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Una Vida Valiosa: A Meaningful Life
Mar. 23rd, 2013 01:18 pmBonito León Guanajuato
Su feria con su jugada
Ahí se apuesta la vida
Y se respeta al que gana
Allá en mi Leon Guanajuato
La vida no vale nada.
Lovely León Guanajuato
Her festival with all its gaming
There life is bet on
And the winner is always respected.
There in my León Guanajuato
Life is worth nothing.
(Camino de Guanajuato: Jose Alfredo Jimenez, 1926-1973)
During the first week in March I received a large manila envelope from my cousin Raul, a fire captain in Seattle. I immediately assumed he had sent me another copy of an article he’d written for a firefighting journal or magazine. I put the packet aside and didn’t get around to opening it until a week later. To my surprise a smaller manila envelope dropped out, along with a handwritten note, dated March 1, 2013:
“Hey Toñito,” it began, using my childhood nickname. “¿Como estás, ese? ¡Vato! Hope all is well. We just moved. Since leaving Lake Tapps Island (where you visited), we moved into a waterfront condo in Seattle. It flooded in the last major storm. The owners decided to sell, so now we are in a waterfront condo a block away (actually it is an apartment). But every time we move, we are forced to get rid of more and more stuff. Declutter!!! Anyway – came across these documents in an iron box I had for years. It’s all stuff related to Tia Petra, “Petrita”. I believe she was married to Poppy Chucho’s brother. I remember her! She had a raspy voice (probably from years of smoking). She used to live in Chinatown on Ord Street. Since you are the new Delgado historian – I thought you might like them. So here you go. I do not want them back. No one else knows they exist, so if you don’t want them – you can toss them. Take care. Hello to your bride. Tootis (Raul’s childhood nickname).”
Curious about what Raul (Tootis) had sent, I opened the manila envelope and inspected the myriad documents and notes that came cascading out:
1) There was a U.S. Social Security Insurance letter for Petra Ruiz Delgado, dated April 13, 1955.
2) An American Naturalization certificate for Petra Ruiz Delgado, dated February 21, 1955.
3) A Death Certificate for Alberto Carpio Delgado, her husband, dated October 20, 1947.
4) A document from the American Embassy in Mexico City, dated March 7, 1955, attached to a marriage certificate dated February 27, 1955. The cover letter stipulated that the marriage document certified the marriage of Alberto Carpio Delgado and Petra Ruiz on August 20, 1904.
5) A Mexican Civil Marriage document dated February 22, 1908, certifying that on February 22, 1908, Mr. Jesus H. Delgado, a 55 year old tailor, and Guadalupe Carpio, his 52 year old partner, married to legalize their union of 31 years, thereby legitimizing their 6 children who were present at the ceremony: Alberto, Enrique, Magdalena, Juan, Maria Merced, and José Jesús.
6) A receipt from the Panteon Nacional de Dolores (National Cemetery of Sorrows) indicating the burial of Elena Delgado, child of Petra and Alberto Delgado, in a leased plot for seven years, on June 28, 1912.
7) A Death Certificate from the California Department of Health indicating that Alberto Delgado, a tailor born in Mexico in 1883, and living in the United States with his spouse of Petra Delgado for 27 years, died in the L.A. County General Hospital of Infectious Neuritis and Respiratory Failure on October 12, 1947. He was buried in Calvary Cemetery on October 22, 1947. He was 64 at the time of his death, with a residence at 413 Ord Street, Los Angeles.
8) A U.S. Department of Heath Card certifying that Petra R. Delgado of 413 Ord Street, Los Angeles, was re-vaccinated for smallpox on February 1, 1956.
9) A small envelope containing 2 black and white passport photos of Petra, and two business cards indicating her current address as 2205 ½ Sichel Street, Los Angeles, 90031, with her telephone number.
10) A piece of an airmail envelope from Margarita V. Ramirez of Mexico City with two handwritten pencil notations in someone else’s hand: a) “Petra’s Age – She made her First Communion at the age of 10 in 1893. Therefore, she was born on April 29, 1883.” b) “Devoto de Purgatorio sent by Margarita V. Ramirez of Mexico on October 17, 1956.”
11) An empty legal sized envelope with notations of several dating errors (sic), written on the front: “Metropolitan Insurance Policy of Tia Petra – Petra was insured on July 31, 1933 at the age of 40 years of age (sic). The insured was born in 1893 (sic) and in 1972 she will be 79 years old (sic), with 39 years of coverage.
“Tia Petrita”, I said aloud, gazing wistfully over the documents I had spread out in front of me. “I haven’t thought of her in over 50 years.” Old, worn, and faded images and scenes of Tia Petrita slowly started returning. She was a tiny, bell-shaped woman, draped in black dresses and shawls, and always moved slowly and carefully. She usually wore a dark, lacy veil, covering her tightly bound grey and white hair. I had forgotten how she sounded until Raul’s remark about her raspy voice called up the memory. I remembered her low, growling Spanish, and how difficult it was to understand what she was saying. She would appear at large family gatherings and holidays at the home of my grandfather, Jesus Delgado (Poppy Chucho), the younger brother of her deceased husband Alberto. My grandparent’s home was on Workman Street in Lincoln Heights, an old immigrant neighborhood in N.E. Los Angeles. Petrita didn’t own or drive a car, so when one of my aunts or uncles weren’t able to pick her up, I would see her slowly walking up Workman Street to join the family for dinner on a Saturday or Sunday evening. I had no clue where she actually lived until one Saturday evening I joined my aunt and uncle, Lisa and Charlie, on their way to confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church on Sichel Street. On our way back, we stopped at Petrita’s lodgings to drop off a package or letter. She lived in a small bungalow or duplex on Sichel, across the street from the church. Her proximity to the church fit my childish correlation of her nunish attire and sparse, monastic living quarters. What struck me as odd, however, was her independence. She lived alone and did not depend on a family to care for her. A part of me saw this solitary lifestyle as very brave, but the other part was shocked at the incongruity. Tia Petrita had to be about 70 years old. She was old! All the other viejitos, or “old ones” in the family, were cared for in the homes of their grown children and their families. My great-grandmother (and my father’s grandmother), Jovita Serrano y Villela, or Granny, as we called her, lived in the home of her eldest daughter, Tia Ernestina Villela y Ornelas, in Boyle Heights. My mother’s grandmother (and my other great-grandmother), Rosa Maria Serrano y Nava, or Mima Rosi, lived in Mexico City with her daughter and my grandmother, Maria Nava y Villalpando, or Mima, as we called her. Tia Petrita, who certainly looked as old as Granny Villela and Mima Rosi Nava, lived alone. This fact gave her an air of mystery.
I’m sure that my mother carefully explained Petrita’s history and relationship to me and my siblings, but at the time, I really didn’t care. My world revolved around my 9 active and energetic aunts and uncles, most of whom still lived at home at the time. They were always around; talking, joking, laughing, working, or playing sports. Los viejitos simply showed up and hung out with other viejitos. My only duties were to “saludar a los viejitos”, or greet my elders, on my arrival to the Workman home, and despedirme, or bid them farewell on my departure. In between I played with Charlie, Espie, and Lisa. The last picture I have of Tia Petrita was at a Delgado family Christmas celebration on Workman Street in 1956 or 57 (that would have made Petrita 73 or 74!) There one can see her near the center of the tiered family photo: white-haired, long-faced, with sad, doleful eyes. That’s the last image I have of Tia Petrita.
In the days following my opening of Raul’s package, I was saddened by my lack of childhood interest and poor memories of “los viejitos” in the Delgado and Villela families. I dimly recalled the funerary rosaries and viewings of Granny Villela and Tia Ernestina Ornelas after their deaths. I remember my mother bringing me up to Granny’s casket after the rosary and telling me to give my great-grandmother one last “beso de despedida”, one last kiss of farewell. I remember Granny’s face looking pale and white, and her lips felt cold. During Tia Tina’s rosary, I spent most of the time playing in the back of the church with my second cousins, Paul and Petey. Embarrassingly, I have absolutely no memory of Tia Petrita’s death, rosary, or funeral. I hadn’t even given the matter a thought until now. I suddenly felt guilty and vulnerable to another emotional broadside from my son, Tony, accusing me of depriving him of important historical information about his Mexican-American roots and stories about the family’s experiences in Los Angeles in the 1950’s and 60’s. I was sufficiently troubled by this paucity of knowledge about Petrita that I called my Uncle Charlie (who is only 5 years my elder) to find out how much I had missed.
I reached Charlie by cell phone on a Saturday afternoon, as he was keeping an eye on his pet at a dog park in Pasadena. I discovered that he could add very little to what I remembered about his great-aunt Petrita. She lived for a long time on Ord Street in Chinatown, until moving to Sichel Street near Sacred Heart Church. She lived alone for many years, finally dying after Charlie had married and left home. He couldn’t recall the exact date of her death, placing it somewhere in the 1970’s. He remembered that she died quickly and quietly, and was buried in Calvary Cemetery alongside her long deceased husband, Alberto Delgado, who had worked as a tailor in Los Angeles. He remembered picking her up so she could join family gatherings and reunions, and then taking her home at their conclusion. His clearest impression of Petrita was that she took care of herself, working and living alone.
I suppose I was relieved to learn how little Charlie added to my meager knowledge of Petrita. He validated that she lived a quiet, self-sufficient, and solitary life, without drama or scandal. It was a life that would have held little interest to the children and teenagers we were in the 1950’s and 60’s. We both agreed, however, that her independent lifestyle was unique and admirable for a single, albeit widowed, Mexican woman at that time, with plenty of family members living in the vicinity. Our Tia Petrita was certainly not an Auntie Mame in her widowed lifestyle, but she was capable and independent, while maintaining her connections to the only family she had left.
Going back to the primary and secondary source material that Raul sent, I tried putting together a narrative of the life of Petra Ruiz Delgado. The legal documents seemed to have been requested, collected, and organized for the main purpose of apply for Social Security benefits as a naturalized, American widow in 1955, at the age of 72. Using these documents, and other printed and written artifacts, and allowing for some inexact and contradictory information in the dates and names provided, I constructed a reliable outline of the first Delgado immigrants to the United States in the 1920’s, and their settlement in the Los Angeles area.
Petra Ruiz was born in the city of Guanajuato, in the State of Guanajuato, Mexico, in 1883, to Nicanor Ruiz and his wife Josepha Rincón. She made her First Holy Communion there at age 10, in 1893. In Guanajuato, Petra met Adalberto (or Alberto) Delgado, the eldest son of Jesus H. Delgado and Maria Guadalupe Carpio. Alberto, a tailor by trade, like his father, was also born in 1883 in the nearby town of Tierra Nueva, in the State of San Luis Potosí, Mexico. In 1904, Petra Ruiz and Alberto Carpio Delgado wed in the Church of Santa Fe in Guanajuato, Mexico. In 1908, Alberto’s parents, Jesus H. Delgado (55 years) and Ma Guadalupe Carpio Delgado (52 years), took the unusual precaution of legalizing their union by marrying in a civil marriage ceremony, in front of their 6 adult children – thereby legitimizing their status and inheritance. In 1912, after 8 years of marriage, Petra and Alberto buried their sole infant daughter, Elena Delgado, in the Panteon de Dolores (Cemetery of Sorrows), in Guanajuato, Mexico, in a leased plot for the period of seven years. In 1920 (eight years after the burial of their only daughter), in the waning years of the Mexican Revolution, Petra and Alberto Delgado emmigrated to the United States. They settled in Los Angeles, where Alberto found work as a tailor. Alberto and Petra’s residency in Los Angeles quickly prompted a similar move by Alberto’s younger brother, Jesus Delgado, my grandfather, who joined him with his wife, Maria Villela de Delgado, and other members of the Villela and Ornelas families. These family clans took up residence in Boyle Heights, in East Los Angeles, after 1921 (the year my father, Antonio Jose Delgado was born in El Paso, TX). By 1945, my grandparents, Jesus and Maria Delgado, had moved their large family from Boyle Heights to the Lincoln Heights address on Workman Street, while Alberto and Petra lived on 413 Ord Street, in nearby Chinatown. In 1947 Alberto Delgado died in L.A. County General Hospital of infectious neuronitis and respiratory failure. He was 64 years of age, and was buried in Calvary Cemetery. Petra continued working and living alone on Ord Street until 1955, when, at 72 years of age, she applied for, and was granted American Citizenship and Social Security Insurance benefits. Sometime after 1956, Petra moved to 2005 ½ Sichel Street, in Lincoln Heights, across the street from Sacred Heart Catholic Church, to be closer to her brother-in-law, Jesus, and his family on Workman Street. In 1972, at the age of 89, Petra Ruiz Delgado died and was buried along side the remains of her husband Alberto in Calvary Cemetery.
As I was ending my Saturday conversation with my uncle Charlie, he suggested that I call some of his older siblings for more information and memories of Tia Petrita. He was sure that my aunt Lisa, uncle Kado, or aunt Jay-Jay, would have better stories to tell of Tia Petrita. However, the more I thought about it, the stronger grew my resolve to do no further research into her life. I realized that I didn’t want to record other people’s memories. I preferred to simply share what I had learned about Petrita, and encourage others to do the same. Brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins could call or email me, or comment on this blog if they wished to share stories and memories of Petrita. With all due respect to Raul, I am not the Delgado Family historian – but I am curious. I would like to learn more about Petra, and the early Serranos, Villelas, and Ornelas. I see so little of those family members now, that I fear funerals will be our last points of contact.
I’m a strong believer in the significance of unintended consequences. I believe that the Hand of God is manifested through the unintended consequences of human actions – our own, and those of others. “Evil” actions will produce unexpectedly positive results, and well-intentioned decisions sometimes cause chaos. One of the more pleasant unintended consequences of receiving Raul’s letter and package was remembering how much I loved my childhood, and growing up in the warmth and loving embrace of a large, extended Mexican-American family in East Los Angeles and Lincoln Heights. The wealth of specific data contained in Petra’s documents compelled me to drive to Lincoln Heights and inspect those long forgotten locales. I visited Maria Auxiliador (Our Lady Help of Christians) the church on Avenue 20th where my grandparents so often attended mass and Holy Week services, and I walked around the nearby remains of the old Pabst Brewery on Main Street. I walked in and around Sacred Heart Church, and found Petrita’s old address on Sichel Street. I stood outside the gated former residence of the Delgado family on Workman, and wandered around the block. I walked past the marvelously maintained Lincoln Heights Public Library on Avenue 26, and paused to photograph the historic Five-Points intersections of Avenue 26, Pasadena Avenue, and Daly Street. The only other landmarks I could find were the faded Florsheim Shoes sign on a building along Broadway, and the tiled sidewalk and pointed façade of the building that once housed the Starland Cinema Theatre. Finally I drove to the corner of Broadway and Ord Street in Chinatown, and searched the area where my Tia Petrita’s home once stood. It is no longer there, having been replaced by a mini-mall and apartment complex, but I could see how close she lived to downtown Los Angeles and City Hall. It suddenly recalled another scene when I accompanied Lisa and Charlie to that location, and they pointed to the revolving red light on top of City Hall, saying that my Aunt Helen worked there, rotating the light, around and around all night. I actually believed them!
So what are my last thoughts about Tia Petrita and her life in Guanajuato and Los Angeles? First of all, I’m grateful to Raul for having sent me these documents at this time. At 65 I can take the time to finally appreciate their significance and wonder about Petrita and Alberto’s lives. What prompted or pushed them to leave the city and country of their birth for the United States? Sorrow from the death of their daughter? Wanting to escape the ravages of a revolution that had degenrated into a civil war? Or was it simply a desire to create a new life together in a foreign land? I will never know for sure, because those first Mexican immigrants to the United States are all dead and buried. The first generation offspring of those Mexican adventurers, like my father, his brothers and sisters, and their Villela and Ornelas cousins were now Americans who were too busy growing up, learning, and living in area of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles to really dwell on those questions. My father, Antonio, and his three younger brothers, Alberto, Manuel, and Victor, attended Roosevelt High School, joined the band and ROTC, went on dates, danced and enjoyed the big band swing music of the times, worked with their father Jesus, and in 1942, enlisted in the Armed Forces and went to war. Those who survived the war would marry and raise families of their own. So all I can do is offer a theory based on the sad and poignant ranchera and mariachi songs los viejitos and their offspring played and listened to on their toca discos (record players). These were songs by Jorge Negrete, Pedro Infante, and Javier Solís. I looked up a classic ranchera by José Alfredo Jiménez, a native of Guanajuato, that I used to hear, and I found it very revealing about that first wave of homesick Mexican immigrants from the state of Guanajuato. In Camino de Guanajuato, Jiménez sang a song of love and longing for his beautiful and beloved home in Guanajuato. Yet the song constantly repeats the lament that “there life is worth nothing”.
No vale nada la vida.
La vida no vale nada.
Comienza siempre llorando
Y así llorando se acaba.
Por eso es que en este mundo
La vida no vale nada.
This life is worthless.
Life is worth nothing.
It always begins with crying
And with weeping is how it ends.
And that is why in this world
Life is worth nothing.
Bonito León Guanajuato.
Su feria con su jugada.
Ahí se apuesta la vida
Y se respeta al que gana.
Allá en mi Leon Guanajuato
La vida no vale nada.
Lovely León Guanajuato;
Her festival with all its gaming.
There life is bet on
And the winner is always respected.
There in my León Guanajuato
Life is worth nothing.
Camino de Guanajuato
Que pasas por tanto pueblo
No pasas por Salamanca
Que ahí me hiere el recuredo
Vete rodeando veredas
No pases por que me muero.
Road of Guanajuato
That passes through so many towns
Don’t pass through Salamanca
Because there my memories ache
Take the pathways around it
Don’t go there or I will die.
El Cristo de tu montaña
Del cerro del Cubilete
Consuelo de los que sufren
Adoración de la gente.
El Cristo de tu montaña
Del cerro del Cubilete
The Christ of your high mountain
At the edge of the basin ridge
The solace of those who suffer
Worshipped by all the people.
The Christ of your high mountain
At the edge of the basin ridge.
Camino de Santa Rosa
La Sierra de Guanajuanto
Ahí me quedo paisano
Ahí es mi pueblo adorado
Road of Santa Rosa
The Mountains of Guanajuato
There I remain your countryman
There is my beloved country.
I imagine that my great-uncle and aunt, Alberto and Petra Delgado, and all the others of their generation sang this ranchera, as they worked, struggled, and built a life in this new land. They pined and longed for the tender beauty of Mexico and its people, but knew that in the Mexico of the 1920’s, life was worth nothing. Like the “respected gamblers of Guanajuato” they took their chances on a new beginning in a strange land. The documents Raul discovered among his belongings in an iron box are a testament to the struggles of our ancestors to live meaningful lives, and lives of value, for themselves and their offspring. God bless them and thank them for their sacrifice.
For more photos of Lincoln Heights, World War II, and the family, click on the links to my Flickr albums below:
Lincoln Heights Family
Our Family in World War II
2013-03-19 Lincoln Heights
Su feria con su jugada
Ahí se apuesta la vida
Y se respeta al que gana
Allá en mi Leon Guanajuato
La vida no vale nada.
Lovely León Guanajuato
Her festival with all its gaming
There life is bet on
And the winner is always respected.
There in my León Guanajuato
Life is worth nothing.
(Camino de Guanajuato: Jose Alfredo Jimenez, 1926-1973)
During the first week in March I received a large manila envelope from my cousin Raul, a fire captain in Seattle. I immediately assumed he had sent me another copy of an article he’d written for a firefighting journal or magazine. I put the packet aside and didn’t get around to opening it until a week later. To my surprise a smaller manila envelope dropped out, along with a handwritten note, dated March 1, 2013:
“Hey Toñito,” it began, using my childhood nickname. “¿Como estás, ese? ¡Vato! Hope all is well. We just moved. Since leaving Lake Tapps Island (where you visited), we moved into a waterfront condo in Seattle. It flooded in the last major storm. The owners decided to sell, so now we are in a waterfront condo a block away (actually it is an apartment). But every time we move, we are forced to get rid of more and more stuff. Declutter!!! Anyway – came across these documents in an iron box I had for years. It’s all stuff related to Tia Petra, “Petrita”. I believe she was married to Poppy Chucho’s brother. I remember her! She had a raspy voice (probably from years of smoking). She used to live in Chinatown on Ord Street. Since you are the new Delgado historian – I thought you might like them. So here you go. I do not want them back. No one else knows they exist, so if you don’t want them – you can toss them. Take care. Hello to your bride. Tootis (Raul’s childhood nickname).”
Curious about what Raul (Tootis) had sent, I opened the manila envelope and inspected the myriad documents and notes that came cascading out:
1) There was a U.S. Social Security Insurance letter for Petra Ruiz Delgado, dated April 13, 1955.
2) An American Naturalization certificate for Petra Ruiz Delgado, dated February 21, 1955.
3) A Death Certificate for Alberto Carpio Delgado, her husband, dated October 20, 1947.
4) A document from the American Embassy in Mexico City, dated March 7, 1955, attached to a marriage certificate dated February 27, 1955. The cover letter stipulated that the marriage document certified the marriage of Alberto Carpio Delgado and Petra Ruiz on August 20, 1904.
5) A Mexican Civil Marriage document dated February 22, 1908, certifying that on February 22, 1908, Mr. Jesus H. Delgado, a 55 year old tailor, and Guadalupe Carpio, his 52 year old partner, married to legalize their union of 31 years, thereby legitimizing their 6 children who were present at the ceremony: Alberto, Enrique, Magdalena, Juan, Maria Merced, and José Jesús.
6) A receipt from the Panteon Nacional de Dolores (National Cemetery of Sorrows) indicating the burial of Elena Delgado, child of Petra and Alberto Delgado, in a leased plot for seven years, on June 28, 1912.
7) A Death Certificate from the California Department of Health indicating that Alberto Delgado, a tailor born in Mexico in 1883, and living in the United States with his spouse of Petra Delgado for 27 years, died in the L.A. County General Hospital of Infectious Neuritis and Respiratory Failure on October 12, 1947. He was buried in Calvary Cemetery on October 22, 1947. He was 64 at the time of his death, with a residence at 413 Ord Street, Los Angeles.
8) A U.S. Department of Heath Card certifying that Petra R. Delgado of 413 Ord Street, Los Angeles, was re-vaccinated for smallpox on February 1, 1956.
9) A small envelope containing 2 black and white passport photos of Petra, and two business cards indicating her current address as 2205 ½ Sichel Street, Los Angeles, 90031, with her telephone number.
10) A piece of an airmail envelope from Margarita V. Ramirez of Mexico City with two handwritten pencil notations in someone else’s hand: a) “Petra’s Age – She made her First Communion at the age of 10 in 1893. Therefore, she was born on April 29, 1883.” b) “Devoto de Purgatorio sent by Margarita V. Ramirez of Mexico on October 17, 1956.”
11) An empty legal sized envelope with notations of several dating errors (sic), written on the front: “Metropolitan Insurance Policy of Tia Petra – Petra was insured on July 31, 1933 at the age of 40 years of age (sic). The insured was born in 1893 (sic) and in 1972 she will be 79 years old (sic), with 39 years of coverage.
“Tia Petrita”, I said aloud, gazing wistfully over the documents I had spread out in front of me. “I haven’t thought of her in over 50 years.” Old, worn, and faded images and scenes of Tia Petrita slowly started returning. She was a tiny, bell-shaped woman, draped in black dresses and shawls, and always moved slowly and carefully. She usually wore a dark, lacy veil, covering her tightly bound grey and white hair. I had forgotten how she sounded until Raul’s remark about her raspy voice called up the memory. I remembered her low, growling Spanish, and how difficult it was to understand what she was saying. She would appear at large family gatherings and holidays at the home of my grandfather, Jesus Delgado (Poppy Chucho), the younger brother of her deceased husband Alberto. My grandparent’s home was on Workman Street in Lincoln Heights, an old immigrant neighborhood in N.E. Los Angeles. Petrita didn’t own or drive a car, so when one of my aunts or uncles weren’t able to pick her up, I would see her slowly walking up Workman Street to join the family for dinner on a Saturday or Sunday evening. I had no clue where she actually lived until one Saturday evening I joined my aunt and uncle, Lisa and Charlie, on their way to confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church on Sichel Street. On our way back, we stopped at Petrita’s lodgings to drop off a package or letter. She lived in a small bungalow or duplex on Sichel, across the street from the church. Her proximity to the church fit my childish correlation of her nunish attire and sparse, monastic living quarters. What struck me as odd, however, was her independence. She lived alone and did not depend on a family to care for her. A part of me saw this solitary lifestyle as very brave, but the other part was shocked at the incongruity. Tia Petrita had to be about 70 years old. She was old! All the other viejitos, or “old ones” in the family, were cared for in the homes of their grown children and their families. My great-grandmother (and my father’s grandmother), Jovita Serrano y Villela, or Granny, as we called her, lived in the home of her eldest daughter, Tia Ernestina Villela y Ornelas, in Boyle Heights. My mother’s grandmother (and my other great-grandmother), Rosa Maria Serrano y Nava, or Mima Rosi, lived in Mexico City with her daughter and my grandmother, Maria Nava y Villalpando, or Mima, as we called her. Tia Petrita, who certainly looked as old as Granny Villela and Mima Rosi Nava, lived alone. This fact gave her an air of mystery.
I’m sure that my mother carefully explained Petrita’s history and relationship to me and my siblings, but at the time, I really didn’t care. My world revolved around my 9 active and energetic aunts and uncles, most of whom still lived at home at the time. They were always around; talking, joking, laughing, working, or playing sports. Los viejitos simply showed up and hung out with other viejitos. My only duties were to “saludar a los viejitos”, or greet my elders, on my arrival to the Workman home, and despedirme, or bid them farewell on my departure. In between I played with Charlie, Espie, and Lisa. The last picture I have of Tia Petrita was at a Delgado family Christmas celebration on Workman Street in 1956 or 57 (that would have made Petrita 73 or 74!) There one can see her near the center of the tiered family photo: white-haired, long-faced, with sad, doleful eyes. That’s the last image I have of Tia Petrita.
In the days following my opening of Raul’s package, I was saddened by my lack of childhood interest and poor memories of “los viejitos” in the Delgado and Villela families. I dimly recalled the funerary rosaries and viewings of Granny Villela and Tia Ernestina Ornelas after their deaths. I remember my mother bringing me up to Granny’s casket after the rosary and telling me to give my great-grandmother one last “beso de despedida”, one last kiss of farewell. I remember Granny’s face looking pale and white, and her lips felt cold. During Tia Tina’s rosary, I spent most of the time playing in the back of the church with my second cousins, Paul and Petey. Embarrassingly, I have absolutely no memory of Tia Petrita’s death, rosary, or funeral. I hadn’t even given the matter a thought until now. I suddenly felt guilty and vulnerable to another emotional broadside from my son, Tony, accusing me of depriving him of important historical information about his Mexican-American roots and stories about the family’s experiences in Los Angeles in the 1950’s and 60’s. I was sufficiently troubled by this paucity of knowledge about Petrita that I called my Uncle Charlie (who is only 5 years my elder) to find out how much I had missed.
I reached Charlie by cell phone on a Saturday afternoon, as he was keeping an eye on his pet at a dog park in Pasadena. I discovered that he could add very little to what I remembered about his great-aunt Petrita. She lived for a long time on Ord Street in Chinatown, until moving to Sichel Street near Sacred Heart Church. She lived alone for many years, finally dying after Charlie had married and left home. He couldn’t recall the exact date of her death, placing it somewhere in the 1970’s. He remembered that she died quickly and quietly, and was buried in Calvary Cemetery alongside her long deceased husband, Alberto Delgado, who had worked as a tailor in Los Angeles. He remembered picking her up so she could join family gatherings and reunions, and then taking her home at their conclusion. His clearest impression of Petrita was that she took care of herself, working and living alone.
I suppose I was relieved to learn how little Charlie added to my meager knowledge of Petrita. He validated that she lived a quiet, self-sufficient, and solitary life, without drama or scandal. It was a life that would have held little interest to the children and teenagers we were in the 1950’s and 60’s. We both agreed, however, that her independent lifestyle was unique and admirable for a single, albeit widowed, Mexican woman at that time, with plenty of family members living in the vicinity. Our Tia Petrita was certainly not an Auntie Mame in her widowed lifestyle, but she was capable and independent, while maintaining her connections to the only family she had left.
Going back to the primary and secondary source material that Raul sent, I tried putting together a narrative of the life of Petra Ruiz Delgado. The legal documents seemed to have been requested, collected, and organized for the main purpose of apply for Social Security benefits as a naturalized, American widow in 1955, at the age of 72. Using these documents, and other printed and written artifacts, and allowing for some inexact and contradictory information in the dates and names provided, I constructed a reliable outline of the first Delgado immigrants to the United States in the 1920’s, and their settlement in the Los Angeles area.
Petra Ruiz was born in the city of Guanajuato, in the State of Guanajuato, Mexico, in 1883, to Nicanor Ruiz and his wife Josepha Rincón. She made her First Holy Communion there at age 10, in 1893. In Guanajuato, Petra met Adalberto (or Alberto) Delgado, the eldest son of Jesus H. Delgado and Maria Guadalupe Carpio. Alberto, a tailor by trade, like his father, was also born in 1883 in the nearby town of Tierra Nueva, in the State of San Luis Potosí, Mexico. In 1904, Petra Ruiz and Alberto Carpio Delgado wed in the Church of Santa Fe in Guanajuato, Mexico. In 1908, Alberto’s parents, Jesus H. Delgado (55 years) and Ma Guadalupe Carpio Delgado (52 years), took the unusual precaution of legalizing their union by marrying in a civil marriage ceremony, in front of their 6 adult children – thereby legitimizing their status and inheritance. In 1912, after 8 years of marriage, Petra and Alberto buried their sole infant daughter, Elena Delgado, in the Panteon de Dolores (Cemetery of Sorrows), in Guanajuato, Mexico, in a leased plot for the period of seven years. In 1920 (eight years after the burial of their only daughter), in the waning years of the Mexican Revolution, Petra and Alberto Delgado emmigrated to the United States. They settled in Los Angeles, where Alberto found work as a tailor. Alberto and Petra’s residency in Los Angeles quickly prompted a similar move by Alberto’s younger brother, Jesus Delgado, my grandfather, who joined him with his wife, Maria Villela de Delgado, and other members of the Villela and Ornelas families. These family clans took up residence in Boyle Heights, in East Los Angeles, after 1921 (the year my father, Antonio Jose Delgado was born in El Paso, TX). By 1945, my grandparents, Jesus and Maria Delgado, had moved their large family from Boyle Heights to the Lincoln Heights address on Workman Street, while Alberto and Petra lived on 413 Ord Street, in nearby Chinatown. In 1947 Alberto Delgado died in L.A. County General Hospital of infectious neuronitis and respiratory failure. He was 64 years of age, and was buried in Calvary Cemetery. Petra continued working and living alone on Ord Street until 1955, when, at 72 years of age, she applied for, and was granted American Citizenship and Social Security Insurance benefits. Sometime after 1956, Petra moved to 2005 ½ Sichel Street, in Lincoln Heights, across the street from Sacred Heart Catholic Church, to be closer to her brother-in-law, Jesus, and his family on Workman Street. In 1972, at the age of 89, Petra Ruiz Delgado died and was buried along side the remains of her husband Alberto in Calvary Cemetery.
As I was ending my Saturday conversation with my uncle Charlie, he suggested that I call some of his older siblings for more information and memories of Tia Petrita. He was sure that my aunt Lisa, uncle Kado, or aunt Jay-Jay, would have better stories to tell of Tia Petrita. However, the more I thought about it, the stronger grew my resolve to do no further research into her life. I realized that I didn’t want to record other people’s memories. I preferred to simply share what I had learned about Petrita, and encourage others to do the same. Brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins could call or email me, or comment on this blog if they wished to share stories and memories of Petrita. With all due respect to Raul, I am not the Delgado Family historian – but I am curious. I would like to learn more about Petra, and the early Serranos, Villelas, and Ornelas. I see so little of those family members now, that I fear funerals will be our last points of contact.
I’m a strong believer in the significance of unintended consequences. I believe that the Hand of God is manifested through the unintended consequences of human actions – our own, and those of others. “Evil” actions will produce unexpectedly positive results, and well-intentioned decisions sometimes cause chaos. One of the more pleasant unintended consequences of receiving Raul’s letter and package was remembering how much I loved my childhood, and growing up in the warmth and loving embrace of a large, extended Mexican-American family in East Los Angeles and Lincoln Heights. The wealth of specific data contained in Petra’s documents compelled me to drive to Lincoln Heights and inspect those long forgotten locales. I visited Maria Auxiliador (Our Lady Help of Christians) the church on Avenue 20th where my grandparents so often attended mass and Holy Week services, and I walked around the nearby remains of the old Pabst Brewery on Main Street. I walked in and around Sacred Heart Church, and found Petrita’s old address on Sichel Street. I stood outside the gated former residence of the Delgado family on Workman, and wandered around the block. I walked past the marvelously maintained Lincoln Heights Public Library on Avenue 26, and paused to photograph the historic Five-Points intersections of Avenue 26, Pasadena Avenue, and Daly Street. The only other landmarks I could find were the faded Florsheim Shoes sign on a building along Broadway, and the tiled sidewalk and pointed façade of the building that once housed the Starland Cinema Theatre. Finally I drove to the corner of Broadway and Ord Street in Chinatown, and searched the area where my Tia Petrita’s home once stood. It is no longer there, having been replaced by a mini-mall and apartment complex, but I could see how close she lived to downtown Los Angeles and City Hall. It suddenly recalled another scene when I accompanied Lisa and Charlie to that location, and they pointed to the revolving red light on top of City Hall, saying that my Aunt Helen worked there, rotating the light, around and around all night. I actually believed them!
So what are my last thoughts about Tia Petrita and her life in Guanajuato and Los Angeles? First of all, I’m grateful to Raul for having sent me these documents at this time. At 65 I can take the time to finally appreciate their significance and wonder about Petrita and Alberto’s lives. What prompted or pushed them to leave the city and country of their birth for the United States? Sorrow from the death of their daughter? Wanting to escape the ravages of a revolution that had degenrated into a civil war? Or was it simply a desire to create a new life together in a foreign land? I will never know for sure, because those first Mexican immigrants to the United States are all dead and buried. The first generation offspring of those Mexican adventurers, like my father, his brothers and sisters, and their Villela and Ornelas cousins were now Americans who were too busy growing up, learning, and living in area of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles to really dwell on those questions. My father, Antonio, and his three younger brothers, Alberto, Manuel, and Victor, attended Roosevelt High School, joined the band and ROTC, went on dates, danced and enjoyed the big band swing music of the times, worked with their father Jesus, and in 1942, enlisted in the Armed Forces and went to war. Those who survived the war would marry and raise families of their own. So all I can do is offer a theory based on the sad and poignant ranchera and mariachi songs los viejitos and their offspring played and listened to on their toca discos (record players). These were songs by Jorge Negrete, Pedro Infante, and Javier Solís. I looked up a classic ranchera by José Alfredo Jiménez, a native of Guanajuato, that I used to hear, and I found it very revealing about that first wave of homesick Mexican immigrants from the state of Guanajuato. In Camino de Guanajuato, Jiménez sang a song of love and longing for his beautiful and beloved home in Guanajuato. Yet the song constantly repeats the lament that “there life is worth nothing”.
No vale nada la vida.
La vida no vale nada.
Comienza siempre llorando
Y así llorando se acaba.
Por eso es que en este mundo
La vida no vale nada.
This life is worthless.
Life is worth nothing.
It always begins with crying
And with weeping is how it ends.
And that is why in this world
Life is worth nothing.
Bonito León Guanajuato.
Su feria con su jugada.
Ahí se apuesta la vida
Y se respeta al que gana.
Allá en mi Leon Guanajuato
La vida no vale nada.
Lovely León Guanajuato;
Her festival with all its gaming.
There life is bet on
And the winner is always respected.
There in my León Guanajuato
Life is worth nothing.
Camino de Guanajuato
Que pasas por tanto pueblo
No pasas por Salamanca
Que ahí me hiere el recuredo
Vete rodeando veredas
No pases por que me muero.
Road of Guanajuato
That passes through so many towns
Don’t pass through Salamanca
Because there my memories ache
Take the pathways around it
Don’t go there or I will die.
El Cristo de tu montaña
Del cerro del Cubilete
Consuelo de los que sufren
Adoración de la gente.
El Cristo de tu montaña
Del cerro del Cubilete
The Christ of your high mountain
At the edge of the basin ridge
The solace of those who suffer
Worshipped by all the people.
The Christ of your high mountain
At the edge of the basin ridge.
Camino de Santa Rosa
La Sierra de Guanajuanto
Ahí me quedo paisano
Ahí es mi pueblo adorado
Road of Santa Rosa
The Mountains of Guanajuato
There I remain your countryman
There is my beloved country.
I imagine that my great-uncle and aunt, Alberto and Petra Delgado, and all the others of their generation sang this ranchera, as they worked, struggled, and built a life in this new land. They pined and longed for the tender beauty of Mexico and its people, but knew that in the Mexico of the 1920’s, life was worth nothing. Like the “respected gamblers of Guanajuato” they took their chances on a new beginning in a strange land. The documents Raul discovered among his belongings in an iron box are a testament to the struggles of our ancestors to live meaningful lives, and lives of value, for themselves and their offspring. God bless them and thank them for their sacrifice.
For more photos of Lincoln Heights, World War II, and the family, click on the links to my Flickr albums below:
Lincoln Heights Family
Our Family in World War II
2013-03-19 Lincoln Heights
