and everybody’s asleep and so she salts the
menudo and no [LAUGHTER] nobody ate menudo. That was bad.
GQ: When you mentioned that I thought well she had a little portion for it, but she just
left the salt shaker?
CM: Yeah, no, she left the salero out there. Yeah. So I- I think that was a lesson.
[LAUGHTER]. But one thing that we did here, it seems as– The kids were always
involved in what the parents- what the adults were doing. When we played games–
We played this one game down there at the creek that was called Keep Away and it was
this ball and it was the girls against the boys. And it was girls from whether you were
five years old or whether you were, you know, my Tia Ramona’s age, like 60s, you
know. We played and it was a rough game. [LAUGHTER] You know I mean trying to
30
get that ball away from somebody and here’s a little kid fighting for the ball with an
uncle you know, or an aunt taking the ball away from a little boy.
But it was always fun and I have to tell you that, that living in a small community like
this, I have never been bored. I have friends that say, “How could you live in a
community of less than 1,000 people? You must be bored out of your mind.” But I
never have been; there’s always been something to do.
GQ: Good. Well I want to thank you for your time. I think we could end it on that
note, and I want to thank you again for your time.
CM: Well thank you. Thank you for doing the work with the Museum.
One other childhood memory is our parents and family members would play baseball
out there at the Y by Harshaw, before you go towards Washington Camp or you’re
going towards la valle, and there’s a big open field there. And that’s where the men
and women, all the adults, would play baseball.
GQ: On Sunday or–?
CM: Uh hah, on weekends, on Sunday. It was- it was a big deal. The folks like the
Aguilares would take a great big metal tub out there with ice and beer and sodas for the
kids and it was a big family event. It was a great time for family members to get
together, and community members.
GQ: Who– the Aguilares, were they from Harshaw, too?
CM: Yes. Well they lived in Harshaw; they also lived up at the Trench Mine. Lupe
Aguilar and...and...how they called him? I think they called him Trompas. I don’t
know if that was– But you know they all had nicknames, and that’s another thing that
someone should talk about is the nicknames of all of the miners and stuff, because that’s
pretty fun.
GQ: Okay. Do you– Well, we’re not going [LAUGHTER] to, I think we can digress a
little bit.
CM: Uh hah.
GQ: But since you mentioned the nicknames, do you recall other nicknames?
31
CM: Yeah, I- I- Well actually I have them written down. I don’t have them with me but
I do have them written down.
GQ: Oh.
CM: There was a man that was pear shaped. They called him the Pera. They called
another man El Toro, El Toro Viejo, the old bull. Mm...oh gosh... I forget what they
called my dad. I think they just called him Chapo, you know. My Tio Tomas– my
uncle, my Tio Carlos, they called him College Boy.
And Tio Tomas they called him Banderitas, Tomas Rivera. They called him that
because he would go to all the dance– When you go to a dance, especially if you’re
going to a dance like in Santa Cruz, to get in, they would put a little piece of ribbon on
your lapel and that meant that you had paid before you go in and it was with a little
stick pin.
Well, he had been to so many dances and inside his car on the roof, on the cloth, he had
all his little banderitas on there. That’s why they called him that.
GQ: Banderitas, OK.
CM: But that, that was another fun thing that my parents would do is go to Santa Cruz
for dances, horseback riding, that kind of stuff there. But the baseball games were–
GQ: Did somebody organize that or how did that work?
CM: Yeah, I think that probably some of the Majalcas and the mm... I’m trying to think
of the names of the people that would go out there. Right now it’s...
GQ: You would just play each other and folks from around there?
CM: They’d pick teams, mainly teams of men. Mm hmm. The men would play and
my mom’s got some pictures of that and the men and then pictures of the women, you
know, the spouses of them all lined up.
GQ: Did you have to clear the field of all the rocks, or–
CM: I imagine that they did and I imagine it was pretty well cleared anyway because
that was something that they did quite often on that.
32
GQ: I know Patagonia had a town team and the town teams would play other- other
communities. Mostly it was started from the mines.
CM: Yes.
GQ: The mines, the mines- The Trench Mine had sponsored the Patagonia town team.
In fact, they were called the Patagonia Miners.
CM: Oh, okay.
GQ: They would take all comers you know, from Tombstone, Bisbee, Douglas, Santa
Cruz, Nogales, that would play. And they would also go to those communities and
play. But this is more of an informal kind of a–
CM: Gatherings of– There’s a Modesto Lopez and Tulco Majalca and some of the
Majalca brothers, my dad. Billy Gardner, I think, was another one. There was quite a
few, but and then some of the young kids, you know the young teenagers that would
also participate.
GQ: So do you recall, was there anyone that stood out? Any of the athletes that stood
out?
CM: One thing that stands out for me because I was– I got scared about it was—and I
don’t know who was batting but the when he went to swing he let go of the bat and it
went flying through the air and it hit, it hit Irma’s dad, Tulco Majalca, right on the
forehead. And the thing that I remember this is because of my mom. My mom took a
picture. Here are all the baseball players and here’s Tulco Majarca with a big patch onon– It’s actually a...
GQ: Like a bandage?
CM: Like a great big bandage on his forehead. But it was scary for a little kid to see
this, you know, that this man had been hurt.
GQ: Mm hmm, but he survived it.
CM: Hey, you know what. There was– I don’t know, they all had beers in their hand
while they’re having the picture made, so maybe it wasn’t– It didn’t feel so bad at that
33
time. [LAUGHTER] Maybe the next day it might have felt bad you know. But other
than that... That was great times.
GQ: So were there any other community events like that in Harshaw that you can
recall? So there were the dances and–
CM: There were the dances and then...
GQ: The baseball games?
CM: Mm hmm. The baseball games.
GQ: Any weddings out there?
CM: Oh, weddings were mainly– When I was in high school, a lot of the weddings
were either at the Catholic Church here at the– There was an old church before this
new church. OK, the old church, and as a little girl, we lived in a house behind the old
church.
GQ: Oh you did?
CM: Patagonia, too. But mainly a lot of the weddings that were taking place,
receptions were at- in Sonoita, at the fairgrounds, and I remember going to some
weddings in Nogales at the VFW up on the hill. That was- that was the place.
GQ: Well one of my memories—I don’t know if you were here then—but in- by the old
church there used to be a baseball field.
CM: The airplane!
GQ: You remember the airplane?
CM: The airplane, yes!
GQ: And there’s like an oak tree in Right Field and then... At one time there was also a
circus that– I don’t know if it’s a dream or it really happened, but it came to that field.
It was situated in that field next to the church. But I guess I would have been like four
or five and you would have been maybe two so you don’t remember the circus.
CM: I don’t.
34
GQ: But you remember the airplane.
CM: I remember the airplane. Oh, the airplane! It was so much fun.
GQ: It was like monkey bars and slide and all that.
CM: You’d slide down the chute of that thing. Every once in a while they’d be
something that would snag you and snag your clothes or snag your skin and you’d
come out with a whole bloody strip of skin. But it was great. That airplane was
something.
GQ: Mm hmm. What happened to it? Have you ever heard?
CM: I’m not sure.
GQ: Just one day it justCM: All of a sudden one day it was gone.
GQ: Right. Okay. Okay.
CM: and we did our- We had our First Holy Communion which reminded me of that,
that airplane there. We had our First Holy Communion at that church there, and right
across the street was a water tank. That’s where the Siebolds used to live, Irene Siebold
lived. It’s that house now with the big, tall fence, or fence that they put up. But right
there there was a water tank, too. I remember that water tank.
GQ: Did you–?
CM: No, it’s just that I’m visualizing our First Holy Communion and all of us kids out
there, and in the background is this big water tank out there.
GQ: Okay. So you went out– This was your First Holy Communion was at the current
Saint Terese?
CM: Yeah, it would be the current one.
GQ: And you walked out to the front and the backdrop was–
35
CM: The background has that water tank in back. And also I remember the gasoline
tanks over there by Richardson Park.
GQ: Mm hmm.
CM: Do you remember those?
GQ: Yeah. And mmCM: And I think that that picture’s o–
GQ: My dad’s mentioned them, but I don’t have any memory of them. But yes.
CM: The Richardson Park.
GQ: Mm hmm... Okay, well...
CM: And I remember the grocery store. Mrs. Hall had a grocery store here in town
where, where the Stage Stop Hotel is now.
GQ: Was that- I think was The Happy Home?
CM: The Happy Home and you know how you remember smells can really take you
back. But like coffee takes me back to my Nanita’s house in Santa Cruz, the smell of
ground coffee. But the smell of- of fruit and just provisions takes me back to The
Happy Home Store, walking in there and getting fruit, buying fruit or something like
that.
GQ: Yeah, when I was little there were two stores, one where the current Patagonia
Market is and The Happy Home, best of what I can recall of my early years here.
CM: Yeah.
GQ: But that was- That’s fond memories.
CM: Wonderful memories. It was great. Very fortunate to grow up here.
GQ: Do you think we got everything now?
36
CM: I think so, yes. [LAUGHTER]
GQ: Okay. Thank you.
[End of video]
37
Interview 2
Donnie Lewis Martin
Donnie Martin is a lifelong Patagonian. Her father, Blaine Lewis, served as a
law enforcement officer, county supervisor and livestock inspector. Her mother
Laura Dunham Lewis served as the rural mail carrier for the San Rafael Valley
and adjoining communities for over 40 years. Donnie and her husband Dave
Martin live on a portion of the Lewis homestead outside of Patagonia where this
interview takes place on 22 September 2009.
38
Donnie:
Ask some questions. Just get me going.
German:
Okay. Good afternoon. We’re at the home of Donnie Martin and I, German
Quiroga and Ralph Schmitt are here and we’re going to talk with Donnie Martin a
little bit about Patagonia’s history and Donnie’s family’s history here in Patagonia.
So, start her off, Donne please for us.
Donnie:
Well, I’ve lived here all my life. I was born and raised pretty much on this ranch
because this was part of my Dad’s ranch, where we’re living right now. So, I’ve
pretty much been here all my life.
German:
What year were you born?
Donnie:
1940.
German:
And you were born at home or –
Donnie:
No, I was born in Nogales. Doctor Gonzalez was the doctor down there. I think he
delivered all three of us.
German:
You are the oldest or where do you fall in –
Donnie:
No, Jesse was the oldest, my brother Jesse. He’s passed away now.
German:
Then it was you?
Donnie:
Me and then Iree and then a younger sister, Wanda.
German:
Okay. Your parents were –
Donnie:
Blaine and Laura Lewis. My mom’s maiden name was Dunham. They were around
here a long time, too.
German:
How did they meet?
Donnie:
Well, they both lived out – my dad lived at Parker Canyon. She lived at San Rafael
Valley on the Dunham homestead. My dad’s dad had a homestead at Parker
Canyon. So, they were going to the dances and the get-togethers and that’s how
they met.
German:
Do you know when they got married?
Donnie:
In 1926.
German:
Did they have a church wedding or a civil ceremony?
39
Donnie:
No, they were married in Nogales by the pastor that was there, but they didn’t
have a big wedding – just, I think, Dad’s sister, Verna, and my mom’s brother, Gernie*, they were
the witnesses.
German:
Can you tell us a little bit about your grandparents if you – where they came from
and what they did?
Donnie:
The Lewises came from Texas – mostly on the New Mexico-Texas border. They
came here in a covered wagon when my dad was five. That’s how long he was
there. Then my grandfather, well he was from Missouri – on my mother’s side,
and my mom’s mother came from Sweden when she was three years old. They
met in Missouri or Alabama or somewhere and each came here to work in the
mines, and they lived at Ajo for a while then they moved down here and
homesteaded.
German:
That was back in the 1880s, 1890s, somewhere around there?
Donnie:
I probably have those dates. He worked at Mowry – at that mine there – for a
while.
German:
Where was the Dunham homestead?
Donnie:
It was on the San Rafael Valley. After you top out on the valley, it was the first
place on the right where there was a house.
German:
As you're going into the valley to the right?
Donnie:
Yeah. When you top out in the valley, there’s a road to the right, but farther on,
there’s a road to the right and that’s where their place was.
German:
Was it close to the Red Rock school house?
Donnie:
It wasn’t too far because my mother walked to school and my aunts and uncles
walked to school from there.
German:
How many aunts and uncles did you have?
Donnie:
There were nine in the Dunham family and there were five in the Lewis family.
German:
You went to school here in Patagonia?
Donnie:
Mhm, and now I have great grandkids going to school here.
German:
So, the little schoolhouse on the hill?
40
Donnie:
On the hill.
German:
Would you walk or ride a horse or –
Donnie:
No, my parents drove me. They drove me every day until I got to be old enough to
drive myself.
German:
Did you ever have any trouble crossing the wash?
Donnie:
Sometimes. You didn’t go to school sometimes. Sometimes, you didn’t get home
until pretty late. That wash would run pretty big sometimes.
German:
Were you involved in doing ranch work?
Donnie:
Not a whole lot. I used to ride a horse to get the milk cows in and feed the chickens
and the grain to the horses and stuff like that, but I had two brothers, so they did
most of the barn work. I helped my mom more.
German:
How many head of cattle did your father have?
Donnie:
No, I don’t remember.
German:
Was it a big roundup?
Donnie:
It wasn’t like the big ranches around.
German:
It was mostly horses?
Donnie:
He didn’t have a whole lot of cows, but he had some, and then he had the horses.
Of course, that was his love. He raised good horses and raced them and showed
them and stuff like that.
German:
Do you remember any stories from when your dad was the sheriff or have
anything that comes to mind?
Donnie:
I have to think about it and nothing comes directly to mind, except I can remember
the guys telling me in high school, or even after high school, that they used to do
things and they would think they got away with things, but they found out my dad
knew. Sometimes, they got away with it because he let them and sometimes, he
didn’t let them get away with it, depending on what it was.
German:
You never worried or you worried a little bit about him being in law enforcement?
Donnie:
No, not really – and not so much in those days because it wasn’t like it is now.
Ralph:
Did you ever travel with him to show horses?
41
Donnie:
Oh, yeah. The first time I can remember horse racing was where Sierra Vista now,
only it was called Fry then. It was just a little dirt road, but they had a little track
there where everybody went to race the horses.
Ralph:
So, people would line up and you’d run them down the straightaway?
Donnie:
Mhm.
Ralph:
How long of a course, do you know?
Donnie:
No, I don’t. They were quarter horses, so it was a pretty short course. About 350
yards is about what they would run.
Ralph:
Take trips up to Tucson, too?
Donnie:
Tucson – yep, we’ve been to that track many times. Prescott, Ruidoso, New
Mexico, and he ran some in California, too, at some of the tracks in California, but
that was after I was older and married.
Ralph:
Any big winners?
Donnie:
Yes, had some pretty good winners. He had a lot of winners. I have a few pictures
in there. There were a lot of winners. He had good horses. People would come
from all over the United States and buy his horses.
German:
So, you graduated from Patagonia Union High School.
Donnie:
Yes, I did.
German:
Did you attend another educational –
Donnie:
No, I didn’t. I got married.
German:
So, you got married right out of high school?
Donnie:
I graduated in May and was married in December.
German:
Okay. How did you meet your husband?
Donnie:
Well, his family lived here a long time, too. He was a member of the Turner family
and he wanted to go to Louisiana from California – that’s where he grew up –
stopped here because he ran out of money and Jack Turner got him a job at the
mine, and he just stayed and worked in the mine.
German:
So, he’s Jack Turner’s nephew?
42
Donnie:
This is Jack Turner’s nephew. This is also Doctor Mock’s wife, Cleo, she’s a Turner
and his mom still – she lives in town. She’s going to be 96 in November. And so, I
don’t know, we just hung out with the same people.
German:
How many children do you have?
Donnie:
We have three – two boys and a girl. One you just –
German:
That’s Tom?
Donnie:
That’s my oldest, that’s Tom. And I have a son, Weston, and then a daughter that’s
younger. Her name is Davette, and she lives in Tucson. Weston is like my dad. He
loves the horses and he races in El Paso and Ruidoso.
German:
He’s a trainer?
Donnie:
He’s a trainer.
German:
Does he have horses here or –
Donnie:
No.
German:
– where does he keep them?
Donnie:
He keeps them at whatever track he’s at. You know, he pretty much – he’s in El
Paso pretty much in the wintertime and Ruidoso in the summertime. Then in
between, right now, he’s in Hobbs, New Mexico.
German:
Okay. That’s his headquarters?
Donnie:
El Paso is his headquarters. He owns a home there.
Ralph:
You’ve been in this house for how long?
Donnie:
Well, my husband and I have been married for 50 years and we moved here – my
daughter is 44. We’ve lived here 46 years, I guess, in our marriage.
Ralph:
Your husband built the house or had it built?
Donnie:
This house was built in bits and pieces. We built a barn and moved in. That’s where
the office is now and it was a two-story building because it was going to have a
hayloft. And we had a trailer that – just a little trailer that we cooked in, ate in.
First, we all slept in this room, one room, on the floor. It was made from the
lumber from the old railroad dock that was down there. It was 3x12s. So, there
would be cracks between, before we put a plywood floor on it. Well, we had to
have some place to sleep.
One night – do you know what a Child of the Earth is?
43
German:
No.
Donnie:
It’s a bug. It’s a color of a scorpion, but some of them could be as big as tarantulas.
Well, one night, we had the TV and were on the floor. The two boys were in the
cribs and out from those cracks – hoards of those Childs of the Earth came.
Ralph:
Oh, they must have hatched, huh?
Donnie:
So, we jumped up, we put a ladder to the upstairs and carried the beds, the kids,
and everything up there. It had no walls on it – just a roof at that time. That was
our bedroom then for many years with all the stuff up there and then the rest of
it’s just been added on when we could afford it.
German:
When did your husband start the business of sand and gravel and excavation?
Donnie:
He started that about in ’69. He worked at the mine at first and then he worked
for the Forest Service, too. He worked for the Forest Service in the summertime
and he was a school bus driver for a while – out to Washington Camp, Lochiel.
Then he worked for the county for quite a while. We had a service station. I don’t
know if you remember where the old Texaco station was by Bob Lenon’s little
office that was down there.
German:
I think so.
Donnie:
We had that station there for a few years, and then he started on his own.
German:
What gave him the inspiration? Did he see a need for something?
Donnie:
I don’t know how we got into that station, really. He knew how to work on cars
and stuff like that. I think we bought that place from Bob Lenon – or rented it from
Bob Lenon. That’s what we did. He was still working for the county when we
started that. So in the day time, a lot of times, I would go pump gas and all of that
kind of stuff and he would come in the evenings.
German:
How long did you have that station?
Donnie:
Probably about six years.
German:
Were you the last owners?
Donnie:
No.
German:
Somebody carried on after you?
Donnie:
Someone carried on a little while after us, but not too long. We’re down to one
station.
44
German:
Patagonia has a lot of issues. What do you consider to be the number one issue,
as far as problems or issues that – for the well-being?
Donnie:
For the town?
German:
Mhm, or just the general area?
Donnie:
We’re kind of out of that. Well, just for the town, people move here because they
love Patagonia, but then when they get here, they want to change it to all the rules
that were from wherever they came from. Do you know what I mean? Just let it
be. To me, that’s a lot of what their problem is in town.
German:
So, your solution would be to just let it be and not try to change it.
Donnie:
Well, you have to progress and some things have to be changed, but they came
here because they liked it to start with.
German:
So, what do you consider a problem of the greater area, outside of that?
Donnie:
A lot of people are selling their ranches and, you know, people moving out. People
moving here. The ranching business is going to be lost.
German:
And subdividing the ranches.
Donnie:
Subdividing the ranches.
German:
What is your favorite meal to prepare?
Donnie:
Oh, my gosh. I like to prepare a lot of things. I’ve cooked a lot of years.
German:
Does your husband have a favorite dish or do you?
Donnie:
We both like to eat all kinds of food. So, I’ve been very lucky that way because
he’ll eat anything I cook. We have our own beef, so we eat a lot of beef, and we
raise chickens, too. We have our own eggs and chicken stuff, like –
German:
Nothing special, though, as far as a certain meal or anything? No?
Donnie:
I don’t think I have a favorite.
German:
No? Okay.
Ralph:
Do you have a garden, too, or –
Donnie:
Yeah, he does. He takes care of the garden. I take care of the yard. He takes care
of the garden. This is the first year we’ve had one for quite a while.
German:
When did he get interested in the Longhorn?
45
Donnie:
He’s always loved Longhorns. My dad gave us a couple three heads of cattle and
kind of got us started. And then there was a guy at Sonoita that had Longhorns
and he bought some from him and from there, it’s just grown.
German:
Do you know how many he has?
Donnie:
How many? – about 150, but he’s going to need to get rid of some because there
were no rains this year, and having to haul water and stuff –
German:
It’s been pretty dry?
Donnie:
Yeah, very dry. I heard that [inaudible] ranch – never mind. I can’t think of it – out
by Elgin. Anyway, he hauled eight truckloads of cattle out of there. They had no–
the Babacomari Ranch.
Ralph:
Brophy’s, huh?
Donnie:
Yeah. So, how long have you lived here?
Ralph:
Six years.
Donnie:
Six years?
Ralph:
Yeah.
Donnie:
Why did you move to Patagonia?
Ralph:
My wife wanted to move to Patagonia. So she – I brought her down here on
vacation and she just really loved it. So, she twisted my arm and that’s how I ended
up here.
Donnie:
It’s an experience.
German:
So, you have a nice view up here.
Donnie:
Yeah.
German:
You can see the storms coming in the summertime?
Donnie:
Yeah, you can see pretty much from all directions up here.
German:
Did you have a favorite teacher in school?
Donnie:
I had several favorite teachers.
German:
Can you recall them?
Donnie:
Well, my favorite in elementary school was Mrs. White, Gladys White.
German:
Why did you like her?
46
Donnie:
I really liked all of them. There wasn’t one that I didn’t like. Then, they were friends
with my parents. They were friends, besides being teachers. They were friends.
German:
And in high school?
Donnie:
In high school, I liked Mrs. Douglass. She was our Home Ec teacher. I liked Mr.
Taylor. I liked pretty much all my teachers. I enjoyed school.
German:
So, you got along pretty well?
Donnie:
Mhm, and I worked in the book store at the high school.
German:
When you were in high school?
Donnie:
When I was in high school.
German:
Is there a library there, too?
Donnie:
Mhm, there’s a library. That was a pretty good little library. I worked in the library,
too. I was in 4H and I was in Rainbow Girls and all the stuff.
German:
What are Rainbow Girls?
Donnie:
They’re a branch of the Masons. There’s a Masons – the Eastern Star – and there’s
a DeMolay Boys and Rainbow Girls. Not that any of my family were masons or
anything, but it was a neat place to belong to.
German:
How long were you in 4H?
Donnie:
From when I was 10 to when I was 18, I guess.
Ralph:
Do you remember any of the projects you did?
Donnie:
Well, I was in sewing and cooking. I didn’t do any of the animal things.
Ralph:
So, what did you used to sew? Just general clothing or –
Donnie:
Yeah, you started out with – at 10, with just learning how to use a sewing machine
and little things, and like a little apron. By the time you were up there, you were
making evening gowns and stuff like that.
Ralph:
Oh wow. Did you ever do any needle point or quilting or anything like that?
Donnie:
I love doing all of that.
Ralph:
Oh, you love doing that, too?
Donnie:
Yeah. I used to think when I got to this age that I would have a lot of time to do it,
but I think your body doesn’t let you move as fast. I don’t get things done as fast.
47
Even when I had three kids and worked – I got more things done that way than I
do now.
German:
So, you delivered mail for a while?
Donnie:
I just did that – my sister had the contract but I did it because, with one of her
pregnancies, she was quite ill. So, I drove the mail then. Of course, I went with my
mom a lot. I used to hate that.
German:
It was a long drive, wasn’t it?
Donnie:
Well, the main thing was the roads are so dusty out there and they all had mail
sacks. The mail was put in mail sacks. Well, those things got so dusty. You know,
you’d shake the mail out and put the mail in the box and throw them down on the
floor. That’s the way they used to do it and I just hated that.
German:
You would ride it as a passenger next to her?
Donnie:
No, pretty much in the backseat because it’s when I was young.
German:
She had all the mail on one side?
Donnie:
All the mail in the front seat. There was usually two stacks. On long days, there
was two stacks. On short days, there was one stack.
German:
Would you go with her to the post office and help her get ready or how would that
work out? Would she come by and pick you up?
Donnie:
I usually went with her. That was when we had the old – the old post office is
where she started driving from. One time, my brother and I were sitting in the car
waiting for her. Remember, the train used to come through town. I don’t even
remember which one now, but one of us pushed the clutch in on the car. I think it
was me. It went right down to the track. That was a scary thing. That was a lot
time ago.
Then I worked in the post office in later years.
German:
You did?
Donnie:
Mhm.
German:
Here in Patagonia?
Donnie:
Mhm.
German:
Where it was before it moved to its current locations?
Donnie:
No, it was in its current location when I worked there.
48
German:
Do you remember when it got moved from – what year that was?
Donnie:
No, I don’t remember.
German:
Where were you in your life? Were you married already?
Donnie:
No, because I worked there before I was married. So, it was probably during my
junior high or high school years.
German:
So, your father was a county supervisor as well?
Donnie:
He was a county supervisor. He was a cattle inspector. He was a deputy sheriff. He
was the town marshal. That’s pretty much – ranching and horses.
German:
He ranched all his life?
Donnie:
Mhm.
German:
My mother tells me that when the Dojaquez family got into an accident, that he
raised one of my uncles. Do you remember him talking about that – my uncle
Albert?
Donnie:
Oh, I remember Albert – I don’t know. It seemed like he was old enough that he
didn’t need to be raised. I remember him being around a lot, yeah – being, staying
at the house.
German:
So, he was already a teenager probably?
Donnie:
Yeah.
German:
Maybe a little bit older?
Donnie:
I think so.
German:
I don’t know how old he was, but she said that your dad took him in. I don’t know
where he lines up with all of his brothers and sisters, but – so, you remember him
being around?
Donnie:
Oh, yeah. And you know, he would do chores and work with my dad and stuff like
that. He was a neat guy.
German:
Any other special memories you have of Patagonia?
Donnie:
Oh, I have so many.
German:
What are your special – ?
Donnie:
Well, I remember when they used to have the dances at the Women’s Club. I love
to dance, always loved to dance. And my dad used to play and my uncle –
49
German:
Oh, what’d your dad play?
Donnie:
He played the fiddle? Jack Turner and he would all get together and play.
German:
They had them every Saturday night or almost every Saturday night?
Donnie:
There were things going on there a lot. I don’t know about every Saturday night,
but they used to have plays there and the people would get themselves together
and put on plays. Some of them were so fun. The people used to really get
together and make their own entertainment. You know? We used to have a lot of
fun like 4th of July picnics and stuff like that. And with the people, too, from Sonoita
and Elgin and out of Parker Canyon. They were good times.
German:
So, you just returned from Mexico a week or two ago now? Is there any special
place you like to visit down there or some other place?
Donnie:
There are several places that we like to go in Mexico. We love Baja, but we were
at Kino that weekend. That was the weekend of that storm. We were looking at
the pictures, like I was showing you. We were thinking about, “Should we go to
this place or this place?” and I’m glad we went to Kino instead of San Carlos for
the weekend.
German:
Right. It was pretty devastating, wasn’t it?
Donnie:
Yeah.
German:
How often do you go down?
Donnie:
You know, we used to go two or three times a year, from the time – well, we’d
been married about five months the first time we went to Mexico. Have you ever
been down to Kino or any –
German:
I have.
Donnie:
Well, the first time we went to Kino, the sidewalks were in and they were putting
the streetlights in and there were no houses, no nothing. And we used to camp
right there on the beach. That was the first time we went to Mexico.
German:
You go there pretty often then, like you say?
Donnie:
Yeah, we used to go two or three times a year.
German:
So, do you do fishing?
Donnie:
We used to go fishing. We had boats. There was a bunch of us that went, the
Olivers – a lot of people from Patagonia used to go at Easter time to a place called
Tasiota and there would like be 50 or 100 of them. Sometimes, in our little camp,
50
there would be 20 or 30. We all used to have really good times, just in tents or on
the beach or whatever, you know. Then we graduated to campers. Anyway, we
used to all cook together and the kids would all play together and they were good
times.
German:
Sounds fun.
Donnie:
They were good times.
German:
Has it changed any, the climate, as far as, is it still easy to get across and it’s not a
hassle coming back?
Donnie:
Oh, you mean the line at the border? It’s different, but you know, it could be
different every time you went down. You never knew what was going to be
required or if they even wanted anything or whatever. I’m sure it’s harder now to
go and come because of the situation in the world.
German:
With passports and all –
Donnie:
Passports and all of that.
German:
So, for hobbies and entertainment, you mentioned sewing a little bit. Is there
anything else?
Donnie:
Oh, I love to dance.
German:
And dancing.
Donnie:
I love to just be with people. I love it.
German:
To socialize.
Donnie:
I feel really good because you can go to the post office and you can get hugs from
everybody and the store. You know, I love being a part of here. I would hate to
have to move anywhere.
Ralph:
Are you active in any churches or anything like that?
Donnie:
No, I used to be in a community church, but I haven’t been for a long time. My kids
went to the 7th Day Adventist church because the Turners were – a lot of them
were 7th Day Adventists and that’s where my kids went.
German:
Growing up on this ranch, who were your neighbors around you?
Donnie:
The Siebolds.
German:
That was up the canyon?
51
Donnie:
Up the canyon. Mrs. Fortune.
German:
Do you have anybody this way? No? The Turners –
Donnie:
The Turners – yeah.
German:
Nobody in between?
Donnie:
You know, it depends on how far you want to go. The Turners of Rocking Chair
when they moved here and then before that, my dad knew – what was it, a guy
named by Lloyd Gatlin who lived there, who worked there at that ranch. And then
he met his wife. She was a dude, and they married and eventually moved away,
but he and my dad were deputy sheriffs at the same time.
German:
And they lived where?
Donnie:
Where the Rocking Chair – where the old Rocking Chair is, when you first go across
the creek.
German:
Right, right. It’s the Spirit Tree now or something.
Donnie:
The Spirit Tree – yeah. And then when the Connelys lived there, we were good
friends with the Connelys and the Holbrooks after they moved here and the
Dunhams.
German:
Who lived across the creek here? Is there a place across the creek? No? Nothing
this way? There was back then?
Donnie:
Nobody over there – yeah. Then my first grade teacher, she was the first house on
the left when you go into town. After the bridge, she was the first house.
German:
Who was your first grade teacher?
Donnie:
Winona Gordon was her name.
German:
Okay. So, she lived in the first house on the left going toward Patagonia?
Donnie:
Mhm.
German:
And your second grade teacher?
Donnie:
She lived in – no, let’s see the second grade teacher. The second grade, I had Mrs.
Swyers for a while, for half the year. And then the other half of the year, and I
don’t remember why this was done, I had Mrs. White, in with the third grade
teacher. I think it was because Mrs. White had a very small third grade and we had
a pretty big second grade. So, they split us up.
52
German:
Okay. So, Mrs.Swyers still kept her second grade and they split some of her classes
to go into the third grade, a combined second and third.
Donnie:
Right.
German:
And who was your fourth grade teacher?
Donnie:
Well, my third grade teacher was Helena Keat. She came from wherever, I don’t
know.
German:
Did she stay very long then?
Donnie:
She was here for a while. My fourth grade teacher was – fourth and fifth grade
teacher was Mrs. Farrell. Then my sixth grade teacher was Mrs. Boothsinger.
German:
Okay. My dad tells me she lived where Lee Kuhn lived. Do you remember anything
more about her?
Donnie:
She was a very neat person. She loved kids. She was a good teacher and principal.
German:
Do you know if she planted those pecan trees or were they already –
Donnie:
The pecan trees – those pecan trees have pretty much been there as long as I can
remember them. They’re on the other side, too, where the Riggs used to live.
German:
You got us up to sixth grade. That was Mrs. Boothsinger.
Donnie:
Then seventh grade, whoever was class.
German:
That was the different subjects?
Donnie:
Yeah.
German:
Do you remember any of those teachers at all?
Donnie:
Oh, yeah, I remember all of them.
German:
Well, we’ve got some time so we can – it’s kind of interesting to hear.
Donnie:
I’ll probably have go look in the annuals.
German:
I don’t want to put you on the spot.
Donnie:
No, I have my annuals in there. Do you want me to go get them?
German:
If you want to. You don’t have to, though. Mrs. Douglass, you were mentioning
your Home Ec teacher.
Donnie:
Mrs. Douglass, Mr. Bercham, Mr. Callen was there then. He was the principal.
53
German:
I remember you were mentioning Mrs. Douglass. She was my mom’s Home Ec
teacher.
Donnie:
I’m sure she was.
German:
As it turned out, when I was delivering mail in Tucson, she was one of my patrons.
It was Brainard and Margaret and they were one of my favorite patrons along the
route when I delivered mail.
Donnie:
They were really nice people.
German:
They were. They were great people.
Donnie:
Their girls were nice, too. In high school, Buddy Bell coached volleyball when I was
there and, also, Mr. Lefebvre coached. And I played volleyball, was a cheerleader.
I can’t think of. Mr. Taylor, but I’ve already mentioned him and Miss Siebold.
German:
Do you remember the postmasters at all, of Patagonia?
Donnie:
Well, Woody Gatlin.
German:
He was the postmaster when –
Donnie:
When my mom was driving the mail.
German:
And he was the postmaster throughout that time period?
Donnie:
For a long, long time – many years.
German:
So, he came after Mr. Riggs?
Donnie:
Yeah, Harry Riggs – I don’t remember Mr. Riggs being, but he was probably there.
I just don’t remember. Mostly I remember Mr. Gatlin.
German:
You mentioned a few times when your mom couldn’t deliver the mail because of
the storm and washouts?
Donnie:
Well, the mail always went. You didn’t always get back when you should, but the
mail always went and sometimes you would have to wait for the creeks and she
said she had a couple of accidents. I remember when I was about 13 or 14, the
steering rod broke. Do you know where Sunnyside is out there?
German:
It’s about as far away as you can get.
Donnie:
You go down the hill. So, we started and the car just swerved into the bank
because the steering rod broke. The steering rod broke one time and the tie rods
broke two times with her. My cousin was there with us. I never wore pants until I
got – probably in high school or later even. But I had a dress on and the snow was
54
like, it was knee deep. She stayed there with my cousin and the car I walked down
to where the Hathaways lived. I think they had one of the old phones to get help.
That was quite the –
German:
How many cars did she go through?
Donnie:
A car would last her not more than three years.
German:
How long did she deliver?
Donnie:
48 years.
German:
48 years – wow.
Donnie:
That’s a long time.
German:
That’s a lot of cars.
Donnie:
Yes.
Ralph:
So, was the Sunnyside – the group of houses, you know, the people –
Donnie:
The town.
Ralph:
The town – was it in existence – that’s where you were delivering the mail?
Donnie:
Yeah, you went that far. Do you know where Sunnyside is?
Ralph:
Yeah, I’ve been there.
Donnie:
Okay. You go to turn off to Sunnyside and one goes back to the San Rafael Valley.
One goes on up to Parker Lake. She would go there where the road turned back
and she would come back through. She started out going up to the Turner Ranch
and then the San Rafael Valley and then she would turn and go to Parker Canyon.
Now, that was a mess sometimes, too, Parker Canyon. And in through there and
go up to Bercich’s and Sunnyside, make a loop and come back and go to San Rafael
Ranch and through Lochiel and Duquesne, until that stopped and Washington
Camp and Harshaw.
Ralph:
On a good day, how long would it take her to do the route?
Donnie:
Well, two days a week she did that. On Wednesday, she didn’t go all that way. But
it would take about five hours, probably.
Ralph:
That’s a pretty good day. So, you’d go over there at times.
Donnie:
All the times when I was little, until I started school and then in the summertime
even when I started school.
55
Ralph:
Donnie:
German:
Donnie:
You’d pack a lunch up and go along with her? Fond memories, spending time with
your mom?
Yeah, except those dusty mail sacks. I hated those things.
You mentioned that she would deliver groceries to –
Yeah. You know, if anybody out there needed something –
German:
And you were going to be there –
Donnie:
– they would let her know and she could go for Mrs. Hayes. About once a week,
she would go into the store and get whatever she needed on the list and take it to
her and anybody that needed anything. There was a few out there that had these
phones. This is one of them. It was at my dad’s house. They would call her up and
say, “Hey, could you do this or that?”
German:
Bring something.
Ralph:
Did she ever have to help deliver any babies?
Donnie:
No, she never had to do any of that.
Ralph:
No, never got that as experience?
Donnie:
No.
German:
She – when my cousin Onofre was being born, she did call the relatives in Lochiel,
I believe, and they sent whatever needed to be sent.
Donnie:
When Onofre was born?
German:
Right.
Donnie:
I wonder if he knows that?
German:
I don’t know.
Donnie:
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him mention it and I didn’t remember.
German:
We got it on tape now. [LAUGHTER] Also, my mom says that my uncles would
sometimes get a ride from Lochiel to Patagonia, since it’s the downhill side of the
loop of the mail route and every once in a while, when somebody needed to come
to Patagonia, they would hitch a ride with the mail carrier.
Donnie:
Or else they would – if they needed to come from Patagonia and go home, they’d
do that, too.
56
German:
So, she did that, too? She was a taxi and grocery deliverer and whatever else
needed to be done. She would carry stamps and –
Donnie:
You know what? She didn’t carry stamps, but they would put the money in an
envelope and then the post office would stamp them.
German:
And they got the mail out in the mail stream.
Donnie:
Yeah, there used to be a lot of mailboxes out there. Not so many now, but there
used to be a lot of mailboxes.
German:
So five hours on a good day and –
Donnie:
And like, some nights – I remember one night when my dad went after her at 9
o’clock, I mean went and got her. They didn’t get back until 9 o’clock that night.
German:
Was it storm-related?
Donnie:
It was storm-related.
German:
Wow.
Donnie:
And then another time was when she broke down. She broke down right up
Mowry at the mailboxes. That night it was really late, too. But you know, people
used to watch, too.
German:
Watch out for your mom?
Donnie:
Right. If she wasn’t there about when they knew, well they would come looking
for her or whatever.
German:
So it was nice. Do you recall any times when your dad was out on any kind of
emergencies? Is that anything that you remember?
Donnie:
No, not really. He pretty much kept all that stuff to himself. The things I learned
about – like his sheriff’s job and stuff – that came from later years from other
people telling me. he never really talked about that kind of stuff.
German:
He didn’t bring his work home with him?
Donnie:
No – and besides, I think he felt like it was nobody’s business but the person,
whoever it was happening to. But I have heard a lot of stories. One just doesn’t
come to mind right now.
German:
That’s okay, I thought maybe you – well, just, have you recalled any instances
where your dad might have been out and maybe there was some –
57
Donnie:
I can remember that there was somebody that was angry at my dad. I don’t know
who it was. But one time, when we were sitting in the – you know, we had the old
butane or kerosene lamps and we would sit in the living room and read. One night,
somebody came up and they just kept slamming the car door and honking the
horn, slamming the car door, honking the horn. And my mom would not let us –
she said, “Just stay in here,” and she would not go outside.
German:
So, your dad wasn’t at home?
Donnie:
He wasn’t at home. They did leave before he came home, but that was scary.
German:
Right. It’s almost like a car alarm. It goes off –
Donnie:
Right. You knew they wanted somebody to come out there, but we wouldn’t go
out there. And I think my mom knew that there had been a problem at that time.
German:
But it never manifested?
Donnie:
Uh-uh.
German:
So, that’s as bad as it got – was that one night?
Donnie:
Right.
German:
That’s good. We have some more time if you’d like to keep on talking, but we don’t
want to wear you out.
Donnie:
No, it’s just hard to remember until you start asking the things and then I can
remember something.
German:
Do you have any photos you’d like to share with us? Do you mind bringing them
out?
Donnie:
This is probably mostly pictures of my dad and his horses.
German:
Okay. There we go. Go ahead, Donnie.
Donnie:
I believe this is the first year that they held the Miss Santa Cruz pageant in Sonoita.
Before, it had already been held in Nogales and it was a lot of fun. When I went to
the Miss Arizona pageant, I was really scared because I’d just never done anything
like that and I didn’t know what – I figured those girls were gonna all be so
beautiful and so much better than I, you know, and everything.
German:
So, how old were you?
Donnie:
I was 18 – 17, 18.
German:
How did you hear about the contest?
58
Donnie:
They were after girls to be in this contest. It was at the county fair. So, I got talked
into it.
German:
So, what did you have to do?
Donnie:
The same thing you see in all beauty pageants. We had to do a talent, we had to
have our interview.
German:
What was your talent?
Donnie:
Playing piano. I played piano. It was pretty much what you see.
German:
How many contestants were there?
Donnie:
There were only three of us and, actually, one of them turned out to be too young
by a few days, but she just went ahead and did it with us anyway.
German:
Do you remember the other competitors?
Donnie:
Kathleen Kenny was – she was from here, from Patagonia, and she and I were the
ones that were the legitimate ones. But the other girl was – I think it’s in this
picture, but she was from Nogales. She came back next year.
German:
So, you were crowned Miss Santa Cruz County of 1957, you said?
Donnie:
Yeah, it was in 1957 that I was crowned.
German:
Where did you go from there?
Donnie:
Then I went to the state fair. I was put on a bus in Nogales and rode a bus and I
didn’t know what I was – you know, I was scared. Everything was really neat. When
I met the girls, they were all really nice girls, just regular girls. We had a blast. We
had a real blast.
German:
You were in a hotel or –
Donnie:
Yeah.
German:
In Phoenix.
Donnie:
It was a motel. It had a swimming pool and just really cool girls. Everybody roomed
with – you had a roommate.
German:
How long did the contest –
Donnie:
We were there about a week, I think, and we got to do things. We went on a
helicopter ride and all these things I’d never done before. We went to fancy
restaurants and ate and being on the stage was scary.
59
German:
How many people were there?
Donnie:
It was at the state fair.
German:
It was at the Coliseum or was it an auditorium or –
Donnie:
It was outside, but it was a big old stage and it was outside. So, there were a lot of
people there.
German:
Did your parents go?
Donnie:
No.
German:
They stayed here? I know you went up early on a bus, but they didn’t come –
Donnie:
Yeah, I think my mom came. I don’t think my dad could come, but my mom did.
German:
Who won? Do you remember?
Donnie:
Her name was Donna Riggs. She was Miss Maricopa County.
German:
Miss Maricopa. That was – you had a good time and you’d do it again?
Donnie:
Had a blast and I’d tell anybody to go to do it, because it was a lot of fun.
German:
OK. All right.
[End of audio?]
60
Interview 3
Elena DeLaOssa Quiroga
Elena DeLaOssa Quiroga was born in Santa Cruz, Sonora, raised in Lochiel
where she attended school, lived in Patagonia for about 9 years where she met
and married her husband, Ramon S. Quiroga. In 1958, she and her husband
with their first 2 children moved to Tucson where this interview takes place.
61
Elena Quiroga
January 4, 2011
Tucson, AZ
GERMAN QUIROGA: OK. Good morning. We're at the home of Ramon and Elena
Quiroga in Tucson, Arizona. Today is January 4, 2011. We're going to interview my
mother, Elena Quiroga. Mom?
ELENA QUIROGA: Elena Quiroga, Elena De la Ossa Quiroga. I was born in Santa
Cruz, Sonora, Mexico. September 4, 1933.
GQ: How many brothers and sisters did you have, mom?
EQ: I had 9 brothers and sisters.
GQ: You were the oldest girl?
EQ: The oldest girl and I was the third in the family. [Phone rings]
GQ: Number three in the family?
EQ: Mm-hmm.
GQ: You were, um -- and tell us a little bit about your parents.
EQ: My dad is Avelino De la Ossa. My mother is Angela De la Ossa. She was born in
Santa Cruz, Sonora, Mexico, too. My dad was born in Lochiel, Arizona.
GQ: He was born in Hermosillo.
EQ: Oh, Hermosillo. [Laughter -- inaudible]
GQ: OK.
EQ: Do I look at the camera or you?
GQ: Wherever you want. There, is that better?
EQ: OK. Yeah.
GQ: OK, well tell us a little bit about -- you were born in Santa Cruz and you lived
there for a few years?
62
EQ: We were there about 4 years. I came to Lochiel when I was 5 years old. We were
across the line, in a 2-story house, 2 years until I was going to start school. We came to
this side of the border.
GQ: So you were on the Mexico side of Lochiel at the 2-story house.
EQ: Mm-hmm.
GQ: And then when you were ready to go to school when you were 6, we moved to the
other side -EQ: In front of the border there.
GQ: Mm-hmm. And you attended the -EQ: Lochiel School for 8 years. And then we moved to Patagonia in '49. I started
school there, high school.
GQ: In Patagonia?
EQ: In Patagonia. I went for one semester and then I met your father and we got
married, August 14 of 1950.
GQ: OK. So can you tell us a little bit about Lochiel, growing up in Lochiel and going
to school?
EQ: Uh, yes, it was a beautiful place, very peaceful, very safe. I liked to go to school,
play with my cousins. They were mostly all relatives and some of the people from
around the area. We used to go walking in the fields there and picking, uh, manzanitas,
and just looking at the flowers in the spring. It was very nice to grow in a small
community.
GQ: So you were number three of 9 children.
EQ: Yes.
GQ: And you had a lot of aunts and uncles who lived nearby. Besides who were the
families in Lochiel?
EQ: In Lochiel, on my dad's side was Alberto.
63
GQ: [Inaudible.] And he was married to -EQ: Licha.
GQ: Licha.
EQ: And that was in front of the school. Their house was in front of the school. There
was also Arturo and Lola and they were in front of the school too.
GQ: Alberto and Licha had how many kids?
EQ: Um, they had like 7 -- uh no, they had also 9. But two died, I think.
GQ: And they were about the same age as you?
EQ: Uh, yes. One of the girls, Gloria, was my age.
GQ: And then Arturo, you say?
EQ: Arturo was in front of the school, too, in the other house there.
GQ: And they had how many kids?
EQ: Uh, there are three, I believe. No, two boys and two girls.
GQ: And they're also about your same age?
EQ: Uh, younger. They were younger than myself. And then there was also Rosamel,
my uncle, and they had 12. And they did have a daughter that's my age, too, went to
school with me.
There was also my Tia Maria Sheeter, in the house that her parents used to live. She
didn't have any children. And there was Osvaldo and Cruzita. And they had, I believe
they had 8 children.
GQ: And they're also children your age?
EQ: There's a girl my age there, too. Uh, there was also Armida and Abel, my aunt and
uncle. They had six children, I believe, or seven. There were none my age. They were
younger. Younger. That's all the families that I can think of that were there, I guess.
GQ: So was all the relatives, then?
64
EQ: Mm, yes.
GQ: Nobody -EQ: Later on, the people moved from there in front of the school, there was apartments
for rent, a duplex, and there were other families that were coming there. Especially like
for Customs officer, used to live there. And there was a girl there, Louise Hopkins , that
was my friend who went to school with me. And some other families came. People
that were working at the mines at Washington Camp or Duquesne and they were
renting there.
GQ: They were renting there?
EQ: Mm-hmm.
GQ: Um, do you remember who they were?
EQ: Just this -- this is a Hopkins family, the only one that I remember.
GQ: Just the Hopkins. And that was also the Customs personnel?
EQ: Yes, well, this Hopkins family, he was from Customs.
GQ: OK, he worked for Customs.
EQ: Yeah, because they hadn't built the new house yet, so that's where they were living
when they came. Uh, there were some more families from people who worked the
mines, but I don't remember their names of the girls.
GQ: And who else worked for Customs during those 8 years that you lived in -EQ: Uh, Federico Valenzuela from Patagonia, he was the one that moved to the new
house when they made the new house.
GQ: He worked for Customs.
EQ: Yes. Until I guess they moved him to Naco, Arizona. That's why he left. And then
there were other people, Clarence Best and Helen Best. That's a family that I used to
work for when I was like 10 or 12, washing dishes. And then after that, they moved and
some other families came, and then, you know, we came to Patagonia and ….
65
GQ: OK. So, um, can you give us some of your memories of Patagonia, what you
remember? Uh, you were what, 13, when -EQ: I was 14.
GQ: 14 when you moved to Patagonia.
EQ: Yes. And, well actually, I was going to be 15. We came in July, and I was 15 in
September. Uh, yes, it was much smaller than what it is now. There were a lot of
students in the school and there used to be two grocery stores, I believe. And a
fountain, an ice cream fountain, a sandwich place, and the train was still coming. There
was -- um, the stock place there for the cattle or whatever, and also the trucks for the
mine were coming in with the ore. And uh, what else?
GQ: You helped a lot around the house? You were the oldest girls?
EQ: Yeah, we had to help. We had to help a lot around the house. There was a time
that, in front of us were, uh, the Mapes family and she did the Little Outfit clothes for
the boys’ ranch.
GQ: She did the laundry?
EQ: She did the laundry and my mother and myself helped her because it was too
much for her, for both of them. We used to help them to wash it then you know, get the
clothes ready for the boys’ ranch.
GQ: Did they have children, the Mapes?
EQ: They did. I don't remember how many, like 3 or 4 I guess, but they were all gone.
GQ: They were all older than you?
EQ: Yes. They were not there when we, they were by themselves when we moved
there. The children were grown and gone that they had. So, it was a very nice life with
our parents there, our whole family is there.
GQ: So this was the house on Pennsylvania, right? The house in Patagonia.
EQ: Yes, when I was there.
GQ: And how did you, how did grandpa find it?
EQ: Uh, he was looking for a rental because we were in Lochiel and somehow
66
somebody told him about that house, that it was for rent.
GQ: And who owned it?
EQ: A man, I don't remember his first name, but he was Gomez married to a lady
that's Kin (K-I-N is the last name), but they were in Mesa or Phoenix and they were
renting the house so that's why we moved there. Then they decided to sell it in a while
so that became -GQ: It was available on the market and grandfather and grandmother bought it?
EQ: Yes.
GQ: Can you tell us a little bit more about my grandfather, Avelino? What did he do?
EQ: Well, when we were in Lochiel -- that's what I mostly remember, from Lochiel on.
He used to work at the mines at times.
GQ: Which mines?
EQ: The one on, uh, Duquesne, I believe, and there's another one called Kansas mine,
the one going to Nogales. Those two. He also worked buying cattle, uh, let me see,
buying it in Mexico and import it to here is what he did after the mines. And then
when we came to Patagonia he did some construction work or help
GQ: He worked with Luis -EQ: Luis Valenzuela.
GQ: Mostly. And he worked on the elementary school, you said?
EQ: Yeah, he worked up on the top.
GQ: On the steeple?
EQ: Mm-hm, he remodeled it.
GQ: Any other places you remember that he worked at?
EQ: It was mostly ranches. He would do some, you know, odd jobs on ranches or
whatever, but that's the last jobs he did with the construction, with the ranches.
67
GQ: He also did, uh, pit barbeques?
EQ: Yeah. He could do the barbeque for the parties, the weddings, or whatever. He
was good for doing that. He had to retire kind of early because he fell and hurt himself- fell from a roof in Sonoita, I believe.
GQ: Mm-hm.
EQ: Mr. Douglas’ place is where he fell.
GQ: Oh, OK.
EQ: Yeah fell from a top of a roof and hurt his back or his ribs.
GQ: And your mother, my grandma?
EQ: Uh, well, she never worked away from home. She worked a lot at home. Over in
Lochiel we had a cow and my dad at that time, it was funny, he was doing cattle buying
and selling. So she had to milk and then my brother Manuel learned, Pete learned, I
wanted to learn, but I couldn't. I didn't learn. Then she had to do whatever with the
milk. We would sell it and then she would also make cheese, cottage cheese,
quesadillas, and she would be very busy washing, ironing. She would take in some,
some -GQ: Work.
EQ: Work. Yeah, she would do some work at home, plus all of us so she was a busy
lady all the time.
GQ: Mm-hm. You mentioned that she did some work for Edith, uh, Farrel at one time?
EQ: Uh, she would do wash for her. Yeah, she would do their wash and for all the
Custom people. She was doing it for the Valenzuela family there and all the people that
were working for the border or Customs, she would do their wash. Herself and another
lady in Mexico, Juana Diachea would take part of it because it was a lot for her, all the
laundry.
GQ: OK.
EQ: So, she was a busy lady. She worked a lot and made sure we had enough to eat
and clean clothes and made it to school.
68
GQ: OK. Do you remember much about Pearl Harbor Day? Do you remember what
you were doing?
EQ: Not too much. The only thing that I remember I was coming was from school and
Mr. Valenzuela I think was there, uh, standing front of his porch and he told me what
had happened. That's the way I found out.
GQ: This would have been a Monday maybe or a Tuesday?
EQ: Uh, whatever day it was. I was coming he told me that that's what had happened
because we didn't have a radio until in the 40's I believe. Probably during the war, you
know, maybe if we had the radio ready we would have found out later on when I got
home.
GQ: So you had a radio in Lochiel? Did it get -EQ: It was our first radio.
GQ: The reception was OK?
EQ: Um, I don't remember really well, but I think so. Yeah, but we did have a small
radio in the 40's when the war was on is when he bought it.
GQ: And did life change at all during the war for you guys?
EQ: At the time, well, I don't remember. I just don't remember, you know, if there
were any changes then. Well, one of the thing -- I could hear that they would say that
you couldn't buy enough sugar, you know?
GQ: It was rationed.
EQ: You rationed. And also the stockings for the ladies, there were not enough. And
there were probably more things that I don't remember what was rationed at the time,
but the sugar I remember was one of them.
GQ: Were you able to go across the line to get some groceries?
EQ: We could, you know, because Customs was open and we'd go.
GQ: So where’d you go to, Santa Cruz? Or would you go to -EQ: Yeah, we just got our sugar from Santa Cruz to begin with, I guess, but I knew that
69
people were having problems with not enough things that, you know, food that we
had, or water.
GQ: Mm-hm and you mentioned that one time the Buffalo Soldiers came to Lochiel?
EQ: Yes, that was during the war.
GQ: During World War II?
EQ: The Fort Huachuca soldiers came to do their maneuvers or whatever. It was a lot,
a lot, they invaded the whole Lochiel. Their camp was underneath the cemetery where
the chapel is now, in that area, but they went up to the monument. They were doing
things up to the monument and behind there. Well their train and their maneuvers
were behind the monument, you know, that area in the back.
GQ: How many? Do you have any idea how many?
EQ: No, I don't have any idea.
GQ: But there were a lot.
EQ: A lot, a lot.
GQ: And you were how old? Maybe 10 or 12 or-EQ: I could have been 10 or 12, yeah, and I knew there was a lot of commotion with
them going on. They used the road, but they were careful. They would let people walk
or cars pass, but they had like wires on the side of the road all over the place.
GQ: Like barbed wire?
EQ: No, it’s whatever they were using for communications or something, I think is
what it was. But for some reason, I didn't feel safe. Like, if I had to go from the school
to my house I went through the arroyo and also to Armida because she was up here
next to Tio Valo’s. I would go to the arroyo because, I don't know, I knew there were so
many people and it was strange to us or whatever happened there.
But my brother, Pete, became real close friends with them. After dinner he would go
talk to them and help them out with whatever they needed. Brought one time one of
the officers to the house to write a letter to his family. And things like that he would
help. Also, he tells me that he would steal some wood from my dad's pile and sell it to
them for their fire -70
GQ: Campfires and stuff?
EQ: Yeah, campfires. They also would give him the leftovers of their cans.
GQ: With food?
EQ: With food, yeah, he became real good friends with them.
GQ: Do you remember how long they stayed?
EQ: It was couple of months I would say, but I don't know for sure. It could have been
2 or 3 months or more.
GQ: Did they come back or was it just that one time?
EQ: That one time. Only one time. It was in the winter, they might have come January
or February. They left by close to spring or spring. They were a few months there,
yeah.
GQ: Was it different going from Lochiel to Patagonia for school or was there any, you
know?
EQ: Uh, well, the difference was, yes, that there were many many more students,
many many more people that I didn't know because Lochiel was only family mostly,
and a few people from the ranches that we knew. So I was nervous. I was nervous to
go to school, you know, in a bigger town and with a lot more people, more things to do.
GQ: So, but the school was where the Doctor Mock clinic is now?
EQ: No, I went to the one where it is now.
GQ: Oh, where it is now.
EQ: Uh-huh, it was made out of barracks from Fort Huachuca and that's the first one
that I went to, yeah. It was brand new, they had just made it, and -GQ: Do you remember your teachers at the high school?
EQ: Uh, the high school was Mr. Hammond was the coach, and I forget what, you
know, what he was teaching me. Also, Mister – I think was English was his last name.
The one that I don't forget is Mrs. Douglas, my Home Ec teacher. Mrs. Seibold, Miss
Seibold, she also was my library teacher and I don't remember the other ones.
71
GQ: Do you remember the ones in Lochiel?
EQ: Yes, in Lochiel was, well, Mrs. Yeary was the first one. Marie Yeary. Then there
was Ms. Young, which I think she's Oliver now, or she was Oliver. Ms. Young has
something to do with the Oliver family. And there was Rosalie, I forget her last name,
but her first name was Rosalie. There was Mrs. Woods from Elgin, the Wood family
from Elgin, and my last one was a retired teacher from McNeal, Arizona. They couldn't
find a teacher for that year and she had retired and volunteered to come, and I think she
worked like two years there. And she was, um, I don't remember her name for sure,
but she was also our Home Ec teacher. After all the kids went home she would take us
to her house and show us how to bake. She helped us how to make banana bread, and
it was very sweet of her to come and help out because otherwise, I guess, I would have
had to go to Patagonia. I don't know what they would have done with us. It was my
last year and she came to help us.
GQ: So, was the teacherage already there, that building beside the school?
EQ: Yes, that's where she was living, her and her husband.
GQ: So that's where you guys went for your, for your Home Ec?
EQ: Yes, in the kitchen there we learned how to make the banana bread with her. I
think she stayed one more year.
GQ: After you graduated?
EQ: Yeah, because like I said she was a retired teacher already who came to help out.
GQ: OK. So, what was life like in Patagonia then? You went to school for a couple
years, or -EQ: No, I just went for half a semester.
GQ: Half a semester and then you -EQ: I got out because I knew we were gonna get married so I got out and started
working.
GQ: Where?
EQ: Well, housework -- doing laundry for people there in Patagonia and also
babysitting, that's what I was doing too, before we got married. Like I said, my mom
72
took some laundry from other people there, too, and I would help her with that.
GQ: Who would you babysit for, do you remember?
EQ: It’s a Jones family. There were, uh, as you go to the Trench Mine -- that road there,
you see it, well it was there is not there anymore. It was the Jones family, and they had
a pair of twins and they had I think about two more older children and then she was
pregnant again and she needed help, so I went there. I didn't stay too long because it
was too much for me, and one of the twins was sick and it was hard because he was
sick.
So anyway, I did some babysitting for your father's sister, Tichi. I took care of Prissy a
little bit, not much, but I took care of her too.
GQ: What would my Aunt Tichi be doing? She was working?
EQ: No, actually, they used to give dances I guess to make more money or whatever
they gave some dances, that's why I would take care of her.
GQ: This was my Aunt Tichi? At the opera house?
EQ: And Chapo, yeah, at the opera house.
GQ: What would they do? How would they--?
EQ: They brought a music orquesta from some place, I don't know where, and I think
they did well when they did that.
GQ: This would be on a Saturday night?
EQ: It was Saturday night that they would do that and Prissy was only less than a
year. She was asleep, I just had to be there when she was asleep.
GQ: And what other kind of work did you do then?
EQ: Uh . . . oh, I did some housework for the Best family, the Customs people in
Lochiel, housekeeping, washing windows, washing dishes, and just helping her with
the house. I went there for one week I guess and stayed there and helped her. I stayed
with my aunt and uncle, Arturo and Lola from school there and then I was working
over there.
GQ: So when you were in Patagonia you went back to Lochiel to work?
73
EQ: Uh, yes.
GQ: OK, for a little while?
EQ: Yeah, I would have stayed more but your father kept asking my mom if he could
go get me and she said yes so he went to get me. Because there were no phones. The
only phone was the one at the office.
GQ: At Customs?
EQ: Yes, they only had that one so we couldn't communicate for a week or whatever,
and he kept calling and finally he said he had already asked my mom if it was alright to
get me and he did. He brought me back so I stayed only one week I guess, but
anyway...
GQ: So was this Best family related to the Ernest Best by here?
EQ: No, no.
GQ: They were not related?
EQ: They came from Chicago or something. Uh, they are the family they were owners
later of Zula's in Nogales. Her sister and her opened a restaurant so the people came
from Chicago or something I guess and he was with Customs.
GQ: And, well, let me see. Do you have any other memories of your childhood that
would go, like you say you had a lot of cousins with you.
EQ: Yeah, we did, like on Sunday there wasn't much to do and no stores, so we would
walk to Washington Camp to buy a soda or a candy bar.
GQ: And from Lochiel you would walk to Washington Camp which was what, about 5
or 10 miles at least?
EQ: I think it was 5 miles or more, one way.
GQ: That would take all day?
EQ: Yes. It was mostly Sunday afternoon that we'd go for the soda and the candy. It
was all of my cousins and myself, we would do that.
74
GQ: So, were there stores in Lochiel, too?
EQ: Uh, no, there was none there. Not when I grew up it was years ago, but not when
I was there. No, this was the one in Washington Camp.
GQ: There was a store there?
EQ: Mm-hm.
GQ: Who ran the store?
EQ: George Gerard was his name, the owner. He had a gas station or a gas pump and
also store. And that’s where we -- that was the closest store, Santa Cruz or Lochiel.
GQ: Mm-hm.
EQ: But I think it was closer to [inaudible].
GQ: Santa Cruz was about 8 miles from Lochiel?
EQ: No, Santa Cruz was 9 I think, and I think Washington Camp was 5, it was closer.
So we would go on Sundays just for a walk and also to buy our goodies there.
GQ: Where would you get the money for your -EQ: I guess my mom would give it to me, I guess our parents, you know. It was only a
dime I guess or whatever, the soda or the candy.
GQ: What would you get for a dime, some candy or-EQ: I probably got the candy because I never have liked soda, so I'm pretty sure I got
the candy.
GQ: And who would go with you usually?
EQ: It was Emelina, Elisa, Gloria, I imagine Inez, too; it was mostly us girls that would
go for that.
GQ: Were there any dances in Lochiel?
EQ: In Lochiel, never. In Washington Camp, that's where my uncle, Antonio De la
Ossa did some ranches, some dances. He used to live there and had a big, what do you
call it? Floor for a dance, and he would do that.
75
GQ: In his house?
EQ: It was his house, yeah, and a big dance floor. He had the dances and my Tia Licha
would take the menudo and tamales and sell the food. And Bob Tuller was the man
that furnished the music.
GQ: He had a band?
EQ: Uh, no, I think it was tapes or whatever. It wasn't a live band.
GQ: No?
EQ: No, it wasn't a live band. And since it was the only one there in those years, there
was a lot of people. My Tia did real good with her food. She would sell everything,
menudo, the tortillas, and I think menudo and tamales and I think she took empanadas
too, coffee, and other -GQ: Would you go? Were you there?
EQ: I would go with her.
GQ: To help her?
EQ: No, with the girls because the girls went to, you know, just to see the dance. We
wouldn't dance; we would just sit down and watch. Also sometimes I was in the
kitchen with her helping her because I would go over there. Later on they also did
some at the school in Washington Camp. I remember one there.
GQ: Was it a live band then, or-EQ: I don't even remember, but I think so because it was later on and there was those
two places. There used to be some in Harshaw but I never went there.
GQ: Dances?
EQ: Mm-hm. There was also dances there, but not in Lochiel.
GQ: Mm-hmm. But nothing ever happened at the ranches or that big ranch house or
anything?
EQ: Um, no, the only thing I can remember from that house was during Christmas my
76
great grandma, Carolina, would have a Christmas party for the family and we would
come. She had her big tree and we would get some goodies, you know, a toy and a bag
with fruit and candy and nuts.
GQ: This is Carolina De la Ossa?
EQ: Mm-hm. Yeah, my great grandma and that's what I remember, but it’s when I
was 5 and 6 I believe only.
GQ: So this would be on Christmas Eve?
EQ: Yeah, uh-huh, well it could be a few days before Christmas.
GQ: Mm-hm. Then all the De la Ossas would come to this?
EQ: Yes, and even whoever wasn't a De la Ossa was there because I remember the
Alvarez family, they were not related to us, they were related to my aunt, you know,
Cruzita, but that family was there too. So anybody around the area could come to those
Christmas parties that she gave us.
GQ: Mm-hm. With the music or-EQ: No, I think we probably sang Christmas songs, I guess, and I don't know what else
we did, but there was probably food served too, but I don't remember. Like I said, I
was only 5 and I just remember the bag of the goodies and the toys that I would get.
And it was a lot of people because everybody there and it was a big room, a big tree.
GQ: You mentioned one time about the Heredias, they would play music?
EQ: That was at my uncle, Mel, Rosamel, the house where Ramon lives now.
GQ: Oh, right near the international border?
EQ: Actually they started when they built that house, they wanted to have a big party
when the house was finished.
GQ: This was your uncle, Rosamel?
EQ: Yeah, in the kitchen or the porch because it was a big porch or a long kitchen in
the winter so he wanted a big party and the Heredias came to play. It was Jesus,
Esquipula, and José.
77
GQ: Mm-hm. This was around when, what year?
EQ: Uh, it was in the 40's I would say because we were still there, so it was in the 40's.
GQ: You were still there in Lochiel, and you remember the party?
EQ: Yeah, he would have, barbeque beef I guess, and I don't know what else, cake and
a big party.
GQ: So do you remember the party, then, with the Hererias playing?
EQ: I remember them playing, yeah, and there was three brothers.
GQ: Three brothers?
EQ: Yeah. One of them played the accordion and Jesus was the guitar, I think. His
brother might have been the one with the accordion and the other two with guitar.
GQ: Mm-hm.
EQ: And then they just played for people to dance.
GQ: And a lot of people came?
EQ: Yes. Like I said, they could have it, if it was in the summer in the porch, and then
if it was cold it was in the kitchen because he had more than one party. He had the first
one when the house was ready, but then then for birthdays and stuff he kept giving
more parties.
GQ: Call on the Heredias to come and play?
EQ: Yeah, come and play. Mm-hm.
GQ: So did he have a house somewhere else or is this the first house?
EQ: No, that's his house. Oh, no, yes before he did. It’s a house that was next to the
school, it’s not there anymore. It was to the right from the school, that's where he -GQ: Toward the border or away from the border?
EQ: Uh, the school was right here and the house was -78
GQ: Away from the border, on the other side.
EQ: Yeah, like coming into Lochiel. And it’s some property that his parents gave him
and he built the house when he was going to get married. It was a big house because
they had a lot of children.
GQ: This is the house that is now or the one before?
EQ: No, the one he had before it was big too, but I think it had been there for years. I
don't know if he built it or it was there probably, that's why he had to make a new one
and move.
GQ: Because wasn't that the Carey homestead around the school house?
EQ: Um, it is, but I think this one was given to him, that property there, because
actually now it belongs to his daughter and now to the granddaughter, so it was his
property.
GQ: It was, OK.
EQ: Yeah, just next to the school, to the right.
GQ: Right.
EQ: Right, several acres there, or lots or whatever, ‘cause also to the back.
GQ: And Rosamel was the youngest of the De la Ossa of Carolina and Antonia's
children. He's the youngest son.
EQ: Yes.
GQ: OK. Um, do you remember any, see there was Clotilde -- Carey was already gone
when you were little? Do you remember her, was she still alive?
EQ: Um, I don't remember her, no.
GQ: No?
EQ: No, I don’t. I've just seen pictures of her, but I don't remember her.
GQ: Mm-hm, but do you remember your great grandmother, Carolina?
EQ: Yeah, I remember her since she was there in Lochiel I guess. But Clotilde wasn't
79
there anymore, that's the reason I didn't get to see her.
GQ: Oh, where had she gone?
EQ: Well, she was married and I think she was in Washington, DC, back East, she was
back East, yeah. And, but, my great grandma was there.
GQ: So, great grandma Carolina had at least 12 children that we know of, although my
aunt Lydia says there’s 13. But anyway, how many of the, do you remember -EQ: Of my uncles?
GQ: Your uncles and aunts. Who do you remember?
EQ: Well starting from my grandfather -GQ: Osvaldo. Uh-huh.
EQ: Osvaldo. Then Tio Antonio.
GQ: OK, so what was Osvaldo like? What do you remember about him?
EQ: White hair, tall, and not, not heavy, just well-built and tall.
GQ: Mm-hm. Do you remember what he did? Was he retired?
EQ: Um, what I remember he used to, like, mining claims. That's what he went to do
in Washington Camp, with the mines or mining claims. And then it was Abel.
GQ: Abel?
EQ: Abel, Abel's father.
GQ: What did he do or what do you remember about him?
EQ: I don't remember what he did, I mean, when we went there he was up in years.
He wasn't in good health.
GQ: No?
EQ: He was kind of sick so he wasn't in good health anymore. Then there was, well,
let's see, well, there's Clotilde and Costanza, but the only one I did see is Costanza.
80
GQ: So you knew your aunt [inaudible] -EQ: She came because she had a little girl that used to play with Carolina, my cousin,
and she used to come and stay at Tia Maria's house. That's the one I remember.
GQ: Who did Costanza marry?
EQ: Uh, I don't remember her last name.
GQ: Where did she come from when she came to visit?
EQ: L.A.
GQ: She came from L.A.?
EQ: Yeah, we have the name of the daughter and we've talked to her in the reunions
and I forget her name, but she lives in some place around the L.A. area. That's
Costanza's daughter. She only had one daughter.
GQ: OK.
EQ: And she has a son, and her son comes with her to the reunions. The last De la
Ossa reunion, your father and myself talked to her.
GQ: OK.
EQ: So anyway, and then there was Maria, Maria Sheeter, and the other brothers.
Well, a lot of them were gone when I was born, from what I remember, because there
were some more. There was Ernesto.
GQ: Where did he go, end up?
EQ: Well he died kind of young I think of pneumonia or something. He's buried there
in Lochiel.
GQ: Mm-hm.
EQ: Ernesto.
GQ: So you don't remember him at all, just that he was sick?
EQ: No, just that my mom used to tell me that he died kind of young and he was there
81
in Lochiel, buried.
GQ: OK.
EQ: So, I don't remember the other brothers, but I guess that's about it I guess, Abel,
Antonio.
GQ: So Osvaldo, Abel, and Rosamel.
EQ: Oh, Rosamel. Yeah, I forgot Rosamel.
GQ: Mm-hm, you talked about him.
EQ: Yeah.
GQ: OK, let's take a little break here.
EQ: OK.
[Break]
GQ: OK, so um, you met my father in July or summer of -EQ: November.
GQ: November of '49?
EQ: Of '49.
GQ: OK, and you got married -EQ: August of 1950.
GQ: OK, and you guys eloped, you went to Bisbee -EQ: Yeah, with our parents’ permission, we eloped.
GQ: With parents’ permission, you went to Bisbee, got married, came back home. Um,
dad was working -EQ: At the store.
GQ: At the store.
82
EQ: At the grocery store.
GQ: At the grocery store, and you had to rent an apartment.
EQ: There was an apartment there on the main street.
GQ: Next to -EQ: Pancho Lama's apartment.
GQ: Close to where Mercedes' restaurant is now.
EQ: Mercedes', yeah.
GQ: OK, so um, what was life like back then?
EQ: Uh, well, I had to learn how to cook because I didn't know how to cook! And it
was a good life. Of course, he wasn't getting a lot of money.
GQ: At the grocery store?
EQ: At the grocery store.
GQ: He was a meat cutter?
EQ: Yes, uh-huh, and we wanted to save some money to build a house so that's when
Chica and your uncle Dave told us to move in with them, you know, so we could save
the money sooner to build the house. So that's what we did.
GQ: OK.
EQ: Before you were born, we moved in with them in that extra room there and they
started the house sooner.
GQ: So when were you able to acquire the property then, that you -EQ: Uh, probably around the time we were still at the apartment, because we knew
where we were going to build, only that we couldn't. We didn’t have the money to
build.
GQ: To build, Mm-hm.
83
EQ: We had to wait until, you know, they helped us out but then theyhelped us out,
and we were able to start the house then.
GQ: So it was my grandma Chica that helped you, taught you how to cook?
EQ: Yeah.
GQ: Do you remember what she taught you to cook?
EQ: Well, mostly everything because her beans and everything, she did them
different and better. And also empanadas and the pies, I used to do those two before,
and I would watch what she was doing and learn ‘cause my mom, she liked to do it
herself. She wanted us to take care of the kids or something else, but the cooking she
liked to do it herself.
When she realized I was gonna get married then, she was busy trying to teach me
‘cause she knew that I was going to have to learn. But I learned pretty quick.
GQ: Was Grandma Chica a good teacher?
EQ: Yeah, ‘cause she knew, well, she had done that for years, so she had a lot of
secrets to the cooking and whatever. That’s the way I learned.
GQ: OK. What kind of secrets do you remember?
EQ: Adding water to a roast and stuff like that -- adding water, even to the ground
beef, like when you’re gonna make stuffing. She said that the water would make the
difference in the moisture of the meat and things like that.
GQ:
OK. So, you lived with my Grandma Chica at her house for --
EQ:
We moved there in March, I think, and we were there until October.
GQ:
OK. So, you were already pregnant at the time?
EQ: Yes, I was pregnant and also not doing too well. I was very sick to my stomach
and stuff. So, anyway, by October when you came, we were at the house already, but
we didn’t have any gas. We had electricity, but no gas, and it was a month that was
very cold in October. We didn’t even have the drapes yet.
GQ:
Of 1951.
EQ:
1951 -- where the floors weren’t covered. It was just bare cement. So, when you
84
came, your father had to put some blankets on the window in the bedroom and put
some blankets on the floor for me to put my feet because we weren’t quite ready.
[Laughing.] You came a little bit early, about two weeks early.
But the house was built and the natural gas company was giving us a hard time. They
didn’t wanna extend the line. They gave us problems. He had to go talk to somebody to
help us because Grandma Chica had to still cook for us and give us food already made
because we didn’t have gas. We just had electricity and that was it.
And like I say, it was a very cold month, October. Anyway, we moved into our brand
new house. When you were born, we were there already and pretty soon, we got a little
dog for you, I guess. Limpi [sp?].
GQ:
Did we have livestock then at that time?
EQ: Yes. I don’t remember with you, but I know by the time Rosie was born, we did
have a cow.
GQ:
In 1953?
EQ: Yeah, we did have a cow. Because see, first, we didn’t have the other property, the
one on Harshaw. We got it by the time Rosie was born. That’s when we had it.
GQ: Didn’t we have chickens?
EQ: Oh, yeah, we had chickens and, uh, just chickens, I guess. Because he wanted to
get a pig and a cow, and that’s the reason the town wouldn’t allow. He said, “No, not
in town anymore.” They used to, before, I guess.
GQ: So, we had chickens in the backyard there, up on the hill?
EQ: Yeah, and then the chicken coop was up in the little hill there. And that’s all we
had, I guess, were chickens and the dog, maybe. And it was a hard life. We didn’t have
running water inside. We had to get the water from the well.
GQ: There was a well outside?
EQ: When I was gonna wash, your father had to get the water out the night before.
And then I had the old fashioned washer. Not automatic. And my mom would come
to help me do the wash, and your dad would help us with the water, get it out, because
it was many buckets of water that we needed.
85
GQ: How would you heat the water then?
EQ: I think we used to make the bonfire on the property with some rocks and put the
tub of water in the back of the house. We did that and, like I say, there were a lot of
things that had to be done the hard way, the hard way, yeah. But anyway, that’s where
we did our life for some years.
GQ: So, you had your sisters, would they come over, Clotilde?
EQ: Yeah, they were younger than myself, but they would come over. They would
help at least like babysitting – you know, help me with the little one or whatever and
then kind of help me with that. And then when we moved to the other house, it was
more work for me because there was a cow and even though I didn’t milk the cow, I
had to do things with the milk to make the cottage cheese, the quesadillas, whatever.
And I also used to sell some, too, and there were the chickens and there was something
going on all day, you know, with the pigs as well. We had the pig and it was a lot of
work.
GQ: So, what would you do with the milk? You would make cottage cheese, you say?
EQ: Yes, and quesadillas. I would sell the quesadillas.
GQ: You would sell the quesadillas in town or -EQ: I don’t even remember who bought them. I think the family was buying them, the
family, and I think it was Lee Kuhn that bought some milk, because I remember the son
coming for the milk. I don’t remember who else would buy some fresh milk because
we had a lot from the cow.
GQ: So, who were our neighbors there in Harshaw Road?
EQ: At that time, it was the Bentleys just on one side and the [sounds like: Naygies] on
the other side. And in the front, there was mostly not – well, there was a trailer court, a
few trailers. Where the trailer court is now, it used to be a space for trailers. There were
a few. There was a man there, Mr. Brown, that used to work with the bird sanctuary. It
had something to do with the forest or the birds, and there were not too many people.
GQ: How about that old house across the street, further down?
EQ: The Sinouhis house? I don’t remember who lived there. It might have been empty
at the time, because the Sinouhis used to live there, but by the time we moved, I guess
they were gone. It could have been a rental or empty at the time.
86
GQ: And beyond that, heading toward Lee Kuhn’s place?
EQ: Well, just the Kuhns were the other neighbors and our friends. He helped us a lot,
he would help us a lot, like when your father had to come to work here and we still had
the cow. Lee Kuhn’s son used to go milk the cow.
GQ: Johnny?
EQ: Yeah, because I didn’t know how to milk. So anyway, yeah, it was good life, but
hard.
GQ: That was in the mid, well, fifty-, well, when did we move to the other house –
1954 or 55?
EQ: Rosie was like three, I think.
GQ: So, it would have been ’56?
EQ: ’56. I think that’s when we moved to the other, until -GQ: ’58?
EQ: ’58 that we came here. Yeah, so anyway.
GQ: By that time, dad was working in the mines?
EQ: Here, mm-hm.
GQ: But he was also working at the mines in Patagonia?
EQ: Yeah. Well, he worked at the store until Mr. Wilson moved. He sold the store and
moved to Benson, and he wanted him to go with him, but your father didn’t want to
move. So, that’s when he had to get the job at the mine. He did odd jobs. He fought
fires and did the movies and whatever in between, and then he found this job in the
mine and stayed there until they closed.
GQ: So, the movies was the chickens that he rented out, leased out, to one of the
movies for extras or whatever, in Elgin?
EQ: In Elgin, with the chickens.
87
GQ: That was before the mines then?
EQ: Yes. When he first was left with no job, he went to fight some fires. It was a fire
that was during the summer and he went to do that. And then they asked him about
the -- I think Mike Knagge is the one that told him they needed some chickens and he
wanted to go work. So, that’s what he did.
GQ: So, he would take them and bring them back each day?
EQ: Every day, yeah, he had to take them.
GQ: And bring them back?
EQ: And all he had to do was take care of them when he was there, take care of the
chickens. I guess pretty soon after that’s when he got the job at the mine.
GQ: OK. Well, do you remember anything else about those years?
EQ: No. You know, like I say, they’re hard but you survive, you know, and you had to
learn. I was too young, you know, but I got married and I had to learn a lot of things.
GQ: How old were you when you got married?
EQ: I was 17. I was gonna be 17 when I got married. When you were born, I was 18.
When your sister was born, I was 20. So, that’s awful young, I’d say. But we survive
and learn to live on and enjoy life, I guess.
GQ: Well, thank you.
EQ: You’re welcome. How long was it? Like, an hour?
GQ: Yeah.
88
Interview 4
George Proctor
George Proctor was born in Tucson and was raised on north side Santa Rita
Mountain ranches. George served in World War II, worked as a Forest Service
Ranger and when he retired served as a Santa Cruz County Supervisor. George
authored a book, A Profile of Survival, detailing his life in the Santa Rita
Mountains and his time as a forest ranger.
89
George Proctor
May 19, 2011
Patagonia, Arizona
German Quiroga: We’re at the home of George Proctor here in Patagonia, Arizona.
Today is May 19, 2011. And George, we thank you for letting us reinterview you. We interviewed you last year and now this is part two of
— I’ve found that when you do oral histories, actually you do one session
— You can’t get everybody’s oral history done in one session, although
we try. But like I said, I mentioned to you before I like to focus on your
experience as a veteran here in Arizona and also being raised as a
minority here in Arizona, what your experiences were. If I recall you
were born in Tucson, Arizona.
George Proctor: It is, that’s right, but because I was the third trip of eight.
GQ:
You were the third trip of eight?
GP:
My mother used to go before she delivered. She went down for medical
reasons and come back when — after we were born.
GQ:
Okay. You were born in 1918.
GP:
1918.
GQ:
Okay. Okay. So your mother would only go to town when she was going
to give birth? She didn’t—?
GP:
That’s right.
GQ:
She- Otherwise she wasn’t--didn’t go to Tucson just to visit or...?
GP:
No.
GQ:
Or go shopping?
GP:
Yes, she just went in, and like I said, I was the third trip of eight.
GQ:
[LAUGHTER] Who was the doctor? Do you know?
GP:
Different doctors. I don’t know.
GQ:
Different doctors for all eight of you children--of your siblings, right?
GP:
Yeah.
90
GQ:
And you grew up in the Santa Ritas. Up at a ranch?
GP:
Santa Ritas and we came out by buggy, came into Helvetia and then to the
Box Canyon Ranch. My granddad was in there and then later on, two or
three years later, we moved over to Madera Canyon. My dad
homesteaded a place in Madera Canyon.
GQ:
Did you feel a sense of being a minority member then or were everybody
all around you Hispanic?
GP:
No. I didn’t feel that we had any discrimination then, really, because we
were the dominant culture and there were very few Anglos at
Continental. I went through the eighth grade at Continental and then I
went to Roskruge for the ninth grade and then high school in Tucson,
senior high school, and then I graduated from the University of Arizona
and then I had a year...yeah. A year at a graduate college.
I was a gonna come back and finish, but I was offered a job in Mexico with
a Hoof and Mouth Disease Program, so I took it. But when I was released
to finish on my Masters, I was been pretty far behind even though I had
been approved and registered for to finish up on my Masters. I did not
finish my Masters.
GQ:
That was on Range Land Management?
GP:
Range Ecology.
GQ:
Range Ecology. Okay.
GP:
Yes.
GQ:
Okay. When you went- At Tucson High, was the dominant culture
Mexican or was it Anglo American or-?
GP:
No. It was very well mixed and then the Blacks, they had the Dunbar
School up through the 8th grade I believe. But there was no high school
for the Blacks; they were integrated. They went to the Tucson High.
GQ:
They went to Tucson High with you?
GP:
Yes.
GQ:
You graduated about 1935-’36?
GP:
‘35.
91
GQ:
Okay. Then you went to the U of A right after that?
GP:
I went— I should make a correction. I believe it was ‘37 and then I was
gonna get a job and forget about going any further in school and Mother
said, “No, you’re gonna go on. You’re doing okay so you’re gonna go to
the university.” And she talked to me and she didn’t convince me but I
decided that I would comply and go through the university, but I was a
senior at the university when the Draft Bill came through, and I believe
that was when — 16th of September in 1941.
And then I was drafted. I had two older brothers that volunteered for the
Air Force and they were trying to get me to volunteer for the Air Force but
I wouldn’t volunteer for anything. Then I got drafted and then I went to
Tucson and then I was sent to El Paso, Fort Bliss, Texas. And then they—
because of my IQ —I don’t know what it was but anything over 100
they’d try to get you to get into the Air Force.
And I had to sign up for three years; I would not sign up for three years
but — it shows my intelligence — I would not sign up for three years in
Air Force but I spent four years in the Infantry [LAUGHS] and the War
came in and I was supposed to be in there for a year. Then Pearl Harbor
came in, and then by the 1st of March in 1942, I was on a transport going
overseas and I came back after the war. I believe it was ‘37 since it was
September 1945. So I spent three years, six months, and twenty-seven
days in the Pacific in the Infantry. And I should say that we’re five boys
in the family.
GQ:
The Proctors?
GP:
Yeah. All of us were in the Armed Services during the War, but the two
younger ones did not go overseas. The two older ones, one was in IndoChina, I was in the Southwest Pacific and the other one in Africa and
Europe. But the two younger ones were in the Services but they did not
go overseas.
Ralph Schmitt: You all came home?
GP:
All of us came home and I was the only one that was wounded in action.
RS:
Which was lucky, just one out of five.
GQ:
Yeah, yeah. So were you still at the university when you got drafted?
92
GP:
I came back and I registered. I was released in October 1945 and I
registered in January of ‘46 and I graduated May of ‘46. So I went to
school six months on the GI Bill. And then I was in a graduate college for
‘46 and ‘47 and then I went to Mexico with a Hoof and Mouth Disease
Program. I was a Livestock Evaluation Specialist. In other words I was
just a plain appraiser!
GQ:
How did you land that job?
GP:
Well, they were looking for bilingual people and that had ranch experience and I
heard about it and it was the — Well I knew the Ronstadts. They were very
much involved and they helped me out and I went into Mexico.
GQ:
Okay. And how did you get started your Forest Service career? How did
that get started?
GP:
Well I had been on summer jobs, temporary appointments and in fact I
went to one fire just to visit because my dad was on a fighting fire on the
Coronado on the Santa Rita District. And I rode in and figured that I’d get
a free meal. I knew the cooks and everybody, the camp boss. They fed me
but they put me to work!
RS:
Put a shovel in your hand, huh? [LAUGHTER].
GP:
I was under age but then I was hauling water with mules and horses from
down below to the base camp and then later on, during the same fire, I
was hauling water from the base camp to the fire lines. And I was under
age but that was in 1933.
GQ:
So you were 15, más o menos, right? So was it up in the Santa Ritas, the
fire? What area? Do you remember?
GP:
Yes. Pretty close to the... where do they call it...? Rock Canyon Cabin.
GQ:
Rock Canyon Cabin. Okay. Was it a big fire then?
GP:
It was a good size fire but it wasn’t a big one. And I was getting free
lunch and I was getting paid 45 cents an hour.
GQ:
That was pretty good. That started- That launched your career in the
Forest Service then basically, that time spent hauling water. And how
many mules did your entourage-
GP:
I think I had four, four mules.
GQ:
And what kind of buckets or bags?
93
GP:
Had 5 gallon drums, wooden drums hanging from the pack saddle and I
believe that I had two 2 gallon kegs from, hanging from the pack saddle
also, so I had about 14 gallons of water. But same thing, when I was a little
kid, I used to—
GQ:
Used it with your moonshine run, right? [LAUGHTER]
GP:
I used to moonshine and sometimes I delivered 10 gallons of mescal.
Sometimes I had 14 gallons of mescal. They’d scouted the area for me; I
knew where I was going; and I’d go 5, 10 miles on a trail where I was
going to make a delivery. So my early experience of helping on mescal
paid off. [LAUGHS]
GQ:
It worked right into that job then. You’d had experience. So you worked
in Mexico for a while as a livestock appraiser. Then did you land a job
with the Forest Service after that or did you go back to school?
GP:
I was going to finish up on my Masters Degree, but I had to have
authorization from Washington Office, Department of Agriculture and the
Mexico City Office and they fiddled around and I would have been
behind about 30 days in catching up on a Masters Degree and the
graduate college would have been pretty rough. So I went to work and I
decided that I’d go to work and then finish up, but I never did.
I flew from Mexico City to Albuquerque and I knew there was a job
opening on the Carson in Taos. So I took the bus over to Taos and I got
the job and I went back on a bus to Albuquerque and flew into Tucson
and Madera Canyon. And I brought my wife and I had a kid, my oldest
boy, the one that just passed away the other day.
GQ:
He was with you then, at that time? So you started your career about
1948/’49 with the Forest Service?
GP:
‘49 I think.
GQ:
Okay. And you relate a lot of your experiences about the Forest Service in
your book. My favorite one is about, “Isn’t he going to ask us for a cup of
coffee when you’re son says” and you had some kind of confrontation.
Right? And then your son says, “Is he going to invite us for coffee?” and
then it kind of broke the tension. Right?
GP:
That was a- I was a Ranger in the Mount Taylor, and that had to be when
Governor Mecham passed an order because we had a severe burning
94
condition that there were no operating sawmills in the forest or state land.
He passed an order that there’d be no burning and no operation or
sawmill operation on state lands or forest lands.
And so Nash Garcia was a State Police and he called me up and he says, “I
want to see you.” And he told me about the order with Governor
Mecham. He says that he couldn’t go to all these operations. But there
was one — there was no communications with the northeast end of Mt.
Taylor and there was a mill operating in there.
So I had to go in after hours and talk to the boss in there, closing it down.
Governor says no more cutting. And then he got a little rough and I just
set back here. I had taken my boy — that just died the other day.
GQ:
Young George, yeah.
GP:
Yeah. I had taken my boy and he was just listening. So finally the boss
was the owner of the whole operation was a little on the rough side.
Finally my boy says, “Say Daddy, don’t you think that this guy should
offer us a cup of coffee?” [LAUGHTER]
And by golly, that changed the subject. Changed the subject and he said,
“Okay, come on in.” And he had a shack up there. He offered us a cup of
coffee. And he says, “I’ll comply.” [00:19:53 George clapped his hands
once.] “Will you let me know when we can start operating again?” The
kid changed.
But my first Ranger District was the Jacarilla on the Carson. That was
about 27 miles out of Dulce, about 177 miles from Taos. And the boy was
out there and the Indians used to ride through. Now the State has a
highway through there, but it was just an old country road, graded once a
year. And the Indians used to go by, “Hey you guys! Come in for a cup
of coffee.” So now the Apaches had been giving coffee. My kid was
inviting him for coffee. [LAUGHTER].
GQ:
Are there any times in life — We have days, moments, of history that kind
of stand out for us. What would be like your moment in history or a
special moment? Like well, for this generation it’s going to be 9/11.
Everybody’s going to remember what they did on 9/11. I still remember
where I was when JFK got assassinated. And so was Pearl Harbor, that
Sunday, was that something that you will always remember, that Pearl
Harbor Day? Or was there another day like that that you can remember?
95
GP:
I was at Camp Roberts, California, Camp Roberts and I hadn’t been there
too long because I was drafted in October ‘41 and you know this was in
December.
GQ:
Right.
GP:
And we had had breakfast and one thing, it bothered me. I never smoked,
never smoked in my life but I used to go out there with the rest of
the...[George pauses]
GQ:
Well, smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em.
GP:
There’s the last- Next to the smokers, I’d pick up cigarette butts and pick
up cigarette butts. There were the first duties we had to do, pick up
cigarette butts. Then we went to, oh... Then I went to Fort Lewis,
Washington, but after Pearl Harbor we had one alert after the other. And
they’d call us up middle of the night and we’d dress in a big hurry and go
over to the staging area, get up there and waste a lot of time middle of the
night.
But one time we had an alert in the middle of the night and we had to jog,
get up there in the staging area and there was one guy loafing in the dark
and I slowed down and thought I’d keep him company and he says,
“Okay by God, you can go faster than that!” And he was right because I
made dust and I left him alone. He was my Platoon Sergeant!
[LAUGHTER]. But he was a guy that had spent his career figuring out
how he could develop an opportunity to torment the recruits.
GQ:
Motivate them.
GP:
And by gosh, I made tracks!
GQ:
Where is Camp Roberts?
GP:
It’s near Paso Robles, California.
GQ:
Oh, okay.
GP:
Yeah. And Paso Robles, my great grandparents were buried in Paso
Robles.
GQ:
Your Redondo?
GP:
No, Proctors.
GQ:
Your Proctors are buried there.
96
GP:
They are are my... The Redondos were on Mother’s side and in fact
they’re having a Redondo meeting or reunion up there at Yuma because
Jesus Maria Redondo, he was a great uncle of Mother’s, an uncle or a great
uncle of Mother’s. And they had been into California. They were back
and forth into this country and they were Mother’s people. And Mother
was living in Tubac when she met my father from Sopori, and they got
married at Tubac at the church there.
But then they shipped us over to Fort Lewis, Washington and then all they
got to do, did pull guard duty. And there were two soldiers guarding
bridges or culverts with every two, three other yards they had a culvert or
a bridge. And they were some Japanese Americans in the Armed Services
with the 41st Division, but they were integrated and mixed up. The
Japanese Americans were assigned to the regular troops and then they
were guarding bridges. And I was with another fellow guarding a culvert
or a bridge, something, out at Tacoma.
And these Japanese Americans came — a soldier — came over and he
says, “We want you to go down here and give us a hand pushing an old
Chevy out of the way.” And so I went down there, trotted about the 300
yards and helped push the old Chevy. And what happened, we used to
when the car pulled over, we found out who was in there and who he
was.
There was no delay. But there was this old fellow within the car, by
himself, and the Japanese American came in there, talked to him, and he’s
the old man says, “Oh my God, they’re here already!” [LAUGHTER]
And he took off and they [LAUGHTER] here’s the old car, we had to push
it out of the way.
RS:
So he abandoned the car, took off on foot. [LAUGHTER].
GP:
In the car, “Oh my God!” he says. “They’re here already!” And he took
off.
GQ:
Were there any other Arizonans with you in your platoon or your
company?
GP:
No. No. When I was was drafted I was just a common GI, you know?
There was a fellow that I knew. He had a PI card, but when we went from
Tucson, we were drafted to Fort Bliss, Texas, but all of us common people
were loaded on a train and I remember went through Deming and we
97
were not permitted to get off the train; but that PI guy had a tag. That’s
the last time I saw him. He was politically important! [LAUGHTER]
Politically important and he —
GQ:
So he had a tag on that said that?
GP:
Yeah! No! “PI.”
GQ:
Right.
GP:
That was what it meant, “Politically Important.” And he stayed... I don’t
know what happened to him. He was probably treated with golden
gloves. Right? Um hmm.
GQ:
Probably was.
GP:
But you think about a discrimination. I didn’t know too much about
discrimination because Mexican Americans and we were out there at
Continental. There were no Blacks, but the Blacks were up there at
Tucson. But in the Service, there were no Blacks mixed up.
RS:
Yeah, they were segregated.
GP:
But we had those perimeter tents next to a Black house, and those Black
noncoms. Talk about discrimination, my gosh, those Black noncoms
abused their own people something awful. Their language — you brother
this or that — something awful. Those Black noncoms abused their own
Blacks something awful.
GQ:
But you never felt discriminated or felt that you were being discriminated
or being prejudiced against in your Army career or before?
GP:
Army career, you know we get- I didn’t feel any. There were quite a few
Indians. There were those Spanish Americans or Mexican Americans,
whatever you want to call them, they were just soldiers like the rest of us,
you know. All of us and we were pretty darn good soldiers!
GQ:
So George, you retired from the Forest Service back in 1976?
GP:
‘45. ‘45 after the war ended, I was in the Philippine Islands and then we
came by boat over to California and discharged and I was met by Mother
and a few relatives there in Tucson.
GQ:
Was that a happy homecoming then?
GP:
There were just a few people there, no fuss or muss. We didn’t98
GQ:
And no, I was referring to after your career in the Forest Service. In 1976,
you retired from the Forest Service?
GP:
1975.
GQ:
‘75, I’m sorry. And then you came to live here in Patagonia at that time.
GP:
Yes.
GQ:
You’d already bought the property or you’d scoped it out?
GP:
I had this property a little, about a few acres, and then I’ve enlarged it
since then. I have about 26 acres in here.
GQ:
Okay. And what years did you serve as a County Supervisor?
GP:
‘80, ‘81, ‘82, ‘83 and ‘84.
GQ:
Okay. How did you get involved with that experience?
GP:
I didn’t like what was going on and I thought- And I handled- Well you
know as Forest Supervisor, I had the Ranger District. You’re in charge of
the whole Forest. And then I had, when we had two the Job Corps
Centers, I had a Job Corps Center of 200 men in Mountainair and 200 men
at Grants. So we trained those people in work program, education, and
social program. We had to train those people, and then generally the
Forest Service was in charge of the projects program.
And at Grants, with the Grants ES the one was so low- The Grants rated
so poorly that it was about to be closed. They had 200 some odd people
and there was everything in there. And then for some reason the OEO —
Office of Economic Opportunity — was in charge of the program but we
were with a project and actually the functioning of the centers in forests.
And then I got very much involved in the centers and then. I forget
where...
GQ:
Well you were saying you were relating your experience to having these
Job Corps under your tutelage as a Forest Service Ranger, so you had like
more than 400 people basically working for the Forest Service. Right?
GP:
Yes.
GQ:
And then so you translated that into well your career as a County
Supervisor, I guess.
99
GP:
Yeah. So I come back into this area. So I had- This is one point. And the
Forest Service people training and all that, we got these people from
different areas and for some reason I was not educating the people in a
center. And the OEO made an inspection of the centers and I was
catching all kinds of Hell because the staff threw in with the OEO and I
was not training/educating the corpsmen. And I was on my own; I was
catching hell.
And then, you know, something clicked on me and I hit the center and I
said to the OEO inspectors, “How many centers have been certified?
Mostly the center people, the corpsmen, were uneducated, didn’t have a
degree of any high school or anything. “I want to know how many
centers nationally have been certified with the GED, General Education
Development.”
“Oh, we can get that right away.” This was in the middle of the afternoon.
“We’ll get it for you in the afternoon.”
“And I want to know by centers, how many people have been certified
nationally by centers.” And come closing time, no answer. Didn’t have it.
So there is something wrong and me, I fought for my butt in the Infantry
and I countered them the next morning. About 10 o’clock we all came in
full of apology and insist only one center, and it was on the Apache. Only
one center, the Alpine.
GQ:
Job Corps Center?
GP:
At my center 19 had been certified, only 19 nationally. I had sent quite a
few; 13 had passed the exam, but they weren’t certified and I had some
more ready. I was the only supervisor, the only center nationally that had
certified for GED/ED. And boy, did I get brave! [CHUCKLES] Really!
How can you say [pounding his walking stick] that I’m not educating
people? That I’m working ‘em on projects only? How can you make that
accusation? They closed off the inspection. I made them back off, and I
was the only one that had certified people and they built up a program
with that. But you had a question.
GQ:
Well, how did you translate that experience in the Forest Service to your
role as a County Supervisor? Did you— Was the unemployment a factor
during your tenure as a County Supervisor?
GP:
Yes.
100
GQ:
How did you-?
GP:
Well I had a lot of people and then we had, there on the Apache, Lee
Botham [ph], one of the fiscal management in charge of Fiscal Control and
he was tops. And this is one thing: that I kept the fiscal control. I worked
with the A O ; I had range, timber, everything else, recreation, anything on
the administration of the forest; I had a lot of people. Some of the District
had a lot of people.
And I didn’t like the way it was, the management, and so I decided to run
and I’d paid attention. I hit, I worked real hard at it. I went at it. And
then the County Supervisor- There’s three out of them, Holbrook had
died--for this District 3--had died.
And then there was a Doyle had been appointed by the other two
supervisors. They appointed him acting supervisor, and he was a nice
guy, but he was an appointee and he didn’t have the background or the
knowledge and I had really worked at it.
I campaigned and I made it a full time job campaigning, and by gosh I
beat him with a heck of a [INAUDIBLE] appointee. I really beat him with
a large number. I forget but it was like. I knew fiscal. Then I was the only
Republican.
GQ:
On the Board of Supervisors?
GP:
No. The only Republican in Santa Cruz County! [LAUGHTER]
GQ:
That’s what it seemed like. [LAUGHTER]
GP:
The other two supervisors were Democrats and my gosh, they were really
showing me a rugged time. The people, the bureaucracy, Santa Cruz
County. And then the other supervisor, one of them, the supervisor
didn’t even have a high school education. The other one, Kramer, was a
damn good one and he came on my side. And then we really put it
together and it was rough because there was no fiscal control.
In fact, the County Manager- We had- There was where we had to have a
business meeting the first Monday of the month and we were elected
about the middle of the week. Then we met for one Thursday or Friday in
preparation for the Monday meeting.
Then the Manager filed- He sucked us in, said that we violated the open
meeting law, that we made decisions and he filed charges on me... on the
101
Board of Supervisors. He was going to throw us out. We had a long trial.
We actually had a trial and we won the case. And then the County
Manager-- And I was not yet Sergeant when he said “My God you can
run faster than that!” I was like that Sergeant! I got meaner than Hell.
And the Supervisor- [George’s voice trails off momentarily.] Oh, and
then Kramer... Then I was elected... the Board, I was- Of the three, I was
elected Chairman of the Board. And then by gosh... [George’s voice trails
off] I was in there and I was going to educate the County Manager.
The County Manager acted as the Clerk of the Board, but the Clerk of the
Board had- She moved out. The first meeting I talked to Kramer and we
appointed the County Clerk that was been appointed Board of
Supervisors Clerk of the Board, [ his voice trails off ] but I had the other
Supervisor went on with me and we appointed, brought in the girl that
had been Clerk of the Board, and I moved out the County Manager, [
sounds like set] in there, and that became an issue.
I say, “No. We agreed, the Board agreed that the Clerk of the Board,
Elaine Gregory, she was in there; we appointed her, and she’s sitting in
here with us. And the County Manager, he can attend.” But then, to
make things worse, he had been a County Manager but he fixed up a real
fancy office. And we didn’t, the Board of Supervisors, believe it or not, we
didn’t have an office.
We didn’t! We moved around and found a space so we could work. And
the first thing I did got Kramer that this, the County Manger’s office,
would be our office. So the first thing--and I agreed--that we were going
to move the County Manager out of there. “Where am I going?” “You’re
going to go in there with the girl. And by gosh, we got something. And
then we got anotherKramer and I were Supervisors and we fired the County Manager. WeHe filed a lawsuit on us and right off the bat, the first day, the first
meeting, and I didn’t let him get away with it; I was like that Sergeant and
we fired him.
GQ:
Did things turn around for the County in your estimation?
GP:
Yes. Yeah. And...
GQ:
There was more fiscal restraint and books balanced. Were there other
issues as well, when you served as the County Supervisor? Were there
102
other issues in the county other than budget, meeting the budget issues?
Were there other issues that you had to deal with as a County Supervisor?
GP:
Believe it or not, the County- I had been in northern New Mexico and I’d
been different places and I had seen politics. And but the people that
showed me the worst time were the Republicans. And I was the only
Republican, the only Republican in Santa Cruz County. But why? There
was Sarah Bailey --she had been a Democrat--and Carmen Villanueva a
Democrat; a few other women. But the Democratic Party threw them out
and they became Republicans and they were showing me a rugged time,
some of the women.
GQ:
So you served one term as Supervisor?
GP:
Yes.
GQ:
And you decided not to run for a second or-?
GP:
Well, no, I didn’t. I was not going to run and I passed the word I was not
going to run. And then the Republicans organization, especially out at
Tubac, I lost that. I lost in the primary with only a few votes, but I had
told them I wasn’t going to run and I did not. But I did real well when I
used to go [COUGH] to the Legislature meetings and I really participated,
but it was rough.
GQ:
Did you ever think about going back again into politics or that was
enough?
GP:
That- No. I got involved but I didn’t want to be a party. Like I said, I was
the only Republican-
GQ:
In Santa Cruz County.
GP:
That was elected in Santa Cruz County. And they were good people, a lot
of good people.
GQ:
Um hmm. Are you still working on your book, your second book?
GP:
No. I’m still working on my War experience.
GQ:
Um hmm. How’s that coming along?
GP:
Coming along very nicely but it’s- I decided to cut it because... I- You get
too much involved because there were so many things you know. We had
the record for the longest in combat: 78 consecutive days [he claps his
103
hands repeatedly] and nights, actual day and night contact with the Japs,
no relief, no end. I’m not getting involved in detail, “We killed so many
Japs, did this, did that.” That stuff is out!
GQ:
Okay. Well I want to thank you for letting us come over to interview you.
I failed to introduce myself. I’m German Quiroga and our second
interviewer is-
RS:
Ralph Schmitt.
GQ:
Just in case there’s anybody trying to transcribe this.
GP:
Yeah. No, I been doing pretty well on it and in fact... [Pauses] I got a
card the day before yesterday from Grover Adkins. He came in when we
had moved from New Guinea back to Australia and he was a replacement
and we went back to New Guinea. And we had been ordered to take a
hill, and we had a Hell of a time getting on that hill. And then when we
decided- The officers decided to go back about 200 or 300 yards because
we were on a hill very steep and we decided to go back 200 or 300 yards
on a flat area that we could hold it and dig in.
And we got in there and we determined--or we found out--that we had
left a machine gun out in- And we had to go back into some Jap territory
and get the machine gun. We had pulled back and the Japs moved in and
closed us off, and [we] decided that we were wasting time, and I said, “I’ll
go get them. I’ll pass the word because I’m sure that they never got the
word that we were withdrawing.”
And Grover Adkins--he was out of Arkansas--but he said, “George, I’ll go
with you.” So he and I went in to withdraw the machine gun. And he
had a gold tooth, front gold tooth. He was out of Arkansas. And
yesterday I received a card. He had died... just died a few days ago. But
he said, “I’ll go with you, George.”
He and I went together and that machine gun had about six men with him
and they were still fighting and then the Japs wouldn’t let us go through
there. They forced us into, to go through... a bombed up area, shelled
area. And I had to lead and I looked at Max, tried to make eye contact...
And that’s where Grover Adkins... [George’s voice trails off.]
I got this card and it’s got those teeth just a shining you know
[LAUGHTER] and it made me feel better. We went in through there. The
next morning we had the damnedest Bonzai attack you ever saw. And
104
we- But we just got the card yesterday. And the only- one of the few guys
I ever had any correspondence with... He died.
GQ:
Okay. Are there other surviving members of your Platoon or other
surviving members from your Platoon of World War II that you know of?
GP:
[He shakes his head.]
GQ:
No?
GP:
No, not that I know of. No.
GQ:
Grover would have been the last?
GP:
Well unless... Most of them I didn’t keep track of, but Grover was a Hell
of a good soldier [COUGHS] and in fact, I was separated from the outfit.
He went into Japan because he went in as a replacement when we went
into Australia the second time. And he was a Hell of a good soldier.
But you know if you don’t realize like one time in [INAUDIBLE] we had
about... Well, we fully manned when we left the States and got to
Australia, got to Australia, went back to- went to New Guinea going back
to Australia and then [ sounds like Fala Malanawa] We had from 180 men
to 200 in that area, [sounds like Fala Malanawa].
We had 35 and 40 men to the company killed, wounded, transferred, this
and that you know. But we had [ sounds like Fala Fala Mawa] and we
went back and we... [ George falters, a bit breathless] hit an area and we
had the perimeter tanks, those perimeter tanks you know- We had two
cots here, two cots here, two cots here, cot here and the entrance in here.
And we had perimeter tents, cots. We went... I forget how we went there,
but it was way back.
And next morning we they had a roll call--roll call you know? And we
went out next morning and we had one individual we didn’t know stayed
out you know. But he sat on a cot, put his M1, pressed the button down.
The bullet went right through him, hole through the tent you know; big
pieces of bone just tore through and brain, pieces of bone... and sprayed...
Why the guy did it, I don’t know you know. And then... But he did it.
We had what we were going back, 35-40 men. And some of the rivers we
had PIB, Patrol and Infantry Battalion. They were trained by Australian.
They had to fight. They had to, but they were not front line troops. And P
I Bs... And a lot of times there were guides for us you know.
105
We come to a river and they wouldn’t cross. They wouldn’t cross, too
many crocodiles. They crossed- They crossed over on little canoes, but a
lot of the rivers they wouldn’t cross where a body of water, a river where
the river emptied into the ocean. We crossed over on shallow water and
an alligator came in and he got this Marshall, a GI. He was from, I’m
pretty sure, Rhode Island. And the crocodile got him, took him in a little
ways, turned him loose so he could get a better hold of him. crocodile got
him again; that was the last we saw. [There’s a subdued silence in the
room.]
GQ:
Well... there will be a lot of- a lot of stories in that book I imagine.
GP:
Hmm?
GQ:
There will be a lot of stories in your book just like that. Thank you,
George. I think we’re running out of time. The batteries are getting low
again. But I want to thank you again for allowing us to come again and
interview you and visit with you. We appreciate it. And so-
RS:
Thanks again.
GP: [INAUDIBLE]
[End of transcription 01:11:27]
106
Interview 5
Jeanette Swyers
Jeanette Swyers is a lifelong Patagonian. Her father ran a cattle ranch just
outside Patagonia in the Salero area. Her mother was a school teacher working
in different schools in and around Patagonia. Jeanette worked on the cattle
ranch for most of her life. This interview takes place in the Patagonia Public
Library.
107
Jeanette Swyers
September 9, 2009
Patagonia, AZ
GERMAN QUIROGA: Okay. Thanks for joining us.
JEANETTE SWYERS: Yeah.
GQ: Thanks for agreeing to meet with us on such short notice, but I guess Jacque talked
to you and mentioned that we were interested in doing some interviews.
JS: Yeah. Uh huh.
GQ: So I’m Herman, German Quiroga.
JS: Yeah.
GQ: And this is Ralph Schmitt. And today’s date is Wednesday, September 9, 2009
and we’re at the Patagonia–.
JS: Nine nine nine [LAUGHTER].
RALPH SCHMITT: That’s it.
GQ: That’s it. We’re at the Patagonia Public Library and our subject’s name is– Will
you just give us your name and something about you, the year you were born and
where you were born and a little bit maybe about your parents and grandparents.
Whatever information you can share to us that would be great.
JS: I was born in Tucson and raised here in Patagonia about six and a half miles from
here. And when I got old enough I started riding horseback, taking care of cattle,
shipping lots of cattle in every year, and seeing lots of flood. Lot of bad ones, mm
hmm. And I– [COUGH] I’ve seen lots of changes here in town.
GQ: Where– Your parents, where did they come from?
JS: My mother was from DeKalb, Illinois and my dad was from the head of the Pecos
River in New Mexico.
108
GQ: Okay.
JS: We’re ranchers and rodeo people.
GQ: And do you know some– Like your grandparents, where–
JS: MY grandparents lived in Madison, Wisconsin and my dad’s parents lived in
Tucson. I only knew my grandmother; I didn’t know my grandfather on my dad’s side.
But I knew my grandparents on my mother’s side.
GQ: Do you have brothers and sisters?
JS: I have one brother.
GQ: He lives here in–?
JS: Yeah, he lives here in town.
GQ: And he was born here in Tucson also or was he–?
JS: Yes.
GQ: Okay. When did you all come to Patagonia then?
JS: Well I’ve been here 81 years.
GQ: But you were born in Tucson?
JS: Uh huh.
GQ: So did your mother just go to Tucson to give birth.
JS: [She nods.] And come right back.
RS: Okay. What brought them originally to Arizona?
JS: Eh?
109
RS: You just said your mom was from DeKalb.
JS: DeKalb, Illinois. Well she came down here because the doctor said that she for her
health, and she come out here on the train and my dad met her here in town and they
went up to Salero where she taught school. That’s where she met my dad.
RS: At the Salero High School?
JS: Yeah. And then he bought a place right where I was raised and we raised cattle.
We raised registered stuff. It was Herefords, all Herefords actually. Well we had two
bulls that we rodeoed , used in the rodeo. And we drove many a head of cattle in every
year. That’s when the shipping pens were across from Wagon Wheel.
All our trucks were in front of which is now the Mission which was the Big Steer. And
we had lots of ore come in from different mines.
GQ: You usually ship the cattle out in October or–?
JS: [She nods.] Twice a year.
GQ: Oh, twice a year.
JS: Twice a year.
GQ: In the spring and in the fall?
JS: [ – She nods.] Mm hmm. And we drew a many a bet in and I had one bull that
wasn’t going to let us bring some of them in. I did a little bit of a no-no [CHUCKLES], I
didn’t kill him [ LAUGHTER]. I just knocked his brass horn off. And it took me two
weeks to find the brass knob. My brother wanted it so bad but I said nope, that’s mine!
I don’t even know where it is now. I’ve got it somewheres, with all my antique stuff I
found.
GQ: So did you go to school in Salero or did you come–?
JS: No I come here in town.
110
GQ: In Patagonia?
JS: Mm hmm. And I went to San Rafael Valley. Then I went over to Ruby and then
come back here and finish school.
GQ: Oh, okay, you followed your parents?
JS: Oh yeah.
GQ: Okay. So they went to other ranches to work?
JS: No, just my mother ‘cause she was a teacher, a school teacher.
GQ: And she taught in the San Rafael Valley.
JS: Yeah.
GQ: In Red Rock - 22 or–?
JS: Yeah. Well that- Well. It was– Well, I don’t know.
GQ: Right there as you top the–
JS: On top of that flat- well- that off to where that corral is now.
GQ: Mm hmm. Right. Right as you top the–
JS: Off the– Up where there are some trees.
GQ: Mm hmm. And you stayed at Little School House ? Was there a teacherage there
with your mom?
JS: Well we drove back and forth?
GQ: Drove back and forth?
111
JS: Yeah, ‘cause it wasn’t that far. We went on foot and we had to stay there, only
when it flooded.
GQ: And you went to Patagonia Union High School?
JS: Mm, that’s what our school was, over there by, across from the fire station.
GQ: Mm hmm. Dr. Mock’s there?
JS: Mm hmm. And then I graduated the year that they put the new the–
GQ: New High School?
JS: Offices out there from the Fort, over there where it is now.
GQ: Can you describe like a working day for you at the ranch?
JS: Hmm. 5 o’clock in the morning get up, go and feed horses.
GQ: How many horses did you guys have?
JS: That would all depend on what we were doing. I’d go and do that and come back,
grab a cup of coffee and head out.
GQ: And you would ride all day or just half a day?
JS: Ride all day long from 5:30 in the morning till about 5:30 – 6 at night.
GQ: And what would you do when you rode?
JS: Oh we rode, check cattle, check water gaps, check all the fences.
GQ: Did you have to doctor–?
JS: Oh, doctor, oh yeah, brand, everything else, which I’ve done a lot of it. And I broke
a lot of horses.
112
GQ: How many horses would you run in your ranch?
JS: We had oh about 20 head because we had to have a lot for roundup. I always kept
one in the corral. We’d switch off every other week.
GQ: So it was you and–
JS: So we wouldn’t get rusty. [LAUGHTER]
RS: So you and your brother and your dad did most of the work or did you have some
hands, too?
JS: Oh yeah, my dad and I. My brother didn’t like to ride horseback.
RS: Oh okay.
JS: He’d more of a pantywaist.
GQ: Hmm. Ralph was telling me there was a road that goes from the Gringo Road that
goes all the way to Salero. Was– Did you guys do that? Doesn’t it go [00:07:59 – She
shakes her head] on your property? No? It starts–
JS: You see our property, well the forest end, goes clear over there to where the dump.
GQ: Right, town dump.
JS: I’d ride all that, all 18 sections.
GQ: That’s a–
JS: Because at one point, I could see town. [LAUGHTER]
GQ: But there’s no road back there. There’s a road that you were telling me about.
113
RS: Well, there is a road—correct me if I’m wrong—there’s a road from Salero Road to
like, to dump. Like you can–
JS: No! [ She shakes her head.] If it is, they did put it there other people did, not us.
RS: Yeah. But he was referring to Squaw Gulch.
JS: Yeah?
RS: You can go across down through there from–
JS: There shouldn’t be! That’s all forest land.
RS: Well, okay. Yeah, okay.
JS: And you couldn’t put it there anyway with all those wetbacks with those AK47s.
RS: Mmm. So do you– Did you rodeo, too then or–?
JS: Oh yeah. I rodeoed with my dad.
GQ: What–? Team roping or what all did you do?
JS: No, broncs.
GQ: Oh yeah?
JS: Mm hmm.
GQ: Good for you. Yeah.
JS: Me, I liked to– I liked my horses.
GQ: Mm hmm. Did you have a favorite horse?
JS: What?
114
GQ: Did you have a favorite horse?
JS: Not necessarily. The only one I would do on my roundup, I had one would get—go
where I wanted him to go. But I always had good dogs.
RS: What kind of dogs?
JS: I had a black and tan hound and an Australian shepherd which is good dogs.
They’d get under that mesquite and bring ‘em out.
GQ: And what did the black and tan do?
JS: Oh he would– If they wouldn’t mind, he’d grab them by the nose.
GQ: So he was your cattle dog, too?
JS: Oh boy, good. Oh yes, very!
GQ: The black and tan’s a hound dog though yeah?
JS: Mm hmm. But he was very, very good.
GQ: He was a good cow dog too?
JS: He’s a character. And when they both died, they both died on my front porch.
They were home.
GQ: Do you have any dogs now?
JS: Yeah, I have three.
GQ: Shepherds or–?
JS: Australian.
115
GQ: Uh huh.
JS: Australian shepherd mix, good dogs. They keep all the Wetbacks away.
GQ: They keep everybody away I guess.
JS: No, they keep, they keep guys that- away because they won’t—They let me know.
They were barking at 5 o’clock this morning. I had to get up and find out what was
going on. [COUGH].
GQ: So are you still– Is somebody still running cattle on your ranch or–
JS: No, not now, uh uh. Because I live on the front 20 acres of the homestead. Oh we
had to sell that several years before my mother passed away because the forest fees got
so high that we couldn’t... and those environmentalists were giving us heck.
GQ: so when was the last year you ran cattle on the ranch then?
JS: It was about ’75.
GQ: ’75? Okay.
JS: Yeah. I missed it.
GQ: You live on 20 acres and pretty quiet you say except for–
JS: Oh yeah. Only when they appear, the choppers over the top. Then I know who
they’re after.
RS: So still ride any?
JS: What?
RS: Do you still get out and ride some?
JS: Oh yeah. I’m going to start riding here pretty quick again.
116
GQ: Did you stop then?
JS: What?
GQ: Did you stop riding?
JS: Oh there for a long time because I got hurt. Then I got off of it. I ride now and then.
I rode in the 4th of July Parade and ooh hoo...gad. ’89? I was Grand Marshall and I had
to ride in front of the other couple that was Grand Marshall. Hmph. [COUGH]
GQ: Do you have a–
JS: Everybody was afraid that I was going to get hurt. I says, “Hey. I know horses, I
know what to do, I talk to ‘em just like you talk to anybody else and they understand.”
GQ: So that was 20 years ago.
JS: Yeah. A matter of fact I was in the 4th of July Parade this year with my brother.
RS: Yeah, I saw you there. And you’re probably more comfortable on the back of a
horse than you are sitting on that chair, right?
JS: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean.
RS: You’ve been riding on the back of a horse for 60 years or so or more than that.
JS: Oh, yeah. I want to get back riding again. Everybody’s going to scold me, but I
says, “Hey, it’s what I want to do.”
RS: Might as well have a good time.
JS: I said, “Hey. That’s me.” I’m not afraid.
GQ: It’s part of you, I guess.
117
JS: Old Sonny Showalter he was scared to death. [LAUGHTER] I says, “Listen, Sonny.
Listen to me. I know horses, I know what I can do, I know how I can go,” and I had a
horse that acted up, but everybody was scared.
GQ: But you handled the horse.
JS: Mm hmm. Especially with the late Alf Ellison. Oh he was scared. He kept turning
back. I says, “Al, heads forward!” He looked at me later; he said, “You meant it.” I
said, “Yeah. You do that the next time and he really would would ha’ kicked you in
the rear end.” Oh he was quite a guy. [COUGH]
GQ: Do you have a favorite food?
JS: Huh?
GQ: Do you have– What is– Is your favorite food? Do you have a favorite food that
you like to eat? [She shakes her head.] Nothing? Just put anything in front of you?
JS: I’ll eat most stuff. My- mostly is I like my Mexican food—my tamales, my
enchiladas.
GQ: Does somebody make it for you or do you–
JS: Oh no, I used to make them myself but I don’t– I’m by myself.
GQ: It’s hard to cook for one then.
JS: Hard definitely. When I cook I do for about 50 people. I said nah, I’m just going to
get my stuff at the restaurant and I’ve worked with this guy anyway for a long time.
GQ: Who would cook during the roundups?
JS: My dad and I.
GQ: You cooked it for the roundups? What would you make?
118
JS: We had- We always had steak, potatoes, and I’d always have baked stuff. I’d do the
baking because he’s always entertained the dudes from Circle Z. And I was the baker.
GQ: So how many hands would you have on a roundup?
JS: Oh we usually had about 12 to 14, it all depended. And I still have one friend that is
over at Amado. In fact two of them. They always rode with me.
GQ: What were their names?
JS: Harvey Whalen and Chapo Valenzuela.
GQ: From Amado area? Yeah, okay.
JS: And he had a chulo. I was the only one that could go find it. He had a pet chulo
and it would get loose. He’d come get me. I’s say, “Uh oh.” I said, “You’ve got my
favorite horse?” He says, “Yeah.” I’d say, “Okay, let’s go.” I knew just about where he
was. He’d come down, get on my shoulder. I’s say, “You’re a bad boy again.”
GQ: So you raised this from a little–
JS: Yeah, from a small one.
GQ: Small one and it just became attached?
JS: Last time he got away, Chapo said aw to heck with it; he wasn’t going to go get him
again. [LAUGHTER]. But he was quite a character, that one. But I was the only one
that could get him. He was afraid of the other guys. He wasn’t afraid of Chapo but he
was afraid of the others. Because Chapo couldn’t catch him. I was the only one that
could do it. I’s “Okay.”
GQ: Did you come across any mountain lions when you were out?
JS: Oh yes, lots of them, mountain lions, bear.
GQ: Mm hmm, so did you carry a rifle and–?
119
JS: Oh yeah. We- we always carried our rifles. I always carried the 30-30.
GQ: Were they mountain lions treed or were they–
JS: Oh we’ve treed ‘em.
GQ: Your black and tan–
JS: In fact we’ve got two of them up my way right now.
GQ: Mountain lions?
JS: And two bear, a brown bear and a black bear.
GQ: Have you seen them. [Jeanette nods.]
JS: The brown bear was at a friend’s house in a tree. He had to get the dog in the house
and finally it come down and left. They didn’t want to call the Game & Fish. Not
where it was, it would have really got hurt crawling out of the tree. It finally left. But
you always know it’s around because the dogs sense it. If I had a mule, I wouldn’t have
to have worried about it anyway ‘cause boy they don’t like ‘em and they warn.
GQ: The mules will tell you?
JS: Oh yeah. My brother has one now up with the horses because there’s two of them
up that way.
GQ: So you still have horses on your place then?
JS: My brother has horses; I don’t. I want to get one. I want to try to get that one, if I
can.
GQ: So you’re going to ride one of your brother’s horses or get your own?
JS: No I’m going to get my own. I want to get my own.
120
GQ: Do you have any ideas where you might? No?
JS: No. There’s a colt but I’d have to train it.
GQ: Does that take some work?
JS: Yeah, it’s only halter broke. I’ll have to find out if they’ve still got it.
GQ: How would you break horses?
JS: Very easy.
GQ: Okay.
JS: See I’m not rough with them; I’m stern. And I make ‘em mind and they know it. I
use a hackamore on them and they go to a snaffle and I would– [COUGH]
GQ: What’s a snaffle?
JS: It’s a bit that kind of folds in the middle.
GQ: Okay. Yeah, okay.
JS: And then go to a straight bit. But you have to go in sequence. I had one that could
only use a snaffle.
GQ: What age would you start working with them?
JS: You start working with them when they’re two weeks old, picking up their feet,
getting around ’em. I’ve been kicked many a time by ‘em. But I’d pick up their feet so
that they know they I’m checking their pads, checking see if there’s no stones ‘cause
they get stones in those frogs and they’re crippled up, and I always had a tool with me
to get the stones out.
GQ: So how many foals did you have at your ranch at one time?
121
JS: Well we’d have, oh, a lot of times I’d have three or four head in because we’d have,
we had to go gather some stuff real quick we had to have them in and feed them. I had
milk cows and I milked the cows.
GQ: So when would you start riding the– You worked with them, halter broke them?
JS: Yeah, you don’t ride them until they’re at least two years old.
GQ: You put a saddle on them or just put a blanket on them first?
JS: Yeah. You start with the saddle and everything when they’re young so they get
used to it and they know that you’re not going to hurt them, that this is what we’re
going to do and they won’t get afraid of it. So many people are so rough with them;
then they wonder why they can’t handle ‘em. I worked with horses for too many years
and I’ve seen what people have done with horses and I don’t like it.
GQ: So if you had an older horse to break, if for example somebody brought you 3 year
olds that had never been handled it would be–
JS: It would take a long time.
GQ: Because you had to start from the very beginning.
JS: Oh yeah, you’d have to do the whole thing.
GQ: Mm hmm. It’s a little bit harder I guess.
JS: Yeah, very hard. And you’d have to put them in the chute and then that would be
really miserable.
GQ: You said– How long did you say you had milk cows? Probably all during your
ranch?
122
JS: Oh yeah. We had– First we started out with some range cattle. I’d have to milk ‘em
cause my hands were small enough. My dad would strip. I had about, we had about
ten head. We always had a bunch of leppy calves.
GQ: So most- a lot of milk would go to calves.
JS: Yeah.
GQ: But then you would have some ex- surplus for–
JS: Oh yeah, we’d keep two cows for the leppies .
GO: And how would you feed them? Just like the other–?
JS: Well, if they had, we had to use tit bottles.
GQ: Mm hmm. They couldn’t nurse on the cow?
JS: Sometimes. Sometimes you can, but lots of times they won’t take ‘em. They- You
have to have the tit bottle or tit bucket. I’d always have to fill the bucket up twice to
feed ‘em.
There’s the last time I got one was at Christmas time one year. We went out to get a
quick tree. We got up there I said, “Brother,” I said, “No, we’ll get the tree later. Take
this calf home and I’ll be home as soon as I can.” I said, “Get it into the barn and tell
Mother to get some condensed milk ready for me, because when I get home I’ve got to
feed him.” Jim said, “Huh?” I said, “Yup.” [LAUGHTER] So I take my stuff down and
I stayed right with the calf for the first two nights.”
GQ: So these would be calves that had lost their mothers? Is that–?
JS: Uh huh. We had– At that time we had a chains around the cow’s neck with
numbers, with tags on. And she went to scratch it, she caught her hoof, one here and
she fell and broke her neck. And when I found it I said no we’re going to take it home.
We’ll get the tree later; get it on the weekend when we can see, in daylight.
123
GQ: How else would you lose the mother cows?
JS: Well a lot of them had been hit by lightning and a lot of them just got too weak.
GQ: For some reason or another.
JS: Yeah. Well we always checked them every weekend. I’d leave the house early...
GQ: So how many head did you run?
JS: One time we had about 250 head to 300.
GQ: And how many, you said you had two bulls for rodeo.
JS: Yeah.
GQ: And how many bulls for–
JS: We had quite a few other bulls, but we had great big Hereford and big Brahman and
I sure didn’t like the crossbreed.
GQ: Why not? Between a Brahman and a Hereford?
JS: Try– Try to tackle one of them when you’re branding. [LAUGHTER] They’re a
little bit on the rough side. I’ve been skinned up too many times with them.
GQ: Would you usually brand though. How often would you brand?
JS: Every Spring.
GQ: Every Spring.
JS: And probably in the Fall because some of the calves were born later in the year. So
we’d do it any time.
GQ: Would you separate the bulls from the cows? You kept them running?
124
JS: Oh no. We kept them– We just threw them together. The only ones that we
separated were our registered stuff.
GQ: You had them in a separate pasture?
JS: Yeah, I had all the cows in the front and they had the bulls in my back
pasture...which [00:26:46 CHUCKLE] I had to go fix fences I don’t know how many
times. And they said they were going to get out.
GQ: The bulls like to-?
JS: Oh they like to fight.
GQ: And they would break their fences?
JS: Oh yeah. Finally I said aw the heck with it; I’m going to let them out there with the
cows. [LAUGHTER]
GQ: You alluded to some illegal immigrants I guess earlier on.
JS: Oh yeah, a lot of them.
GQ: Could you identify some current community problem and your solution to it?
JS: We had– Though we– Years ago we never locked the house. And a lot of them
would come through, fix them something to eat, clean up the mess and always leave a
note. My dad read Spanish fluently. He knew it and we always knew that they were
there because I knew their tracks. And the last batch, I lost a record player and my 22
rifle and a blanket that my aunt made. I never got them back. I got the rifle back. I
didn’t get my record player back. [COUGH]
RS: How’d you get the rifle back?
JS: Eh?
125
RS: How did you get the rifle back?
JS: Well, the Sheriff’s Department got them. And he said, “Can you identify it?” And I
said, “Yeah, there’s black tape on the finger guard.” He was “Yep.” I said, “That’s
mine.”
GQ: So what would you offer for a solution to all this illegal immigration?
JS: Just keep your house locked. Well they broke into my brother’s trailer I don’t know
how many times.
GQ: Okay. Does it happen very often at your place?
JS: Yeah, when they didn’t have no dogs and stuff, they’d come through all the time.
GQ: Like once a week or less or more?
JS: Oh every other day!
GQ: Every other day. Wow.
JS: Here about three weeks ago there was one down there at my neighbor’s and they
finally got him. He broke into my friend’s trailer and was staying in there. And I come
home. Fred took me home one night. We couldn’t figure out what all the commotion
was down there that “Oh, oh. I better find out in the morning.” So I went down over to
my brothers and found out there were illegal– They were worried about me. Well, I
have my front gate, I have a dog in the front yard. I have the gate locked and I had
locked my house.
GQ: Going back to your grandparents—do you want to go step back—did you know
what they did for a living, your grandparents?
JS: My grandparents on my mother’s side were farmers.
GQ: In Wisconsin?
126
JS: In Wisconsin yeah. Like every summer I’d go back and when I was younger, and
I’d go back and help my grandfather with the orchard and plow.
GQ: They had fruit orchard and then have–
JS: Yeah, apple orchard.
GQ: Apple orchard?
JS: Apple orchard. We had a big garden.
RS: Uh huh. Dairy cows?
JS: Huh?
RS: Dairy cows?
JS: Mm hmm. Yeah we had lots of apple trees. Plus cabins.
GQ: Cabins?
JS: Uh huh.
GQ: So he would rent out?
JS: Yeah.
GQ: For people from the city or something?
JS: Well they’d want to come out. Where it was was in Madison. I could see the
capital.
RS: Okay, so it was out on one of the lakes around Madison. Okay.
JS: There was as the crow flew it was only a mile.
127
RS: Mm hmm. So have you been back there since you–?
JS: I haven’t been back there since oh Lord, can’t even remember, ’52?
RS: It’s been awhile. [Jeanette nods.]
GQ: I was a year old then.
JS: Cause I was back there a long time before I went to school, ‘cause I went back there
for a little while. And I said can I stay with my aunt and my grandmother. I helped
her.
That time my aunt was a school teacher, was a retired school teacher I should say. And
my grandmother was quite heavy. She’d fallen. They hollered at me, I got down there, I
said okay. I put my feet in front of hers, grab her hands, you get behind her we’ll lift
her up easy.
My aunt couldn’t figure it out. I said you got to put your feet—I had put my feet in
front of hers so she wouldn’t slide, and I had he way like this [Jeanette folds her arms in
front of her wrist grasping wrist] and both arms so I could pull her up without hurting
her. And I walked real easy to find out if she had hurt herself; she hadn’t. So I was real
happy with that. Well, she weighed about 250 lbs.
GQ: How did you get back to Wisconsin? Did you take the train or just drive or how
did you go?
JS: We took the train.
GQ: How was the train ride? Was it–?
JS: Rough.
GQ: Rough? You wouldn’t recommend it?
JS: No! [LAUGHTER] Too long.
128
GQ: Would you rather ride over there or?
JS: Go back on the plane!
GQ: Plane? [LAUGHTER] How about y–
JS: Jet lag, but the plane is much easier.
GQ: Okay. And your grandparents in Tucson, what did they do for a living?
JS: That I didn’t know what my grandfather did.
GQ: Oh really? Okay. That’s interesting.
JS: I have an aunt that’s 111 years old.
GQ: You do? Okay. This is your father’s–?
JS: Sister.
GQ: Okay and where is she?
JS: She’s back in Westminster, Maryland.
GQ: Okay. And what’s the secret to her longevity?
JS: [– Jeanette laughs.] Well I don’t know. [LAUGHTER] I guess ‘cause our genes are
just that way.
GQ: What did she do for a living?
JS: She was an artist. She did ceramics. She was a teacher. And I have two of her
pieces left, the last pieces of ceramics that she’s done.
GQ: Did she work mostly in Arizona or back–?
129
JS: She worked in New Mexico and Texas.
GQ: What’s her name?
JS: Dora McCray
GQ: Dora McCray, OK?
JS: Yeah, she was 111 the day before I was 81.
GQ: Okay, and when was your birthday?
JS: The 30- the 30th of August. Hers was the 29th.
GQ: Okay. Happy belated birthday. [Jeanette nods.]
JS: Yeah we– It was real fun. I sent her a picture of what I’m going to be doing. She’s
getting to where she can’t hardly see or hear. I said at that age—goodness gracious!
GQ: Yeah. So do you have any other aunts and uncles? [COUGH]
JS: That’s the only one left. She’s the only one left.
GQ: And you have your brother.
JS: I have a lot of cousins and second cousins.
GQ: Where are they located?
JS: Some are in Tucson, some are in Wisconsin...and oh, I got one in Canada, one in
New York... I think that’s all. I can’t keep track of all of them.
GQ: They move around a lot, don’t they.
JS: Oh yeah.
130
GQ: What else do you like to do for entertainment or fun? Do you have anything
special you like to do to keep [INAUDIBLE] ?
JS: Nah. I just like to be around people.
GQ: Mm hmm. We can be entertaining I guess.
JS: Doing my sports, which I’m in football pool. I think there’s only three women in the
pool with the rest of the guys.
GQ: That’s Monday night football or–?
JS: Yes sir! [LAUGHTER] Which we have a game tomorrow night, [and she holds up
her index finger] and I’m going to watch part of it. [COUGH].
GQ: Do you have a favorite team?
JS: Yep. The Minnesota Vikings, and one certain Quarterback.
GQ: The guy from Green Bay? [Jeanette nods.] [LAUGHTER]
JS: Yep. I follow him. One of these days he’d better retire. He’s getting up there in age.
I don’t like to see him get hurt. We’ve got too many of the guys that have gotten hurt. I
had quite a few quarterbacks that I’ve really have enjoyed watching.
GQ: Who did you like- enjoy watching besides Bret?[COUGH]
JS: Dan Marino.
GQ: Mm hmm. He was good.
JS: Oh, yes, darn good. [COUGH] And even a few of the other guys. A lot of them
have gone by the wayside, but they’ve been good football players.
GQ: Anybody else besides Dan Marino? Just anything that...?
131
JS: Yeah there’s a lot of them but I can’t even remember all their names.
GQ: Okay. Do you follow the Lobos?
JS: Yeah, sometimes. But– I’m not—The school sports now don’t interest me.
[COUGH]
GQ: No? It’s hard to watch when they play a lot of away games I guess.
JS: Oh yeah. I just wish they’d let us see more of the U of A games.
GQ: Mm hmm, I think they will now. With a new network, I think they will. Did you
play any sports in high school?
JS: Oh yeah.
GQ: What did you–
JS: Baseball.
GQ: Did you participate in baseball?
JS: Mm hmm. I never used a mitt.
GQ: Did you play with the guys or–
JS: Oh yeah.
GQ: Yeah? What position did you play?
JS: I played any- any position.
GQ: Mm hmm. Were- were you good?
JS: I was fairly good. [LAUGHTER] I’ve got to start practicing again throwing the ball
though. My old arm’s kind of give out on me.
132
GQ: Uh huh. Well thank you. I think that’s... You did pretty well. I think we took up
about... We were supposed to do about 45 minutes.
RS: Well we’ve got 38 on a...
GQ: Really? So you need to go on some more.
RS: Sure. If you feel like talking for a few more minutes...
RS: Do you mind? I saw you spent some time up at Solero with your mom when she
was–
JS: No, uh uh.
RS: Oh okay. I thought I heard you say that.
JS: That was way before I was born.
RS: Oh okay.
GQ: I think your parents met in Solero.
JS: Yeah, that’s it.
RS: Okay. You been up there recently?
JS: I haven’t been up there. [She shook her head.] They’ve got theRS: They’re subdivided up and–
JS: Gates across. They’ve got it all locked, or else you’ve got to have those electric
gates. And a friend of mine, he said when he had to go up there, if he don’t have his
key. He usually rides the A– his little four wheeler. He’ll go up to one certain spot, put
the fence down, go across, put the fence back up, go and do what he has to do and then
come back and do the same thing and come back. He says it’s a mess.
133
People want to go up there, I said, “I don’t think you better.” The last time I was up
that way the road was rough. I haven’t been up that way in a long time to go up and
check that one water tank.
RS: So you’ve probably seen a lot happen like at the Circle Z and stuff, huh?
JS: Oh yes. Oh yeah. My dad would do barbeques for the dudes and we always would
ride.
RS: At the little spot down by the creek? You see the two little knots down there?
JS: No! At the old place, we had our own barbeque pit. We had tables fixed up. We
usually had barbeque up there. If not, we’d have it down there at the little...where they
had the rodeo field.
GQ: Yeah, down by the– [COUGH]
JS: Down by the creek.
RS: Yeah. Did you have a rodeo down there?
JS: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
RS: So how long– Did you ever try a bull?
JS: No, uh uh. No.
RS: Have you traveled at all? I’m just curious if you’re–
JS: No. No, uh uh.
RS: You said you were back in Madison in the ‘50s.
JS: Oh that was– I went back there; we’d be with my grandparents.
134
RS: Have you seen other parts of the country?
JS: I was in Pennsylvania for a while, but he didn’t like it.
GQ: Too many trees?
JS: Too cold!
RS: Yeah it gets cold. Yeah.
JS: And I was in Upstate New York for ten years and I hated that. It was too cold.
RS: So’d your mom– Since she was a school teacher, did she try to push you to be a
school teacher?
JS: No.
RS: She just let you cowboy and...
JS: She knew better. She could push my brother but she couldn’t push me.
GQ: So what did you do in New York? For ten years you said?
JS: Yeah, I lived back there. I worked back there.
GQ: What kind of– You did some–
JS: I worked at Birds Eye for awhile and then I was doing waitress work.
GQ: Mm hmm. This is in—after high school?
JS: Oh, it was after.
GQ: And you were there for ten years and–
135
JS: Yeah. Which that first year was terrible. It was cold! And I wasn’t used to it.
[COUGH]
GQ: Birds Eye was a factory?
JS: Yeah, yeah what we did vegetables. Yep.
GQ: Mm hmm. How long did you work there?
JS: I worked there about six months, till my hands started getting...bad with the- with
the chemicals.
GQ: Mm hmm. You didn’t wear gloves or anything?
JS: Oh no. I couldn’t very well because I was doing with the switch and I’ve had too
much electricity go through my system because I was all standing in water. So I said to
my timekeeper, “Please bring me a screwdriver with a rubber handle on it!”
[LAUGHTER]
GQ: You said you waitressed after your gig at Birds Eye?
JS: Oh yeah. Oh yeah I was doing that in between.
GQ: Were you? What kind of restaurants? Just nearby?
JS: It was a bar where they made [she makes a face, shakes her head] Limburger cheese
and onion sandwiches for all the winos [LAUGHTER]. to this day I hate that stuff!
GQ: So did you waitress when you came back here, too or just–?
JS: Oh yeah.
GQ: You waitressed for a while.
JS: Do lau- I worked in the laundry, and...doing dishes and stuff.
136
GQ: And of course you prefer ranch work to all those?
JS: Oh yeah. We were out in the air.
GQ: So did you have a job that you do outdoor work, besides ranching? Did you have
a job where you were able to go outdoors?
JS: No. That was all I did. That’s all I had time for.
RS: Okay. Do you have any regrets.
JS: Huh?
RS: Do you have any regrets or do you– Are you happy with your life?
JS: Nope.
RS: Seemed like you had a pretty interesting life. Seems like you enjoyed it. It was a
hard life, Right?
JS: I’m trying to get- write a book.
RS: Oh yeah?
JS: Yeah.
GQ: Have you started?
JS: I’ve started it but I’ve got to get my typewriter where it will work. My keys are all
stuck.
GQ: Have you tried just talking into a tape.
JS: I’ve got– I have a tape recorder. I’ve got to start doing that.
GQ: And just have somebody transcribe it for you.
137
JS: Yeah.
GQ: So did you further your education after high school? Did you go–
JS: That was it. Just high school.
GQ: Stopped you right at high school. Okay.
JS: Yep.
GQ: Do you have a happy moment in your life you can remember. A happy time?
JS: Mmm...I don’t think so. I think it was all always just mediocre.
GQ: But you liked working in the ranch?
JS: Yeah.
GQ: The best time?
JS: Oh yeah.
GQ: Any funny moments in your life that you can recall?
JS: Nah.
GQ: There were some funny moments anyhow.
JS: Yeah. [LAUGHTER]
GQ: But nothing comes to mind.
JS: Just as long as I’m with people and can socialize, I’m fine.
138
GQ: Okay. Well, thank you. It was very good. We appreciate your time and we’re
going to make a copy here if you want.
RS: Stop it.
JS: [Jeanette nods.] Okay.
GQ: And then we can burn you a copy and hopefully it will.
JS: Okay.
[End of transcript for this interview 00:11:19]
139
Interview 6
Lucy Valenzuela Mihalik
Lucy Valenzuela Mihalik was born and raised in Patagonia. She was the
granddaughter of Valentin Valenzuela, patriarch of one the leading families of
Crittenden and Patagonia. Lucy moved to the Phoenix area after high school
and met her husband, Paul, there. After raising a family and touring the world
with Paul’s military service, she and Paul have settled in Patagonia residing in
the adobe home of her childhood. This interview takes place in that home.
140
Lucy Mihalik
September 15, 2009
Patagonia, AZ
GERMAN QUIROGA: Well good afternoon. We are at the home of Paul and Lucy
Mihalik in Patagonia on Duquesne Road. It is September 15th Tuesday afternoon and
thank you for having us here.
LUCY MIHALIK: Well you’re very welcome. Glad to help you.
GQ: And so we’d like to know a little bit about you.
LM: Okay.
GQ: When you were born and your parents and your grandparents and so forth.
LM: Okay. Well, I’ll start off with when I was born. I was born on August 20, 1927 at 4
o’clock in the afternoon. I believe it was a Saturday and I was born in this very room
that we’re sitting in.
GQ: Wow.
LM: And of course there were no doctors at that time, so a couple of my aunts were the
midwives. And when my dad came home, there he had another child and I was the
tenth child of that family, in my dad’s and mother’s. My father’s name was Antonio
Valenzuela and my mother’s name was Virginia Corral Valenzuela. I grew up in this
home, so I graduated from high school and then I left to go to business school and work
and get married. But–
GQ: Where did you go to business school?
LM: I went to business school in Phoenix, Lamson Business School for a year. Anyway,
if you want me to get back to Patagonia. My parents had ten children, three sons and
they had a little girl that died when she was seven years old—of course I never knew
her—and then I had the rest of my siblings. And right now I’m the only one left alive.
Unfortunately my mother died when I was six years old and my sisters and brothers
died, some young; most of them pretty young because they had an illness that runs in
the family, kidney disease, polycystic kidney disease. I’m very fortunate that I and one
of my brothers did not have it. The rest did and evidently our mother had it because
141
she died so young. She died when she was 49 and I was 6 years old, so that was pretty
young. But my older brothers had already left home, but my sisters and my younger
brother took care of me and my father worked and my father of course was a
wonderful, good, very patient and loving man.
GQ: What kind of work did he do?
LM: He was a blacksmith at the mines and a lot of times he was working seven days a
week, but he always provided for us and we lived in this house. Of course this house
was built, as far as I know, in about 1910. And of course after that was built...
Paul Mihalik: And then your mother designed the house, right?
LM: Yeah, my mother designed it and she helped built it by making adobes. She and
one of my older brothers would go down the hill to my aunt’s house where there’s a
windmill and they had a big well and she would take her little donkey and they’d put
these canvas bags over their back and fill them with water and bring them up to mix the
adobes. And she must have been a really really hard worker. From what I hear she
helped many people in the community. If anybody was sick, she’d take food to them
and if she’d see a poor child go by to school with a ragged shirt, she’d run out and call
them in and put another shirt on because she was quite a seamstress and she would
make a lot of clothing you know to just give away. And of course she worked very
hard because she had nine children.
But anyway and then a major part of my life was the Catholic Church. And I just
looked up some of my records and I think the first Catholic Church was built in 1901.
GQ: Here in town?
LM: Yeah, here in town. It was a little small little church and that’s where I was
baptized and confirmed too in those days.
RS: Where was the church located?
LM: Well, right next to where the local church is now. In those days if the bishop
happened to come and I think he was from Mexico, they, even though, I was like three
days old and they baptized me and confirmed me because God only knew when the
bishop would come again to do the confirmation. But anyway my Aunt Luz that lived
next door, the adobe next door to the two story house, that was my grandfather’s house.
142
My father’s father. So we had a lot to do with my aunts, especially after my mother
died. My aunts were Aunt Carrie and my Aunt Luz were very, very good to me. And I
always helped my Aunt Luz with the church you know, cleaning the church and
whatever I could do at that age. Of course I lived here twelve – seventeen. I went to
school here and I always had a great time in spite of the fact that my mother died when
I was young. I always was happy you know running around these hills and the things
we used to do.
GQ: What would you do?
LM: We’d make these tin sleds, that old tin, put a wire in them, bend it up, go down
that red hill there and wow, we just slide down, and there was a blue hill up here that
we’d go and just have a blast. Or we’d just run and we’d play. We used to go to the–
My Aunt Carrie used to take us to the movie sometimes in Nogales and they’d have
these serial movies. The Thunder Riders they were called and there were cowboys with
masks riding, running, you know and then the one was a queen. My brother Dick had–
I don’t know how he didn’t suffocate but he had built a tunnel from this yard to the
next door tunnel and with a big, like a big room down there where the queen sat all day
and I usually was the queen and I thought it’s a wonder I’m still alive! [LAUGHTER]
But oh, did we have fun playing, just playing. And at night we played Run Sheep Run
and Kick the Can and Hide and Seek, whatever you know.
GQ: Can you remember some of your playmates?
LM: Yes. Well of course first of all were my cousins Isaac and Carrie Montoya that
lived next door. And then I played with Sarah Dawson; the Dawson family were here.
And Willie Dawson, the brother and oh there were so many kids that used to be here,
the Werns. I remember Billy Wern and Harold and Art Wern. And then there was, one
time there was a family called Buchanan and they used to play, and then the Rowes,
Mary Frances Rowe and she married Morena. And then Dolly Rowe her sister and let
me think who else. Oh a lot of kids but I’ve forgotten their names now. Betty was one
of the girls and then there were some girls named Kerne and they had Annette and
Marie Kerne that were nice girls in my school. And everybody would come here in this
yard and my aunts would let us play there. It was wonderful, real clean good fun and
we’d play till 10 o’clock at night you know during the summer and just–
PM: When you say this yard, you’re talking about the next door here?
143
LM: Next door, Grandpa’s yard. Anyway going to school you know I played the
sports was the big thing and I was– I played everything; I played basketball, I played
softball, I played, I even played football with the boys here in the next yard, next door.
They didn’t always want me to play but my brothers said okay; well we do need
another player, so okay. So I was thrilled you know. And I always liked to wear blue
jeans you know and a shirt and just play rough you know with the boys.
PM: What was your nickname then?
LM: Oh, I had so many nicknames, my gosh, but the one that stuck with me was
Queekie.
GQ: How did you get that name?
LM: Well my sister Carrie gave that to me because when we were growing up she
would– She and I developed this language that everything ended in E, I E. And so one
day she just said Queekie and it just stuck and I left and I haven’t even thought about it
too much until I came back and the few people that still remembered me here called me
Queekie. They still do, so but I don’t know why she said that but anyway she was– My
sisters were really great. They did everything I told them to do. [LAUGHTER]
PM: When you were talking about the church, when you asked about the church, I
think it might be interesting for them to know about your aunt that assisted the priest
here because it’s part of the Church’s history here and she was teaching the kids
religion and she sort of kept that program alive for years. And she didn’t marry, so she
fed the priests when they came once a month; she did the altar linens, laundered
everything and dedicated her whole life to the church.
LM: And cleaned the church.
PM: What was her name?
LM: Luz.
PM: Aunt Luz, L-U-Z.
LM: Mm hmm, and she was crippled with arthritis,she had rheumatoid arthritis, but
she would make these huge meals for the priests every Sunday because the priest
would only come once.
144
PM: That was every Sunday, once a week.
LM: Yeah, and she’d have– I don’t know how she did it but she baked the best apple
pies and everything. And I would help her you know like peel the apples and all that
and do the dishes. So that was a great part of my life for a long time because she, she
did a lot for the church. She taught all the Catechism that was taught here and then she
would bring the kids over here and when they made their first communion she would
have a big breakfast for them. She had hot chocolate and donuts that she made herself.
The kids just loved it. Then she’d have a big fiesta in the yard and she’d put big tables
there and she’d buy all kinds of little trinkets and stuff. But every time they came to
Catechism she would give them a ticket, see, that was worth so much. So when the
time came that the fiesta was available, why they would come and buy little things with
their little tickets. It was an incentive for them to keep coming.
PM: It’s called bribery. [LAUGHTER]
LM: And then at Easter time, she would paint, you know, dye all these eggs. Oh I
don’t know how many dozen eggs she would do, and my older cousins that used to live
there [pointing] at one time they would go out in this canyon behind us here and they
would hide all the eggs. Well the kids would go crazy hunting those eggs. I don’t
know how many dozen she did. I don’t know how she did all that because she was
really in a lot of pain all that time with the arthritis of hers, but she was wonderful. I
always thought she was a living saint. But anyway then I left. It was really hard saying
goodbye to my dad. I was the last one left and all my sisters and brothers left one by
one you know. And my brother that was before me, he had enlisted in the Marine
Corps and was gone for three years during the war. He was in the Pacific.
GQ: Which brother?
LM: Richard.
GQ: Richard?
LM: Mm hmm. And my– I have three in the service, my brother Richard, my sister
Lupe and my sister Carrie. She was an army nurse and my sister was a WAC, you
know in the Women’s Army Corps. And then Richard was in the Marines and well we
worried a lot about them but what could you do? But my dad was very proud; he hung
the flags with the stars on the door.
145
PM: Richard was in the Battle of Guadalcanal and what else I remember?
LM: Well all kinds of... [inaudible]
PM: Boy, it’s a miracle he came home. He was in some of the worst battles in the
Pacific, mm hmm.
LM: It’s a miracle. He did come home with malaria which he had bouts with it, but
thank God he survived. Yeah.
PM: What happened when you finished Business College, hon? What did you do then?
LM: Well, when I finished Business College, I went to– I had a friend that worked at
Williams Air Force Base so I thought boy that would be a good job if you could get into
civil service and all that. You know the idea of going over there where they had a lot of
guys. [LAUGHTER] So I told her, “Boy if something comes up let me know you
know.” I finished college and I went over to– They sent me over to this realty company
that paid me $25 a week, which was nothing you know because I had to pay board and
I was renting a little room and all that. And anyway and I hated it so I said, “Oh, gosh
if there’s something.” Well by golly something did come up. She called me one day
and she says, “Can you come up tomorrow for an interview?” I said, “Sure, sure.” And
I didn’t even know what I was going to wear because I only had hand-me-down clothes
you know. I was having a pretty rough time then. Then I got on a bus to take me out to
Chandler to the base and went for an interview and I’ll be darned if I didn’t get the job
and it was a job as a secretary to the Commandant of the academic training school
where they taught the cadets and the pilots their academic training.
PM: At Williams Field.
LM: At Williams Field. Well it turned out to be a wonderful, wonderful job, so then I
found out that some of the women could go and they had like a, well a barracks is what
it was, but you could rent a room there and live on the base and you wouldn’t have to
commute. Well that was great for me because I didn’t have a car or anything and I was
living in a pretty bad place so anyway I just stayed out there and had a grand time,
great time, loved my job until I met Paul and here we got married.
GQ: How long had you been working until you met–?
146
LM: Well, almost three years and it was a wonderful job. I made a lot of good friends
there.
GQ: How did you two meet?
LM: Well, we actually met. Paul had spotted me somewhere and my girlfriend, my
girlfriend was his secretary and he said, “You know that little girl I saw over there...?
PM: Well let me go to the beginning. When I first saw Lucy going to the communion
rail in the Catholic chapel and I looked at her and I—this is the God’s truth—I said boy,
there’s the girl I want to marry. Never seen her before. So I was like a sick puppy.
[LAUGHTER] She would come out of there, out of church and she’d go sometimes to
the Officers Club for breakfast because the girls who worked there got an access to the
Officers Club. Or sometimes she’d go to the thing called the Service Club, and I would
follow her down the sidewalk and too—afraid I was going to blow it see, afraid to
introduce myself and then the Air Force thought it was wise to send me to Lowry Field
in Denver for nine months and I figured I’ll never meet her and I’ll probably never
marry her. So nine months later I got back to Williams Field and I found out that she
was still single, although I found out later she was on the verge of getting engaged to
somebody, one of the cadets, and we had a Christmas party where I was working as a
Supply Officer and we had– It was a Friday just the week before Christmas and my
secretary who knew Lucy—see but I didn’t know that—and she says, “Paul are you
going to be bringing anybody to the party?” And I said, “Well I really haven’t been
around long enough to meet anybody but the only one I’m interested in is this cute gal
riding a bicycle to the laundry but I don’t even know her name.” She said, “That’s my
girlfriend Lucy.” I thought I’d died and went to heaven. She brought Lucy and I don’t
think we had exchanged ten words.
LM: Well we said hello. She introduced me to you.
PM: During that visit—that was Friday—so Sunday, my little dog– I was living in the
bachelor officer quarters and my little dog ran out and Lucy was walking up the street
to the Club for breakfast and my dog—I owe it to my dog [LAUGHTER] —my dog ran
right up to Lucy and Lucy started petting her and it sort of broke the ice for
conversation. And I said, “You know boss Captain White is asking me if I want to go
up with their family up to the mountains for a steak fry. Would you be interested in
going? He’s taking five kids.” I added that real quick so she’d know she’d be safe.
[LAUGHTER] And so Captain White, his wife and Lucy and me and five kids, we
jumped and crammed in that car. Then I thought I died and went to heaven a second
147
time because she had to sit on my lap all the way up to... [LAUGHTER] all the way up
to this place and back again. Anyway we dated every night except one night—this was
December 15th or 16th when I first met her at the party. We were married the next
month on January 28th. Because for one day, she brought me down– She came down to
see her dad but that was the only night we didn’t date. But I was getting out of the Air
Force at the time and I was going to go back to Pittsburgh and I said if I don’t go back, if
we don’t marry now, I’ll—it will never happen. So Lucy felt like I did. We went ahead
and got married, so that was from December 16th to January 28th was what, just over a
month, six weeks or so.
LM: Six weeks, yeah.
GQ: Was that how you remember it, Lucy?
LM: Yeah, pretty much. [LAUGHTER] Pretty much.
PM: And so we’re married what now?
LM: Well my gosh, it’ll be 60 years in...
PM: 59 years this year.
GQ: Wow. Congratulations.
RS: Congratulations.
LM: I know.
PM: And we had seven kids during that period.
LM: Yeah. I had never thought of even getting married or you know having children
or anything at that time. But my Aunt Luz, you know I think it’s her fault because she
kids with Paul, during, while we were serving. She said “You pray three Hail Marys
every night that you meet a good Catholic husband [LAUGHTER] because you don’t
want to marry any other religion because they think of divorce and this and this and
that you know.” And of course you know whatever she said I thought you know, and
then my dad had told me I had to come for– He said, “I hope you’re not going to get
crazy and marry one of those little soldier boys [LAUGHTER] up there.” I thought oh if
148
you only knew [LAUGHTER] what I was doing. But my dad liked Paul a lot so that
was nice.
PM: I remember when she introduced me to her dad, at one time that we were in
Phoenix at her brother’s. It was the first time I met her brothers. And her dad, Tony,
and that was– What was that hotel?
LM: It was the Westward Ho.
PM: It was the Westward Ho Hotel in Phoenix. It was a nice, very nice hotel and her
dad Tony said—he was sizing me up—and he says let’s go over and have a drink. And
I had never drunk any whiskey or anything like that and I’m 21 years old and I had
never had any liquor and I had somewhat of a nervous stomach and usually liquor or
beer or anything like that would make me sick. Tony asked me to come to the bar with
him and he ordered a shot of whiskey and a glass of water, and I thought he’s really
sizing me up and I don’t know how I’m going to handle this. I’m going to drink that
shot of whiskey. He says to me, “What would you like?” and I said, “I’ll have the
same.” So I took the shot of whiskey and tossed it down and swallowed it in one gulp
and he points at the water says “Aren’t you going to have any of that?” I said no.
[LAUGHTER]
LM: He was choking.
PM: Well not quite but it was burning my throat and I knew he was really sizing me up
in some manner and he said, “Do you want another one?” I said, “No,” and he said,
“Okay. Let’s go.” So we went back to the house and all the brothers took me out for
my first Mexican food dinner and with that nervous stomach, I thought they’re going to
kill me because they were talking about all these hot dishes and all and so they brought
a bowl of...
LM: Chiltepines.
PM: A bowl of… your dish, honey.
GQ: Menudo?
LM: Oh, all right.
149
PM: And they insisted I take those little hot peppers. They were chiltepines. I didn’t
know what they were, but I know that when they touched my lip my lip was on fire.
And they say, “Come on, you have to have more of that.” [throat clearing] Pardon me.
So the same thing when adding hot sauce to this and hot sauce to that and the tacos and
it was super delicious. And I am not exaggerating. From that day I’ve never had a
stomach problem again and I always thought that that chili stuff had a curative
property and honestly I still think it does. Anyway, I’m sorry. Lucy maybe you have
some more things you want to say.
GQ: So I was going to ask about your grandparents.
LM: Okay, my grandparents, okay I just knew my grandfathers, my mother’s father
and his name was Jose Utiño Corral. And he lived down there with one of my aunts
and–
GQ: Down...down–
LM: And they lived in this house there with the windmill. This is Amado. Did you
know? Anyway it was her– She was my mother’s sister, so Grandpa lived with her.
And I remember him coming up here and even before my mother died I don’t know
why I remember it but he used to get down like on his haunches when it was real cold
and he would lean his back on the hot adobe wall back there we had in the kitchen and
he said, “Oh, this is the best medicine in the world,” you know that heat and it probably
felt like a heating pad. And he used to like to eat my mother’s– My mother would
make those little white navy beans with ham hocks especially for him and he loved that.
And then my grandpa, Valentine Valenzuela, my dad’s father– Now I knew him a lot
better because we were right here next door. And he was– I just loved him, all the kids
just loved him because he had had a stroke and he had– He had a little ranch up here,
had to leave the ranch and come here and then he had all kinds of animals. He had all
these rabbit hutches and he had little ducklings and little chickens and what have you.
And we’d love it because we could go see the little animals, you know. They were so
cute. Grandpa was always there and you know we kind of looked at him see what the
heck he was doing because he was always doing something you know. But we, I loved
Grandpa a lot and anyway he did own that ranch up there. He was one of the first
settlers here in Patagonia and I have pictures of him even bringing wagons here to this
house and– because he had cattle and horses up there, and sheep. And in the winter he
would bring a cow down here so that they could milk it for the milk. Oh everybody
would get around it and get little cups; you know those little tin cups and want some of
150
that warm sweet milk and not me. I said oh not me, I’m not about to touch that you
know. I didn’t want any part of it. And maybe that’s why I’m allergic to milk but I
never wanted it. And then he would bring a couple little or one little sheep down here
to eat all the grass, all the weeds and everything. That’s the way they did things in
those days. But I guess before I was even born, he had a meat market down here in
town.
PM: Mm hmm. It’s where the...
LM: Where the Seventh Day Adventists are now.
GQ: I saw the photograph of it.
LM: Did you see the photographs of the...
GQ: Tim Mello had a copy of it.
LM: You know what; they have all those photographs at the library. Did you know?
GQ: No, I didn’t.
LM: They have a scrapbook with pictures of the hotel and the corner store and you can
make copies there. You can make copies so I have some myself. But anyway that’s
about all I know about my grandpa and then he just died.
PM: Well Grandpa—Valentin?
LM: Yeah.
PM: He was a close friend with R. R. Richardson who was the founder of the town.
And–
LM: They first came here to...
PM: from Crittenden.
LM: To this little place, you know where that rock home is outside of town.
GQ: The Smith Hotel?
151
LM: Yes, the Smith Hotel and all that, and they had like a tent city there and my
grandfather had come- was actually born in Los Angeles, came down the corridor but
of course he had lived in Los Angeles until he was I don’t know what age but then came
down to Tucson and he was the foreman of the Zeckendorf Ranch there. It’s a big
ranch near the San Xavier Mission and that’s where he met my grandmother. They
were married there and of course my dad was the oldest of the children and he was of
course baptized there in the San Xavier Mission. And my grandmother wanted him to
get a good schooling you know and sent him to public school. So there was a friar, a
Spanish friar there that taught him all his schooling till he left there. And I still have his
little primer books like that in Spanish. And so he learned to speak the real true
Spanish language, beautiful Spanish.
GQ: So your grandfather met your grandmother at the San Xavier Mission or in that
area?
LM: Well in that area, Tucson.
GQ: Do you know where your grandmother came from?
LM: Yes, she came from Mexico from it was called San Juan de la Huerta. It was a little
town near Alamos and she and her sister, during the revolution, they got in a little onehorse carriage and they took off even though the war was going on all around them.
Can you imagine how afraid they were? And they came all the way to what is now
Nogales and where Pete Kitchen’s, you know where the restaurant is? Okay. And at
that time Pete Kitchen lived there and his wife, my grandmother and her sister were
friends of his wife, so they let them stay there for awhile. And then they went on to
Tucson and I guess that’s where my dad, my grandfather met his wife and my aunt met
her husband.
PM: And your dad was in a room with Pete Kitchen when he died?
LM: No it wasn’t. It was Dad’s dad that was–
PM: Pardon?
LM: It was my grandfather.
PM: Your dad’s father was in the room with Pete Kitchen when he died.
152
GQ: Valentin was?
PM: Valentin was.
LM: Yeah, my mom and dad, my dad was too young. Well anyway when they–
PM: Well the reason I brought up Pete Kitchen was because he was quite a figure here.
I don’t know if any of your interviews have mentioned that, but he was one of the few
people that held off the Apaches when they were–
GQ: Mm hmm.
LM: Anyway when my father was about 16 years old, my grandfather got a job
running the mails here and so he and the family all came. That’s when they lived in the
tent city and he took mails up to all the mines and the payrolls, the money, I don’t know
whether it was gold or what, but my father even though he was pretty young he went
around with a shotgun for him because my grandfather had like a wagon and when
they’d see the Indians or the bandits looked like they were going to come rob them,
Grandpa would say to my dad, “Hurry up, run! Take the payroll here; take it as fast as
you can to the mines!” So I always thought that was really interesting you know and
anyway getting back to my life, I...
GQ: So you got married and then you went to Pennsylvania?
LM: Yeah, we went to Pennsylvania for a while and then Paul was recalled to the
Service and he had–
PM: During the Korean War.
LM: During the Korean War. You know they started calling everybody back.
GQ: Oh, okay.
LM: So he was recalled and then we went to– We first went to Fort Dix, New Jersey for
processing and I stayed at my sister– I had a sister Martha that lived in New Jersey so I
was able to stay with her. By that time we already had a baby, our oldest little girl
Denise. And then he was sent to Wrightstown, Ohio.
153
MP: And theyLM: [inaudible] so we lived there for– How long were we there? About a year. And
yeah it was just a year and then he was going to be sent to France, the whole Wing. The
whole Wing was going to be sent all together to Oklahoma for training but the Wing
was supposed to stay together. So we were in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Tinker Air
Force Base and they were even giving us French lessons so we all were supposed to go
to France. At any rate, we were there and then the time came for him to leave and I was
pregnant with a second child so I thought well there’s no way I can go. So then I came
to Arizona and I stayed with my brother and his wife for awhile in Mesa and then had
the baby at Williams. Then my dad went up there and he brought me home with the
two children and I stayed here for six months with him, which was–
PM: But we never went to France. At the last minute...
LM: At the last minute.
PM: They changed the orders and they sent us, this air depot wing for overhauling
repair air craft. They sent us to Japan and part of the wing was sent to Korea right in
the middle of the combat and then our job in Japan near in Tachikawa Air Base
northeast of Tokyo about 30 miles. We had this big huge hanger that manufactured
Japanese zero fighters in the war and then when we turned that into a big depot and
used Japanese people—amazing people, amazing with their hands what they can do,
and so—I’m getting off the subject but we showed them how to overhaul these things
and then nobody could do a better job once they learned it. And we saved millions of
dollars because they can overhaul generators, they can overhaul propellers, all the
components of an aircraft, do an excellent job. So we could just turn around and use
them there instead of this pipeline of purchasing things to keep them flowing to the
States, to the depots back to Japan. And anyway that was a marvelous experience
watching the Japanese. I’m sorry to digress from this because I’m not sure. You can
excise that out of the tape because if you want.
GQ: No, that’s okay, that’s fine.
LM: We loved our assignment there. We learned to love the Japanese people. We lived
off base for a while and our neighbors; we had wonderful neighbors because I had such
a bad impression of them. I thought of my brother fighting under the war you know.
But they were wonderful and we came back and we came to Roswell, New Mexico and
lived there for a while and then we went to– Paul was assigned a Commandant’s desk
154
in Montgomery, Alabama, went there for a year. By that time we already had six
children. [ LAUGHTER] And anyway then we were waiting for our son and they sent
us to Anchorage, Alaska and we were really pretty excited about that. So we went up
there and we loved it. We loved it. And then we stayed there for four years. We were
there during that horrible earthquake. It was really bad.
PM: Mm hmm, 1964.
LM: Mm hmm. Then of course we had a little Eskimo there. We had our last one up
there, a son, Stephen and I call him my little Eskimo. But anyway, we had a wonderful
little child. We were always wanting to, we always kept saying, “Oh, Paul, I wish you
could come and be stationed at Davis-Monthan in Tucson because then we could be
close to my dad because my dad was still living in this house by himself and I worried a
lot about it. And so by golly we’re at the last minute he did get Davis-Monthan and we
could see Dad a lot you know and it was wonderful because he got to really know our
children.
GQ: They’d been all over the world practically in all those years. Mm hmm.
LM: They’d been almost all over and they fell in love with my dad you know and he,
them so I was real happy about that.
GQ: That was in mid ‘60s or close to the ‘70s?
LM: Closer to the ‘70s. When did we come to–?
PM: I retired October 1st of ’68. Well, we left Anchorage in July of ’66 and were at
Davis-Monthan for two years, a little over two years before I retired.
LM: Yeah. Anyway and then one thing led to another and after my dad passed away
why we had fallen in love with Patagonia and Paul said why can’t we buy something
here. We ought to get something and I said well we should and I said well what’s
going to happen to Dad’s house you know so anyway when Dad passed away, we went
to a lawyer and everything and asked everybody that was still alive in my family
[COUGH] excuse me, if they wanted this home for any reason you know or what they
wanted to do with it and they said “Oh we’d just be thrilled if you want to keep that
house. We want to keep it in the family.” So then we came and we made them an offer
and we bought it and so then we started– We had a home in Tucson at the time and
155
we’d come here on the weekends and go back you know during the week. And so then
we–
PM: Trying to fix up–
LM: Trying to fix this place up so we got to a point where when we were going back
we kept saying “I wish we were here the week and over there the weekend.” So
anyway we finally moved. We hated to get the kids out of school, but they survived
going to here, two of them went to school here. But even our kids fell in love with
Patagonia. They love it to this day. And so now we, we just moved down here and
we’ve been here ever since just...
GQ: So how has it changed from the time you were a little girl in high school, then you
came back what? 20, almost 30 years later? How–
LM: Yeah. Really and I thought I wouldn’t know anybody or nobody would even
know who I was. And surprisingly some of the older people that were still alive, they
remembered me and that was really nice and—but of course all of the motels here and
things that are had changed but not so terribly much except of course when I was a kid
most of the streets were not paved. You know we had donkeys all over the place and
kids playing on the streets. You know I miss seeing that and but it has changed now
you know even just since we’ve been living here this time. But I really hated for it to
change because it was always such a beautiful, unique little place, you know so peaceful
and everything and things have changed a lot. There’s a lot of people, a lot of retirees
that are coming here because well it’s– They feel safer here than in the city. They can
walk everywhere, which is really– I love that, that I can walk to the Post Office and all
that. But it has changed quite a bit.
PM: We’ve been back here 31 years now.
LM: Gosh, I can’t believe it, can’t believe it.
GQ: So it has changed I’m sure in those 31 years as well.
LM: Oh, definitely, definitely, a real different type of people are living here now.
There’s a lot of people that are coming here, they want a change, they want to make it a
tourist town you know with selling all the jewelry and whatever people, the artisans do
here, artists and all that, and I think that kind of spoils it for me. And another thing all
the traffic, seeing those big trucks going through here and you know it’s dangerous and
156
then with what’s going on with young kids. There’s nothing for the kids to do and they
grow up too fast and they don’t let the children be children. Gosh, we were 14 years old
and we were still playing with dolls, you know that sort of thing and having fun, just
having fun being kids. But now I don’t see the kids out on the street, nothing you know
like they used to be.
PM: Television.
LM: Yeah too much TV. Of course we didn’t have television.
PM: TV games.
LM: Yeah we didn’t have anything like that. We just had the sports at school and then
at home we just played.
GQ: How can we make Patagonia better then?
LM: Well I think one thing would be very good if you could get something for the
young teenagers. I think they’re lost, I think they really are, although I heard that
somebody had tried to do something with them and they’d take them to the senior
citizens hall there. But it’s terrible; they just don’t want to do anything. They’re just so
different kind of kid now and I don’t think the parents encourage their kids to do
different– You know they’re just glad to get them out of the house and it’s sad, it’s
really sad, but I don’t know what you could do to change things. I think it would be
good if you could control the growth, but I don’t think it’s possible. I know we fought–
They went to build up here behind us and we fought that. Remember, Paul?
PM: [inaudible] Well, they wanted to get onto the services for water and sewer for the
town and a lot of us fought that, but since that is county up there they went ahead and
did it independently. But I guess we slowed them down a little bit. But we live in
America with our freedom to move around. It’s pretty hard. The only thing is if the
people are generally part time citizens because they’re not here all year long, then they
don’t really become a big part of the town and the social activities. But everybody has a
right to live their way.
LM: But they want to–
PM: But you can go to the Post Office now. I mean we go down there now and–
157
LM: We hardly know anybody.
PM: And maybe you make one trip to the Post Office a day, you might meet two
people that you know. But–
LM: When we first came here I used to go down to the Post Office and Paul would say
well when are you coming back? I said, “Oh, pretty soon,” and I’d be down there for
about– I’d go down the street and stop to talk to my cousin Virginia for a minute, and
then I’d go three steps and meet somebody else and get to the Post Office and I knew
everybody there. It was wonderful. So I’d come back in almost an hour and he’d say,
“Well, what did you do? Did you get lost?” I said, “Oh, I just met somebody to talk
to.” And I kind of really miss that now.
PM: I think she was still looking for some of those Air Force guys [LAUGHTER]
LM: I wouldn’t count on that. I knew I wouldn’t find them here. I’d like to tell you a
cute little story about your grandmother.
GQ: Okay.
LM: Which I remember very much and they called her Dona Chica. Do you remember?
GQ: Mm hmm.
LM: And I don’t– Did you get to meet her?
GQ: Yes. She was– She died in 1974. I was 23 at the time, so yes.
LM: Well see we weren’t here at the time. I guess we were still in Tucson. I don’t
remember. At any rate, at one time she was doing the laundry for my dad and I, and
we would take it down there and then when we’d bring it back, my dad was always
missing maybe one sock. And I said I wonder what’s going on, if it’s just one sock. I
know I took two socks and so then we’d go back and talk to your grandma and gosh it’s
strange. What do you think is happening? She says, “Well I know very well I wash two
socks and I put two socks up on the line, you know separate clothes pins and so on.” So
she says, “I’m going to have to watch and see what if somebody’s coming and taking it
or what. That’s really weird.” And so here she was watching it so the next time we
went down there she says, “Well I caught the culprit. It was this crow that
[LAUGHTER] would come and take a sock every time she’d hang them up.” Isn’t that
158
crazy? We got the biggest kick out of that and I never forgot that. I thought that was
really cute.
PM: A crow with cold feet or what?
LM: I don’t know. Well I think it makes a nice nest probably, but it was really strange,
the case of the missing sock.
PM: Wouldn’t it be funny if he got up some morning on a cold morning and you saw
this crow flying out there with these ugly little things hanging off his feet and they were
the socks? [00:44:40 LAUGHTER]
LM: His feet were cold. Anyway.
RS: So did you know Argenta?
LM: Oh yes, we were friends. Yeah, actually she went to school with one of my sisters
and they were very close friends. And you know where she is now don’t you.
RS: Yeah. Yeah.
LM: Are you related to her at all?
RS: No.
LM: Argenta, yeah. She’s a nice lady.
GQ: Our neighbor, Doug, is taking– visits her I guess quite often.
LM: She’s down at the nursing home in Nogales now you know, quite [00:45:11
inaudible].
RS: But she was connected to the Smith’s Hotel, I think.
LM: Oh yeah, that was her grandfather and then her father’s name was Mr. May,
Charles May and he used to have a service station down here. You know that open
space between what do they call it the Mission and the other buildings here. They had
the shops and my cousin Carrie and I we would go to church on Sunday and that day
or the day before they would give us a nickel. We each had a nickel, so as soon as
159
church was out, we’d make a bee line towards Mr. May’s Service Station because he had
this big ice box outside with just chunks of ice and all these great big bottles of Big Chief
soda, and he said, “Oh oh here come the strawberry girls,” and that’s all we would
drink. We’d get the strawberry, great big bottle and every Sunday same thing. But we
had a lot of fun you know. There were a lot of neat things we used to do.
RS: And now when your dad was blacksmith at the mines, did he travel to the mines
every day or did he spend time up there?
LM: When he traveled up there. He had a Model T Ford and he would drive up there
every day. He’d leave at like 6 o’clock in the morning I think and he would go up there
and then he wouldn’t get home till about 4 or 5 and he’d pack his lunch. He had a little
lunch pail you know.
RS: Mm hmm.
LM: I remember when I was pretty young, or maybe I was older but I was like a baby
around him I guess, but as soon as he got home I’d say “Oh, Dad, what did you bring
me? What did you bring me?” So he would always manage to leave me half a
sandwich or a little cookie or something and I just loved it.
RS: Did he make meals for you or did one of your aunts cook for the family after your
mom...?
LM: No, actually my dad was working all the time, so he couldn’t cook. See I wasn’t
always alone with him. My older sister, my older sisters were here right after my
mother died. Then my sister Martha left and well, my older sister Laura had left
already and then Martha left and then Carrie left, but whoever was left would do the
cooking, and my sister Lupe. And then my brother Dick, well he left and went to the
service so I was left and then I had to start cooking and one of my older brothers died at
that time. I forget what year that was, 1944 or something like that and... No it was
earlier that that because... It was 1942. Anyway, I was only like 14 years old and I
thought oh, everybody was cook. My dad, he died in Miami, Arizona. He was a miner,
and my dad brought the body here and everything so everybody was going to come
here so I thought oh boy, I’ve got to cook something. So I found the biggest pot I could
find and bought some ribs, you know beef ribs and put them in there and corn on the
cob and potatoes and carrots and everything, just made–
GQ: Cocido?
160
LM: Yeah, something like that and one of my aunts came that she lived in California
and she said, “My God, did you make that? I cannot believe it; you’re so young and
you made it.” I said, “Yeah, I made it.” So I felt pretty good about it, but they all ate it.
They ate every bit of it. They were either real hungry or I don’t know what, but
anyway...
GQ: That’s good. Okay. Is that good?
LM: Yeah, whatever; it’s up to you.
GQ: How long to go? Another ten minutes or so?
RS: Sure.
GQ: I was going to ask about your other Sunday activities. You’d go to church, you’d
hit the soda machine, the soda trough and then what?
LM: And then they used to have rodeos, right, up here where they have the hill, a
trailer park. Oh boy that was... We’d never miss that!
GQ: Almost every Sunday they would have–?
LM: Not every Sunday, but whenever they had it we would always go because we
liked to see the bronc riders and all that.
RS: Cowboys too.
LM: Yeah. I don’t think I was too interested in boys much then, but anyway one of my
older brothers actually rode the broncs you know and so that was real exciting. And
then another thing that was so neat was that I don’t know if it was in conjunction with a
rodeo or what, but this pilot would come with this little Piper Cub airplane and he
would land it there and he would give us rides. You paid 50 cents for a ride. Well, I
was always like, “Oh please, Dad, give me 50–” “Oh, okay, okay.” So I’d go up for a
ride and then I’d come back, “Oh, can I go up again?” I just loved it so much I’m telling
you. And he said, “Aren’t you sc–?” He never mentioned the word fear to me when I
was a kid, never never. But anyway I had a good time doing that and then one of the
great things we used to do like in the summertime, we would walk down the railroad
track to the creek and so some of the older boys like my brother and some of my
161
cousins, they dammed it up so there was a big swimming hole there. Gosh we loved
that so much. We didn’t know how to swim or anything, but by golly I think our
guardian angels were with us because nobody ever drowned there. But we’d just run
and jump in there you know and come up and paddle and get out and had such a good
time. And that was one of the things we really loved doing you know in the... Let me
think what else. Oh and then they had the fair at Sonoita, you know, and we would,
our class would enter things. You know how they do now.
PM: What was it that happened over the Fourth of July the train would bring people
from Nogales to come up here by the creek? [inaudible]
LM: Oh well I think I heard they did that but I don’t ever remember doing that. But all
I remember is when they bring the– The ranchers would have their roundups and
they’d bring all the cattle down here and they had like a turntable, a small stockyard.
GQ: So they would just drive them through town?
LM: Yeah and we always knew when they were coming because we’d hear them, you
know all their bahhing, all the noise and “Oh, there they come!” so we’d look at them
and down the street there they’d come. You know that main street. They’d come down
and they’d put them in there and then the train would take them out of here wherever
they were going. So that was kind of exciting for us just to see that. And then other
things were kind of exciting.
I think we used to have real hard rains here and I remember we had a bed in there and
I’d look out the window and oh that smells so good when—you know summer rain.
But one year we had a big flood because they had a real small bridge up here, the red
bridge. And the whole town was flooded down there. Of course, we didn’t have it here
but the kids were so darn happy because they got these big inner tubes you know and
we’re all riding out, paddling with sticks and sort of splashing and trying to swim in it
and everybody said, “Oh my gosh our house is going to get flooded,” but the kids were
having a blast. I’m telling you they had a good time.
And then my Aunt Carrie used to take us to Nogales. They had a theater there and
once in a while she would take- drive us down there and we really loved it because then
she’d buy us popcorn and soda and what have you you know.
GQ: Did this canyon ever flood, too? Was this a problem in this canyon?
162
LM: Well I think did flood, but not that bad, not like...
PM: They finally built a dam.
LM: They did build a dam up there you know, behind your father’s house there and
where Annie’s house is. They built that big dam there. I guess they did have quite a bit
of water going down there, but...but anyway this was a big one here that year.
PM: How about telling them about when the CCC came through here in the Depression
years, just before World War II.
LM: Well, I’m...I guess so. I don’t know exactly when it was, but my older sisters were
still at home and of course all those fellows were looking for dates and all that, so...And
my dad oh, he’d just watch you like a hawk—you know, watch them—and so if they
ever went out with a fellow, “Well, Lucy has to go with you. Take Lucy with you.”
[LAUGHTER]. I was the chaperone. [LAUGHTER] What could I do, you know? But
anyway they were good girls, so about the only extreme thing they ever did was to
walk up to the grade school and they’d swing on those swings up there. And swing
and I could care less about what they’re doing. They didn’t do anything bad, but
anyway, I had to go along all the time and I’d tell Dad, “Why, why do I have to go?”
But it’s “Oh no, you’ve got to go with your sister, so she’ll take care of you.”
RS: And this was when the camp was down at Flux Canyon?
LM: Yeah it was down in Flux there. There were a lot of fellows there.
PM: Did the– It was the Civilian Conservation Corps I think that was the name of it
then.
LM: Yeah that’s what it was.
RS: Do you remember if they did any projects in the town itself?
LM: They did. Yeah, I think they put a lot of– they built outdoor toilets for people and
they cleaned the road.
PM: And they built that dam.
LM: Built the dam.
163
RS: Because the WPA did some of the bridges across the creeks. Right?
LM: Some of the toilets, too, I think, but CC camps I think built mostly like the dam.
The roads they fixed them up because they were pretty bad.
PM: Well they might find it interesting if you tell them about this grocery store that
your aunt and uncle had here where the bank was.
LM: Yeah.
PM: Right where the bank is now.
LM: Well the cornerstone–
PM: The corner, the very corner of the building they had—before the building, the
bank, before the motel was built—they had a little grocery store there. This was during
the Depression years, and the name of your aunt and uncle and...
LM: Well my Uncle Val and my Aunt Luz, they managed it; they ran the store. And it
was a big mercantile store; they had everything there. They had like those big, big old
barrels with the big– And they had potatoes, they had clothes fabric and they had the
best penny candy you ever want to eat. And we’d go in there, myself and my cousins,
and my Aunt Luz would say, “What do you want?” We’d say, “Well we want that,
that, that, that, that...” Okay, so she gave us a big paper bag full of candy every day.
But my cousin Carrie and I would come and we’d play house with the boys and we’d
feed them all the candy and we’d end up without any candy. { LAUGHTER] But
anyway, during the Depression, it was a place where they would bring them food to
give to the poor, so I just remember seeing the long line of people lined up there and
they’d give them like a bag of potatoes or oranges or whatever. I don’t really know
what, but I just remember seeing that, long long lines. There were a lot of poor people
in those days.
PM: Who was that you worked for, honey, when you– He– It was a drugstore or
something in town?
LM: Yeah.
PM: And you would get an ice cream cone every once in a while.
164
LM: I used to work at a little drugstore. It used to be owned by the Bethels first but
then Mr. – What is it, Hitchcock or...? Oh why can’t I think of his name? Anyway it
was when I was in high school and he gave me a part time job that I would go there
after school and just wait on the people, mostly the kids that would come in for an ice
cream cone and I’d give them a big old scoop for five cents, these big ice cream cones.
And so boy, I had more kids coming in there when I was serving that ice cream.
GQ: You were generous. [LAUGHTER]
LM: I was real generous, boys would eat a lot but he didn’t fire me. But it was so
wonderful. He let me– I would actually close the store at night, which was I guess
around 7 or 8, I’ve forgot, but geez I got a quarter an hour and that was a lot of money
for me in those days you know.
GQ: That’s where the gas station is now, location?
LM: No, it was over here where all those stores are.
GQ: The Gathering Grounds?
LM: Yeah, around there. And it was one of those little places there. And the Post
Office used to be there, too. They had a little Post Office.
GQ: In that same area?
LM: Same area.
PM: You know one of the things they might find interesting was when you would
come home at night and it was real dark out there and there would be this dog out
there.
LM: Well when I was still pretty young and my dad– You know down there was this
little depot—it’s Pilates now or something—but it was a little depot and they had a pool
hall in there and it was like a men’s club and my dad was the president so he was stuck
closing up every night so I would stay here until we finished you know whatever we
were doing down there. And I would go to my Aunt Luz’s house there at night, and it
would be about 10, 10:30 something. I’d say, “Ah I better go home.” Of course we
didn’t have electric lights in those times, so I came up– There was a little bridge and a
165
little stairway and I’d walk up around there. I was pretty brave I guess. I was...
Anyway I’d walk around the house–
PM: Pitch black.
LM: Pitch black. I didn’t have a– I don’t know why my dad didn’t give me a flashlight
or something, but I couldn’t wait any longer for my dad and so then I had a match in
my pocket so I could light the little lamp when I’d get in the house and the key to the
house. But I came around there and all of a sudden, this white dog would appear, big
white dog, beautiful white dog, this beautiful big tail and he would just look at me and
walk around, never tried to get near me or nothing. And I wouldn’t get near him for
some reason and I’d go around and get to the door, unlock the door and come in and
I’d look out to see if he’s still there and he’d be gone. Yeah, almost every night that I’d
come home I’d see him. So Paul thinks he was my guardian angel.
GQ: Possibly.
LM: I think of it you know because I was pretty young.
PM: Pitch black out here and no outside lights on, no street lights and walking in the– a
little kid coming home. I mean, how could you explain that because the dog– She
would look out and the dog was always gone, but he’d be back the next night.
GQ: And you don’t know who he belonged to.
LM: No, I don’t know. I never saw him in town. Nothing. Or in the yard, nothing I
would, I would just see him; actually I would not see him until I went to turn the
corner.
GQ: Right here?
LM: No right at the end of our house.
GQ: End of the house, to go in the back door?
LM: Go in the back door.
GQ: But you mentioned a bridge from–
166
PM: Yeah, there was a bridge between that house and our house.
GQ: From the second story to your yard.
LM: Yeah and the little–
PM: Because the family was there and it was back and forth.
LM: It was real nice. I felt bad when they tore it down. Anyway, I would come home
and then pretty soon my dad would come home you know. But I’d come in here and
have to light that little lamp, have to light it and come in the back you know to the
bedroom.
PM: But did you hear the story of that white dog? If a person has faith, they wouldn’t
find that too hard to believe; but if there is no faith, you could have people taking
photographs and coming up with evidence and they would never believe that that
might be the guardian angel. But I do believe that that’s what it was.
GQ: That’s quite possible.
PM: I really think that it was true.
LM: Anyway...
GQ: Well thank you. That was a...
LM: Well you’re welcome both.
GQ: We’re done.
[End of video]
167
Interview 7
Lydia Dojaquez
Lydia DeLaOssa Dojaquez was born in Lochiel and spent her early childhood
there, attending the Lochiel School up to the fourth grade. In 1949 her family
moved to Patagonia where she attended school. She lived and worked there
until she met and married Albert Dojaquez who worked as a cowboy on several
ranches in the area, including the Circle Z and the Crown C. She has lived in
Arivaca since 1964.
168
Lydia Dojaquez
January 30, 2012
Arivaca, AZ
GERMAN QUIROGA: Welcome. My name is German Quiroga. I'm president of the
Patagonia Museum and we're here in Arivaca, Arizona, at the home of Lydia Dojaquez.
Today is January 30, 2012.
We're going to talk a little bit about where you grew up and your memories growing up
in Lochiel and Patagonia and we'll see where go from there.
LYDIA DOJAQUEZ: All right. Well, as far as I can tell, I was born June 15, 1938 at
2pm. It had to be a school day because my sister tells me it was the annual school
picnic. And when she got home, my grandmother was sitting somewhere with me all
wrapped up and a brand new sister for her. So, that's all on the record.
I grew up there very happily, surrounded by my grandmother and all our cousins and
our aunts and great uncles. We had one that was real fun where we used to go pick up
our mail three times a week. We'd walk across the corn fields and pick our mail that
was taken by automobile three times out of the Patagonia Post Office.
GQ: How far away were the mailboxes? [CROSSTALK]
LD: It was in his house. They had a little table and a porch, and if you had mail they
would just stack it.
GQ: So whose house was it?
LD: Rosamel and his family.
GQ: Oh OK.
LD: And I remember the carrier. It was Mrs. Blaine Lewis — her name, Laura?
ELENA QUIROGA: Mm hmm.
LD: To this day, she even used to deliver baby chicks for mother. Mother would order
them from either Penny's or Sears. Montgomery Ward's. And it was great. They are
probably one of the most joyous memories of my childhood, when we were free and we
169
could roam the whole settlement where we went to school. Eventually we had a chapel.
But it was great.
GQ: You mentioned your grandmother. This is your grandmother—
LD: Teresa.
GQ: Teresa, OK. And then you don't remember, I guess the other grandmother De La
Ossa was not living then? Carolina?
LD: She died the year I was born, Doña Carolina, yeah. That's what my mother told me.
She died the year I was born. I heard stories about her, her authoritative ways and all
that. And how she held the family together and her great belief in education. All her
kids, the male kids, went to St. Michael's in New Mexico to study. And I don't know
where the girls went.
GQ: They stopped at grade school. That's what I've heard. I don't know if that's true or
not.
LD: Some of them were fairly successful in their later years. And I know for sure that
her niece, my godmother, Lupita Roberts, was a telephone operator. Because she had
studied nursing and couldn't cut it, dealing with the sick people, so she changed
careers. And I remember that very clearly.
She had three godkids in Lochiel: me, Arnie, and Mariana. And she would buy us
identical gifts. [LAUGHTER]
Tracy cameras. I can't remember what else but I do remember that —
GQ: They were always the same. So, to backtrack a little bit, who were your parents?
For the record.
LD: I was the daughter of the oldest son of Don Osvaldo, Avelino. And my mother
was Angelita. She had come from the village of Santa Cruz, about 9 miles from where
we actually lived. And so it was interesting. We taught ourselves a lot of things. We
found ways to entertain ourselves because it was totally safe to do whatever we
pleased.
170
Eventually I got to go to school. I couldn't wait to go to school! So eventually I got — I
don't remember, they made me wait until my 6th grade, but I do remember acing first
grade. They jumped me. I didn't get to go to second. I went straight to third, and
fourth, and fifth, and then we moved. We came to Patagonia.
GQ: Do you remember your teachers?
LD: Mrs. Yeary was my very primary teacher. Mrs. Yeary, I don't remember her first
name. And the last teacher I had there was Mrs. Woods. She lived in Elgin. As a
matter of fact, she asked my mother one weekend if she could take me home to help her
around the house, and help her I did! [LAUGHTER]
I washed dirty dishes all weekend, did laundry, but she rewarded me by taking me to see
Disney's Cinderella movie in Nogales. That was a treat. Then we went back to Lochiel
Monday morning because she had to teach and I had to go—
GQ: — be a student.
LD: Be a student. She gave me a dollar, a whole dollar. And I just was crazy about it.
And I get home and my mother says, "Well, we're going to need that. Elena needs
stockings." So there went my dollar.
GQ: Will you describe a regular school day?
LD: Oh, gosh, they were wonderful. We had a long table where we did cut and paste
by the window and three of us got to sit together: Carmen, Mariano and myself. Of
course, the whole class.
GQ: Carmen—
LD: De La Ossa. We knew her as Carmelita.
GQ: And Mariano.
LD: De La Ossa. There were nothing but, except once in a while we would get
strangers.
[LAUGHTER]
And I remember that the eighth graders were on the row to our left of our table. And I
had one ear to what was going on in the eighth graders and the other one over here
171
cutting and pasting with my class. And I was dying to hold up my hand because I
knew what the answer was, to the eighth grade kids. That was one of my favorite
memories, being so interested in everything that was going around.
GQ: OK, so the school house.
LD: It was a one room.
GQ: Right, one room school house, but the windows toward the border, is that where
the —
LD: That's where the eighth graders were.
GQ: And a long table close to those windows—
LD: —were facing the road.
GQ: They were facing to the front doors of the school house?
LD: Exactly.
GQ: So the primary younger kids were facing the blackboards and up close to the front
of the room?
LD: Yes, something like that. A treat was if we ran out of some kind of supply, the
teacher would let us go to the store room in the back. My favorite thing was to look at
the Christmas decorations and the tinsel and the shiny things, because we didn't have
that at home. Our mother did not celebrate Christmas. And so all of those things were
very attractive to us.
GQ: In the storeroom.
LD: In the storeroom, yeah, and I knew where all the treasures were.
GQ: OK. What else was in the storeroom?
LD: Construction paper, paste, big jars of paste. We used a lot of paste.
EQ: The wood for the stove.
172
LD: The wood for the stove, yeah. I don't remember that the little kids were asked to
participate in bringing the wood in or sweeping the scattered shards and stuff like that.
But the whole day was education. Everything was an education because it was all new
to us, so far. I mean, up to that point we had been like little wild kids, on our own.
GQ: Did you have a certain task that you had to do? I think I've heard from other
students that each student had a certain task like bring the wood in, bring water.
LD: Well, there was one where you could clap the erasers outside. But I didn't like that
because I had sinus troubles when I was little. And if you went like that, that stuff
would all go up your nostrils, so that was not my favorite. I never volunteered for that.
GQ: So what was your favorite?
LD: I didn't mind washing the blackboard. We had to wipe it down. So I could do
that. I could pull up a little chair and get pretty high.
GQ: So you had a wood stove. That's what the wood—
LD: That heated the building, yeah.
GQ: By the way, I need to mention that an occasional voice will be Elena Quiroga
filling in—
LD: Confirming my memories.
GQ: On the tape. OK, so you went there until the fifth grade. Were there any other
community celebrations in Lochiel or was it all just—
LD: Well, interestingly enough, there were a few events that I ponder on now that we
actually had sort of an introduction to pagan celebrations. One of my favorite aunts,
she was very jolly. And her beautiful personality, everything was fun. She would stuff
some male clothes and put up an effigy of Judas, and the Saturday before Easter Sunday
we would all gather around there and she would burn it.
And then we could go to her house, and on the front of her house she'd serve some kind
of a homemade drink she made, and I don't know if children were supposed to imbibe
it.
[LAUGHTER]
173
Because I understood that the grown-ups couldn't drink too much. It was called teswin.
I don't know what it would be—
GQ: It's an alcoholic, fermented corn drink.
EQ: Corn. Fermented corn and sugar.
LD: But she also would serve Kool-Aid, which my mother didn't, my mother didn't
believe in synthetic things. We either got milk from the cow or water. That was it. But
she would serve Kool-Aid.
GQ: Can I mention who this aunt was?
LD: We knew her by Licha. She was a wonderful, wonderful lady, happy all the time.
And the annual school picnic was a great event, because every mother, anybody who
had children, they contributed something special. One of my other favorite aunts, the
one that lived a little bit further past the monument, she could make beautiful vanilla
cakes and ice them in the palest pink. All the supplies came from the Watkins man,
which was our only source of goodies.
GQ: Was that like the Schwan man is now?
LD: Yeah, exactly. Kind of a drive, come and see what you needed. And those were
some of the things.
GQ: Watkins, that was his name?
LD: Watkins. I think it still exists. I think it's still is a chain.
GQ: OK.
LD: I don't know what his personal name was, but we called him Mr. Watkins.
And she would do something else, like they don't do it any more, so much, but she
would have vigils. Her favorite saint was St. Joseph, which is celebrated on the 19th of
March I believe. And everybody, the whole village was invited and we would go and
she most definitely would have a beautiful vanilla cake to serve.
174
The tradition was that we prayed and visited and prayed and visited until midnight.
And when the day broke into the actual feast day, we could all go home. And so I got
to go to some of those. Interestingly enough, my mother allowed us to do that. Usually
she kept us pretty close to home. But that was one of my favorite things.
GQ: You mentioned the school picnic. Was it held on the school grounds?
LD: No, we went to the beautiful headwaters of the Santa Cruz River. And they were
beautiful, and you could dive into these gushes of clean water while the people made a
fire. We'd roast our wieners and heat the food. My aunt Licha would make a huge pot
of chili beans to serve with the hotdogs. And those were donated by the school board,
which consisted of Uncle Mel, my Aunt Marie Sheeter, I don’t know if George Gerard
was on our school board or how he got involved, but he had something to do with the
donation of the wieners and the buns. And other people took other things that they felt
was their favorite thing to do.
GQ: Do you remember how many students there were when you were going to school,
mas o menos?
LD: There was probably about 30 kids at one time –
EQ: That was most of the time, or less.
LD: Or less.
GQ: Average around 20 to 30, pretty much, during your years?
LD: Yes, I would say that, because we could make two solid teams of Red Rover, Red
Rover
GQ: OK.
LD: Or the one where you pull.
GQ: Tug of war?
LD: The tug-of-war and all of that. And there was Cowboys and Indians, too. And I
remember Pete being a good player on those. And lots of yard games that were— It
was like our P.E. We didn’t have structure. So that was—
175
GQ: So Red Rover, Red Rover, tug-of-war.
LD: Tug-of-war.
GQ: Cowboys and Indians.
LD: Cowboys and Indians.
GQ: Dodge ball?
LD: Yes, that. [LAUGHTER] We did not wear trousers, the girls didn’t. I wore
mercerized stockings, all the way up here, over the knee. And so their knees— Your
legs were protected somewhat, but the ball still stung when it would hit you. And so I
probably did not volunteer too much to play the dodge ball, because the older kids
could really throw that ball.
GQ: And that was all in the school yard?
LD: Yes. And we enjoyed the swings. We had swings. And if you could get an eighth
grader to push you, you know, so much the better. You got to go high. And I think that
we also had turns taking buckets of water in our classroom. We would go to the pump,
two of us.
GQ: Was the pump in the front?
LD: The pump was in the front, to the left at the front door. And somebody had to
pump, and somebody held the pail steady.
GQ: And you would use the water to drink, or to—
LD: We must have had it to drink and wash our hands.
EQ: Wash your hands?
LD: Wash our hands, and especially after pasting.
GQ: Your mentioned that most of the students were De la Ossas but some occasion
there would be—
176
LD: I remember we had— It was probably a military family or something like that.
Their name was MacNab, and they had a daughter named Edna, a boy named Douglas,
and I don’t remember the little guy. We had a nickname for him but it was not very
nice, because he would often have to run to the bathroom or have an accident, so
[LAUGHTER]
GQ: I like that— I forgot to see if I could turn this on.
EQ: Has it been on demo? Just this one?
GQ: Yeah, this’ll work. Anyway, OK, that’s very interesting.
LD: That, and sometimes the ranch—and we all called it “the ranch” but it was San
Rafael. And it employed some of our people. Some of our folks were working there.
They occasionally would have a cowboy that had kids that would—that was allowed to
come to our school. The Rivera kids, I remember them,… Heredia, Tommy, and Norma
went to school with us. Those are the only big ones—
GQ: That you remember?
LD: —that I remember, other than there was a mining person, a mining family, named
White.
GQ: White?
LD: Yes, that lived there. And I think they were exploring some kind of mining.
GQ: Doing some prospecting at some point.
EQ: And the Bercich, Evelyn and Dale, you don’t remember them?
LD: Yeah, I do remember them.
GQ: Bercich?
EQ: They do come there too.
LD: Yeah. Evelyn, not so much. But definitely Bud, Dale.
177
EQ: The youngest.
LD: Yeah, because all the other kids picked on him and made him cry. Why, I don’t
know. [LAUGHTER]
GQ: So that took you up to fifth grade, then—
LD: Yes, then one day it was the Fourth of July, and I don’t know where my parents got
a big Bobcat truck, loaded my mother’s favorite possessions, and we’re off. Her dream
was to take us to Tempe so that the boys could get jobs and go to college. That didn’t
work out. We got as far as Patagonia.
And my father had already made arrangements where we were going to live, and we
thought it was a fantastic property where he stopped the truck. It had an apple
orchard, about nine acres of land, and a long, skinny house in very bad repair. So when
my mother got to go in the house, she did a quarter turn and said we’re out of here.
This is not where we’re going live. Unfortunately, the other place where we went was
in much worse shape than that house, but by then she had to cave in and let us move in.
GQ: But that was on Pennsylvania?
LD: That was on Pennsylvania Avenue. It was a little frame house that was just ready
to drop its sides, you know, collapse. But we kept patching it up, and patching it up,
and doing a little bit until they got it pretty well repaired. But eventually it was
knocked down and rebuilt. But—
GQ: So you were— That was 1949 when the family moved?
LD: Right, that summer.
GQ: You were going on— So you were 11 years old, going on— Are you—
LD: I was going— I had just been 11, because my birthday was in June.
GQ: June.
178
LD: Yeah. It was a whole new world for us. There were streets. There were other
people that we didn’t know. There were stores to buy candy, you know. School was a
three times longer walk than what we normally had.
GQ: It was up the hill.
LD: It was up the hill. And there were kids that were willing to be mean to you, and
that was all new. I don’t remember much about that Fall. I had a real good teacher.
Her name was Mrs. Riggs. And I was a good reader, I thought. My teacher always told
me I was a good reader. I never could figure out why she wouldn’t ask me to read.
She’d ask the kid in front of me that had a stuffed-up nose. [LAUGHTER] And he
would get to read all the time. And I often wondered what was her problem? Why
couldn’t I read?
But eventually, just about that time Patagonia went into a system where the sixth,
seventh, and eighth grade kids—or maybe just the seventh and eighth—had to go to the
other campus.
GQ: To the high school campus.
LD: —where the high school campus was. And that was even more complicated and
strange. You had different classrooms and everything. But I took a real interest in the
school library, and became the student library worker there. And during my study hall
periods, I would learn all about the books. The books were like a treasure for me. I
read series upon series of— Some were about a little girl that got to play. I’d read all
the Nancy Drew and everything else they had, but anything historical just fascinated me.
Unfortunately I couldn’t stay there very long, because I don’t remember why my fa—
my mother made a change for me. And she enrolled me in Lourdes Academy in
Nogales.
GQ: That was— So then you would have been in high school?
LD: Then, well—
GQ: Or eighth grade?
LD: I did— No, I did my junior high in Patagonia, and the freshman and sophomore
year, and then she moved me. And then some kind of squabble came to the family and
I couldn’t stay anymore, because I was staying with an aunt there. And my mother
179
ordered—made arrangements for me to come home. Shortly after that I met my
husband-to-be, and that was pretty much the end of my childhood.
GQ: But going back to Patagonia, you mentioned earlier before we recorded about your
went to work for the Mapes across the street, and did you kind of—
LD: Oh, we— When we arrived there, we must have been literally the new kids on the
block. And we were— We had chores when we were in Lochiel. Everybody
participated in what needed to be done around the house. My sister, my older sister,
would babysit. With good recommendation, it would go, you know, word—
GQ: Spread?
LD: —spread around. My brother Pete would do lawns, and mow, and all kinds of
things for people. And I helped the Mapes in doing their errands.
GQ: And who were the Mapes, now?
LD: The Mapes lived straight across the street from us, an elderly retired couple from
the railroad. Wonderful, wonderful people. They— I think that they’re the ones that
told people we were reliable kids, because they just really took a liking to our family.
I did— I would shampoo Mrs. Mapes’ hair, and I would style it for her. In the
summers, she would hire me to help her do the laundry for the little outfit which was a
camp for boys, and a school, I think, for boys. And they had a lot of laundry, so I would
help her to fold, and to iron the linens. And eventually they asked me to come and
spend the night in their house, and I did that for a long time. In case they got sick
overnight, I could get the doctor for them.
GQ: You were a caregiver of sorts.
LD: Yeah, yeah. And they were great. They were like extra grandparents, or even
better than that, because you know, Mr. Mapes would check my homework, or help me
with it if I was stuck, you know? I learned some ideas of how people eat in the
Midwest, because she had come from Missouri. And so she knew a lot of the
Midwestern solid foods that were different from our culture.
GQ: Like for example?
180
LD: Oh, she would make stew. She would make— She’d can a lot of stuff. So it wasn’t
a varied menu, but her food was always interesting and healthy. But the stew, I
remember, because the more you reheated it, the better it got. And breakfast was white
coconut cake and strawberry jelly. [LAUGHTER] And that was great. Yeah, that was
breakfast. I mean, I don’t remember if they had eggs or not, because they had chickens.
But I never wanted eggs, so that— She’d let me have that. That was OK with me.
GQ: That was your breakfast.
LD: Yeah, that was OK with me. So it was a wonderful place to actually an
introduction into the other—how the other world lived, away from Lochiel.
GQ: And did I understand that you went to Connecticut once with them, or—
LD: I had a little summer job where I was helping a lady and sort of taking care of her
little five-year-old girl. You know, a little companion in case she had to go places, and
stuff like that.
GQ: And this was—
LD: And I could go to school and still work with her, and for her. And that summer,
they had planned to go visit her family in Stonington, Connecticut. And it was going to
be a part of a road trip, rail. We didn’t fly. We drove as far as Illinois, Milwaukee. And
then we took a train to New York City, and I got to see the policemen on horseback, and
the big buildings, and some other—
GQ: How old were you at this time?
LD: I— It’s kind of hard for me to track it, but I would have been about— I would
have had to have been about 13, something like that.
GQ: You had just barely got into high school, maybe?
LD: Yeah, but a freshman, for sure. We spent the whole summer there, so I learned a
lot about the East. I learned [ CROSSTALK with phone conversation] Portuguese
people. They were [ INAUDIBLE]
GQ: We can stop it. We’re going to pick up all the noise. We’ll—
181
LD: Splice it, or what?
GQ: Well, we’ll just pick up where we left off….…………….
LD: Where were we?
GQ: In New York City, with the policemen, and the—
LD: Oh, yeah.
GQ: On horseback.
LD: That was exciting.
GQ: So you got off the rail, out of the station there.
LD: And from the railroads, somebody must have driven us by car to Stonington.
GQ: Connecticut.
LD: Connecticut, yes.
GQ: It took about a day or so, or less?
LD: No, I think it was within the day that we made it, I’m pretty sure.
GQ: How was the railroad trip? How long was that?
LD: The rail was interesting, because it had— You know, we were on it for at least
three nights, and sleeping in the berths, going to the dining car. The observation car, I
remember going through places—New Jersey—and you could smell the odor of the
factories. And I— Later on I tried to decide, why do they call it the Garden State?
[LAUGHTER] You know, what are they raising in that [CROSSTALK] You could
definitely smell—
GQ: A lot of factories.
LD: A lot of factories, yeah. And I had to have been 13 or 14, and began to notice that
boys were not so bad after all. And the other people—relatives of the people that I was
182
with, which was Mrs. Rod Harmon—she had come from a family named Grace Grussia
in Stonington, and they were members of a real luxurious country club. And I had
liberty passes to go for lunch. I met some of the other girls that had charges. They were
little boys or little girls that they took care of. Most of them from Ireland, spoke English
fairly well, but not very fluent. And they taught me a lot about being a nanny.
The Irish girls all had their cup of tea about two o’clock in the afternoon, and had to
have a teacake. That was new. And they also advised me that if we had a Saturday off,
they would take me to New London and meet some sailors. [LAUGHTER] There was,
I’m sure, a Navy base there. We did that, but that didn’t impress me so much because
they looked real big to me, and so that was the entire summer.
GQ: You spent the entire summer there.
LD: Yes, yeah.
GQ: And how was the trip back?
LD: The trip back, I think we drove. I remember coming through Iowa, and they had
lost their corn. Crops were laying flat and burned, very dry. And back to school,
started my fr—my sophomore year, and like I say—
GQ: In Patagonia.
LD: Yeah. That was pretty much—
GQ: And who were your teachers? You remember your teachers at the Patagonia High
School?
LD: Other than Mrs. Riggs? Of course the high school had a staff—or I mean
member—for every subject. I— There was one teacher, Mrs. Rosenfeld. I don’t
remember what she taught, but she was a photographer, and she would take me to her
house and take pictures of me until my mother found out and put a stop to it. She lost
her job. They accused her of something. I really don’t remember what—you know,
how they were about their behaviors or anything like that. But I felt sorry for her,
because she had tried to help the kids by teaching us photography and things. But she
lost her job. That— She stood out in my mind. There was a math teacher named Mr.
Metzger. Didn’t learn much from him.
183
GQ: No?
LD: Home Ec didn’t stick with me. I wish it had. It sure would have helped a couple
of years after that, because I became a wife at a very young age. And—
EQ: It wasn’t Mrs. Douglas?
LD: It was Mrs. Douglas.
EQ: That was mine, too.
LD: Yeah. And she was willing to teach us cooking and sewing, and none of it really
stuck with me. All I cared about was reading stories and living the life through the
pages, you know? So eventually as an adult, I got to have my own library. For the
Sahuarita School District, I had my own program. I developed it, implemented it,
bought— You know, did all of the skills with the kids and everything. I did that for 26
years. And—
GQ: So how did you meet your husband?
LD: That’s when my mother hauled me home from the academy. And I came home,
and it was Holy Week. And they had a lot of guests at a guest ranch called the Circle Z.
My mother had a friend there that did laundry. Mrs. Walsh was her name. And she
came by and she said, “Oh, Lydia’s home. Do you think she’d like to go to the ranch
and help us serve dinner tonight? We have a dining room full of people.”
……..And my mother volunteered me without even glancing over to me whether I
wanted to go or not.
And she said, “Oh, good. We’ll have the wrangler pick her up in the morning.” And
guess who the wrangler was? [LAUGHTER] Which is interesting, because that man
had tried to establish a friendship with me when I was working at the soda fountain,
and it hadn’t been possible. He seemed too adult. You know, he could go to the movies
whenever he wanted to. He didn’t need permission or anything, and stuff like that.
And so, much to his surprise and mine, we were going to be working together, and it
definitely worked out for him. We were— In those days, they called it “going steady.”
We were going steady in a matter of a week, engaged a couple of months after that, and
married by that July.
GQ: So that was a quick courtship.
184
LD: It was a quick courtship.
GQ: You mentioned the soda fountain. Could we go back to that?
LD: Oh, the soda fountain happened before I went to help the lady at the ranch with
her daughter. And we would— Most of the teenage girls, that—
GQ: That was Mrs. Sullivan’s?
LD: That was Frances Sullivan’s little café
GQ: Soda Shop.
LD: Yeah. And it was a great experience. We—any of us had any experience in
cooking, as light as it was, it was grill cooking, but she has had very simple things for us
to do. And I excelled at that, fixing meals and stuff like that. And we all had a
Saturday shift, and some of us had hours after school. So that was also fun, making
your own money, you know, that way, and an opportunity to stay out and among the
people a little later than the curfew.
So that was very interesting, too. The experience at the soda fountain, you learned to
cash out. Actually they would let us cash out, lock the money up, and close up the
place. And they gave us a lot of responsibility. We were all really young teenagers.
GQ: Were there a lot of customers?
LD: I would— They kept us busy. Yeah, very— Some going through traffic. You
know, people passing from Fort Huachuca to Nogales and back and forth, but pretty
much locals.
GQ: It would have been in the mid-fifties?
LD: Yes. Yeah, right at that— Right when it was cool to go to the juke box, you know,
and let me see what songs were popular. Andy Russell, Cinco Robles, Five Oaks, was
the popular song. I can still remember it, because people—well, particularly this young
man that was interested in me—would roll the dice and see, let’s see who’s going to
win. And whoever won got to go put the quarter in the machine, and it would play
your songs.
He also challenged me to a ride on the Ferris wheel that was in town, that man that I
was telling you. And he said, “Well, if you lose on the dice, will you go on the Ferris
185
wheel with me?” And I said well, if I go to the carnival tonight— I may not be able to
go, but if I go, I will. And he said, “And then we’ll roll again. If we get on the Ferris
wheel, will you give me a kiss?” [LAUGHTER] And I said, “Well, we’ll have to
negotiate further.”
And this is the creepy part: My oldest sister had a boyfriend already, and he had come
to visit her. And I’m thinking they were taking her to his mother’s, to visit his mother.
Went right by the Ferris wheel, caught us when we were up there, and I was paying my
debt. [LAUGHTER] So my mother became very unhappy about that, but we— She
had—you know.
GQ: Where was the carnival at, in Patagonia?
LD: By the old park, by Louie Delance Hotel. There was— There’s Louie Delance, and
then the little park where the kids—
EQ: The empty lot there, where they park the trailers the Fourth of July.
GQ: Oh.
LD: There’s a Methodist church, and then the street, and then the park.
EQ: Across [CROSSTALK]
GQ: [CROSSTALK] by the Wagon Wheel?
LD: No.
EQ: No, no.
LD: Way in front of it, over the street. You know, way over.
EQ: Where they park the trailers on the Fourth of July.
GQ: The trailers.
EQ: Yeah, for the [INAUDIBLE]where Corky and Papai and [CROSSTALK] Yeah,
that’s the same.
186
GQ: That’s Doc Mock.
EQ: They call it Doctor Mock’s Park.
LD: Oh, is that right?
EQ: That’s the place.
LD: It had Richardson, when I was there [CROSSTALK]
EQ: We’re just going to see [CROSSTALK]
GQ: So right in that area, the open area.
EQ: Right there.
GQ: As you come in from Nogales [CROSSTALK]
LD: Yes, exactly, exactly.
GQ: So tell us a little— Well, tell us more about your husband, and your married life,
and—
LD: Oh, well, things progressed very quickly because he wasn’t going to miss is
oppor—his second chance. And like I say, in those days it was called “going steady.”
So the second night he brought me home, we went for a little walk and he said would I
care to just see him and not see other men. There were not much danger there.
[LAUGHTER] There were no other people that I could be interested in. But I said, oh,
sure, why not? I mean, you know.
And right after that, he decided that he wanted to become engaged. And it was midFebruary when I ended up at the ranch, and like I say, quickly engaged and married by
July 24 of that year. And we went to— They gave us a whole house at the ranch, and
they call it the honeymoon house.
GQ: This was the Circle Z?
LD: The Circle Z. It was not made for housekeeping, because it was just bedrooms.
But we turned one bedroom into a kitchen, and then one for a little front room, and we
had these four big rooms where we lived. And it was great, very romantic, you know.
187
Did a lot of horseback riding with him when there weren’t— In the summers when the
guests would go home, we had the ranch all to ourselves, and stuff like that. But you
know, that became not too conducive to good family life, because his obligation was to
entertain the guests at night at the cantina, and all kinds of things. So we moved on,
and we started working.
GQ: Where did you go from the Circle Z?
LD: I think from the Circle Z we went back into Patagonia, and he got a job at the mill,
what they called the mill, which was a mining [CROSSTALK]
EQ:
The Trench mine.
LD: Is that what it was?
EQ:
Mm-hmm.
LD: And we rented— Or actually, we rented a little house from my sister and her
husband, and we lived there for a short time until a job opened up at another ranch,
because he was a cowboy by trade. And we went to the Crown C and lived there for a
while. And we had our first little baby while we were at the Crown C, and—
GQ: And so what was life on a ranch for a woman?
LD: And after— Well, that’s— It depends on, you know, the rancher. Some of it can
be incredibly good, and some of it can be quite a hardship, because a wife is expected to
cook for the crew and do all kinds of things. And if you’re young and trying to raise a
little baby, and you don’t know too much, it becomes pretty hard. So we— From there,
we moved on a couple more jobs until we ended up in the Green Valley area where
there was a huge feed lot. And that job became very useful because Albert learned a lot
of medicine from a veterinarian, and he could do surgeries on cancer, he could do all
kinds of prolapse cows, all of that. And they paid very well.
But it was not a good place to raise a family. There was a lot of stuff that they sprayed
the fields with that would smell bad, made you cough. And our little baby had asthma,
our first little boy. And we were worried it might affect his lungs or anything. By then
we had two other little boys. And he said no, we need to get back out in the country.
And we came to Arivaca, and we stayed. And we’ve been here since 1964. It was
August of ’64 when we came here. And he worked at a wonderful ranch, the one that
188
borders with Mexico, and the kids grew up there and learned everything there was to
learn about that. And eventually retired, working for a short while for the school
district, taking the kids on the bus, and retired from that when he was able to qualify for
retirement. And this is where we’re at.
GQ: Well, I think that’s good. Thank you.
EQ: Pretty interesting.
LD: And you’re welcome.
[End of video] [Transcribed by KF and KE]
189
Interview 8
Michael Cervantes
Michael Cervantes, a member of the Schumake family, spent his early years in
Patagonia during vacations and has lived in Patagonia since 1986. He has
bartended in the Wagon Wheel Saloon and currently manages rental units in
Patagonia.
190
Michael Cervantes
September 10, 2009
Patagonia, AZ
GERMAN QUIROGA: This is September 10, 2009 in the Patagonia Public Library and
we’re- I’m German Quiroga and Ralph Schmitt and we have our guest interviewee,
Mike- Michael–
MICHAEL CERVANTES: Michael Cervantes.
GQ: Cervantes. Okay. Basically we want to know a little bit about you know yourself,
your origin, your parents, where you were born, where your parents came from, how
they met, grandparents, how they met, what they did for a living, all those kinds of
things but you know just however you want to arrange it.
MC: Okay. Let’s see. My parents, my mom and dad– I was adopted when I was six
days old. I was born at St. Mary’s Hospital in Tucson in 1950. My mom and dad are
Bernadine S.—or Bernie Shumate Cervantes. My dad was Hector H. Cervantes.
His family migrated from Mexico City and the Mazatlan area about 1905 up to Tucson.
My grandparents on my mother’s side came from Big Springs, Texas where he was a
ranch hand. He came over here about 1931 and he worked for the Empire Ranch
Company.
In 1937, just after Prohibition, he opened up the Wagon Wheel Bar and we sold it in
1995 after having it for 58 years. And a lot of the stuff that was collected, my granddad
collected a lot of that stuff in the Wagon Wheel, old antiques and stuff. He is a collector.
RALPH SCHMITT: Did he build the bar or just bought a building and took over?
MC: In 1937 it was an old wood frame building at the corner of Third and Naugle
where the gas station sits now. And it was so closed in and small for my grandparents
so they built a new building down here, down at the end of the highway here in 1958
where it put out a larger apartment that they can live in plus also made the bar a little
bit bigger and a little more comfortable.
191
I know during the winter time it’s kind of cold in there ‘cause it’s made out of wood
slats, and during the summertime it’s great. You can see everybody doing the yard
work [LAUGHTER].
But yeah, they moved it down there because all his guns– There’s an elk head in there
that my granddad shot in 1955 at Hannigans Meadow which dressed out over 1100 lbs.
GQ: Was it the last elk he shot or he just continued?
MC: Well, I believe that was the last one he shot because I think things kind of started
picking up around that area, so...
GQ: So you grew up in Patagonia?
MC: I mainly grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but I came down during the
summertime and visit Grandma and Grandpa, and I got to know some of these places.
Oh I got to play around the stock pens that were here across the street from the church.
I played on the turn table for the train.
GQ: The turnaround?
MC: Yeah, over there in front of that Showalters, Paul Showalters. There– We used the
ball plant but I can remember the ramps that they had for the Flux and Trench Mine.
They brought out all the iron ore. They had at least seven ramps that they backed up,
dumped the ore into cars, which was then shipped off toward Mustang Corners.
There’s– There were a lot of buildings that aren’t even here anymore. Right there what
used to be the home plate at that one building where it’s a new restaurant that was at
one time a garage for all those big dump trucks that come out of the Flux and Trench.
And then is was owned by Lenny Gaskill, but there was also a Shell Station at the end
of the block there where that one last store, just on the other side of that last store.
There’s there’s been many [LAUGHTER] things there.
GQ: So you used to come out in the summer pretty much?
MC: Yeah because since my mom came down to visit with her mom and we stayed
during the summertime. It got– When we were out of school we just came down.
GQ: To visit?
MC: To visit and we kind of grew up here or something.
192
GQ: Do you have any brothers and sisters?
MC: I have three younger brothers, two of them in Tucson, one in California. They all
three graduated from Patagonia. I graduated from Highland High School in
Albuquerque.
GQ: Okay.
MC: And then I moved over here in ’71, 1971.
GQ: Mm hmm. Did you go to any further education after high school?
MC; I went through DeVry Institute of Technology in 1981. I got my diploma for
Electronic Technician. And then I worked at Litton Guidance Control Systems for five
years.
I met my ex wife here. Her grandmother used to live under– The whole house has been
re-formed and rebuilt, but the hou- There was a small house that looked like a stable
underneath the grade school. That was her grandmother’s house.
GQ: Okay who’s– May I ask who your ex wife was?
MC: Maryanne Elwertowski, and in fact, her aunt June Miller just died and her
grandmother was Ethel Witherall and she died many years ago.
GQ: And you said they had a place right below the grade school over there?
MC: Right below the grade school.
RS: The grade school down on–?
MC: Right up there on the hill.
RS: Oh, up on the hill.
MC: Yeah. Oh yeah, there’s many schools around here. There was one in the tin
building just below where the grade school is at on the hill. And then there was one on
the corner of Third and Pennsylvania.
193
GQ: A school there, too?
MC: There was a small school at one time and there was I believe like a doctor’s office
or- or a few other things.
GQ: It’s Center, it’s gone, too.
MC: Okay there was one growing up here, by the grade school. It was a long, tin
building. They had that for a school for a little while. All right? And they also had
from Mel [sounds like Sieve], before he had it that was the school on the corner there
where Fleming, where Miss Fleming lives. Long before she even put that house in there
was another house but it was a school at that time and then it was a doctor’s office and
then it turned out to be a few other things.
GQ: Okay. What else do you remember about your summers in Patagonia as a little
kid?
MC: Well, okay watching the ore come in from the Flux and Trench. A couple times I’d
go around with my uncle, Joseph Dean Hill. He was an electrician. He did some work
for Sulfur Springs and where that little office is used to be a warehouse, a big
warehouse. And right next to that used to be an ice plant. And they– I heard many
stories that they used that as a jail to keep people in... Until somebody set fire to it,
tried—so they could escape [ LAUGHTER].
That corner- that corner house was my aunt’s for many many,years. My grandmother
owned it but which my aunt had it, and my mom had the house that was on the corner
of Third and Pennsylvania, northwest corner. And we sold that a few years ago.
RS: Okay. Do you go down to Sonoita Creek and go swimming back in the days?
MC: Many, many times. In fact, somebody would build a dam and we’d find a nice
puddle about six/seven feet deep. We’d sit there and go and wade and swim and
everything else. That’s about 1965 or in that area, is about when they decided to make
Patagonia Lake, and my grandmother and my uncle were one of a few or few members
that were charter members to start up Patagonia Lake.
RS: Yeah part of the Yacht Club.
194
MC: Right.
RS: Okay. So how- how did that all come about?
MC: Since Sonoita Creek runs year round, and well there’s not very much fish but then
also during the monsoons, our good rainy season, that creek would be full. And if it
move or fill up about six/seven times during the season, well there goes a lot of water
and washes down into Rio Rico and all that area. So they decided to at least make a
dam there so that we could have a little recreation around here. But since the creek
runs year round so we could preserve some of that water and also acts like a flood
control.
RS: So did they contract with somebody to build the earth dam or were local people
doing it or?
MC: I think they contracted it.
RS: Okay.
MC: And I went– My grandmother sent me down—which is now the dam—and
worked the spillway before it was overfilled. They didn’t have the marina in yet. This
is about 1966/1967 and it was just filling up and that island that’s just I guess east of the
dam. There’s a little island there. Well before it was full, there was a small path, but
now it’s under about 15 ft. of water. [LAUGHTER]
RS: Because the whole area was kind of a gorge wasn’t it, down through there?
MC: Yeah, a lot of it was a gorge and that’s about why they picked that spot for—so
they could hold the water and all that. And now it’s got bass; it’s got channel catfish;
they stock it during the wintertime with trout. I know it’s got croppy. I know there’s
other types of catfish in there, too.
RS: They have fishing tournaments on that lake, which surprised me. [LAUGHTER]
MC: Yeah, in fact when I was working there several times, I know that a gentleman
pulled out one that weighed at least 50 pounds, on a catfish. A friend of mine pulled
out a 42 pounder, and I know there’s been a lot of bass, large bass brought out of that,
croppy, trout. Another friend of mine many years ago, we went fishing and usually
195
that trout doesn’t last very long because all the rest of the fish will eat it up, eat them up
because they’re- they’re small.
Well this one particular summer we were down there by the dam, and we were in a
boat. We were just on that little cove just off the dam there. And he got into a big one.
I think it was about—almost 18 inches long—for a rainbow trout coming out of here! So
it was a pretty good sized fish. It gave him a good little fight. [LAUGHTER].
GQ: And you were a fisherman?
MC: I’ve been, off and on. I go every once in awhile. But the last few years it’s just
been kind of a little hard for me to get out.
RS: So 4th of July celebrations during your youth, do you remember that?
MC: Yeah and I’m from New Mexico. [LAUGHTER].
RS: But you said you used to spend summers down here.
MC: That’s right. Well back on the 4th of July, we really didn’t have that much of a
good program. Who brought it in—most of it—was Mike Cunningham. For many,
many years, since he was killed in a car accident, you know they did it in his behalf. So
they brought fireworks and a parade to us and things like that, which made it nice,
which... I’ve seen a lot of crowds here, big crowds. The Shriners were a good part of it.
You know, we’d have some good little celebrations.
I know a few times I worked at the Wagon Wheel Bar being a bartender on the 4th of
July. Didn’t get to see much. [LAUGHTER] The only thing I saw was about 50 people
in there.
GQ: Mm hmm, they kept you busy.
MC: Ah yes. There was four of us behind the bar, on the 4th of July.
GQ: So you grew up in Albuquerque and you lived there...
MC: 21 years.
GQ: 21 years and then from there you– Where did you go?
196
MC: I moved over here.
GQ: To Patagonia?
MC: To Patagonia in 1971.
GQ: Okay, so you’ve been here ever since.
MC: Yeah, you might say that. In 1978 after I got married I moved out of here and I
went to school at DeVry and then I got a job at Litton Guidance Control Systems in Salt
Lake City, Utah. I worked up there until 1985, and then just shortly after that I came
down and I went through a divorce and so I’ve been here ever since.
I’ve worked out at the Lake; I’ve worked as a waiter at the Stage Stop, and a bartender
when we had the bar. So I’ve been—and I also worked Core Drilling. I used to work at
Joy Manufacturing Company, Core Exploration Drilling up here on the hill and up in
the canyons up in here.
GQ: What are you– Are you doing anything now?
MC: I’m self employed. Since my mom passed away in 1996, I’ve been running some
property of hers. I’ve got a– I’m one fourth owner of a trailer park out here on Harshaw
Road, so I maintain that and you know I make sure things are going good and so I
watch– And so I’m self employed.
GQ: How many units are you used to...
MC: I’ve got ten on my site, two of which I own but the other ten are owned by the
people. All I just do is charge the lot rent. And my cousin owns the other half and she’s
got 14 trailers on that. So. It keeps me busy.
GQ: Absolutely.
RS: The bar and the Wagon Wheel’s kind of a pretty old wood bar. Do you know any
history on that?
MC: That came from a little town called Charleston just between Tombstone and Sierra
Vista, and the last they saw was the date of 1882 that it was built. I was told that when
197
they moved it from this old bar down to the new location, it took over four piano dollies
because that thing weighs well over three tons and it took quite a few people to move it.
GQ: They just pushed it down the street on the dollies.
MC: Mm hmm, pushed it down the street.
GQ: Right.
MC: And so it sat there and it’s- it’s got- got some good history and some good wood in
it and a lot of little trinkets are on the back bar. There’s a couple of metal things that
look like quotation marks. Those are oxen shoes.
GQ: [SILENCE] Okay. [LAUGHTER]
MC: An oxen’s shoe.
RS: Like a horse shoe.
MC: Right, exactly, because you know you work your oxens. They wear out their hoofs
just as a horse does.
RS: So I think there’s also– It’s been awhile because, you know, hoping and it’d be
closed, but isn’t there like a trap kind of in there on the wall that’s– You can rig up to a
door and lean this up.
MC: [LAUGHTER] Yep.
RS: Do you know anything about that?
MC: Yeah. Well I think that was given to my granddad some many years ago. Yeah,
it’s a- it’s also a trap, a trap gun. You can set that as a trap for like a bear or something
like that and it’ll shoot it. Let’s see. I think that was given to somebody that used to be
local here. I don’t remember who it was.
There’s also a Japanese Nambu. It’s a pistol; it looks like a German Luger but there’s
just a few slight differences on- on the pistol itself. There’s also– Do you remember the
old lace-up boots that you had to have the needle to go through the eye to bring it in,
lace them up? There’s about two or three needles up there.
198
We had at one time but I think then we put it on wood and laminated it, it was different
sizes of rattles, rattlers from rattlesnakes. We had about 25 of them and they were
anywhere from that long [Mike demonstrates with his hand], maybe an inch and a half
to four/five/six inches long.
Okay, on the back bar, there were some other things up in there, too. There’s like...
Well okay. On a side bar there, the liquor would normally be stored, there would be an
old coffee grinder. There’s a lantern in there that, the dual wick, that used to work till
somebody broke the globes while we had it leased out. And those globes, you can’t
find them for that particular thing.
A lot of that stuff was given to my granddad. There’s a bobcat—there was a bobcat that
looked like it was on the ledge. If I remember, I think a rancher saw that and it was
after their cattle. She killed it with a rake. [SILENCE] [LAUGHTER]. The antelope
was from this area; the javelina was from this area. He had several rifles up there, some
old ones a couple that had the hex barrel on it.
I took out of there a lot of memories from growing up in there. I do have a rifle that my
mom wanted and it’s...breech-load Springfield. It’s one of the old ones. It’s almost like
a Civil War rifle with a bayonet. I’ve got that. But yeah, we’ve been here for—well, my
granddad settled here in ’37. My aunt who just died in 2001, she’d been here for over 65
years. So we’ve- we’ve kind of had some good roots in here.
GQ: Mm hmm. You say your grandparents came from Texas?
MC: Yeah, Big Springs, Texas.
GQ: And do you know how long they were there in Texas?
MC: Hmm... Well I know they were both born around in Big Springs, my
grandparents, and they worked around and then they moved over here about lateearly 30s and so he worked for the Empire Ranch for many, many years.
GQ: He was a cowhand—cowboy?
MC: Out here I think on Highway 83. He was a cowboy out there until I think just
about 1936 or 1937—I know when he bought the Wagon Wheel. At the time, it was an
ice cream parlor and this was during Prohibition. All right? One of the owners that
had it if you asked for any kind of liquor or anything like that, well he was looking over
199
his shoulder six times to make sure that he wasn’t being watched and then he said,
“Don’t- don’t tell anybody where you got that.”
But after Prohibition, my granddad opened it up and it was a pretty good business for a
little while. There’s- Well, both bars, Big Steer and the Wagon Wheel were both mmm
somewhat competitive. I know one week we’d have all the miners in, and the next
week Big Steer would have them. You know, it was just off and on.
GQ: Miners and the cowboys? Okay.
MC: Yeah, yeah. And before the motel was put there, there was a butcher shop...and a
few other stores. And Ann Straddling put the motel up. That was a bank. It started
out at Catalina Savings. Then it went to Valley National, then Bank One, and then after
the last one I think it just closed its doors because there’s nothing there. Well, that was a
nice convenience for the people around here.
GQ: Right. Now going back to the cowboys and miners for a minute, did you see any
fights in–?
MC: Well...I think that was just a little bit before my time and all of that. However, yes,
in growing up after Duke, coming in, I’ve seen several fights.
GQ: Mm hmm, anything go bad or...just the–?
MC: No, well they were some knock down-get up fights. You bet. You bet. There’s a
lot of people involved sometimes and just- a lot of it was–
GQ: The liquor, right?
MC: Yeah. But you know I remember that someone was telling me, back in the ‘20s
and ‘30s when a candidate was trying to go for office, they’d take him into a local pub
and get him drunk so that they could sway their vote towards them. Well, we went for
that for a long time until I think about 1993, they said, “Ah, we can just go– do away
with that and just go straight now.
GQ: So now they close the bars, right?
200
MC: [Nodding] On election days up until the polls close. Exactly. Exactly. And so just
up until about 1993 they said you don’t have to do that anymore. The law’s changed;
you can stay open on Election Day.
GQ: What’s your take on the town politics? So you’ve been here 38 years?
MC: At least that or a little bit better. I can do with some of it; I can do without a lot of
it.
GQ: So what do you think? What’s their remedy or solution to where we can work
together and get things done?
MC: It would be nice to work together. That’s what we’re– That’s what the initiative
should be is working together. Yes, everybody’s got their own opinion. Yes, they’ve
got their own ideas of how to do this, this and this. And you know, it’s just– Things
that just if we can all work together, we’d be a lot better off.
GQ: Have you ever run for office? Have you ever been involved?
MC: I don’t feel that I would have been confident enough. I’ve had people come up
and say “Ah you ought to be Marshall.” Well, yes, I would have been Marshall but I
have a temper [LAUGHTER] that I have a little problem with. And what I would
consider as friends, well you know there’s always, “Well, we want this favor. Would
you do this for us? You’re a good friend.”
Well, I found that in the bar, too. Being a bartender you thought you had friends, but
all of a sudden here comes the liquor and they get a little drunk. Ah then, where’s your
friends? So, no. I haven’t run for office. My aunt ran for– Or she was like the Town
Clerk for a little while.
GQ: Your aunt–?
MC: Winnel Hill.
GQ: Okay.
MC: Until supposedly somebody came up and said she started stealing money. Then
she said “Here; you can have it.” No, I haven’t thought of working for the town at all.
201
GQ: Okay. In your opinion, who’s been the best– Or have you had a good mayor, a
good town council in the time you’ve been here? Does anyone stand out?
MC: [Shaking his head] Not at the present time. Not at the present time. I know we’ve
had our good, we’ve had our bad and have learned our indifferences. So it’s, it’s just
hard to say. I know that the last Town Council meeting—well I’ve been to two of
them—they harped on the Police Department.
Well, some years ago I really didn’t care for the Police Department. There was a
gentleman on here. In fact out at the trailer park somebody was kicking down our wall,
our entry wall and I asked this officer if he wouldn’t mind investigating, seeing what
happened. Well a few days later, he made some excuses, “Oh I’m sorry; I didn’t get to
it.” Well that blew my trust in the Marshall’s Office. We’ve had a few good ones. But
that just blew my trust in the Marshall’s Office. And you know, if they don’t want to do
things, and especially you know private property, hey, you know, that’s fine.
GQ: Do you have a favorite place to visit when you– Do you ever get up and go places
and–?
MC: Well, no.
GQ: You don’t get up and go-?
MC: No. Uh huh.
GQ: If you could, where would you go?
MC: I don’t know.
GQ: Okay.
MC: I don’t know.
GQ: Albuquerque? Do you still have family there?
MC: No I don’t. In fact, Albuquerque’s changed so much I wouldn’t recognize half of
it. No, I wouldn’t go back to Albuquerque.
GQ: Do you have a favorite food, a favorite dish that you enjoy?
202
MC: Well, at the present time, just trying to survive, I’ve got beans. [LAUGHTER]
GQ: Mm hmm. Beans are a good dish.
MC: Good source of protein and everything else, yeah. I make quite a bit.
GQ: You’re a good cook then, you would say?
MC: [Michael mimes something.] [LAUGHTER] Yeah, I think so. Yeah I think so. At
least I’m alive.
GQ: Okay.
MC: I know that in 2003 I was diagnosed with diabetes. In fact, this last December
through January 21st I wound up in St. Joseph’s Hospital. I had a sore on there. It was
an oversized boil; I had a carbuncle. So that put me out of action for about seven
weeks.
GQ: So you were diagnosed then?
MC: For diabetes?
GQ: Mm hmm.
MC: No, in 2003 when I had a boil on the back of my- on my back. But the boil’s not
really the thing to talk about. I’ve had them all my life, but that’s not really the thing to
talk about. What you’re looking for is the history of this town.
GQ: Yeah, true, and some of your history, too. I’m just wondering who taught you or
where did you learn some techniques on cooking? Or no?
MC: [He shakes his head.] No.
GQ: You just picked it up?
MC: Just picked it up a little bit here, a little bit there. I know my mom would always
cook for– Well, it would seem like it was an army raising four boys. And she started–
She worked for Sanya Corporation in Sandy Basin, Albuquerque for at least 25 years.
203
She came over here and started working for Fort Huachuca. She was into the top secret
information, so if she had to leave her desk for some reason, she had to sign out, she
had to have somebody sign out with her, she had to put her stuff in the safe that she can
get to; then she can go do her business.
My mom had scleroderma but at first she was diagnosed with Raynaud’s. Okay, if you
remember the old hard typewriters—not computers that you’re floating or Electricas or
Selectric—the old hard ones. She lost the circulation in her fingers; that was Raynaud’s,
and it got to the point when she was cold they would turn black and blue, then they’d
turn white. She lost the circulation. Come to find out later, that was one symptom of
scleroderma, and scleroderma what it did it took the moisture out of her body, so...and
it was kind of hard on her. But if you want to look at the total amount of years she
worked for Government, I’m going to say at least over 52 years.
GQ: Wow. That’s a long time.
MC: Yeah. Yeah. She retired September 1990. We went with her to California. One of
my brothers was getting married so we went to his wedding. And she was a nice lady.
For the last few years of her life she was traveling back and forth to Fort Huachuca but
then she stayed on the bar. She did work in the bar and I’ll say she was a good lady.
RS: So being in the bar business, did you– You probably knew Joker and some of his
cronies?
MC: I knew Joker and... I knew Joker, I knew Roy Walsh, I knew oh yeah a lot of the
miners that come in and long since died off. George Morales, Junior and Senior. I’ve
known the Hale brothers, Norman and Richard Hale; they came in. Yeah, a lot of the
old cowboys, a lot of the miners would come in and... and- and have drinks.
And a lot of times there I wasn’t allowed in the bar because I was too young. But where
I could stand at the end of the bar instead of behind the bar I was able to talk to quite a
few of them. But then when I was bartending yeah, Joker was one of our favorites.
And I knew his kids. He had, what was it, nine kids. Yeah, I’ve grown up a little bit
here. [LAUGHTER]. What is it? “You can take a boy out of the country, but you can’t
take the country out of the boy.”
GQ: That’s right. That’s right. Is there a favorite place you have in, around Patagonia
you like to visit?
204
MC: [He shakes his head]. No, I just keep to myself. I just keep to myself and just
trying to accomplish things, getting things going.
GQ: For a hobby, do you have any hobbies or entertainment?
MC: Well, I do have a few, I did have a few hobbies. I used to like working on model
airplanes, but now the hobby I’ve kind of picked up is genealogy. And I’ve gotten back
at least four generations on my mom’s side. I found two that were Confederate soldiers
during the Civil War.
GQ: Would you care to just go through them with us?
MC: Their last name was Harris and I think the paperwork that I have on them they
were both Corporal, however my mom said that one of her relatives—I think it was a
great great uncle that was a Colonel in the Confederate Army back there in the Civil
War.
GQ: And the last name was Harris.
MC: Yeah.
RS: Do you know any of the battles they were in or...?
MC: No, I don’t. No, I don’t [LAUGHTER].
GQ: Okay. So your mom was...say it for the record again. Who was your mom again?
MC: Bernadine Shumake Cervantes.
GQ: Bernadine...Shumake Cervantes. Then her parents...
MC: Are Gladys and Hugh Shumake.
GQ: Okay and then from there?
MC: My granddad was Jerry King Shumake and before that was Willie Luke Shumake.
On my grandmother’s side it was mm... I’m thinking... I just saw the... Ingle! Charles
Augustus Ingle That was my grandmother’s father. And I’ve not found out who his
205
father was, so unless there was another Charles Ingles, that ...He was- But I’ve not
gotten back.
I’ve been working with some of the work that my mom already had so I got that much
done, and I’m trying to work on my dad’s side.
GQ: What do you have for references, or research? How do you–?
MC: A lot of it was from my mom. She found out through a lot of other people.
GQ: And she wrote it down?
MC: Yeah, she wrote a lot of it down. They– My aunt and my mom went to Texas
about 1993 or ’92 and they did bring back some pictures of some tombstones of maybe
possible kindred dead that were there in the cemeteries. So yeah, they’ve- they’ve done
pretty good on genealogy.
GQ: So have you gone back and verified with public records or anything?
MC: Well they did.
GQ: They did? Mm hmm.
MC: They had it written down. So I’m just kind of catching up after that and use what
information they had, I’m trying to organize it just a little bit better. And now I’m
starting to work on my dad’s side because I have an uncle. My dad’s brother died last
July and he was in the newspaper, “Tucson centenarian passes away.” A hundred
years old. And so–
GQ: Who was that?
MC: His name was like– They called him M. J. Cervantes. My—or was it Jesus Mike
Cervantes but my father called him Mike. But his name is Mike Jesus. My granddad– I
was named after my granddad on my father’s side. His name was Miguel Ordana
Cervantes, so I was named after him.
GQ: Do you know where his family came from?
206
MC: Well I know they migrated from Mexico City from Mazatlan. They also had a–
I’ve got copies a little– of a building down there. They had their own business. I went
down there and I’m still searching that out for his side.
I know that they came up in about 1909 to 1911 maybe, I know that they operated what
they called The Sodería [ph]. They had it there in their backyard. They made this and
they went to the stores and sold it. And a lot of times when they’d go back to pick up
their bottles, they found them smashed because of the competitors. Who was it, Coke
and 7-Up? They didn’t want that competition. So he’s done other things. He was a car
parts person- salesperson and he did a lot of other things.
GQ: Did they settle here in Patagonia?
MC: Those– My grandparents settled up in Tucson.
GQ: In Tucson, okay.
MC: My dad’s parents. But my mom’s parents did settle here.
GQ: Okay.
MC: Yeah, it was pretty decent when we came here you know; it was nice. Then as
soon as they moved the Wagon Wheel down where it’s at now, then Haverty and Lama
built the gas station because they had the lumber store right next door.
GQ: Okay.
MC: I hope I’ve given you quite a bit of information.
GQ: You have. How are we doing on time?
RS: We have 30, 35 minutes and running. [LAUGHTER] We can go a little longer if you
want, if you have any–
GQ: Do you have any stories or anything you want to tell or...?
MC: I know I heard a story some years ago when the creek, especially when Harshaw
Creek raises, there was a...what was their name? Paul or Wall... One after- one evening
it rained and Harshaw Creek was up and Mr. Wall—I’m going to say Wall, I’m not sure
207
his name now it’s been so long—tried to come to town and tried to cross the river. Well
it was so high it washed him away, but his wife used to live out there. She could
always– They said there was a legend. They said that every time you can hear the river
roar you can hear him hollering for help.
GQ: Okay.
MC: But...yeah. That’s...
GQ: Have you seen it? I think the wash goes right behind your place. Right?
MC: It comes right in front of our place. You see we’re on the–
GQ: You’re on Harshaw Creek and...Harshaw Creek is behind you isn’t it?
MC: Harshaw... Well okay. It’s between me and the high school.
GQ: So have you heard, since you’ve been there, have you had a lot of close calls bank
to bank or anything?
MC: Oh it’s been bank to bank; in fact back in 1983, we– That’s when they re-declared
us as a flood plain as in ’83 after they checked out the railroad bridge, the trees banked
up underneath that bridge. That bridge was put in in 1961 and just shortly after that the
railroad was taken out of here in ’62.
All right, that bridge, before they replaced it I can remember Mickey Costello out there
one night. It was raining; it had been raining at least two or three days and that creek
was coming up. He stood out in the middle of the bridge, at night, letting one car at a
time go across the bridge. Water was lapping over the top of the bridge.
So they put this new bridge in. Well in ’83 when we had that big flood come in, I was
up in Utah at the time but I heard a lot about it. What it had done is take a lot of the
saplings out of the creek and then brought it down, and what it did was it made a dam
effect on those pillars and then what it did, it backed it up into the lower part of the
trailer part, which was my aunt’s side. Well one trailer they said the water level was
right up to the doorstep. Underneath my aunt’s trailer was about three inches below
the door. So we were considered more of a flood plain.
Hey, you know, this whole canyon has been a flood plain for many years. I found out in
some research that back in 1929, this whole thing was under water from bank to bank.
208
And I also know back in the ‘30s, mid ‘30s, where we have our trailer park now was
called Little Madison Square Gardens and at one time it was swamp land.
GQ: A what?
MC: Swamp.
GQ: Oh yeah. Right.
MC: Swamp land. But now since we’ve kind of put it into a trailer park and it does
collect a little water but it also soaks in the ground.
GQ: That’s good. You haven’t had any close calls lately, so that’s good.
MC: No we haven’t. We’re about, where my trailer’s at is about 150 ft. almost 200 ft.
from the Creek. Where it’s down, where my aunt lived, it was right there on the bend.
It was in her corner of the trailer park.
GQ: Is there more room, for more trailers in your property?
MC: On my side yes. However, since this is fully declared a flood plain, any more that
come in would be my cousin’s side have to go from four to six feet high. On my side,
since it’s a little higher than that side, I can go two feet high.
GQ: Okay. And that’s pricier because you have to get a crane or how do you get–
MC: No. When they– They just jack it up, put the blocks under there where it’s two
feet high and then that’s just the way they can do it. I’ve got a few problems but I’d like
to get them cleared up. I’d like to add on some more trailer spaces on my side. But like
I said, I’ve got a little bit of a family problem...and I’m just going to leave it at that.
GQ: Okay. Anything else?
MC: I can’t think of anything else.
GQ: We’ve covered everything?
RS: You did a good job. Thank you.
209
MC: Did it peak your interest there?
GQ: Sure, oh it’s all interesting. Absolutely. Okay thank you.
MC: You’re quite welcome.
[End of transcription 00:24:06]
210
Interview 9
Ramon S. Quiroga
Ramon S. Quiroga was born, raised and lived his first 30 years in Patagonia.
Ramon was employed at Wilson’s Market in the 1950’s, worked in the Trench
and Flux mines and retired as an assayer from ASARCO in 1987. Ramon
served as a Patagonia Council Member, played on the town baseball team, the
Patagonia Miners, until 1958 when he moved his family to Tucson where this
interview takes place.
211
Ramon Quiroga
January 4, 2011
Tucson, AZ
GERMAN QUIROGA:
Good morning. We’re at the home of Ramon and Elena
Quiroga in Tucson. Today is January 4th, 2011 and I’m here to interview my father,
Ramon Quiroga, and I’ll turn it over to you dad. We’d like to know a little bit about you
and when you were born.
RAMON QUIROGA:
Well, I was born here. I mean, I was born in Patagonia, June
th
26 , 1928. That’s almost 83 years ago and I went to school in Patagonia -- elementary
and high school. I graduated from high school in 1947 and I started college in the fall of
’47, but I was only able to complete one a semester as I didn’t have the finances. So, I
came back to town and I started working at the store.
GQ:
You went to NAU?
RQ:
Arizona State Teachers’ College at Flagstaff. So, I came back in January of ’48
and started working at the store for Leland Wilson at Wilson’s Market which was
located, at the time, next door to where the motel is right now, and I worked there for
six years and then Leland Wilson decided he was gonna move to Benson. So, he gave
me the choice of going to Benson with him and I said, “No.” I had already built a house
and was starting a family. So, I was employed by ASARCO. Mr. Don Jameson was the
superintendent. He actually went to my house to tell me to go sign up to work for him,
which I did. So, I worked for ASARCO.
GQ:
What year was that, dad?
RQ:
I think it was October of ’54 or November. I forget. I worked with ASARCO
from ’54 through 1987, when I retired at the age of 60. I went to Silverbell from the
Trench in Patagonia and from Silverbell, I was transferred down to Sahuarita where
Mission Mine is right now. So, I worked there from ’68 through ’87.
GQ:
But you worked at the Trench mine from --
RQ:
I worked at the Trench mine from ’54 through late ’57.
GQ:
That’s when they closed?
RQ:
--
They shut down because the prices of metals were down and the ore body was
212
GQ:
Diminishing?
RQ:
-- diminishing. The plate petered out. So, that’s when I had to move to Tucson
to work for ASARCO at Sahuarita for a year and a half and from there, I went to
Silverbell. There, again, Don Jameson was the guy who was in charge. I called him up
and he said, “Yep, come up the next day and we’ll sign you up.” So, I was not
unemployed too long. The few months that I was unemployed, I worked at Pima Mine
there at Sahuarita and from there, I went to Silverbell and from Silverbell, like I said, I
came to Mission where I worked until my retirement in 1987.
GQ:
So, for a time there when the Trench closed up in 1957, you were unemployed
for a little bit of time in Patagonia?
RQ:
Yes, I worked for the county. I forget how many weeks. Anyway, I signed for
unemployment for the first time and I only received one check and that’s when I started
working for ASARCO at Sahuarita where the Mission Mine is now.
GQ:
OK. Going back to grade school, do you remember anything about your grade
school years?
RQ:
Well, I started school when I was the age of six, like everybody else, I guess, but
at the time, I don’t think it was state law -- I don’t know who’s law or policy it was, but
when you started school, if you were Hispanic, you had to start in baby class, which
meant two years in first grade and it was discrimination, if you wanna really say what it
was, ‘cause I had seven older brothers and sisters who went to school. So, by the time I
started school, I knew how to write my name. I knew it in English. I knew everything,
as far as the first grade.
GQ:
So, you basically had to do first grade twice. If you were Hispanic, you had to
do first grade twice?
RQ:
There were exceptions to the rules, too, ‘cause there was this girl and the old
brother who were son and daughter to the county school nurse who was Hispanic. So,
they didn’t go through all this. They had to start at first grade right off the bat.
GQ:
They didn’t have to repeat first grade?
RQ:
No, they didn’t have to go two years and go on to second, but, like I said, I
think it was just -GQ:
It was the general -213
RQ:
-- local --
GQ:
-- policy.
RQ:
I don’t think it was state law. Anyway, so, I went to Patagonia elementary for
eight years and graduated in ’43 and started high school in ’43 and I was not too sure if
I wanted to go to school. So, I missed a lot of school the first two months.
GQ:
Your freshman year in high school?
RQ:
My freshman year in high school -- and Mrs. Boothsinger, who was the
principal at the elementary school -GQ:
Who had just graduated you.
RQ:
Yes. She would send the truant officer, Mrs. Costello, to the house to tell my
mother to send me to high school -- for me to go to school. So, anyway, then Mr.
Oldfather who was the principal of the high school would send in the bus driver who
drove the bus to Lochiel GQ:
Who was that?
RQ:
Mr. Oliver Rothrock who later became the JP there at Patagonia. Anyway, he
would send him to the house to see why I wasn’t in school. So, anyway, they kept after
me until I got interested in sports. So, then there was no problem after that. I went to
school. I graduated in ‘1947. I graduated as the second-ranking student in my class
which wasn’t very much, ‘cause it wasn’t a very big class, but still, I was two out of 14.
GQ:
Going back to the grade school again, though, do you remember your teachers
in grade school?
RQ:
I remember some of them. Mrs. Fortune was one.
GQ:
Mrs. Fortune?
RQ:
Mrs. Fortune -- she was there many years and then I had Mrs. Swyers who
owned a ranch there with her husband and Ms. Minion Stevens who was the daughter
of Lucy Stevens who was also a rancher and I remember Mrs. Trask and Mrs.
Boothsinger, of course. She was the principal the whole eight years that I was in school.
GQ:
Was she also a teacher?
214
RQ:
She was a teacher?
GQ:
Which grades did she teach?
RQ:
She taught the 7th and 8th grade. Most of the time, she taught the 8th grade, but
sometimes, she had the 7th grade. Mrs. Riggs -GQ:
Is this H.B. Riggs’ wife?
RQ:
No, it was May Riggs. She was no relation to H.B. Riggs. She lived right there
by where the postmaster used to live, Mr. Gatlin, and Mrs. Gatlin was a substitute
teacher and I would have her at times when she got called to sub.
GQ:
So, Mr. Gatlin lived where Paulette lives now, below the school?
RQ:
Yeah, they’re all on Duquesne where Mrs. Gatlin lives now who was the wife
of one of his sons. There was another teacher, Mrs. O’Brien -GQ:
In grade school?
RQ:
In grade school. I remember Mrs. O’Brien ‘cause she was our music teacher and
when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, I remember it was a Sunday. I walked into the soda
fountain that was owned my Mr. Boothsinger, Mrs. Boothsinger’s husband, and they
were talking about what had happened and that was the first I heard of Pearl Harbor.
So, I remember her because of that. She was the music teacher and at that time, I used to
like to sing. So, I would look forward to class.
GQ:
So, that was Mrs. O’Brien?
RQ:
Mrs. O’Brien, who later became Mrs. Brown.
GQ:
Who later became Mrs. Brown -- OK. So, she was single when she was the
music teacher.
RQ:
Yes.
GQ:
She was at the soda fountain along with Mr. Boothsinger?
RQ:
Yeah, Mr. Boothsinger was the owner.
GQ:
OK. He was talking to Mrs. O’Brien about Pearl Harbor and that was on a
Sunday.
215
RQ:
That was on a Sunday. That’s the first time I remember hearing about Pearl
Harbor.
GQ:
So, you were going up to the soda fountain to get a treat or something?
RQ:
Yeah, I was going to get an ice cream cone or whatever. It was December. I
don’t know what I was going in there for. Anyway, it was strictly a soda fountain. They
had ice cream and soda.
GQ:
And do you remember where it was located in Patagonia?
RQ:
It’s located where the motel is now before they tore everything down which
was two doors from the post office. The post office used to be located there, too, and
then the sweets shop, which was the equivalent of the drug store, was next to the
fountain. That was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Bethel and then they had the corner store
right on the corner.
GQ:
store?
OK. So, where the motel is now, it was the Corner Store? There was a grocery
RQ:
Well, in my time, it wasn’t too much of a store. It was owned by Val Valenzuela
and I remember he had cheese and very little, but it was open.
GQ:
OK. So, that was the corner store. Wasn’t it the meat market? Isn’t that what
they called it, too?
RQ:
Well, that was the corner store for a long time until they built across the street.
GQ:
OK. So, it was the grocery store, the corner store, and then what was next?
RQ:
The sweets shop --
GQ:
The sweets shop.
RQ:
-- and the soda fountain --
GQ:
The soda fountain.
RQ:
-- and then a post office and then there were two rooms next to the post office
which were rented out and I remember Mr. Raymond Earhart used to live there. He
was our state representative from Santa Cruz County at the time.
216
GQ:
So, there were boarding rooms.
RQ:
Just two rooms -- he just lived there.
GQ:
Who owned that strip?
RQ:
I think it was owned by Richardson, but I don’t know. I really don’t know. It’s
too long ago.
GQ:
OK. Then there were two rooms. What else, going down --
RQ:
There were two vacant lots between there and the old Evans’ Mercantile which,
later, was Wilson’s Market. That’s where I worked. It was the Patagonia Mercantile
which was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Evans. Later, it was owned by a Chinaman. He had
a store there before where the Wilson Market was and his name was Sam Thomas. I
really don’t know what his Chinese name was. He was known as Sam Thomas and
actually, I don’t know if it was Sam Thomas who had a store by where the Mission is
now. It burned down, I remember. It burned down to the ground.
GQ:
Do you remember when it did?
RQ:
No, I was just a young kid -- maybe 10 or 12 years old. So, anyway, I think
that’s when Sam Thomas went to where Wilson’s Market used to be or the Evans’
Mercantile. I remember when it burned down. There used to be another old Chinaman
who had a house there behind what was Evans’ Mercantile and they started operating
out of there. It was a real small building. So, I guess, after a while, they went into Evans’
Mercantile and it was there until, I guess, he died.
GQ:
Sam Thomas?
RQ:
Sam Thomas died.
GQ:
In Patagonia?
RQ:
Mm-hmm, and by that time, there was another Chinaman who came into live
with him, by the name of Tom DiHon and -GQ:
This was still in the ‘40s?
RQ:
Yeah -- early ‘40s, ‘cause he brought in a son later whose name was Dale
DiHon, later known as Dale Thomas, and he went to grade school when I was going to
school and to high school. He graduated from high school and his dad, Tom DiHon,
was more into mining. He was prospecting. He would go up to Alto, I guess, and stake
217
out claims, but nothing every came out of it. So, later on, after Sam Thomas died, he
opened up a grocery store where a Mr. Henderson used to have a store -- A.J.
Henderson. I forget his name. He used to be the justice of the peace there. He was there
for a number of years until he died, I guess, and meanwhile, he son had graduated from
high school. So, he went into Tucson.
GQ:
Never seen him go back?
RQ:
Never seen him. He died young, so I never did see him after he graduated from
Patagonia.
GQ:
OK. Do you remember your teachers at the high school?
RQ:
Yeah, Mr. Oldfather was the principal and he was also a teacher and Miss
Seibold and I had a teacher by the name of Mrs. Duran who was a Home Ec teacher. She
was a chemistry teacher. There had to be somebody else.
GQ:
And this was at the high --
RQ:
Mrs. Nave --
GQ:
Nave?
RQ:
Nave.
GQ:
K?
RQ:
N-A-V-E.
GQ:
N-A-V-E, OK.
RQ:
She was the wife of a forest ranger at the time. The forest ranger station used to
be stationed right by where the high school is now.
GQ:
The current high school -- but when you went to high school, it was where the
Doctor Mock clinic is.
RQ:
Yeah, it was an old tin building. The high school was only a study hall and four
other rooms.
GQ:
Four other rooms, presumably for the four classes -- freshman, sophomore,
juniors, and seniors?
218
RQ:
There was only about 80-some students at the time.
GQ:
So, you had a teacher for every room and ---- a principal?
RQ:
The principal had his office right behind the school.
GQ:
You mentioned there was a boys’ and girls’ --
RQ:
The principal’s office and the boys’ showers and the girls’ showers and then up
on top of the hill on the mesa behind the school were the Home Ec building, the
chemistry building, and restrooms. So, there were three buildings up on top of the flat.
They’re not there anymore, no signs of them.
GQ:
So, you had boys’ and girls’ showers. So, you had P.E. or physical activities?
RQ:
Oh, yes. The last two periods of the day were for P.E. which was either
baseball, basketball, or football.
GQ:
Where would you play or practice?
RQ:
We had to go where the high school is now. We had our fields there for --
GQ:
Football and baseball?
RQ:
-- football and baseball and for basketball, we used to play at the old opera
house, which was next door to Mr. Henderson’s place right there in the middle of town.
GQ:
So, you had two periods dedicated to P.E.?
RQ:
Mm-hmm.
GQ:
Was it --
RQ:
Of 45 minutes each.
GQ:
But it took a while to get to the --
RQ:
Yeah, we had to walk or run to practice football and baseball and walk to the
opera house.
GQ:
So, did everybody participate -- everybody in your class?
219
RQ:
Well, no, not all the boys. We had a few boys that didn’t do anything. They just
stayed in school. So, for that reason, anyone who went out got to play all the time.
GQ:
So, your P.E. was your practice time for football or basketball or baseball?
RQ:
Yeah.
GQ:
It was included in your regular school?
RQ:
Yeah, that was just the --
GQ:
It was not extracurricular. It was during the school year.
RQ:
The first three years, actually, we did not have a coach. We were starting the
Second World War, so I didn’t have a coach until, actually, the last year.
GQ:
So, when you were remembering about Pearl Harbor, you were between grade
school and high school? Is that when -RQ:
Oh, yeah.
GQ:
Or you were still in grade school?
RQ:
No, I was in high school, ‘cause I had just started high school in ’43.
GQ:
Pearl Harbor was in --
RQ:
I was a sophomore already.
GQ:
But Pearl Harbor was in ’41.
RQ:
Oh, that’s right. I was thinking at the end of the war. Yeah, I was still in
grammar school. In elementary, I got out on ’43. So, I was still in elementary.
GQ:
So, you were in 6th grade or whatever when the war started?
RQ:
6th or 7th, right.
GQ:
I guess it would have been 7th grade, but anyway --
RQ:
Yeah.
220
GQ:
Then in 1943, the war ended --
RQ:
In ’45 -- August of ’45.
GQ:
OK -- and do you remember what you were doing?
RQ:
I was actually working at the flux mine as, what they call, a top lander. I was
working outside. I was 17-years-old at the time and I remember well. It was – I--- was
15th of August and the war was over.
GQ:
So, did somebody mention it or how did you hear about it?
RQ:
I really don’t remember how I heard about it. Probably --
GQ:
Just people were, you know, saying --
RQ:
Probably when I got to the house and they -- my mother probably knew or
somebody had told her. We did have a battery-operated radio.
GQ:
Back then -- and you got good reception?
RQ:
Yeah, it was all right.
GQ:
What were you able to listen to back --
RQ:
Well, we used to listen to Tucson’s stations and Nogales Sonora - some other
stations. I don’t think they had a station in Nogales, Arizona at the time, but -GQ:
So, what kind of broadcasts would you receive?
RQ:
Well, it was mostly music at the time.
GQ:
Any sports or news or --
RQ:
Well, I used to listen to sports.
GQ:
RQ:
So, you catch from the Tucson stations or -Yeah.
GQ:
-- you could listen to, for example -221
RQ:
Well, I remember a guy by the name of Bill Stern. He was a top football
announcer at the time and I remember listening to him during the Notre Dame game.
That’s when I started following Notre Dame. It was in ’45. He used to make the game
real exciting. He made you feel like you were there. He was really good. He was the
equivalent of what Vin Scully is now for the Dodgers.
GQ:
Bill Stern?
RQ:
Mm-hmm, but that was many years ago.
GQ:
Right -- and how about the St. Louis -- the baseball team?
RQ:
Oh, I used to listen to the World Series in ’43. So, I’ve probably been a Cardinal
fan for 67 years.
GQ:
So, that was just during the World Series. You didn’t get regular coverage
during the -RQ:
No, no regular -- just during the World Series.
GQ:
You would just keep up with them with the newspapers?
RQ:
I always read the newspaper -- yeah.
GQ:
So, what kind of newspapers did you get?
RQ:
We had the Arizona Daily Star.
GQ:
It would come to Patagonia back in the ‘40s?
RQ:
Yeah, they used to deliver it to town and they used to deliver it to the sweets
shop, actually. You had to subscribe there and pay weekly or buy it every day -whatever. So, we had our Daily Star all that time.
GQ:
So, you said the Bethels owned the sweets shop?
RQ:
Mr. and Mrs. Bethel.
GQ:
And it was a drug store, too?
RQ:
Yeah.
222
GQ:
So, if you had --
RQ:
But it wasn’t a pharmacy, just a regular drug store
GQ:
So, nothing prescription --
RQ:
No.
GQ:
Just whatever --
RQ:
Yeah.
GQ:
Over-the-counter -- so, how were you able to land the job at the mine when you
were 17?
RQ:
Well, they were shorthanded. They needed help. So --
GQ:
Well, you graduated in ’43?
RQ:
’43. So, I was in high school.
GQ:
You were still in high school when you were working for --
RQ:
Yeah, I was 17-years-old.
GQ:
So, during the summer --
RQ:
Between my sophomore and junior year. Like I say, I was only 17 at the time. I
could not go underground ‘cause you had to be 18 to go underground. I worked
outside.
GQ:
What did you do?
RQ:
Dumping the ore cart that came out of the mine into a shoot and from there,
they would haul them -GQ:
So, they would come out on rails?
RQ:
Yeah.
GQ:
Ore cars -- and how big were they? -- the size of your sofa there?
223
RQ:
Oh, about half of it -- maybe three-quarters of what this is.
GQ:
And they came out on rails.
RQ:
Yeah.
GQ:
Then there would be the shoot where you’d have to dump --
RQ:
….into the ore cars -- yeah.
GQ:
Did they have a hydraulic system or --
RQ:
No, you just had to push ‘em and then you’d come to the end and you had to
unlatch it and it would go over into the bin.
GQ:
You had to exert some force.
RQ:
Yeah, it was all manual and then any rock that stayed up on top -- you had to
break ‘em up with a double jack.
GQ:
To get it to go into the shoot?
RQ:
Yeah, they had some rails. If it was too big, you had to break it down so it’d go
down. From there, they would take it to the mill at the Trench.
GQ:
By truck.
RQ:
By truck.
GQ:
So, the Flux mine was just an underground mine.
RQ:
Yeah, it was about three miles from the Trench mill, but that’s where the mill
was located. They had to haul the ore there and then put it through the crusher down
through the mill.
GQ:
At the Trench?
RQ:
At the Trench, mm-hmm. From there, they would haul the concentrates to
Patagonia and load ‘em there at the -- well, they’d actually dump ‘em at the platforms.
They had some platforms there by the railroad tracks and they had two guys loading
with a wheelbarrow. They would load ‘em into boxcars and later on, they’d build some
ramps where the trucks would back up and dump ‘em into the gondola instead of the
224
boxcar.
GQ:
OK. So, they’d get the truck above them -- the railroad cars?
RQ:
And just dump ‘em and the concentrate would then go to El Paso or Corpus
Christi. Lead would go to El Paso and zinc would go to Corpus Christi.
GQ:
Was the Flux job you had when you were 17 the first paying job that you had?
RQ:
No, the first paying job was at Wilson’s. I worked there --
GQ:
Before you were 17?
RQ:
Mm-hmm.
GQ:
What did you do there?
RQ:
I brought out the produce and --
GQ:
You were a stock clerk?
RQ:
-- stocked the shelves.
GQ:
And that was when you were 16?
RQ:
Yeah.
GQ:
Another summer job or did you have it --
RQ:
No, I worked before and after school. So, before school, it was only about half
an hour ‘cause we used to put all the produce in a walk-in ice box and then we’d have
to get ‘em out in the morning.
GQ:
So, you would get up in the morning and have breakfast and then go to
Wilson’s store?
RQ:
Yeah -- and then go to school.
GQ:
To high school, I guess, right?
RQ:
Yeah. Then after school, if I had time, I would work. I would work on Saturday
‘cause they were open Saturday. They’d be closed on Sunday. So, no store on Sunday.
225
GQ:
Right -- but what would you do with the produce again? It would get shipped
in on the railroad cars or trucks?
RQ:
No, they’d bring it in from [inaudible] truck. We’d put it out for people to see it
and buy it and then we’d close at six. So, about 15 to six, we started putting the stuff in
the ice box so it wouldn’t wilt, you know, and then in the morning, we’d bring it out.
GQ:
I see. So, how did you find out about the job at Wilson’s?
RQ:
I don’t know how it happened, but it happened.
GQ:
You asked or he asked or Mr. Wilson asked?
RQ:
I don’t remember how it happened.
GQ:
First, your older brother or sister?
RQ:
No.
GQ:
OK. So, you had the Mr. Wilson’s job and then the Flux mine and then what
was the -RQ:
Trench.
GQ:
Well, that was your summer between sophomore and junior year and you went
to work for the mines again the next summer after the Flux?
RQ:
Actually, in ’45, the war was over in August, so after school started, they let me
work on Saturday and Sunday at the mine.
GQ:
Oh, OK -- at the Flux still? You worked two full days at the Flux?
RQ:
Mm-hmm. I think I went to the mine first and then maybe in ’46, I started at the
school then. I forget just how it was, but anyway, I worked Saturday and Sunday at the
mine. It was a seven day operation.
GQ:
This was after the war? There was a greater demand or why --
RQ:
No, they were still shorthanded. I mean, right after the war was over, school
started and it always started after Labor Day. So, once school started, I couldn’t work in
the mine, so they let me go on the weekend. In the meantime, the store opened and
that’s the way I got the job. That’s the way it was.
226
GQ:
OK. So, Wilson’s was after the Flux mine.
RQ:
Yeah, I started work at the Flux first. That was owned by ASARCO. Later on, I
went to -GQ:
How did you find out about the Flux mine?
RQ:
Well, my brothers worked there.
GQ:
Uncle Dave and Uncle Doug worked there?
RQ:
Yeah.
GQ:
And they knew that they were short and so they told you to go and inquire?
RQ:
Either that or they told the guy in charge, you know. I forget just how I went
there, but I’m sure they had something to do with it.
GQ:
OK. So, this would have been your junior year that you were working the
weekends at the mine and you were participating in sports, right?
RQ:
Yeah, right.
GQ:
So, you had a full schedule, it sounds like.
RQ:
Yeah.
GQ:
But the football games would be on Fridays?
RQ:
Fridays -- the basketball games were Friday nights. So --
GQ:
All the basketball games were Friday night and the football games were Friday
afternoons?
RQ:
Yeah.
GQ:
You’d have to travel?
RQ:
Yeah, we went to Benson, Saint David, Tombstone, Wilcox, San Simone, and
Bowie. [inaudible] Arizona State School for the Deaf. We went to Marana, too. They
were a small school then. One year, we went as far as Hayden for football.
227
GQ:
Was Hayden the longest?
RQ:
That was the longest.
GQ:
And that was all on Friday afternoons or Friday --
RQ:
Fridays, yeah.
GQ:
But you’d get back to Patagonia --
RQ:
Late. When we went to Hayden, I remember we got off the bus and went right
in and changed and went out to play football. I mean, we didn’t have too much time. It
was all dirt roads then and it wasn’t very fast traveling at the time. It was all dirt roads.
GQ:
Right. [inaudible] Patagonia to Tucson, right?
RQ:
Yeah -- and then once you left Oracle, I think, it was dirt roads.
GQ:
To Hayden?
RQ:
Yeah.
GQ:
So, you would have to leave about noon on Friday?
RQ:
I forget. It was a long trip. It took a long time.
GQ:
Like you said, you just got off the bus and changed and started playing football
and then turned around and come back and it would be -- what? Midnight?
RQ:
Probably.
GQ:
And then you’d get up and work two days.
RQ:
Right.
GQ:
So, when did you do your homework?
RQ:
easy.
I did a lot of it at school. We had a study hall, too. I managed to get by fairly
GQ:
So, it was the Flux mine and then you said you worked for Mr. Wilson for quite
228
a few years when you were still in school?
RQ:
Well, I came back from Flagstaff in ’48.
GQ:
So, after you got hired on with Mr. Wilson, you worked for him pretty much
during the school year, right?
RQ:
Oh, yeah. I think it was December when I started in ’45 -- working at the store.
Like I said, I would work in the mornings, afternoons, and on Saturday. So, this
working at the mine didn’t last very long -- maybe from September through December.
GQ:
Oh, OK. Then you worked with him when you went through high school then
you went to Arizona State Teachers’ College at Flagstaff for a semester and then you
came back to Patagonia.
RQ:
In ’48.
GQ:
OK. Then you went back to work for Mr. Wilson?
RQ:
Yeah. Then I worked with Leland Wilson through ’54 when he closed his store
and moved to Benson. Then I went to work for ASARCO again.
GQ:
In ’54 -- that’s when you said you talked to Mr. Jameson and he hired you on at
the Trench?
RQ:
At the Trench.
GQ:
And what did you do?
RQ:
Oh, well, I worked in the mill. I was a laborer for two months maybe and then
they sent me down to the assay lab and I worked there for about three years when they
shut down.
GQ:
The assay lab?
RQ:
The assay lab.
GQ:
They trained you to be an assayer?
RQ:
Yeah, they trained me.
GQ:
Who was your -229
RQ:
Henry Arens was the chemist at the time.
GQ:
Arens -- how do you spell --
RQ:
A-R-E-N-S. He was a local guy. He went to high school there.
GQ:
Arens?
RQ:
Uh-huh, and he married a local girl.
GQ:
Who did he marry?
RQ:
Lorraine Solano. That’s an old family also from Patagonia.
GQ:
So, he’s the one that had trained you to be an assayer?
RQ:
Yeah.
GQ:
He had gone to college or how did he acquire his --
RQ:
Well, he went to UA. He got his degree from the University of Arizona.
GQ:
So, he had a chemistry degree or something.
RQ:
Yeah, he was a chemist.
GQ:
OK. So, you worked as an assayer for three years until basically the Trench shut
down.
RQ:
That’s when I was unemployed. Well, I worked for the county, actually, and
then they did hire people for -- they had the regular people so they just hired me as a
temporary and then I was out of a job and that’s when I went and signed for
unemployment and I think I received one check and in the meantime, I went to work
for ASARCO in Sahuarita.
GQ:
And got started there and resumed your career.
RQ:
In ’58, right. I worked for Ascarco from ’58 continually ‘til ’87.
GQ:
OK.
230
RQ:
There were two or three months that I worked at Pima between ASARCO and
when I went to Silverbell.
GQ:
Who did you know at Pima? Who was there?
RQ:
I went to what they used to call a “court catcher.” They had diamond drills
drilling and I would go around picking up ore and I would split it and then I was there
doing that about maybe a month and then Pete Flores, who I knew -- how did I know
him? Anyway, I got to know him. He was an assayer there -- a chemist -- at Pima. So,
then they had a lot of work and they brought me into the assay lab and I worked there
just temporarily. I worked there for a few months and then they let me go and that’s
when I went to Silverbell.
GQ:
OK. Do you remember back at the Trench mine how many people were
employed? Was it a big operation?
RQ:
It wasn’t too big. It was awfully big, but --
GQ:
The miners worked around the clock?
RQ:
Yeah, they had to work 24 hours. They had their own power house --
GQ:
At the Trench?
RQ:
-- and generated their own electricity and they had a camp there where they
used to have homes there where people lived and worked there and they used to have a
bar also, up on top -GQ:
At the Trench mine?
RQ:
-- at the Trench mine.
GQ:
It was all owned by ASARCO?
RQ:
No, it was owned by an individual who had a store at Washington camp ‘cause
at the time, the mill there was going, too. They were mining there and they had a mill
and -- Duquesne actually, but he had the store at Washington camp.
GQ:
And the Trench, too, you say?
RQ:
They had a bar -231
GQ:
At the bar -- oh, OK -- and what was his name?
RQ:
George Gerrard was his name.
GQ:
days?
Oh, OK. So, it was 24/7 at the Trench, but at the assay lab, you just worked
RQ:
I just worked days at the Trench.
GQ:
But the assay lab -- did they go on?
RQ:
The laborer was just day job and the assay lab was just the day job.
GQ:
There was not a demand for assay results 24 hours a day? You could just get it
done in eight hours or whatever?
RQ:
Yeah, we’d do the swing shifts -- assays -- the next morning and we’d do the
midnight the next morning, too.
GQ:
So, you were taking samples from the mill?
RQ:
They would bring ‘em down from the mill. They had a prep lab up there where
they prepared the samples and we would bring ‘em down to the assay lab.
GQ:
But you were assaying the raw ore? You wouldn’t assay the raw ore. It would
be after the -RQ:
Everything -- yeah, they would bring samples from the ore come from the
crusher, too. They had a preparation up there and they prepared the ore as it went into
the mill and then the concentrates of the tailings. So, we analyzed everything.
GQ:
So, going back to the ‘50s, you mentioned the one time you ran for town
council.
RQ:
Well, as soon as I was 21, which was in 1949 -- well, when they had the next
election, I had some people wanting me to run, so I did run and I was elected to the
town council and I just served one term, ‘cause in the meantime, I built a house on
Harshaw Road which happened to be on the county side.
GQ:
So, you couldn’t be on town council.
RQ:
I couldn’t be on the council and live in the county. So, I only served one term.
232
GQ:
So, the term was four years?
RQ:
Yeah.
GQ:
So, who were your councilmembers?
RQ:
Charles Mapes was the one that I remember. He was the old railroad section
foremen and he was responsible for planting all those trees there between the highway
and the main street.
GQ:
Where the town park is now?
RQ:
Mm-hmm, and then when he retired, he moved to Pennsylvania (Avenue),
where your grandmother used to live -- across from her -- and he planted all those trees
along there. So, he did a lot for the town and I’m surprised they didn’t name anything
after him. So it was Mr. Mapes; and Dr. Mock was on there for a while. He later became
Mayor.
GQ:
Dr. Mock did?
RQ:
Um hmm. And Paul Connelly which was, who was Mr. Mapes’ stepson, he
was on the Council, too. And I think I–
GQ:
Was there a Raymond Bergier by any chance?
RQ:
That was later on.
GQ:
Later on?
RQ:
Later on.
GQ:
And do you remember who the Mayor was when you were at Council? Was it
[inaudible]?
RQ:
I think it was Waggoner.
GQ:
Bill Waggoner when you–
RQ:
Um hmm. I think it was Waggoner, I think he owned the Corner Store.
GQ:
Right. So basically the town was incorporated in ’48. And they probably had
233
their first election in ’48?
RQ:
Well I think they were appointed. The County appointed a Council because I
remember Leyland Wilson was on it, too, and Frank Lama, Waggoner...who else?
GQ:
So the first go round, the County appointed the Council Members until the
town could have an election.
RQ:
Right, which happened probably in ’50 or ’51 when I– That was the year I won
the election.
GQ:
And do you remember what the issues were when– that you had to vote on or
discuss when you were a Town Council member?
RQ:
Well actually there weren’t too many issues. The one that I remember is
granting the Corner Store a liquor license, and I was kind of in a bind because I worked
for the other guy who had a store, too and I don’t know. But somehow I found out that
he didn’t care. He says if the liquor license goes to the other guy, maybe it’ll give me
more business and people will stay away. But I don’t think that happened.
And another issue was the alleys. They were– Well the other Town Council member
was Blabon, Buck Blabon that used to own the Eastside Garage. Anyway the other
issue was opening up the alleys which were owned by these same guys who were on
the Council mostly, ‘cause like Slim Wilson the town drunk used to call them the
“Patagonia 400”, so they always said to break them up you know.
So anyway, Charles Mapes and myself and I think it was Paul Connelly, his stepson
who voted to open up the alley, which there– Mendoza Alley was not an alley then. It
was just.... [He brushes the air with his hand.]
GQ:
You couldn’t go through there.
RQ:
No. You couldn’t go all the way through to where the Post Office is now I
mean the Store is now, clear down to the end of the river, close to the river.
GQ:
So it opened up Smelter, Mendoza–
RQ:
Well Smelter was already open.
GQ:
Was it?
RQ:
We opened part of it through the park, that part, but the only one that was
234
really closed was—you couldn’t go through the alley—was Mendoza Alley now. It’s
Mendoza Alley now. So. And Santa Rita Alley, which was where I lived or grew up,
that went as far as right by the house where I live now in summer, and later on they
opened that up.
GQ:
They had it bull dozed everywhere because it was mostly hill?
RQ:
And I was gone already so that happened afterwards.
GQ:
That was in the ‘50s or ‘60s?
RQ:
‘50s. Sometime in the ‘50s. We came to Tucson in ’58.
GQ:
Yeah, well, anything else you remember about Patagonia in those days?
RQ:
Well I remember we always looked forward to the fall when they brought in all
the cattle and cattle pens. We used to go watch them load them into the cars.
GQ:
That was when you were a little kid?
RQ:
Yeah. We used to watch ‘em and the train came in every Thursday I think it
was. We used to watch them when they would take the engine to the locomotive to the
turntable and turn it around so they would go back. The track at that time only came as
far as Patagonia.
Actually I remember it used to go down by where the Telles Shrine is now beside Circle
Z. But later on they took that out and it ended right there.
GQ:
By the–?
RQ:
By Showalter. The picnic table is there right up there by Showalter’s, yeah.
That was the end of the line.
GQ:
Did the Flux mine use that at all then?
RQ:
No.
GQ:
No? ‘Cause all their stuff would get trucked to the Trench and then from the
Trench ……..
RQ:
From the Trench back to Patagonia to the platform.
235
GQ:
Okay. So what were the—growing up—what were the weekends like,
Sundays? How would you spend your time?
RQ:
Well we spent a lot of time outside just playing. I mean we’d eat breakfast and
then go out and play. We had different games that we played.
GQ:
Like what games?
RQ:
We played marbles and we used to have wheels that– I mean, not wheels but
rings that were built with, we’d call them ganchos which would be hooks. And
somehow we would manage to [demonstrates with his hands]
GQ:
Make them go round?
RQ:
Make them go round you know, and just go around. And we played different
games. I mean we—no TV at the time. So our mothers would call us to come eat lunch
and eat lunch and go back out.
GQ:
Do you remember who your playmates were?
RQ:
Well there was the Rodriguez family and my cousins which were the other
Quirogas and the Durans the Gallegos, the families– Some families that never did stay
but the Rodriguez did stay and Quirogas, but the other families they moved out.
Ortegas, they used to live there.
GQ:
They used to live in the neighborhood? What about your chores? Did you
have some chores when you–
RQ:
Oh we had to bring in the wood for the– especially in the winter time. We used
to go haul wood on burros from the Patagonia Mountains, at the foot of the mountains.
We had to do that Saturday and Sunday ‘cause that was the only means of heat. We
had no gas at the time, no natural gas. And we’d have to go get the burros, look for
them, bring them in on Friday night, and we’d go get wood on Saturday and Sunday,
my two brothers and I.
GQ:
So you looked for dead and down wood?
RQ:
Well, dead wood. There was a lot of it down at the time.
GQ:
Because it would be like in 4-foot. to 6-foot. lengths?
RQ:
Well no, to pack up wood it would be more like 3 to 3 ½ feet I guess.
236
GQ:
Okay. It has little hook– What kind of jacket did you have on the burros to...
RQ:
The burros had what they call a pack saddle with ganchos which were
[demonstrates with hands]...
GQ:
Big old hooks?
RQ:
Yeah, hooks.
GQ:
That’s where you start building the wood up so much?
RQ:
Yeah, you’d tie it up with ropes, tie it on the burros’ backs, with ropes.
GQ:
How much could you put on a burro?
RQ:
Oh I would say about an eighth of a cord maybe.
GQ:
So...you mean this wide [demonstrating with his hands]? About two– You’d
have a big–
RQ:
No. Some wood was real heavy so it depended on how heavy the wood was.
You couldn’t–
GQ:
Um hmm. So maybe get 100 pounds of wood out of a burro?
RQ:
It may be a little more but–
GQ:
You mean 100 pounds per–
RQ:
Sometimes they lay down on you. [LAUGHTER]. You’d have to load them
again. Yeah.
GQ:
Because they got too heavy?
RQ:
Yeah. [inaudible] there was this one burro that he never did lay down and he
always brought his load in all the way.
GQ:
No matter how heavy?
RQ:
Yeah. And there were others that would just... [ He shakes his head.] Well
they’d lay down on us halfway or close to the house.
237
GQ:
Oh. So how many did you go out with, how many burros with you?
RQ:
I don’t think we had- three the most we had.
GQ:
Okay, and you would just tie them end to end, nose to tail or how would
you...?
RQ:
No, they would just go by themselves. We’d walk behind them.
GQ:
So you didn’t have to lead them.
RQ:
No. No they would come home. They knew where they were going.
GQ:
Right, but how would you get them out to the mountains?
RQ:
We would ride them.
GQ:
Oh, you would ride them up there? Okay. Did you have reins on them?
RQ:
Oh yeah, and ride them.
GQ:
But on the way home, they just– You turned them loose and they headed for
home?
RQ:
Yeah, they knew where they were going.
GQ:
They knew where the food was.
RQ:
Yeah.
GQ:
Well, we’ve got about 51 minutes so I think we’re good. That sound good?
RQ:
Yeah.
GQ:
Thanks, Dad.
RQ:
Okay.
[End of transription.]
238
Interview 10
Carmen Astorga Soto
Carmen Astorga Soto spent her early years growing up in the San Rafael
Valley. Her father worked as a cowboy there. Carmen attended the Lochiel
School during those years. Later she met and married Miguel Soto and lived in
Harshaw, Nogales and Tucson. This interview takes place with her children and
grandchildren at her home gathering to celebrate her oldest son’s birthday on
Sunday, 20 September 2009.
239
[Start]
Carmen:
My name is Carmen Astorga Soto and I… well really went to San
Rafael…. the rest of my living. I can say that, no?
Elena:
Si
Carmen:
I was going to school in Lochiel, there I went to the… I think it was
eighth grade, that’s the only school they had there, you know… I
didn’t learn nothing too. Too dummy but… we had a pretty good
time. Good kids, good teachers. I didn’t learn too much, but I can
write my name.
Interviewer:
Ok. You were born in Ímuris, you said? You were born in…
Carmen:
We used to walk more than a mile to school every day, raining, or
sunny or snowing but we have choosed to go to school thanks to
God. In most days, it was hard for our daddies. My daddy, he was a
cowboy on the ranch.
Hombre:
Segura?
Carmen:
Aha, he never got another job that I know. We always had a horse
in the house. Sometimes when he goes to sleep, I slip on the horse,
to get my ride on the horse. Yes I did because I loved to go
horseback and as soon he goes to sleep at lunchtime, here come
me, I wanted to get little ride on the horse. It was really nice…We
have… pretty fair…
Interviewer:
How long did you live in San Rafael?
Carmen:
I don’t remember.
240
Interviewer:
You went to…
Carmen:
That’s the only school, I went Lochiel.
Interviewer:
That was the only school in Lochiel.
Carmen:
Aha, walking in more than a mile. A little more than a mile every
day.
Interviewer:
And you were born in Ímuris, you said?
Carmen:
Yes, I was born in Ímuris, so I don’t remember nothing about the …
Interviewer:
And you were the oldest?
Carmen:
Yea, we got our immigration papers in a… I don’t know if it was here
or Lochiel, well, it could be Nogales.
Interviewer:
From Ímuris, you went to the Santa Cruz or you went to Nogales?
Carmen:
To Nogales.
Interviewer:
And Nogales you went to Lochiel. And your father found work as a
cowboy at the San Rafael Ranch?
Carmen:
Yes, yes.
Interviewer:
Ok and you are the oldest? Of how many children?
Carmen:
Me?
Interviewer:
Si.
Carmen:
Did I have any children?
241
Interviewer:
No, your brothers and sisters. How many brothers and sisters?
Carmen:
Four boys and five girls, they’re out there.
Interviewer:
Ok.
Carmen:
I’m the oldest one.
Interviewer:
You’re the oldest. Ok.
Carmen:
The baby [Laughs]. I’m the baby.
Interviewer:
What did you do after Lochiel? After you went to school in Lochiel?
What happened then? You what? You went to work?
Carmen:
We used to walk to school every day, snowing, raining, stepping on
snakes. I can’t forget that one. I was walking my head up, path you
know to go to school and the grass about this high… and a little,
girl, where we walked… Ohh, I still can feel it, mira, I stepped on
that snake [screams]. Ay ay ay, I looked and it was a big snake.
That’s what we had over there, a lot of snakes.
Interviewer:
You wouldn’t ride horseback to the school?
Carmen:
Beg your pardon?
Interviewer:
You wouldn’t ride horseback to the school?
Carmen:
No, no. We walked. I think it was a mile or a little bit of a mile.
[Crosstalk]
Interviewer:
Is right outside the big ranch, right? The big ranch house?
242
Carmen:
Yes, yes.
Son:
Ma, sometimes you went to school in a buggy. Y my tata would take
you in a buggy.
Carmen:
Oh yea, we used to live at the Ashburn’s ranch and from there we
had my daddy bringing me… the teacher and me in a buggy, with
one horse.
Son:
What was the teacher’s name?
Carmen:
Yea, that’s when I started school, that’s true.
Son:
What was the name of the teacher? The teacher’s name?
Carmen:
Viola…
Young women:
Fist?
Carmen:
Viola
Young women:
Did you said […] or did you say Miss Fiss?
Son:
No. That wasn’t Fiss.
Carmen:
What?
Young woman:
Fiss?
Carmen:
No… Viola
Interviewer:
Viola was her first name?
Carmen:
I think it was her name…
243
Interviewer:
So, do you remember the year that you started the school?
Carmen:
No, not really.
Son:
How old were you, Ma, when you started school there?
Carmen:
I don’t have no idea.
Son:
Because I think you were about seven or eight?
Carmen:
Around there. It could be around there.
Son:
1924?
Interviewer:
So, You were born in nineteen…?
Son:
1917.
Interviewer:
1917 you were born?
Carmen:
Yes.
Interviewer:
Ok.
Carmen:
And we never go to another school, only Lochiel. There’s no other
school there.
Interviewer:
And your father’s name was?
Carmen:
Viviano.
Interviewer:
Viviano? And your mother’s name?
Carmen:
Antonia.
244
Interviewer:
Antonia. How did they meet?
Carmen:
Beg your pardon?
Interviewer:
How did your parents meet? Como se conocieron?
Carmen:
I don’t know.
Interviewer:
They were from Ímuris?. Los dos?
Carmen:
I think so… Ímuris.
Son:
Ma, I thought they came… they didn’t come from Hermosillo?
Carmen:
I really don’t know mi hijito.
Son:
Ok.
Carmen:
Because they lived in Hermosillo, I know that.
Son:
So, did they live in Hermosillo before they went to Ímuris and then
you were born in Ímuris? That’s how I understand it.
Carmen:
Yea, because I remember that Tata used to go to Hermosillo a lot
of times. That’s all I remember about that.
Son:
Yea, because I think they were from Hermosillo and they moved to
Ímuris from Hermosillo.
Carmen:
And my momma I think it was at Ímuris, Ímuris o La Mesa. They
called La Mesa?
Son:
Something like that.
245
Son:
Ah, that’s an area there.
Norma:
How about, Mom, when you were a young girl? Did you work at
the San Rafael Ranch?
Carmen:
Yea
Daughter:
How old were you when you were working at the San Rafael Ranch?
Carmen:
Probably about 14. I did nothing... just to help her, clean their
rooms, do the kitchen.
Son:
Who did you help?
Carmen:
Ah?
Son:
Who were you helping?
Carmen:
Mrs. Heady. That lady used to be there.
Norma:
Do you remember her name?
Carmen:
Helen I think it was. We always called Miss Heady.
Interviewer:
Heady?
Norma:
Like Helen.
Son:
Did you used to make tortillas and everything there?
Interviewer:
No?
Carmen:
Never did, thanks to God. [Laughs]
246
Interviewer:
Why don’t we take a break and ask everybody to introduce
themselves?
Carmen:
[…] tortillas, no Elena? you too?
Interviewer:
Mom, you want to introduce yourself and we’ll go around the
room?
Elena:
I’m Elena de La Ossa Quiroga.
Interviewer:
And señor?
Young Woman:
He doesn’t understand.
Interviewer:
So this is Mr. Miguel…
Norma:
Miguel Soto.
Son:
Miguel Del Cíd Soto.
Interviewer:
Ok. Thank you. And then over here is…
Woman:
[...] I’m Bea. It’s nice for you to host us here. Thank you.
Interviewer:
Esperanza?
Esperanza:
I’m Esperanza Alexandria Soto. She’s my nana.
Carmen:
My granddaughter.
Son:
Juan Astorga Soto
Norma:
I’m Norma Ramirez, daughter.
247
Interviewer:
And we have somebody coming in the door? [Laughs]
Norma:
This is Araceli, my niece. [crosstalk]
Carmen:
This is my younger daughter.
Daughter / Marti:
Marti Soto, the youngest of seven.
Interviewer:
All right, thank you. Ok. We can continue, I just wanted get
everybody introduced to besides myself here. [Crosstalk] Ok,
continue.
Woman:
What was a day like in school? Did you have…?
Carmen:
Beg your pardon?
Woman:
When you go to school what was the first thing you have to do? Did
you pledge allegiance? What did you do at the desk?
Carmen:
I don’t know
Interviewer:
You don’t remember?
Carmen:
I don’t remember the things at school.
Woman:
Recess?
Daughter / Margie:
Tell them about the time in your white dress. Your party started but
your white dress… When you were playing softball.
Carmen:
My dress?
Daughter / Margie:
Your white dress, remember, it got all full of stuff.
248
Carmen:
Oh [Laughs]… No!
Interviewer:
You were playing softball in a white dress? [Laughs]
Daughter / Margie:
She got all splattered and a little boy helped you try to take it off,
right?
Carmen:
It was ….. nice?]! [Laughs]
Interviewer:
The mud, yea?
[Crosstalk]
Woman:
No, it was a round, turds.
[Crosstalk]
Carmen:
Round…round… how do you?
Son:
Petticoat?
Carmen:
Skirts or something like that and … [Gesture signaling a home plate
slide] [Laughs]
Norma:
Sliding, you were sliding and your dress…
Son:
Were you safe?
Carmen:
I was safe!
Norma:
My mom was quite the athlete. She used to love playing ball and
coincidently, we all play softball. My four brothers just had games
this morning they all play in the over fifty leagues, my sisters, we
249
all play softball but I think we got it from my mom. She used to play
when she was a young girl and we all continue to play today.
Interviewer:
Good for you.
Son:
This is my brother, Henry.
Interviewer:
Hi, come on in. Hi, Henry. How are you?
Henry:
Mucho gusto. Fine, how are you doing?
Interviewer:
Good.
Henry:
Good. – Hello. I’m very good
[Crosstalk]
Henry:
Hi dad, hello dad.
Dad:
Hi, hi.
Henry:
Hi mom.
Carmen:
Hi, mi hijito.
Dad:
Where were you?
Henry:
Playing ball and went home and showered up.
Dad:
Where were you?
Henry:
Playing ball this morning! I had two games.
Dad:
Where were you?
250
Henry:
At the park… I went home and showered up… come over here. Y el
hijo más peor, no ha llegado? – El hijo más peor is my older brother.
[Laughs]
Norma:
The birthday boy.
Henry:
The birthday boy. His birthday is today.
Interviewer:
His birthday is today. Oh yea?
Henry:
So we decided… You know, have a little cookout for him.
Interviewer:
That’s good.
Henry:
You know when we meet… people, friends, from the family, from
way back… I mean… mi Ma es real proud, say you know los hijos,
you know, el Gordo, el Johnny y Franke. Y dice: “Ah, Franke?, Ahí
hijo Franke” [Laughs]. So travieso así sería.
Carmen:
He wakes up everybody [Laughs]. He is terrible.
Norma:
I don’t know if you got that picture that’s up there; those are my
mom’s parents; that’s Viviano and Antonia Astorga.
Henry:
[Pointing at a picture] Viviano Astorga my mom’s dad. He was a
rancher. He worked at the San Rafael Ranch there and in fact,
Johnny went, you know, one of those open houses they had there,
found his name in the old ledgers, you know, in the payroll and all.
Carmen:
I think it was the only place that he worked. Because I remember
though, he was a cowboy. He used to come home for dinner. He
251
took a nap, and here I go outside to get that horse and go for a ride,
while he was sleeping! [Laughs]
Woman:
Did he scold you then?
Norma:
Yea, cause they were not supposed to get the horses, right?
Carmen:
No.
Henry:
Mom… no wonder my sisters are like you.
[Laughs]
Only doing the things that they are not supposed to be doing.
[Laughs]
Carmen:
You are right, mi hijo.
Henry:
Y the horse, a él que le tiro la cuchara?
Carmen:
I was making candy from Caro syrup and then a man came to the
house in a white horse, has a big tail. And when he left home, I got
that spoon full of syrup and I throw it to the man, and it stick on his
tail.
Henry:
On the horse’s tail?
Carmen:
[Laughs]. I don’t know, I guess so. Te imaginas!.
Elena:
Traviesa!
Carmen:
Oh my god! I can see the figure the horse with the spoon with syrup
in the back. [Laughs]
252
Interviewer:
How did you meet your husband?
Carmen:
Probably on the dance.
Interviewer:
Probably? [Laughs]
Carmen:
Yea, we used to dance a lot. Probably at the dance [Laughs]
Henry:
En el Durazno?
Carmen:
I think so.
Henry:
En el salón en el Durazno?
Carmen:
I think so.
Henry:
En donde conoció a mi madre, en el salón, en un baile? En el salón
en Durazno?
Dad:
El quien?
Henry:
En donde conoció a mi Ma?
Dad:
Donde la conocí?
Henry:
Si
Dad:
A tu Ma?
Henry:
Si
Dad:
Oh yo no recuerdo se, de donde salí, no, hijo.
[Laughs]
253
Henry:
Ahí la [cagó]… Ahí en el salón en Durazno.
Dad:
Venían en Washington, del Lochiel… la Noria.
Henry:
De la Noria?... Venían al baile en el Durazno?
Dad:
Yea... Y se venían a trabajar ahí. No podía trabajar, no aprendió a
trabajar nada. Pero…
Henry:
Pero supo tener hijos! [Laughs]
Carmen:
Seven, no más.
Interviewer:
Where did you get married?
Carmen:
Patagonia.
Interviewer:
En Patagonia?
Henry:
En donde se casaron?
Carmen:
En Nogales.
Henry:
En Nogales se casaron?
Carmen:
En Nogales.
Interviewer:
Church or the court house?
Carmen:
No, just the court.
Interviewer:
The courthouse. OK. What year?
Carmen:
After many years, we got married by church, there in Harshaw.
254
Henry:
En qué año se casaron?
Carmen:
I really don’t know. Don’t ask those questions, what year!
[Laughs] [Crosstalk]
Henry:
We celebrated their 50th? When we went to Laughlin?
Norma:
50th, yes
Henry:
When they had their 50th anniversary, we went to Laughlin and we
charted a bus and…
Interviewer:
Just recently?
Henry:
Well… 10 years ago
[Cross talk]
Interviewer:
So… we are looking at sixty
Henry:
Sixty, Sixty-two years…
Dad:
[Mumbles]… West [New] México to California. From one side to the
other side of the country.
Henry:
Usted sabe que dijo ahí. I’m trying to figure out what he trying to
mean by that.
Interviewer:
Aha
[Crosstalk]
255
Henry:
CC Camps. Yea, he worked at CC Camps. He worked in the
Chiricahuas con mi Tata. Quién trabajó en las Chiricahuas en el CC
Camps? You did, o su Dad?
Dad:
Yes, then I went to the west, to the northeast…
Henry:
By Washington,… Oregon… Washington you were up there, no?
Dad:
Right in the California…
Henry:
Northern California
Dad:
Yea.
Henry:
Northern California and Oregon… And the Chiricahua mountains??
Dad:
Yea, the west or the east of the… [Mumbles]… I don’t know the
name of the town.
Henry:
Where are you, in the Chiricahuas?
Dad:
Yea, from one city… we might went over there one time. Long time
ago we went over there…[…] and then come back to California.
Henry:
They had a reunion for the CC Camps up in the Chiricahua
mountains, 10 years ago maybe…
Interviewer:
Maybe
Henry:
And my brother took him up there, that’s what he’s referring to.
He can’t remember the name of the place and I’m not sure exactly
where it was at.
256
Interviewer:
Ok.
Henry:
Hey Johnny do you remember?
Norma:
Johnny is outside.
Interviewer:
Ok
Norma:
I think Johnny just…
[Crosstalk]
Carmen:
[…] Remember all that CC camp boys?
Elena:
No that I don’t remember.
Carmen:
You no, no… of course not! [Laughs]
Henry:
That’s probably where you met my dad, he was in uniform, huh?
Carmen:
As soon as we hear that truck, we just ran out.
Interviewer:
So your parents…
Henry:
My father was born and raised in Harshaw and my mom […] in
Lochiel so you know, just across the Valley.
Interviewer:
They raised the family in Harshaw. You guys were all born there
except for Norma, Nogales, but you all lived in Harshaw, until
when?
Henry:
Let’s see, 1958, what’s it?
Norma:
I was born in 57’ and I was in Nogales.
257
Henry:
56’, I was 8 years old and I was born in 48’
Interviewer:
Ok
Henry:
We went to Nogales because we had a car accident there, you
know, and where my mom had to be close to doctor’s care. So we
moved to Nogales.
Interviewer:
To be close to them.
Henry:
We probably lived in Nogales maybe about a year and a half, maybe
two years. And then we moved up here, to this house, right here.
Interviewer:
Before you moved to Nogales, where did you dad work?
Henry:
At the Trench Mine.
Interviewer:
He worked at the Trench Mine, ok.
Henry:
He worked at the Trench and the Flux, and when those weren’t
panning out… he came to work construction and then he started to
work in the mines. Pima Mine. He started Pima Mine in 1958 and
then he retired.
Interviewer:
Ok.
[Crosstalk]
Dad:
[Mumbles]… Mike Soto, remember Mike?
Henry:
Navy?... that was 1944.
Dad:
Mike up in the world…
258
Henry:
World War 2, dad.
Interviewer:
That’s your dad the sailor’s uniform?
[Crosstalk]
Henry:
That was an article that came out in the… Nogales Herald, I think it
was. This was when we had our accident up there. We all ended
up in the hospital and talking about the accident and then you
know…
Elena:
’56... I remember. I was her roommate
Henry:
Really?... Hijuela…
Elena:
That’s why I remember very well…
Henry:
Why were you in the hospital?
Elena:
I had surgery. I had a non-malignant tumor in the ovary… but I was
in the bed next to them.
Henry:
That was a long time, so I guess, you know, you beat it.
Norma:
Oh my god. What year will you said that was?
Henry:
1956.
Elena:
1956, in May.
Norma:
That was before I was born.
Elena:
If I remember right, it was in May.
259
Henry:
In May 1956, that’s when this happened… They used to have a
turkey shoot, the Harshaw, Trench Mine there, against Washington
and Mowry. And they used to meet halfway they used to have an
area where they used to do the turkey shoot. But I guess the losers
bought whatever beer, drinks and whatever, you know. And I
remember coming home that day and I still remember, I was 8
years old; my dad was hunting rabbits alongside the road and kind
of washed off right there. If you’re familiar with the road going to
Washington Camp, right below the Trench Mine, along the main
road, where there’s still a building there, adobe walls. Just a little
bit above there, there’s a cattle guard and it kind of drops off.
That’s where we went down.
Interviewer:
Oh really?
Elena:
When we went to Lochiel this last time, I told…
[Crosstalk]
Dad:
30 miles from east…[Mumbles] I never could see it. I could see it
from one mountain to the other, but I never talked to them. I had
to come back.
Henry:
I’m trying to figure out what he is trying to tell me here. He is still
thinks where he met my mom. 30 miles from Lochiel, that far.
[Laughs]
Interviewer:
Ok. So, did you guys go to school in Harshaw, the children, your
brothers and sisters?
260
Henry:
Yes, the three older ones went to school in Harshaw. It was a tworoom school house, one seat that was kindergarten, one seat back
then to sixth grade when we went. I guess when my dad went out;
I guess it was, like, up to eighth grade.
Interviewer:
And your dad was born there? Were your grandparents, your dad’s
parents, born there as well?
Henry:
No. They came from a place called Picketpost, Arizona.
Interviewer:
Picketpost
Henry:
That’s around Superior and there is still a Picketpost Mountain and
a Picketpost Recreation Area there, so, we figure out is probably
around that area. Right in the late 1800’s, so that was, my
grandfather must has been a little guy at that time when they
moved to the Harshaw area.
Interviewer:
And your great grandfather then worked in the mines probably up
there?
Henry:
I would imagine so, that they were miners because then they came
over here and then they mined over here.
Interviewer:
Same thing, right, ok. Tell us a little bit about yourself since we got
the camera on you.
Henry:
Oh! I’m the third oldest, born in Harshaw in 1948. I went to school
in Harshaw for the first two years of school and then we moved to
Nogales and up here when I was about ten years old. And I’ve been
here ever since. Went to grade school and junior high, high school
here.
261
Interviewer:
In Tucson.
Henry:
Yea, and married with three or four kids and… [Laughs] I’m trying
to figure out how many grandkids I got… well some grandkids and
a great grandchild.
Interviewer:
Wow! Congratulations.
Carmen:
And that’s my daughter there with the red blouse… for so many
years and that’s her daughter
Henry:
The oldest brother’s birthday is today. He’s turning 64. Frank.
Interviewer:
Frank is the oldest and he turned 64 today. Ok.
Henry:
And then there’s Mike, he’s not here yet. He works for the Post
Office. Then myself, then my sister Angie that lives up -- Angelita, - lives in the Phoenix area. And she turns 60 next week. So, we are
an old family.
Interviewer:
That’s ok
Henry:
And then who’s next? Johnny and Norma and Margie.
Norma:
Margie the baby just turned 50.
Interviewer:
Ok
Henry:
You know, when somebody asks me: “How many brothers and
sisters you have there?” Well, let’s figure it this way, I got three
sisters, and each one of them has four brothers. [Laughs]. Do the
math.
262
Carmen:
Do you need a chair?
Interviewer:
No, I’m fine. Thank you… So, Norma you want to talk a little bit
about yourself there.
Norma:
Well… I was born in Nogales, Arizona
Interviewer:
You are the youngest?
Norma:
No, I’m the second to the youngest; I’m number 6 in the line of
seven. I’m Norma Astorga Soto Ramirez, married with two children,
two daughters. I’ve been a school teacher for 31 years.
Interviewer:
Where do you teach?
Norma:
I teach in the Sunnyside School District. We just love returning to
Harshaw area whenever we could. We have a home over there and
try to go as often as possible just for the getaway and just for the
relaxation. Fortunately, we have that place which was
homesteaded by dad’s father in the 1900s and it’s just a beautiful
place. It’s just beautiful. We call that god’s country.
Interviewer:
It is.
Norma:
Yeah, we just love it. I wish we could get there more often but we
all have busy lives here.
Woman:
What kind of work did you dad do when you were in Nogales?
Norma:
I don’t know. My dad while we were living in Nogales, I was my
dad…
263
Henry:
He came up and worked construction and then started working in
the mines. In 1958, he started working at Pima Mine until they
closed it, in the 70’s, late 70’s.
Norma:
He’s been a miner most of his life.
Interviewer:
So, he retired after Pima closed?
Henry:
Actually, he went to work for Pima County for about another five,
six years and then he decided to retire and he has been retired. But
up until he had a stroke about ten years ago, he was 78 years old
and still pulling in a paycheck. He did a lot of volunteer work for
Saint Vincent de Paul, for the church, just helping the community
and working as a crossing guard and then he had a stroke and then
that all came to an end.
Interviewer:
Where did he, where was he a crossing guard at?
Henry:
At Van Buskirk Elementary which is just up the street here, which is
the elementary that we all went to.
Interviewer:
On Park, he was the crossing guard there?
Henry:
On Park or on Fair on this side, depending. Over the so many years
he did all of them. He did it for several years.
Interviewer:
As I understand, he did the history of the cemetery? He did all the
tombstones. Can you tell me about how he did that?
Henry:
The little epitaphs that they have on the tombs, yes, he did that.
That what his thing. And that’s what he was doing at the time when
he had the stroke. You know, he wanted people to know who was
264
there, you know, the history of the people there. He wrote what he
remembered and stuff, he was actually writing as much as he could
about everybody. And then like I said, it just kind of came to an end
when he had the stroke.
Interviewer:
So, everything that is written on as epitaphs is just from his
memory? Did he have to do any other research?
Henry:
No, that’s all from his memory.
Interviewer:
Ok.
Henry:
Actually, him and Norman Hale, which passed away up there, you
know, were kind of considered historians of the area. People
wanted to know something would go to them, and that was what
he liked to do. He loved talking about the area.
Interviewer:
So, do you remember some of the stories he has?
Henry:
Well, I remember as a kid going up to the Trench Mine, when he
used to work at the Trench Mine. Everything was still there, the
mills and the mine. People lived up there and just playing around
and walking around in the cat walks of the old conveyors, you
know, way up there. You looked down and back then it seemed
like a couple hundred feet down, you know, but it may be only fifty
feet, whatever, you know. But you know those kinds of memories,
los burros sueltos allá, you know, the donkeys de los leñeros, they
used to cut wood and all of that. Us kids chasing them down and
riding ‘em.
Interviewer:
They would do that in Patagonia, too, I think.
265
Henry:
Yea, I think in all that area, you know, back in the day where before
electricity -- I mean, they didn’t put electricity in Harshaw into
1958. So, we still live like, you know…
Interviewer:
Kerosene lamps and…
Henry:
Yes, the kerosene lamps, water out of the well and chopping wood,
and everybody went through that in that area. So we feel… I feel
like I had a great childhood, just experiencing all that and not
having a lot but not missing it, you know. Not until we came to the
big city and started realizing, “hey what you don’t have”. We feel,
my brothers, my other brother, especially the ones that
experienced that, you know, we’re fortunate to have lived a life like
that.
Interviewer:
Do you want to add something, Mom?
Helen:
No, I’m ok.
Woman:
Did you ever hunt? Did you like hunting?
Henry:
Yes, in fact we still hunt and that’s the area we all put in for. We all
go hunt and we still have the little house up there, you know, and
we look forward to hunting season because we go spend a few days
out there. A bunch of our friends will show up and everybody loves
to go out there…
Interviewer:
And your father was a hunter, también?
Henry:
Yes, he was a hunter. In fact, Johnny hunts with a rifle that he
[pointing to his father] bought at the little store in Washington
Camp. George Gerard was up there at Washington Camp, he
266
bought a couple of rifles up there. I still remember, it was right
about 1952, I was only four, five years old at that time when he
bought that rifle, that thirty-thirty that my brother Johnny stills
hunts with. And that’s the rifle we all learned how to hunt with.
So, yea, to answer your question we loved to hunt and we hunt that
area… This is our other brother Mike, Junior. Hello Mike.
Mike:
Hi
Henry:
The camera is on you. He was out playing ball so he won’t suffer.
Mike:
El hijo menor [pointing to Henry], el hijo mayor y el hijo más peor
[pointing at himself]. [Laughs]
Henry:
No, el hijo más peor no llega todavía.
[Crosstalk]
Interviewer:
So who would take you out hunting for the deer… when would you
go, how old were you? Remember?
Henry:
We used to tag along with my dad. I don’t remember when we first
started hunting but… Hunting on our own, probably at 15, 16 years
old, you know, but we always followed my dad around, you know,
just like our kids did with us and now their…
Interviewer:
They follow the same footsteps, right?
Henry:
Yea… that rifle that my brother’s got is an old thirty-thirty
Winchester, lever action, open sight and we killed with that.
Interviewer:
So, he still has pretty good luck? Every year?
267
Henry:
Yea, well… he gets a little help from me sometimes but…
Interviewer:
[Laughs]
Señor, do you like venison, deer? Do you like venado?
Henry:
Para que usa la carne de venado?
Mike:
Mike is the one that uses it the most.
Henry:
Para que usa la carne de venado usted?
Carmen:
Tamales!
Interviewer:
Tamales!... you make the best tamales?
Henry:
The Christmas tamales is always venison.
Carmen
Mike:
…not Christmas tamales, they’re dinner tamales!
Half a dozen of pork for my sister.
[Crosstalk]
Interviewer:
Oh, OK. That was our family, too.
Henry:
That’s what she thinks.
[Laughs]
Mike:
“These are yours. These are not venison.” [Laughs]
Henry:
…and jerky, we make a lot of jerky out of that, my brother here.
268
Interviewer:
So, how long your parents lived in this house? Is this the first house
they came to?
Henry:
Margie, how old are you?
Margie:
50.
Henry:
So, probably about 51 years, in this house.
Margie:
I was born right here.
Henry:
You know when we came from Tucson, From Nogales to Tucson…
Carmen:
She is my baby!
Henry:
We lived in a little house maybe about… well, I remember going to
school about half a year and then moving here, so it’s been since
1958. Yes, at least fifty-some years.
Interviewer:
So it was Van Burskirk and then Wakefield, and then Pueblo?
Henry:
And Utterback.
Norma:
The bus used to pick us up right here.
Interviewer:
Ok. All of you?
Henry:
My oldest brother, Frank, he started at Wakefield but that’s when
they opened Utterback, and then we started going to Utterback. So
we were the first classes of Utterback Junior High.
Interviewer:
Oh you were, ok. And then Pueblo?
Henry:
And Pueblo. We all had a PhD…Pueblo High Diploma [Laughs]
269
Norma:
All of us, too, that’s seven.
Interviewer:
That’s pretty good… OK. Let’s see, well, we have a… Mike you work
for the Postal Service I understand?
Mike:
Yes, I’ve been there exactly 25 years now.
Interviewer:
25. Ok.
Henry:
Ask him if he wants to retire…
Interviewer:
You ready to retire?
Mike:
Oh yea, I got less than a year and a half and I’ll be retired in less
than a year and a half. I’m a Social Security age already. I just going
to put two more years and then that’s it.
Interviewer:
Do anything before the Postal Service?
Mike:
Yea, at the mines, was also copper mining. I did that for about 15
years on and off. And a taxi driver, I even owned the cab a year
before the Post Office called me. Doing that.
Interviewer:
Ok
Henry:
It was during the time when the mine shut down, at Pima mine.
Him and I worked at the mine. We started there as young kids.
When you came back from the service, you started working there.
Mike:
1969, 1970
Interviewer:
Ok.
270
Norma:
He is our only brother that went to the service. Mike and my dad
are the only veterans.
Interviewer:
The pictures on the wall, that’s your dad?
Norma:
My dad.
Interviewer:
On the wall?
Norma:
Yea.
My dad and my mom.
[Crosstalk]
Henry:
And that’s my dad in the middle and then his brothers, Josiah Soto
and Angel Soto. They were all in the service at the same time and
those pictures were probably taken around 1944.
Interviewer:
Your dad is in the middle?
Henry:
My dad is in the middle, he was navy and my Tio Jose, which is to
my left here, he is a couple years older than my dad. He is about
89 years old, and he is still doing well. And my Tio Angel which was
the oldest of the three, he passed away maybe 5 years ago.
Interviewer:
How many brothers then did your dad have?
Henry:
Well see, that’s the thing. It was the three brothers and one sister,
Carmela. But when he was born, you know, when he was very
young, his mother passed away so his uncle, which was my
grandfather’s brother, and that family adopted him which was…the
Villagran… Mariano Soto and Josefa and then there was my Tia
271
Laos, Tia Rosa and Mercedes which were his three sisters, which
are older. So they are the ones that actually raised him, the three
older sisters, which is the adopted family. So we actually had two
families so we felt pretty fortunate that we got such an extended
family.
Interviewer:
That’s nice. From misfortune there is always a…
Henry:
Yea, that’s the way it worked out for him. He is very fortunate that
somebody was able to raise him…
[Phone rings]
Carmen:
Did that scare you? [Laughs]
Interviewer:
Do you guys want to take a break?
Henry:
Are we on camera?
Interviewer:
Yea [Laughs]
Henry:
I thought we were just having a conversation. Sure.
Interviewer:
Sure?
Henry:
Whatever, I mean, I’m fine.
[Crosstalk]
This is Margie.
Interviewer:
I think we got her… I think we got you here
Margie:
Yes
272
Interviewer:
There is some new people in here though that I haven’t got over
here…
[Crosstalk]
Martha:
Holy cow! I came across the camera, I would have mooned but I
don’t think that it would be nice…
Interviewer:
Do you want to introduce yourself since I got…
Henry:
She is my wife Martha
Interviewer:
Hi Martha
Martha:
I’m Henry’s wife.
Interviewer:
Ok, alright. And then…
Veronica:
I’m Veronica, I’m Mike’s daughter
Interviewer:
Hi Veronica and we got Esperanza already. And the young man?
Woman:
That’s my son, so that’s Mike’s grandson.
Jesus:
Hi, hi, hi, hi
Interviewer:
Your name?
Jesus:
Jesus.
Interviewer:
Hi Jesus
273
Jesus:
Hi
Interviewer:
And this young lady over there in the table?
Selena:
Selena
Interviewer:
Hi Selena
Selena:
I’m Norma’s daughter, the oldest.
Interviewer:
Ok, and?
Araceli:
Araceli
Interviewer:
Araceli?
Araceli:
Araceli
Henry:
That’s my daughter
Interviewer:
Ok. Nice to meet you. Ok. Is there somebody else back there? Hi
Jeannette:
I’m Jeannette; I’m the birthday boy’s grandchild.
Interviewer:
Ok
[Crosstalk]
Henry:
She is the oldest.
[Crosstalk]
Henry:
She is a great granddaughter.
Interviewer:
Ok, well let’s see.
274
Carmen:
Ella y yo nos conocíamos desde que estábamos chamaquitas,
Elena. Allá en Lochiel.
Elena:
Si…pero yo creo que cuando yo comencé la escuela ya no estabas
tú, yo creo.
Carmen:
No, I don’t think so.
Elena:
Yo fui a la escuela con tus hermanos
Henry:
Rosa, Tilde, Rosa, Kitty, Dicha
Elena:
Fui con María Luisa
Henry:
La Tía Dicha
Elena:
Y la más chiquita. Quien es la más chiquita?
Henry:
Kitty, María Cristina.
Elena:
Con ellas dos fui a la escuela yo.
Henry:
De los hermanos, no iban a la escuela, mi Tío Tony, Pancho.
Elena:
Ellos a veces querían cuando iban pero no me acuerdo. That was
60 years ago, I don’t remember.
Henry:
Pero Tony is the youngest of them all. Big family and then they all
had big families too… Uno se pone a sacar cuentas, I got 35 first
cousins through my mom side. So they all have big families. Y
ahora, you know all the, los primos they got big families so actually,
it’s a big family que no nos conocemos todos.
275
Interviewer:
Ok. Let’s take a break and then we will…
End of Interview
276
Interview 11
Paul Mihalik
Paul Mihalik was born and raised in Pennsylvania. Paul served in the US Air
Force where he met his wife, Lucy. Paul and Lucy retired to Patagonia where
Paul collected oral histories and wrote a book, Patagonia Profiles.
277
Paul Mihalik
September 15, 2009
Patagonia, AZ
GERMAN QUIROGA: Okay, this is part two of the interview with Paul and Lucy
Mihalik. Paul, thanks for agreeing to be photographed.
PAUL MIHALIK: Oh, I like participating in these kind of things. Like I was telling you
earlier, I’m a real history buff and especially I like the history around this area with the
Apaches and this kind of thing. I really love it.
We made the right decision in 1978. We decided to come down here full time and live,
and so we’ve been in this house now since ’78. About two months ago, we were trying
to decide, since we’re getting up in age, 81 and 82, whether we should stay here or go to
Tucson to be closer to medical facilities and all, and it was a tough decision and we kept
thinking it’s all the commuting back and forth for dental and doctor appointments.
Then we finally made our mind up. We’re just going to stay and do like everybody
else. If there’s an emergency, they’ll have to helicopter us out. And there are people
older than me that have been here and they’re not worried about that. So we’re staying.
So I decided to go ahead and do a little more fixing around the house. I can’t work with
my legs, I had paralysis back in ’80 called Guillain-Barré, from the flu, and so my legs
are a little weak. I can’t do a lot of physical stuff outside. But we’re going to hire
people to do what we need to do, just update things like the sidewalk and things like
that.
GQ: Mm hmm. Let’s get to your interest in history. How did you come to– What
peaked your interest in history?
PM: Well especially the Civil War period, but I love the Indian culture and especially
the Apache. And like for example, when we drive to Tombstone, which is a favorite
drive of ours maybe once a month, I can’t make that drive without imagining on the
way, straight shot out to Tombstone from here, just an hour drive, that the views of the
mountains and the terrain is essentially exactly what the Indians were living with.
That’s– If you were in a wagon, you turned your head right or left off that road, you
might see Apaches. But this is what– People were riding in wagons at three miles an
hour. We do it in an hour to go that distance. But I love the area and I love what
happened in the area.
278
And then of course, my interest really was peaked when there was a Navy Captain
came by here about six years ago and he was a member of the Gardner family, which is
real old-time family. Right? So I have a little Ford pickup truck and he wanted to know
where the Flux mine was and I said I’ll take you in the truck. And I took him up there
and he was like a kid in a candy shop and that turned me on with my history and
knowledge. I took him up there and showed him Gardner’s tombstone and then he was
so interested in it that he started researching to do a real study on it. So he completed it.
I didn’t know it at the time when he was first here, but he was– He had a serious case of
Leukemia, but he thought it was in remission that day I was spending time with him,
showing the mines.
It was so sad later on. He finished the product and he made me– I was so grateful. He
made ten copies of this study of his. I mean he really did. He went to Tucson,
researched the newspapers because he was a member of the Gardner family and he
talked about when Mr. Gardner right down here below my street, right below
Duquesne Avenue here, at the end of School Road, School Avenue, Apaches killed two
people on his farm there. He was growing vegetables and things and then Cochise shot
him.
And anyway, the Navy captain did the research and he sent me the completed product,
a copy of which he sent to the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson. But he sent it with
a little note on it and it was very sad. He was- His cancer was back and he was going
through experimental trials. He made himself a guinea pig trying it. But he said the
family reunion– It’s the Apodoca family. That name is familiar? Apodoca family? All
of his relatives, that was part of his background.
GQ: Okay.
PM: But he said the Leukemia was back and that next year was the family reunion, was
scheduled; and he said if he could make it, he’d be there physically and if he couldn’t
make it he’d be here in spirit. Anyway, he was a wonderful person.
But anytime there’s something to do with history, especially in the Civil War period, I
love it. I used to give talks on the Battle of Gettysburg and Custer, his Last Stand. I
liked history in school and high school.
GQ: What have you dug up as far as the history of Patagonia goes, in the area of
indigenous people? Have you...?
279
PM: We went– Yes. In 1985 we had six or seven old timers die and I found that nobody
was interviewing them or recording any of their memories. So I went around with my
camera and interviewed 24 people for my book. It’s titled The Patagonia Profile. And
little anecdotal stories from each—not a lot—just one page per person in the book; and
it was going to be just a notebook and left in the Town Clerk just for people to browse
through it. But other people said why don’t you make it a little travel guide and
something the tourists could find interesting, so we put little trips, 10 mile trips, 20
miles round trips and this kind of thing are in the book.
But interviewing the old timers was the point. I put their photographs in there and like
I said, it’s not extensive per person, but it was a fascinating experience just to sit with
the people and tape record their voices—and I still have those tapes. If you wanted to,
if you were interested in listening to any of those tapes by some of these people some
day, you can have access to those and listen to those tapes. And I don’t know if you can
work those interviews into your study but it would be up to you to decide.
GQ: Okay.
PM: But I love history so much that I thoroughly enjoy giving the talks on the Battle of
Gettysburg, three-day battle. It’s a fascinating battle and all the things that General Lee
never made a lot of mistakes, but he sure made some big ones in that battle. And
Custer’s Last Stand I always thought—can I talk about that for a minute?
GQ: Sure.
PM: Custer has a reputation as being an arrogant kind of a guy who would risk his
men unnecessarily during the war. All the reading that I’ve done, I think he’s got a bad,
bad rap from a lot of authors. He was a military man and of course he went after the
Indians. And General Grant and Sheridan, they told him get out there and kill as many
as you can. It was a shame. It was Sherman that said, “The only good Indian’s a dead
Indian.” That was their attitude. But Custer’s a man in uniform and what’s he going to
do when they tell him to get out there and in this big campaign against the Sioux. So he
when he went out there for that particular encounter, he made a bad judgment and
didn’t survey the area properly, didn’t have a real idea of how many Indians that were
there—but again, it wasn’t his fault. The information was back on all the reservations
and all the men in charge of the reservations, the civilians, they knew how many
Indians were leaving the reservation but they didn’t get the word to Custer. So Custer
shows up over there and he gets himself involved.
280
GQ: He was outnumbered.
PM: He was outnumbered like eight to one minimum, eight to one, ten to one. It was
sad. Yeah, he was a very courageous man. His brother, who died with him there, won
two Congressional Medals of Honor. I don’t think it’s fair to say Custer had his men
killed through his absolute carelessness. The orders came out of Washington, DC. I
personally think Grant, President Grant and Sherman and Sheridan were I think they
were primarily responsible. Custer was following orders and they gave him some bad
information, too.
Anyway, I’m delighted that you guys are taking time to do this study and I’m glad you
came and decided to interview Lucy. I appreciate your taking the time to do that.
GQ: It’s our pleasure.
PM: And after the interview, I’d like to get something specific on how I could become
a member of this local museum thing.
GQ: Sure. Okay. Thank you.
PM: Thank you.
RS: Thank you.
[End of the interview]
281
Interview 13
Jesus A Lopez
Jesus A. Lopez was born (1915) and raised in Harshaw. He served his country
in World War II. He worked as a miner and an exploration driller. In 1964 he
and his wife Cecilia Bustamante Lopez purchased the 2-story railroad section
foreman residence in Patagonia where this interview takes place on 17
September 2009. Cecilia, his wife, and Olivia, his daughter, also participated in
this interview.
282
Entrevistador ( German
Quiroga):
Ok. We are on. Buenos días estamos aquí en la casa de
Jesús y Ceci…
Olivia:
Cecilia López.
Entrevistador:
López. Ok. Vamos a hablar con el señor López.
Jesús:
Con yo?
Entrevistador:
Si.
Jesús:
Le voy a platicar que yo nací en Harshaw, Arizona… y
Harshaw esta como a ocho millas de aquí, en Patagonia.
Ahí… trabaje en la mina 16 años.
Entrevistador:
A cual mina?
Jesús:
Y después de la mina comencé a trabajar en un molino.
Olivia:
En cual mina, pa? En cual mina trabajaste?
Jesús:
En Harshaw…
Olivia:
Harshaw mine?
Jesús:
… La mina en… Como se llamaba?
Olivia:
Que le decían the Trench…
Entrevistador:
La Tranchi…
Jesús:
Trench mine y en Flux mine también.
Entrevistador:
Que hacia usted en la mina?
283
Jesús:
Yo trabaje de minero ahí algunos años y después comencé a
jalar el metal de adentro de la mina para afuera en un
trenecito y un hermano mío… yo sacaba el metal y él tenía
que quebrar las piedras para que pasaran en el… donde
tenía que…
Entrevistador:
Tenían un crusher or algo para…
Jesús:
No, ahí no había crusher… y el quebraba la piedras para que
pasara en el… donde venían los truckes a llevarse la…
Entrevistador:
[Laughs]
Entrevistador:
Que tan grandes estaban las piedras que quebraba?
Jesús:
Tenían un tamaño asiiii… e iba y las quebraba, trabajaba
mucho.
Entrevistador:
Con un sledge-hammer… con un pico, con un sledgehammer?
Jesus:
Si con un maros
Olivia:
About two or three feet in diameter.
Entrevistador:
Cuando nació usted? Cual año?
Jesús:
1915.
Entrevistador:
Ok.
Jesús:
Y ahorita tengo 94 años.
Entrevistador
Fue a la escuela en Harshaw?
Jesús:
Si… Fui un año aquí a…
Entrevistador
A la high school?
284
Jesús:
High.. High school. Si! Un año nomas. Porque estaba muy
duro el tiempo y me tuve que ir a trabajar.
Entrevistador
Jesús:
Entrevistador
Jesús:
Comenzó trabajando en la mina entonces?
Si
Dejo la high school por la mina.
Si.
Entrevistador
Bien. Trabajo en la molinera también? Dijo… usted
trabajo…
Jesús:
En el molino en… En la Trench mine…
Entrevistador
Si, también.
Jesús:
Y yo trabaje como unos 12 años ahí en el molino.
Entrevistador
Y sus papas donde… donde nacieron sus papas?
Jesús:
Mi papa nació también en Harshaw y trabajo mucho en la
mina.
Entrevistador:
Como se llamaba?
Jesús:
Luciano López.
Entrevistador:
Luciano López. Y su mama?
Jesús:
Y trabajo mucho en la mina y las eran muy malas en ese
tiempo. Y el murió de malos pulmones.
Entrevistador:
Conoció usted a sus Pa grande? A su abuelos?
285
Jesús:
Si. Mi Pa grande estaba ciego y sordo. Y pues yo le ayudaba
mucho. Lo acostaba y lo llevaba donde dormía y le llevaba
comida y todo eso.
Entrevistador:
Como se llamaba su abuelo?
Jesús:
Vicente López.
Entrevistador:
Y nació también en Harshaw.
Jesús:
Yo creo que también nació en Harshaw. Porque ahí estaba
toda la familia.
Entrevistador:
Tiene muchos hermanos y hermanas usted?
Jesús:
Pues sí, algunos.
Olivia:
Algunos han muerto ya.
Entrevistador:
Ustedes dijeron Harshaw o se llamaba Durazno también,
que no?
Usted como hablaba del pueblo?
Olivia:
Que si también le decían el Harshaw ahí en esa área?
Entrevistador:
El Durazno.
Jesús:
Durazno le decía también.
Entrevistador:
Tenían muchos árboles de durazno ustedes?... Tenían
muchos árboles de durazno?
Jesús:
Yo creo que si habían.
Olivia:
Habían muchos.
286
Entrevistador:
Bastantes?
Jesús:
Sí, sí. Habían muchos duraznos.
Olivia:
Las frutas se dan muy bien… La manzana, el membrillo
también se daba muy bien allá.
Entrevistador:
Y su abuela que estaba casada con su abuelo…
Jesús:
Oh sí.
Entrevistador:
La conoció?
Olivia:
Teresa… Se llamaba Teresa.
Jesús:
No.
Olivia:
Ah no!
Jesús:
Como se llamaba verdad?
Olivia:
Tu mama era Josefa y ella era…
Jesús:
Si. Josefa, si… me acuerdo poco del nombre.
Entrevistador:
Y nació en Harshaw también? O Durazno?
Jesús:
Pues yo creo que sí. Y yo la conocí muy viejita.
Entrevistador:
Y sus abuelos en el lado de su mama los conoció usted?
Jesús:
Aquí…
Entrevistador:
Los abuelos de su mama… los padres de su madre, los
conoció usted? Los otros abuelos?
287
Olivia:
Los abuelos del lado de mama.
Jesús:
Si, la abuela.
Olivia:
Los abuelos de tu mama quiénes eran?
Jesús:
No pues... Tenía hermanos…
Olivia:
Ella se apellidaba Acevedo.
Cecilia:
Como se llama Jesusita, la abuela?
Olivia:
Acevedo, Acevedo.
Entrevistador:
Acevedo.
Jesús:
Teresa Acevedo.
Olivia:
Y el esposo de ella?
Jesús:
Salomón.
Olivia:
Salomón Acevedo y Teresa Acevedo.
Entrevistador:
Y cuando conoció a su esposa?
Cecilia:
No se acuerda, estaba muy chiquito?
[Laughs]
Jesús:
Ya no me acuerdo.
Olivia:
Acababa de salir del Army?
Jesús:
Si, en ese ano salí del Army y…
Cecilia:
Y era de Santa Cruz…
288
Jesús:
Me puse novio con ella en Santa Cruz.
Entrevistador:
Usted fue para Santa Cruz o qué?
Jesús:
Si.
Entrevistador:
Que estabas haciendo en Santa Cruz?
Cecilia:
Le costó mucho dinero! [Laughs]
Jesús:
Iba a Santa Cruz cada domingo.
Entrevistador:
Oh sí. Nomas a pasear? Para pasearse?
Para andar nomas?
Olivia:
Para pasearte?... Ibas a Santa Cruz para
pasearte?
Jesús:
Si, sí. Y tomaba poco yo.
Entrevistador:
Jesús:
Usted dijo que estaba en el Army? Fue en la
guerra usted?
Si.
Entrevistador:
World War 2?... Si?
Jesús:
Si.
Entrevistador:
De aquí donde se fue?
Jesús:
…Como se llama?
Olivia:
Hokinawa, Hikenawa?
Entrevistador:
Okinawa?
Olivia:
Okinawa?
289
Jesús:
Si, Okinawa. Pero antes de eso hicimos un landing
en…
Olivia:
En las Filipinas.
Jesús:
En las Filipinas. Si. En las Filipinas estaban los
Japoneses pero cuando nosotros hicimos el
landing… ya los Japoneses habían salido casi
todos porque supieron que íbamos a… en la isla
de Japón ahí si… si íbanos habrían muchos
muertos. E iban a andar en tanques.
Entrevistador:
Ok. Caminando en tanques?
Y por eso no me tocó a mí que me mataran porque
Jesús:
había truckes llenos
de americanos muertos. Yo los vi… yo vi a los… descargando los muertos de un
trucke, ponían un… una tarp nomas y de arriba del trucke entre dos los tiraban para
abajo.
Entrevistador:
Que tantos años?..
Jesús:
Y me tocó verlos pasando por ahí.
Entrevistador:
Que tantos años estuvo en el Army usted?
Jesús:
Como un año y medio yo creo.
Entrevistador:
Y saliste entonces cuando se acabó la guerra?
Jesús:
Si.
Entrevistador:
Entonces conoció a su esposa… Y cuando se
casaron?
Cecilia:
No se acuerda!
Entrevistador:
Se casaron en la iglesia de Harshaw or de Santa
Cruz?
290
Jesús:
No, en Nogales.
Entrevistador:
En Nogales.
Cecilia:
Aquí, Aquí nos casamos.
Entrevistador:
En Nogales. Arizona.
Cecilia:
Ahí estaba acostado.
Jesús:
Pero no me acuerdo del tiempo.
Entrevistador:
No acuerda del año?
Olivia:
1948.
Cecilia:
No nos casamos aquí? No nos casamos aquí?
Jesús:
No, en Nogales Arizona.
Cecilia:
En Nogales?
Olivia:
La Molly nació 1948. So se casaron que?... Nineteen
…forty…six?
Jesús:
Forty -three.
Olivia:
Forty-seven.
Jesús:
Si.
Entrevistador:
Que tantos niños tuvieron ustedes?... Hijos, que tantos hijos
e hijas.
Que tantos hijos e hijas tienen ustedes.
Jesús:
Que tantos hijos?.... Cinco.
291
Olivia:
Ay ay ay. [Laughs]
Jesús:
Cinco.
Cecilia:
Son López.
Entrevistador:
Y entonces? Y usted?
Jesús:
Cuatro mujeres y un hombre.
Entrevistador:
Ok. Y Vivian en Harshaw entonces?
Jesús:
Entrevistador:
Si vivimos en Harshaw muchos años.
Y usted todavía trabajaba con la mina entonces?
Jesús:
Sí, sí… trabaje mucho tiempo allí.
Entrevistador:
Y se acabó el trabajo en los nineteen fifties… que no fifty-six,
fifty- seven se acabó aquí o usted todavía trabajaba?
Jesús:
No. Cuando se acabó el trabajo en las minas no se echaron
afuera, tumbaron todas las casas… para hacer el lugar para
ganado. Yo me fui a Tucson y deje muchas cosas donde vivía
y pues cuando vine ya se las habían llevado.
Entrevistador:
Y en Tucson que hizo allá?... Que hizo usted en Tucson?...
Trabajar en la mina también en Tucson?
Jesús:
Trabaje en un molino en Tucson y ese molino... esas mina
que habían ahí eran para…
Entrevistador:
Para Green Valley?
Jesús:
Las minas tenían muy buen metal y todo pero… pero tenían
mucho
292
ácido y yo cuando comenzó los molinos ahí… luego, luego que me fije que el metal no
servía para el molino y la plantación se comenzaba a dar vueltas y luego vino el
majordomo y me dijo que sí que tenía este?... el metal no sirve le dije. No se le va a
poder… tener, apartar lo que tienen que pagar. El plomo se iba con el zinc y dijo pues,
pues vamos a tener que parar, dijo. Yo trabaje ahí hasta que se llevaron todo de ahí,
del molino. Y dijo el majordomo: -Vamos a hallar otro lugar, me dijo. Pero nunca
hallaríamos nada más. Ahí en Tucson parece rumbo… todas las minas, todos los
metales no, no podían….
Entrevistador:
Separate?
Jesús:
Si, para hacer un molino.
Entrevistador:
Entonces donde se fue usted a trabajar?
Jesús:
De ahí comenzó a trabajar en… trabajando para core drilling
trabaje como 11 o 12 años, trabaja hasta en…
Entrevistador:
Iba a Las Vegas usted?
Jesús:
A Las Vegas. Pero de ahí de Las Vegas fuimos a trabajar
afuera. Si.
Entrevistador:
Y vino para aquí también?
Jesús:
No, Nuevo México.
Entrevistador:
En Nuevo México?
Jesús:
También en trabaje en Nuevo México. Hicimos una mina
porque habían mucho… mucho metal de ese, pues no era
metal, era una cosa que… en las ventanas trabajaba esa
cosa que… se abría para un lado y para otro nada.
Entrevistador:
Donde?
293
Jesús:
Y hicimos una mina con…
Entrevistador:
De esa cosa?
Jesús:
Con el… mucho tiempo.
Entrevistador:
Donde en Nuevo México era esa
mina?
Jesús:
Eh?
Entrevistador:
Donde en Nuevo México?
Jesús:
Como se llama ese lugar?
Olivia:
En New México…
Entrevistador:
Silver City? Silver City?
Jesús:
Silver City.
Entrevistador:
Hay muchas minas allá?
Jesús:
Si. Silver City.
Entrevistador:
En esos lugares..
Jesús:
Donde estaba tu hija…
Olivia:
Las Cruces.
Jesús:
Las Cruces, ahí trabajé.
Entrevistador:
También.
Jesús:
Ahí trabaje también… Y algunas de
esas partes…
294
Entrevistador:
Jesús:
Ok…
Luego de Tucson, Salí a algunas partes.
Olivia:
....En Las Cruces.
Jesús:
En Las Cruces.
Entrevistador:
Con su familia o usted solo nomas?
Jesús:
Yo y mi ayudante todo el tiempo. Y también iba
uno que, que hacia ser de mayordomo mío. Ahí
en Nuevo México trabaje con un…
Entrevistador:
Y se acabó el trabajo también? Ese trabajo se
acabó?
Jesús:
Si… No recuerdo. No me acuerdo el nombre del
majordomo que…
Entrevistador:
Usted trabajaba para los Mettler Brothers?
Jesús:
Que?
Entrevistador:
Mettler Brothers? Mettler Brothers Drilling?
Jesús:
Los que?
Entrevistador:
Mettler Brothers?
Jesús:
Si, con eso trabaje… si pues todo ese tiempo
trabaje.
Olivia:
Como se llamaba uno?... El Colorado le
decías…
Entrevistador:
ya…
Olivia:
Si el Colorado… Con ese aprendí a… con
Colorado. Y de ahí pues
He had red hair.
295
Jesús:
Aquí en Baldy, bajamos 3,000 pies para abajo, para buscar
oro. Si hallamos oro, pero no bastante para hacer una mina.
Mucha gente que vivía alrededor de Baldy… tenían pedazos de
oro que se hallaban en los…. No había bastante para hacer
una mina.
Entrevistador:
Dice usted Baldy… es Mount Wrightson?
Jesús:
Que?
Entrevistador:
Mount Wrightson… el Baldy… dice usted Baldy pero era Mount
Wrightson aquí en las Santa Ritas?
Jesús:
Si, sí.
Olivia:
Santa Rita.
Jesús:
Las gentes de Santa Rita, esos me enseñaron pedazos de oro
que se hallaron…
Entrevistador:
Que no eran bastante para minar…
Jesús:
Pero no era bastante… Pues bajamos 3,000 pies y si hallamos
poquita en el core pero dijeron que no era bastante.
Entrevistador:
Y cuando se retiró usted? Cuando? En que año?
Jesús:
Que?
Entrevistador:
Retiró? Cuando retiró?
Olivia:
When did you retire?... Nineteen… sixty two? You retired
when you were 62, right?
Jesús:
Si. Creo que sí.
296
Olivia:
Tenía 62 años. So….
Entrevistador:
Todavía vivía en Tucson? Vivía en Tucson?
Jesús:
Vivimos 12 años en Tucson.
Entrevistador:
12 años. Y vinieron para atrás aquí en Patagonia? En qué
año vino para atrás en Patagonia?
Olivia:
When you retired at 62… se vinieron para Patagonia?…
Jesús:
Sí, sí.
Entrevistador:
Y consiguió esta casa?
Jesús:
Esta casa… quiero acordarme cuando la compré.
Olivia;
Cuando nos fuimos para Tucson, la compraste esta casa.
Jesús:
Si.
Olivia:
Antes de irnos para Tucson.
Jesús:
Me la vendieron muy barata, 3,000 dólares.
Entrevistador:
No estaba aquí en este lugar?
Jesús:
Esta casa estaba en aquella…
Entrevistador:
Cerca de los traques (railroad tracks*), no?
Jesús:
Trajes, sí. De abajo la trajeron para acá. Y cuando la trajeron
yo pague 300 dólares para que le pusieran el foundation.
Entrevistador:
Te gusta esta casita? Te gusta es muy?
297
Jesús:
Sí, sí. Hay otro cuarto allá arriba.
Entrevistador:
Su cuarto de dormir arriba para ustedes o no?... Pero hay otro
cuarto?
Olivia:
Hay dos cuartos grandes allá arriba.
Jesús:
Había alguien que dormía que no le gustaba el humo…
Entrevistador:
Chimenea?
Jesús:
Se le calentaba.
Olivia:
Smoke comes out.
Entrevistador:
Y cual año?
Cecilia:
Estos son retratos de Jesús…
Entrevistador:
Mande?
Cecilia:
De antes… trabajaba mucho…
Entrevistador:
Está trabajando usted en el drill?
Jesús:
Sí, sí. Esta es donde barrenaban. Si ese soy yo. Cuando
llega a ese trabajo tengo que volver a levantar para barrenar
otros 5 pies.
Olivia:
Y es peligroso? Is that dangerous?
Entrevistador:
Poquito que no?
Olivia:
Es peligroso ese trabajo?
Jesús:
No… pues sí, algo. Tiene que cuidar que no caiga nada de
arriba.
298
Olivia:
Pero que no se trozo un dedo alguien.
Cecilia:
Aquí están todos trabajando. Jesús López…Walker…
Olivia:
Ese es otro.
Entrevistador:
Usted conocía el señor que se llamaba Lee Kuhn? Tenía un
bulldozer trabajaba con muchos…
Jesús:
Lee Kuhn.
Entrevistador:
Si. Aquí, vivía en Patagonia.
Jesús:
Sí, creo que si lo conocí.
Olivia:
Pero tuviste algunos ayudantes de aquí.
Jesús:
Si. Yo les daba trabajo para que me ayudaran.
Entrevistador:
Quien trabajo con usted de Patagonia, aquí?
Jesús:
Como se llama?
Olivia:
Juan Sánchez.
Jesús:
No, no. Ese era barrenador. Aquí barrenó en… el que
anduvo con el que me ayudó… de ayudante fue…
Olivia:
El Lorta?
Jesús:
Fue Lorta.
Olivia:
George…
Jesús:
George Lorta. Trabajo con migo.
299
Olivia:
Ah y el Nicko. Nicko Laguna. No?... Nick Laguna, no?
Jesús:
Si, ese trabajó en el molino. Y el hermano de tu amiga, como
se llama?... y ese trabajo mucho tiempo conmigo.
Olivia:
Oh.. Enríquez.
Jesús:
Aha Enríquez.
Olivia:
Pancho Enríquez.
Jesús:
Ese me ayudo a barrenar los 3,000 pies en Baldy.
Entrevistador:
Usted todavía trabaja también?... Yo lo veo aquí con el
chainsaw cortando…
Olivia:
Leña.
Entrevistador:
…Leña. Todavía trabaja usted?
Jesús:
Todavía el año pasado corte mucha leña. Yo creo que voy a
tener que ir de vuelta.
Entrevistador:
Y usted coje la leña?. Va para el monte y coje la leña?
Jesús:
Con un serrucho. Tengo dos serruchos.
Entrevistador:
Y usted va con su hijo o…
Olivia:
Solo.
Entrevistador:
Solo?
Olivia:
Solo va el.
300
Jesús:
Y uno de Tucson me ayudaba a traer leña.
Entrevistador:
[…]
Jesús:
….y su esposa. Mi esposa andaba jalando leña para el
trucke.
Entrevistador:
Ok. Te gusta una comida más que otra?.
Olivia:
Qué clase de comida te gusta?
Jesús:
Pues, carne.
Entrevistador:
Carne asada? Chile con carne? Taquitos?
Olivia:
Carne, papa y frijoles, tortillas.
Jesús:
Entrevistador:
Tacos, frijoles.
Machacas.
Jesús:
Machacas, sí. Mi hija hacia muy buenos carnes molida.
Olivia:
Carnes machaca.
Entrevistador:
Machaca… Cuando usted estaba viviendo… Cuando era
niño tenían ustedes su familia vacas, gallinas? Cuando
vivía?
Jesús:
Oh sí. Teníamos gallinas.
Olivia:
Y vacas.
Entrevistador:
Una vaca para…
Olivia:
Vaca.
Jesús:
Tuve como doce…
301
Olivia:
Vacas.
Jesús:
Vacas.
Entrevistador:
Y era su trabajo? Take care of?
Jesús:
Pues trabajaba en la mina entonces…
Entrevistador:
Y sus hermanos los…
….
Jesús:
[break?]
Entrevistador:
Estábamos hablando de cuando ustedes se casaron, tenían
vacas y gallinas y tenían cochis también. Todos los
animales?
Jesus:
Yo me acuerdo… yo creo que no teníamos cochis, no?
Olivia:
Una vez!
Jesus:
Olivia:
Jesus:
Oh si!
Entrevistador:
Hahaha… Y también casaba los venados?
Jesus:
Una vez!
Yo una vez traje cochis javelines, mate dos. Me corrió… ella
con los cochis... apestaban mucho.
Pero mi Mama hacia los cochis. Hacia la comida muy
buena, muy buena no apestaba ni nada.
Entrevistador:
Su Mama?
Jesus:
De formas diferentes.
Entrevistador:
Hacían tamales?
Jesus:
Si.
Entrevistador:
Tamales, de javelina. Todos?
302
Jesus:
Sí, pero con los cochis no hacemos tamales.
Entrevistador:
No?
Olivia:
No.
Jesus:
No.
Entrevistador:
Y usted cazaba venados también? Venados?
Jesus:
Si, si cada año traía uno.
Entrevistador:
En el mismo lugar de Harshaw?
Jesus:
Si, Harshaw.
Entrevistador:
Solo andaba de su casa para el monte?
Jesus:
Si.
Entrevistador:
Andaba?
Jesus:
Si… hay mucho venado por allá
Entrevistador:
Todo año cojia uno usted?
Jesus:
Como dice?
Entrevistador:
Cada año cojia uno usted?
Jesus:
Entrevistador:
Si, sí. Y la última vez que fui a cazar, iba mirando las
guebas a los venados por un cañón y pues iba andando yo
y… cuando me salió un venado muy grande y le tiré y se
vino dando vueltas para abajo, luego dije… y en ese tiempo
fumaba yo y me senté a fumar… a ver el venado que creía
que había matado. Y se levantó al rato, se levantó el venado
y se metió al monte y se me fue.
[Risas]
303
Olivia:
[Risas]
Entrevistador:
Era la última vez que cazo usted?
Jesus:
Si esa fue la última vez.
Entrevistador:
Que tantos años tenía usted, Jesus?
Jesus:
Tenía….
Esposa/Madre:
No pos si nos divorciamos.
Jesus:
Tenía…
Entrevistador:
[Risas]
Esposa/Madre:
[Risas]
Esposa/Madre:
Eran muy enamorados.
Jesus:
Cincuenta o sesenta años por allá
Entrevistador:
Tenia usted?
Jesus:
Si
Entrevistador:
Y cuando comenzó a cazar?
Jesus:
Ehhh?
Entrevistador:
Cuando comenzó usted a cazar, cazó con sus hermanos o
su padre? Cuando era chico usted?
Jesus:
Ohh, sí.
Entrevistador:
Tenía diez, trece años. Que tantos años? No se recuerda
usted?
Jesus:
Como a los quince años que comencé…
Entrevistador:
Con su papa?
304
Jesus:
Si
Olivia:
Con rifle, con rifle!
Jesus:
Si… con rifle.
Entrevistador:
Que usaba usted para el rifle?... El rifle que usaba usted,
que clase de rifle… el thirty-thirty?
Jesus:
El Treinta-Treinta. Si todavía tengo uno aqí.
Entrevistador:
Que hacía con el venado cuando lo…?
Jesus:
Cuando lo mataba tiraba un mecate y lo colgaba ahí. Le
sacaba los dentros y le dejaba la cabeza porque ahí llevaba
el ticket y… y me lo ponía en el hombro.
Entrevistador:
Hacía mucha carne seca con el venado?.. Carne seca?
Jesus:
Ehh?
Entrevistador:
Carne seca?
Jesus:
Oh sí, sí.
Esposa/Madre:
De venado!
Entrevistador:
Si?... muy bueno
Jesus:
A ellos no les gustaba el venado [Señalando a Olivia]. Yo no
sé, yo creo que yo y ella lo comíamos, el venado. [Señalando
a su esposa]
Entrevistador:
Y cazaba rabbits también? Conejos?
Jesus:
También.
Entrevistador:
Conejitos. Si?
Jesus:
Si. Yo críe conejos. De esos blancos, muy buenos.
305
Olivia:
Y gallinas también.
Jesus:
Gallinas, sí.
Olivia:
Gallinas matabas.
Entrevistador:
Tenían perros también?
Jesus:
Si.
Olivia:
Un perro.
Entrevistador:
Un perro??
Olivia:
Se llamaba Bimbo.
Entrevistador:
Si?
Olivia:
Bimbo
Entrevistador:
Qué clase de perro era?
Jesus:
Muy bravo.
Entrevistador:
Si?
Jesus:
Llego un tío de ella y… y el perro estaba hechado y movió la
cola, pero el perro me movió la cola a mí y el creyó le
había… y fue a tentarlo, le dije: “No, no lo tiente”… “no, si
me movió la cola” y le agarro [señalando la mano]… Grrrr
[Sonido de perro], lo tuve que traer para acá con el doctor.
Entrevistador:
Era su hermano o hermano de su…?
Jesus:
Era hermano de ella.
Olivia:
De ella.
Entrevistador:
De su esposa?
Olivia:
De mi madre.
306
Jesus:
Si.
Olivia:
Lo trajo con el Doctor Mock.
Entrevistador:
Oh si! ..[Risas]
Jesus:
Si y Doctor Mock…
Entrevistador:
Lo compuso… Y cuando nacieron sus hijos en Harshaw o
fueron para el hospital? Sus hijos nacieron en Harshaw?
Esposa/Madre:
Aquí nos casamos en Estados Unidos.
Jesus:
No
Esposa/Madre:
Que no?
Jesus:
No, todos nacieron en Nogales menos Olga
Olivia:
Menos una.
Jesus:
Olga aquí nació.
Olivia:
En la clínica
Entrevistador:
Y doctor Mock era el doctor?
Olivia:
Si
Entrevistador:
Y la Olga? Nacio?
Olivia:
Aquí, en la clínica del doctor Mock.
Entrevistador:
Ok.
Olivia:
The rest of us, Nogales. Olga was Doctor Mock’s
Entrevistador:
Right.
Esposa/Madre:
Esta es Olivia de Border Patrol. Olivia López.
307
Entrevistador:
Es su […] en el Border Patrol.
Jesus:
Trabajó, trabajó…
Olivia:
There is proof
Esposa/Madre:
Border Patrol
Jesus:
Trabajó agarrando de estos… border, border…
Entrevistador:
Los mojados!
Olivia:
Los mojaditos!
Jesus:
Y traía un pistolón ahí!
Entrevistador:
Si… Y ustedes encontraron muchos aquí cuando vivían en
Harshaw?
Olivia:
Muchos mojaditos!
Entrevistador:
Mojaditos
Jesus:
Oh si!.. muchos
Olivia:
En el Harshaw
Esposa/Madre:
De vez en cuando, de vez en cuando.
Jesus:
Muchos qué?
Olivia:
Mojados
Jesus:
Oh si!
Olivia:
En el Harshaw
Jesus:
Oh sí!... una vez contamos diez nada más.
Olivia:
Ah no!... pero esto es ahora nomas.
308
Jesus:
Sí, pero allá ella no era…
Olivia:
No, yo allá no era Border Patrol
Jesus:
No era la que agarraban los mojados. [Risas]
Entrevistador:
Y donde trabajaba Olivia? Aquí?
Jesus:
Aquí.
Entrevistador:
Trabajaba en Arizona? La Olivia?
Jesus:
Si. Trabajaba en …
Olivia:
Yuma. En Yuma
Jesus:
Yea
Entrevistador:
Que más?
Jesus:
Yo estaba juntando bellotas y ella estaba en un arroyo ahí…
y conto diez…
Entrevistador:
Mojados
Jesus:
Iban devuelta para México
Olivia:
Ya iban de vuelta.
Entrevistador:
En el verano, era?
Olivia:
En el verano… Juntando bellotas
Entrevistador:
Donde juntaba bellotas, era un lugar especial para ustedes?
Jesus:
Si, habían todo… pero en ese tiempo llovía bastante para
que hubiera, ya ahora no llueve bastante en el invierno y…
Entrevistador:
No hay
Jesus:
Y no hay.
309
Olivia:
No hay… ya. En el Harshaw hay veces que nevaba
Jesus:
No
Entrevistador:
Esto es un mejor tiempo para….
Olivia:
Yea, it’s a higher elevation
Jesus:
Yo tenía que poner cadenas en el carro para subir la
subida, yendo para la Trench donde trabaja… Si no llevaba
cadena se quedaba dando vuelta la rueda
Entrevistador:
Si
Olivia:
Nevaba bastante. Mucho frio.
Entrevistador:
Jesus:
Y las bellotas no hay? Cuando fue la última vez que usted
fue a juntar bellotas?
Hace dos años fuimos…
Entrevistador:
Si? Para dónde?
Jesus:
Ella y yo.
Entrevistador:
Y cojieron?
Olivia:
Si hayamos
Jesus:
Si hayamos.
Olivia:
Bastantes
Jesus:
Pero… fue dos años pasado?
Olivia:
Hace como un año, un año pasado.
Entrevistador:
Para Harshaw fueron?
Jesus:
Si, para el lado de Harshaw
Olivia:
Si, para el lado de Harshaw. Era…
310
Esposa/Madre:
Mira esta Olivia… Olivia eres tu ésta?
Olivia:
No… Alguien de Santa Cruz
Esposa/Madre:
[…]
Olivia:
Ya?
Entrevistador:
Ya. That’s good if you want to stop. Ok. Gracias…
Gracias señor
Jesus:
Ok!
Entrevistador:
Thank you!
[Fin de Transcripción]
311