NOTE: I use this text color to share a story told to me by my Uncle Art. To emphasize his words they are noted below in yellow.

The mountains are beautiful in Mexico, but they are also very cold at night if you are poor.

 

UNCLE ART'S STORY

" At night the kids would huddle around my mother to keep warm because they had no real roof over their heads or walls to keep them safe from the weather."

 

Grandmother made a canopy made from rags and sheets to protect her family from the sun and the rain. Together she and her children camped out under the open skies.

 

" Everyone waited patiently for father to come down from the mountains. He was going to find us a new place to live."

 

Grandmother was pregnant again and the days passed very slowly. In the meantime, they observed the rich lifestyles of the nearby landowners, who happened to be Mormons.

 

" Every night the American woman would come outside with her children. Like some kind of ritual, they would sit together on the rocking chair on the front porch and would sing songs and laugh for hours. "

 

Though they noticed grandmother and the kids living on the lower end of their farm, they did not bother them. In fact, several nights passed before the American family realized she was pregnant.

 

" She invited us to come into their home and so we waited there for our father. When he arrived, they offered us a place to live in exchange for labor. "

 

My grandparents were invited to stay and live on the estate with the Mormon family. Grandfather became the next ranch hand and grandmother later helped with the chores.

At the time my mother was the youngest of the eight children and it was my Uncle Art that my grandmother was carrying who told me this story. He said his mother told him and he, in turn, told me.

I believe my mother never talked much about her past because she tried very hard to forget the experience of growing up as "one" of sixteen children who were very poor.