Villa Victoria Blog

Serial Mother - The Story of Eva, Ch. 2

 This is the continuation of my mother's autobiography.  I originally translated this document for my class at Fairhaven College and my notes reflect that.

But  let's go back to the time before I was born, to 1910.  My father was no longer an official in the army of Porfirio Díaz.  He was, by then, a simple citizen who would slaughter cattle for a living.  He would sell the meat and would make good money.  My mother told me about the time when my father was travelling in the mountains and a platoon of soldiers found him.  They captured him and took him, by shoves, to their General.  The General turned out to be Pancho Villa, who stared at my father and asked him, "Are you Rafael Andrade?".  My father answered, "Sí mi General!"  General Villa then ordered the soldiers to let go of him, "because he is my friend."  They began to chat and Pancho Villa asked after my mother, María.  My father told him that she was expecting a baby.  I imagine that this took place in December because I was born on the 5th of January.  Then General Villa ordered that my father be given a bunch of bars of piloncillo (loaf sugar) and several disks of Mexican chocolate.  He told him, "Here, take this to María so that when she has the baby, she'll produce a lot of milk."  He also gave my father a beautiful horse (and I remember that horse) so he could get back home.  So it is that I am nourished with food that once belonged to Pancho Villa.

My mother no longer had servants, but somehow she managed to do her housework.  In this situation, I was born on January 5, 1911.  I was very little and had light colored hair and blue eyes.  But eventually the color of my eyes changed and now they are brown.  Well, I grew*.  Between the ages of seven and eight, in the 1918, when the Spanish influenza killed so many people -- it was a disaster -- my mother agonized, being pregnant, and my father died.  Six months later, my mother's sister came and convinced my mother to go and live with her and her family, so we went.  My mother took with her a fair amount of livestock: two horses and one burra with her colt.  This place (Rancho El Moro)  was a very beautiful high mountain far from the pueblo (Villa Victoria).  Everytime our food would run out, my mother would have to go down the mountain to the pueblo to sell and animal so she could feed us.  She had to do this to prevent any bad feelings with my aunt's family.  And this is how my mother's money dwindled.  On the other hand, my brother, Domingo, would secretly steal and sell my mother's jewelry.  He was very rude to my mother.  My sister, María, got married and we never heard from her again.  And so my mother became very poor, she had nothing.  The only ones who stayed with her were my brother, Rafael, and myself.  We would obey her and take care of her and she would, in turn, care for us.  Rafael and I would make houses with thatched roofs if we had to move.  We would go into the woods and collect honey from wild bees, we would gather wild vegetables and would hunt pigeons or wild birds.  I was always with him because he suffered from fevers due to a shock he received.  When he would get a fever, he would remain unconscious for two or three hours.  We always took water in a gourd and I would mop his brow with a cool, wet handkerchief.  Our suffering was great, but we never asked anyone for anything.  When it was time to plant, my brother would hire himself out to work for some men who would drive pigs or cattle to as far away as Colima on the coast.  They would go on foot and it would take them as much as a month to get there.  But when he returned, he would bring us shoes, lengths of fabric to make me dresses and candies -- really good ones which were packed in beautiful little wooden boxes...I don't think they make them anymore**.  In short, my dear brother did as much as he could.  He worked and they paid him the same as a big man because he as on par with them, working from sun to sun.  He wouldn't grow, he was small and thin, maybe because of his infirmity, but someone cured him and he grew after he got well to not less than six feet tall, but thin.  

Well, let me return to my mother.  One day, my mother went to a certain place, and as I said, our poverty was great, the soles of my mother's shoes were worn out.  We were walking when she suddenly cried out and I asked, her, "What's the matter?" and she said, "I got a splinter."  She sat down, shouting and crying at her great misfortune.  But  God had a plan so great and marvellous with my mother.

A few months later, she came home and said that she had been at the house of a family that was getting ready to go to Tampico, Tamaulipas.  In that time, Tampico was in a bonanza (boom time) and that family had invited my mother to go with them and she accpeted.  At home, there were much more than one dozen goats that were mine, some very fine pigs that someone had traded my mother for some goats, and a female piglet that my mother had bought with my silver dollar with the horse on it.  I remember very well that dollar my father gave me when I had the measles.  My throat was so swollen and for about three days, I couldn't eat a thing.  In that time there were no doctors and no matter how much they begged, I would not eat.  My father went and got a big bag of gold and silver money and he told me, "Eva, if you drink this glass of milk, you can pick any coin you want," and he emptied the contents of the bag on the bed.  I liked that silver peso and then on I began to eat.  That is the story of the pigs and the goats.

*"Well, I grew..."  This sentence is an utterly simple and eautiful way to describe the years between her birth and the first major event of her life.  It is obviously appropriate that a more experienced writer might hesitate to be so brief.

**"...candies...real good ones..."  Here, the writer seems to lapse into he own little world, as if she is re-experiencing the eeling that those candies used to give her.

Serial Mother - The Story of Eva, Ch. 1

Today I begin the serialization of my mother's handwritten autobiography.  In 1982 I asked my mother to write her life story.  I urged, cajoled and plead with her and fortunately, she listened to me and set about to recount the events in her life in the seventy-eight cent red spiral-bound notebook I bought for her.  When she finished and handed the notebook to me, I thumbed through it and realized I had a treasure.  It was sixty-seven pages of her laborious but flourishey handwriting -- all one paragraph, one sentence, one breath, an occasional comma, flowing out as stream-of-consciousness writing.

My mother was born in Tancitaro, Michoacan, Mexico on January 10, 1911, six weeks after the start of the Mexican Revolution.  She grew up in Michoacan until she was 16, when she went to the other side of the country, to Tampico, Tamaulipas,  on TOP of a train and later met my father, who was from Oklahoma, in 1942, until she came to the United States in 1945. She raised two black daughters through the Civil Rights Era, she bought and sold two houses with only a third-grade education.  Set against the backdrop of contemporary world events this document is a fascinating account of one woman's life.

I have edited personal and emotional details out.  I have included some notes.

August 18, 1984

Today I begin the history of my life.  I am Eva, daughter of Rafael Andrade and Maria Ramos de Andrade.  I don't know much about my father's parents, but I do know that his father was Portuguese and his mother was part Indian and part Spanish.  My father's mother was short and her name was Ignacia (my mother's parents, Francisco Ramos, was an Indian and his wife was pure Spanish, her name being Paulina Avalos).  My two grandmothers were very strict.  Even though my father, being a married man, an official of the government and second in command of the pueblo of Coalcomán, Michoacan, my grandmother would box his ears in public if she found him in a cantina.  When they would arrive at my grandmother's house, my father would embrace her and tuck her in bed and say, "Don't you always say that if the sky broke, you could repair it with the face of your son?"  He was a good son and a good husband.  He was a perfect father because we never heard our parents argue.  He was a good man with Humanity because, as a military man, his commander would order him to execute court-martialled soldiers, but if the prisoner had children and a wife, he would not carry out his orders.  He would reach into his pocket and would take out money to give to them and he would given them a horse and tell them to go far away and never come back.  Sometimes, if the prisoner was an only son, he would tell him, "Take this money and horse and go far away, but take care of your mother."  This was his manner with his fellow man.  He was a good Christian man, according to the way he was taught.

As I said before my father was a good husband and a good father to his children.  We were six, Domingo, Maria, Rafael, Eva Maria (myself), Raquel and Carmelita.  Carmelita was born three months after my father died.  My father died on December 24, 1918 at 12 o'clock midnight of the Spanish Influenza*.  My mother was in another bed, also with the influenza.  It was thought that she too would die, but God had a plan for her and for us, her children.  As a last resort, they gave my mother tequila with lemon and she said she felt like she would die, but her fever gradually clamed down and she ultimately got well.

But on the day my father died, in those same hours, my brother, Domingo, was in another pueblo performing in a Christmas play, in which he played the part of the angel Gabriel.  He was wearing beautiful wings, made of white feathers which almost touched the ground.  Someone had made him a green toga, adorned with gold ties.  My father's friend, a Colonel, lent him a sword with a gold handle.  It is a pity that he was a beauty of a boy and turned out to be so bad**.  I expect that, ultimately, God changed his heart, because my brother was lost.  My sister Maria was lost also and the rest of the children died and only I, Eva, remain in this world.  I am alone only with my children, Edith, Nehemiah, Abigail and Naomi and one first cousin, Francisco Ramos.  (...to be continued)

*The Spanish Influenza appeared in Mexico during the first week of October, 1918.  By December, the death toll was estimated to be 436,200.  The state of Michoacan had the hightest mortality rate -- 48,000 deaths in a population of 991,000.  My mother said that people were dying so rapidly that there was hardly enough time to put the bodies in the mass graves.  Some infected people were tossed in with the corpses.  Sometimes the gravedggers would collapse into their own graves.  It was observed by one foreign correspondent that the Mexicans were especially vulnerable victims to the virus due to the conditions brought on by the Revolution (Invasion by Virus, Charles Graves, ICON Books, Ltd., 1969, pp. 176-177.)

**After asking my mother for more information on Domingo, all she could tell me was that he was the oldest child of their parents; he was stubborn and dictatorial and that his father had to spank him alot.  Indeed, even on his deathbed, Rafael Andrade told his wife to be careful with that one and that she needed to be strict with him.

As an adult, Domingo would not look for fights, but he would not back away from one and would fight on any provocation.  He was a soldier for twenty years and a general hired him as his bodyguard because of his reputation as a fearless fighter.  His brother and sister did not hear from him for many years until they got word that he was in Mexico City -- my uncle Rafael sent him money to visit him in Mexicali.  It turned out that he was a drinker and a braggart, telling my uncle's workers that he was the boss and the owner.

He went back to Mexico City and while in a pulque (fermented agave drink) cantina, an old enemy saw him and they started to have words.  Domingo tried to prevent the fight, but the enemy went for him and Domingo knifed him in the heart.  He wound up in the Islas Marias Federal Prison.

Deep Feast - Camp Long

On Sunday I attended a food writing workshop at Camp Long in Seattle, "Deep Feast Writing", taught by Vermont writer, Cresent Dragonwagon.  Cresent wrote the definitive treatise on cornbread in 2007, "The Cornbread Gospels".

Scheduled from noon to 6, we didn't waste time.  As each person registered, our instructions were to "turn your cell phone off and start writing".  We learned the "Twelve Percepts of Fearless Writing", we participated in some games to see how stories take form, we ate a delicious potluck and got back to writing again.  In one exercise, we were asked to pick a recipe or ingredient and have a dialogue with it.  Okay.

Dialogue with Chiles -- Camp Long, Seattle 3/6/11

First, in the voice of chiles:

1. I am the oldest cultivar in Mexico.
2. Together with beans and corn I form the basis of Mexican cuisine.
3. I am flavor and heat and dimension.
4. I stimulate language and culture.
5. I protect myself from predators.
6. I am a form of currency.
7. I am a usurperor of ketchup.
8. I have a protocol.
9. I am misunderstood.
10. I am feared.
11. My intensity cannot be measured.
12. I bring joy - serotonin.

Next, in my voice:

1. I first met you when I was born.
2. Your smell was always there.
3. Your nature first pricked my tongue and I rejected you as a child.
4. Through my mother's entreaties, you would occasionally find your way onto my beans and rice.
5. My father over-ate you and died from those complications.
6. You always reminded me -- wherever I went -- of who I am and from where I come.
7. You waited for me to learn about you.
8. You opened my world when I got comfortable with you.
9. You are there when I need you.
10. You are smooth, silky, dark, musky, floral, bright.
11. You evoke tears, laughter, love, sex

Wow!  If Cresent can get this out of me in six hours, imagine what her four-day Vermont workshop can produce.

Cooper's Hawk

I found this beautiful creature sitting on a low branch in my backyard yesterday.  He just sat there.  He let me talk to him and take pictures.  I looked him up in my "Birds of Seattle and Puget Sound" book and found that he is a Cooper's Hawk.  He was there for at least 40 minutes.  By the end of it I was blubbering and then he flew away.

Love Letters from Garfield - Valentine's Day 2011

These are my parents, Eva Andrade de Smith and Garfield Smith.
In 1944 my father went to Los Angeles from Tampico to make arrangements for my mother and the children, Edith, Nehemiah and Abigail to emigrate to the United States.  As he was tying up loose ends, finding housing and talking with lawyers and the American Consulate, he wrote a series of letters, in perfect Spanish and beautiful handwriting, giving her last minute instructions, sending her money, suitcases and encouragement.  "My Very Respected Lady and Wife--

It's been a few days since I received your letters, expressing your doubts and trepidations (about the trip).  I can understand your concern, but before anything else, I want, as is my custom, to say hello to you as well as the children.  For now, I am fine, thanks be to God, and I hope this letter finds all of you well.

I also want to let you know that I had not been able to answer your last letter because, quite frankly, I have been going here and there, taking care of the business and details of your coming here.  Every day is filled with me attending to these requirements and I have not been able to write to you until now.  Thank God everything is taken care of.

I'm sending you the necessary papers for your trip.  Enclosed are four letters for the American Consul, one from the company where I worked, another signed by my sister, Myrtle Simon, and another signed by my brother, Enrique (Henry).

At the first stop, you present yourself to the Consul to get your passports.  Second, take care of the clothes.  Bring blankets, sheets and mentholatum, nose drops, a little iodine, mercury and the photography course books and dictionaries.  Everything else you don't need, gather it and sell it.

I will send you the suitcase by Air Express addressed to Sister Lala.  You should be receiving it this week.

I am also sending you a money gram in the amount of $58.00 by telegraph today.  I will send you another letter with last minute instructions later because it's getting very late here.  If you need more money you can send me a telegram marked "urgent".

Find out who is the Secretary General of your area and let me know his name.

Before you leave Tampico, send me a telegram that says (in English) 'Leave tomorrow' [which means, I'm leaving tomorrow] , and put the date on it so I can coordinate on this end.  It will be good to leave on the 11th or 12th of February, when everything is ready, from Tampico to Guadalajara by bus, and then from there by train on the South Pacific to Nogales, where I will be waiting for you.  With no more for today,

As Always,

Your Husband, Garfield Smith"