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Interview with Teresa Hernandez Schwartz
Interviewer: Nora Murphy
Date of Interview: October 6, 2019
Length of Interview: 72:42
Location of Interview: Home of Teresa Hernandez Schwartz
Transcription Completion Date: January 15, 2021
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Teresa Hernandez Schwartz (Interviewee): The – the, the houses of La Yarda. Um –
Nora Murphy (Interviewer): Oh.
THS: I’ve got it upside down. That was taken –
NM: It’s all water.
THS: Yeah, there’s a – there was a fence there, and that was, a farmer planted corn right behind
there. Was pretty close to the bottom – to the back end of the – of one of the rows of houses. The
other, where we lived over there, they didn’t have any fence or anything.
NM: So, you lived, like, over here, and this is the edge of the river, or…?
THS: No, we lived, now this is where all the, the men used to plant their gardens.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Uh-huh. And, are – the houses are right here.
NM: Oh, where the water is now?
THS: Yeah.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: See, all that was full of water. Uh-huh.
NM: Oh, so they took the photo after the flood.
THS: Yeah.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Well, I think that one was taken when it was filling up with water, because you couldn’t
see any of the – of this after.
NM: Oh, wow.
�THS: It was filled up.
NM: Yeah.
THS: Yeah. When we came – went in the next morning, we – our road had – had washed out, uh,
right away when the water started coming in, ‘cause it was coming in so bad that it just, the road
just caved in.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Where we used to come in and out. So, we had to go around that way, and of course when
we went around that way, that was when all the water was coming across there.
NM: Oh, dear.
THS: We had to go around there when my dad and I went to get the chickens, because my
mother wanted her chickens out. So, we put ‘em in a cage and he got up in front. He’s a big man,
so, you know, um, he was able to hold on and – and, uh, I was in the back, and the cage kept
going sideways and he kept saying: “Hold on, do not let loose,” because the water was rushing
over [murmurs].
NM: Oh, gee. Scary.
THS: Everything was just full of water.
NM: Where were your other – your brothers and sisters?
THS: Um, my brothers and sisters, they used to live there, at one time or another. My sister and
her husband, and then he was drafted into the service, World War II. And so, he left her there,
you know, because of my folks being…
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And then my – my brother lived on down to the other – of the other end from where we
lived. My sister was across from us, and, uh, so my brother lived over there with his kids, and
then he got a job at the – at the shops in Topeka.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Instead of working out on the railroad, you know, in the cold winter and everything. My,
uh, my dad used to say that, uh, when they came, we got ready for lunch, they would build the
fire. But he says there, that – we called them tacos, ‘cause you know, just the tortillas with beans
in it –
NM: Mm-hmm.
�THS: And pepper.
THS: And he said they was so frozen that you couldn’t eat them.
NM: Oh.
THS: Move ‘em, you know. They had to put ‘em on the fire to get ‘em thawed out before they
could…eat any lunch at all, yeah, ‘cause they carried it in their lunch pail. And they was out on
them little, the kids called ‘em pushy cars, but they really wasn’t. That was some kind of a little
deal that they, uh, had a motor on it, and they would go up and down the railroad tracks.
NM: Yeah. Well, let’s start at the beginning, as though you’d never told me anything about La
Yarda. Like, did you say that you – you moved there when you were two years old?
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: Where did you move from?
THS: We – I was born in Topeka.
NM: In Topeka.
THS: In Topeka they had the – the Santa Fe houses. My dad worked for the Santa Fe there. Um,
he worked for the – for the Santa Fe and they had little houses, but they was made out of wood
and the ground would, I mean the floor was dirt.
NM: Mm.
THS: There was – I remember my mother used to get up in the morning with a little pan and
water in it and sprinkle it so that all the inside of it, so that it wouldn’t get so, you know, uh…
NM: Dusty?
THS: Yeah, dusty.
NM: Oh.
THS: Mm-hmm. Because, you know, it would get real dusty and so she put water on it, and that
way it would kind of settle down.
NM: And you remember that?
THS: Yeah, mm-hmm. I was two, you know. I could remember. Them talking about it.
NM: Well, when was your birthday? Which year?
�THS: January the 6th.
NM: January 6th. What year were you born?
THS: 1930.
NM: 1930.
THS: Yeah, I’ll be 90 in Dec – in January.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: But anyway, so this was better housing over here.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So my dad asked for a transfer, and he came up – we came over here, I was two years old.
You know, I – there was so many kids in that little space, that you got to learn a lot of talking
and everything from all them little kids. ‘Cause it was just…kind of a circle. And – and once in a
while they would put water all over that dirt so they could have a dance there.
NM: Are we talking about La Yarda here?
THS: No, we’re talking about –
NM: In Topeka?
THS: Topeka.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Before we moved down here.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Uh-huh. And they used to, uh, have dances right there.
NM: Oh.
THS: They would fix Mexican food, you know, just like a fiesta, only it wasn’t quite a fiesta
‘cause there wasn’t very much room, yeah. [NM laughs] But I learned to talk from them little
kids there.
NM: Mm-hmm.
�THS: I was going on three years old, really, when we moved down here. I was still two, but then
we moved to La Yarda because they had, you know, the houses down here was concrete.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And, uh, uh…there was two rows. And after we moved there, they – we just had been built
not too long before then. Uh, we…Mr. Romero, which was my sister-in-law, that’s her right
there, she married my brother Jesse. They was the ones that passed away here in January.
Anyway, they moved from Quenoma. They used to live in Quenoma. NOTE: Possibly she means
Quenemo, which is southwest of Baldwin? He worked for the railroad, too.
NM: Where is Quenoba?
THS: Quenoma is –
NM: Quenoma.
THS: Way up on the other side of Baldwin somewhere.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Uh-huh. But that’s where they moved, because they had better housing down there, too. I
don’t know what kind of housing they had over there, but they had eleven kids in their family.
And so, each one of us got four – four rooms.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: You know, and – and –
NM: Each family got four rooms?
THS: Each family got four rooms.
NM: Okay.
THS: There was three – three, four rooms on one side, and three or four rooms on the other, so
they got, you know.
NM: Like two rectangular buildings facing each other.
THS: And then the Ramirez moved in there. And then the Garcias moved in there. And we
moved in there. And, uh, let’s see, who else? My brother Pete moved in there with all his kids.
And then like I said, Lucia moved in there. And, uh, let’s see who else…uh…oh, they kept
moving in and out. But the Romeros and us were the only ones left in La Yarda when the ‘51
flood came.
Formatted: Spanish (Spain)
�NM: And you’re the Hernandezes.
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: Okay.
THS: Yeah.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: And the Romeros. All of the rest of ‘em had already moved and got houses on New Jersey
and Pennsylvania.
NM: Yeah, uh-huh.
THS: But the Romeros, they had eleven kids, so, you know, it was hard for them to get out and –
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And, uh, and my dad never even thought about moving. He just, you know. Actually, I was
the only one left. All the rest of ‘em had already moved out, you know, the girls.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: We had three girls and, uh…four – four boys. Three girls and four boys.
NM: In your family?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Mm-hmm. And were you the youngest?
THS: I was the youngest.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
NM: So when you moved to La Yarda, um, um…there were, like, seven other families living
there?
THS: Uh, they wasn’t all full yet, ‘cause they had just built the – the Santa Fe yards –
NM: Uh-huh.
�THS: Not too long before that. So, they started moving in, coming from different little towns,
you know.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And they all worked for the railroad.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: You know, so, when they moved for the railroad, they could get transferred wherever they
wanted to go.
NM: Right.
THS: So, when they seen that, uh, they got the houses there, uh, they decided that they wanted to
move to, you know, here to Lawrence, so –
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Um, I think it was us and the Romeros that moved in there first. And then came the
Garcias, and then – there’s a bug going in there [laughter]. Let’s see, what, I don’t want to do
that with that – with that deal, because –
NM: Oh, this bug here?
THS: Yeah.
NM: Oh. Want me to just put him outside?
THS: Just throw it out. Fritz will eat it [laughs].
NM: Want me to give him to Fritz?
THS: No, just, no, just throw it on the floor.
NM: Okay.
THS: He’ll pick it up. Yeah, he’ll pick it up. He – the minute I get up, because I have problems
with my hand since I broke it. And, uh, the minute I get up he’ll run over.
NM: Oh.
THS: Pick up all the crumbs that I’ve dropped on the floor.
NM: The crumbs.
�THS: He does it no matter where I’m sitting. And he can’t see very good, he’s – he’s going
blind, he’s a diabetic.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And he’s got cancer.
NM: Oh, gee.
THS: In two places, so –
NM: Wow.
THS: They only gave him three months to live, but he’s already lived over the – he doesn’t seem
to be –
NM: Must be something in the water.
THS: Must be.
NM: Pretty good.
THS: But anyway, getting back to –
NM: Yeah, to La Yarda.
THS: Yeah. Okay, then.
NM: So, were you all from Mexican families, like was your dad from Mexico?
THS: Yeah.
NM: Or your mom from Mexico?
THS: Yeah.
NM: And how did they get here?
THS: My mom, my dad…my dad’s dad, he – he was…he owned the – the hac – the hacienda, I
guess. Um, that’s what they call it. A farm.
NM: Okay.
THS: You know. He – he had 300 men working for him.
NM: In Mexico?
�THS: Uh-huh.
NM: Wow.
THS: That was my grandfather.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And so, my grandmother, my mother used to say she had a – a maid for the birds, the
canaries; a maid for the kids; a maid to cook the food; a maid to clean the house; a maid to, uh,
water the outside, you know, the dirt. He – they – she had a maid for everything.
NM: Gee.
THS: In the fall when the harvest came in, uh, my mother said she used to sit and, uh, um…for
three days, and divide all these, um, food, all this corn and – and beans and everything that they
had grown.
NM: Yeah.
THS: Divide it among all the workers.
NM: Wow.
THS: Besides, they got paid, you know, every, so many – every so, I don’t know how often, but
they did get paid.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Anyway, then my grandfather died, and my dad, since he was the oldest, he had a younger
sister and a younger brother. But since he was the oldest, he was left in charge of the hacienda.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: When the government was changing governments, and they was coming through, uh, they
could – my mother couldn’t remember, or my grandmother, if it was Zapata or Pancho Villa, or
which one was coming through, and they was killing all the men that – that owned anything at
all. So, they decided to come to the United States, and they sold the hacienda where they lived.
NM: Mm.
THS: They sold it and buried the money. And they came to the United States. So then, after
everything had settled, my grandmother said that they went back to – to Mexico, to dig up the
money. But the money wasn’t any good any more. It had already changed –
�NM: Oh, devalued? Oh, wow.
THS: So, since they didn’t have anything, then they moved back to the United States.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And, uh, my aunts, three – my aunt had two girls and her, but they wouldn’t let ‘em come
across the border, because they didn’t have no means of taking care of themselves, you know.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Nobody working, so that they could have money.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And then, um, my dad brought ‘em over. He says he didn’t want to leave ‘em up there. So,
he brought ‘em over as his daughters. So, he brought over five daughters, ‘cause there was two
of – of my sisters that was, you know, had been…
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Um, in Mexico. Anyway, um, so, but when he – they went back to Mexico, it was just my
– my mother, and my dad, and all them, you know, the two girls, my two sisters and my brother
was the only ones that went back. Well then, when they went back, they had my other brother up
there. And then they came back and they had my brother Joe in Kansas City and then they had
us, my brother Jesse and I in Topeka.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So, they came back and they – they didn’t have anything, I mean, they just had to start over
again.
NM: Oh, goodness.
THS: ‘Cause everything was already gone.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And, uh –
NM: So, they got jobs in the railroad right away, your dad did?
THS: Mm-hmm. Yeah. He got a job right on the railroad. And then my – after years, after my,
uh, before my brother-in-law went into the army when they drafted him, World War II, uh, they
was all – they moved here through Lawrence, my brother and my brother-in-law.
�NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And so, they was working for the railroad, and then they got a better job in Topeka
working at the Santa Fe shops. So, they moved back to Topeka.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So actually, during the ‘51 flood, there was only us and the Romeros left in there,
Everybody had already bought houses on New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
NM: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
THS: But not all the Mexicans that lived on there lived in La Yarda. No.
NM: Where else did they live?
THS: Like the Chavez, Chavez didn’t. Now Peter Romero and his family all lived there.
NM: They lived in La Yarda.
THS: They were still there when the ‘51 flood came.
NM: Mm-hmm. Were there people living in the boxcars?
THS: Mm-hmm. Well, when – when my, uh, folks came over, even though they had a – a…oh,
uh, passport to come across,
NM: Mm-hmm?
THS: They came in a boxcar.
NM: They came in a boxcar, but they didn’t live in the boxcar when they –
THS: No. Well, in Kansas City they did.
NM: Oh, they did?
THS: When Joe was –
NM: In La Yarda there?
THS: And my uncle lived in, uh, in – in Pauline. He lived in a passenger car. Yeah. ‘Cause I
used to go visit him, you know. They had a daughter just about my age, and she passed away
years ago in California, but…they lived there till they moved to Topeka.
NM: Now, why would the railroad have somebody living in the passenger car?
�THS: Well, because they didn’t have any houses for them to live in.
NM: Oh.
THS: Uh-huh. So, that was the closest thing they could find, so I remember going through there
and they had curtains. They had a room and then they had curtains. Then they had another room
and curtains. And that’s the way, mm-hmm. But I remember going to visit ‘em, ‘cause their
oldest daughter was the same age.
NM: Was their car on the tracks, or was it off in the bushes somewhere?
THS: No, it was in the bushes.
NM: Oh, in the bushes. Oh, okay. So just an extra –
THS: They had just taken it and pushed it off the railroad tracks.
NM: An extra car, that –
THS: But it wasn’t a boxcar, it was a passenger car –
NM: That wasn’t being used. Okay.
THS: It had a lot of windows in it.
NM: Uh-huh. Interesting.
THS: So, um, but…no, it – it was…wasn’t very good, so when we – in the ‘51 flood, we got out,
Like I say, the Romeros, uh, Raymond Romero and them, their dad and mom let the – let the
Romeros go down and stay in their basement of their house. And next door lived their son, and
Raymond, and he told my dad that he would, uh, rent the upstairs. He says that we had some
people living up there, but they moved out, and it’s all clean and everything. If you want it you
can go ahead for $60 a month, you can go ahead and move there.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So, we moved up there, up there, for about three months, then my dad decided we needed
to get out of there. And so, he bought that house over on Rhode Island Street, and that’s where
we lived –
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Till they left for a nursing home in St. Joseph, in Kansas City, so…yeah.
�NM: When you were at La Yarda, did you have to pay rent to live there, or was that just housing
for the workers?
THS: No, no.
NM: Okay.
THS: The – the bathroom, the toilet, was about from here to, uh…the, field, house over there.
NM: Wow.
THS: And you talk about going out there in the wintertime. You know. Oh, it was so cold. You
know, they had one for the men, and then one for the women, and over on the other row of
houses they had the same thing.
NM: Uh-huh. Did they have showers there, too?
THS: No, we had to take – we had to [laughs] we had to go out and there was a pump that sat in
the middle of both, over here, towards the front.
NM: Yeah.
THS: Not in the middle, but in the middle of both houses. There was a pump there, and we had
to go pump water out of there, and then we had to warm it up on the stove to take a bath.
NM: Wow.
THS: And in the summertime, we could see snakes down in there. But we didn’t have much
choice but to drink that water; we didn’t have anything else. We – I mean, we – we kids could
see ‘em down there, you know, and – and we’d ask the people – I mean, the parents to get ‘em
out, they didn’t want to get out.
NM: It was at the bottom of the well? These snakes?
THS: Yeah. Not too, you know, not too many, maybe we see a – a snake and some frogs, you
know, jumping around down there. Oh, yeah. And we had to drink that water, ‘cause that was the
only water. Well…this down here, see, that’s one of the toilets.
NM: Oh, right. Uh-huh.
THS: And this down here was a slaughterhouse. And they had a house there to live in, that’s
what the Romeros lived in, and then their dad worked on the slaughterhouse, cleaning the
slaughterhouse.
NM: Oh.
�THS: And, uh…So, uh, like I say, I mean, you know, we lived there and we thought it was very
fortunate. We had concrete –
NM: Yeah.
THS: On our floor, you know, instead of dirt.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And so, then when we all got a little bit bigger, then we went to pick potatoes for the – out
for Heck, over north of town.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: We all went. He’d come and pick us up at six o’clock in the morning in a big truck, and
we’d all get in the back of the truck. And then, uh, he’d take us up there and then he’d bring us
back at six o’clock at night. We picked potatoes, a 105 out in the heat.
NM: Dig ‘em up out of the ground?
THS: No, they’d take ‘em and plow; they’d have a tractor plow ‘em.
NM: Oh.
THS: And we’d pick ‘em up and put ‘em in a wire basket, and they’d carry the wire basket up to
where the trucks go to pick em’ up and then sack – put ‘em in a sack and –
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: They would come – uh, one of ‘em, two guys on the truck, one of ‘em would pick ‘em up
and throw ‘em, the sacks, on the truck, and the other one would, uh, write how many.
NM: Okay.
THS: ‘Cause we got ten cents a bag.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: A hundred pounds of potatoes, for picking ‘em. That’s what we – they paid us, ten cents a
sack.
NM: So, a bag was 100 pounds?
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: And you had ten cents?
�THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: So, at – at the end of the day, about how much did you make?
THS: Not very much [laughter], but it made enough. It made enough that we thought we had a
lot of money.
NM: Nice. Now, are you talking about when you were this age, like maybe you’re, uh, fourteen,
fifteen, something like that?
THS: Yeah.
NM: And these girls would all go with you?
THS: Oh, yeah.
NM: Do you know – do you remember their names, who these girls are?
THS: Yeah. Yeah, that’s my sister-in-law Jenny, that’s Mercy, that’s me, and that’s Carmen.
NM: And they’re all Hernandezes?
THS: No.
NM: No?
THS: No. A Romero, Garcia…
NM: Oh.
THS: And, uh, a Ramirez.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: [Murmurs] Oh yeah.
NM: Did you say that’s you?
THS: Yeah.
NM: Aw. You’re looking right at the camera.
THS: [Murmurs] all the rest of ‘em. And I didn’t want to take pictures, but they insisted.
NM: That’s a cute picture.
�THS: But anyway, my daughter probably has one or two more. I told – she talked to me last
night, told her to start checking the – papers.
NM: Oh, good.
THS: And see if she could find some more. Or if she could find somebody that lived in La Yarda
that had pictures that wasn’t in the flood that they might have around.
NM: Yeah, that would be great. Wow.
THS: No, Peter was – Pete was in the flood, yeah.
NM: Mm-hmm. Pete Romero?
THS: Mm-hmm. Yeah. They was there.
NM: He was there that day?
THS: Yeah.
NM: I see – I see him every so often; he comes to the fiesta meetings.
THS: Yeah, does he?
NM: Yeah, he’s very busy with fiesta. Mm-hmm.
THS: He’s, uh, he – he was – he, that’s his sister right there.
NM: Oh.
THS: Which was my sister-in-law. Yeah, they took off and got – her and my brother took off to
Topeka and got married at 17.
NM: Oh, really?
THS: Yeah.
NM: So you’re mar – you’re – you’re related to the Romeros, then?
THS: Well, just by –
NM: By marriage.
THS: Yeah. By marriage. Mm-hmm.
�NM: Now, did you – when you were moved here and you were two years old, um, do you
remember your dad going off to work every day? Did he –
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Was he – did he get to stay home most nights, or did he have to go travel?
THS: [Laughs] You know, this is something that I never could figure out. During the floods,
‘course, between here and Lecompton, the – the water used to come over the railroad. Well, if
there was water on the railroad, the trains couldn’t go through.
NM: Mmm.
THS: You know, so they made a stop down here to Santa Fe.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Railroad, here. Uh, so they would take one of the men down there, and leave him there, all
night long. They’d –
NM: To guard the train?
THS: To – to see if the water was gonna come over the railroad.
NM: Oh.
THS: How in the world they were supposed to – to notify the Santa Fe depot, what I can figure
out, we didn’t have phones back there with – I mean, they sat there all night long with a fire
burning, you know, making sure. But the water didn’t get over the tracks, ‘cause if it did, the
trains would have to stop down here.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Well, down here at the Santa Fe depot, was underwater too.
NM: Mmm.
THS: You know.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So they couldn’t –
NM: So, this – did it flood periodically? This ‘51 flood was a really big one, but –
THS: That was a big one.
�NM: But every so often it would flood?
THS: Yeah, it would – well, that’s the reason that my dad and Mr. Romero said – they – a guy
from, a bigshot from Santa Fe came down and told ‘em: “Look, let’s move you out, there’s a big
flood coming, you know – ”
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: “And we’ll send trucks to – to load all your things up.”
NM: Oh, they knew?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Okay.
THS: “And – and, uh, move you out.”
“Oh, no, no, no. It’s gonna come up to the sidewalk, and it’ll go back down.” Well, it
came up to the sidewalk but it didn’t go back down this time. And that’s the reason we lost
everything.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Because they could have put it on trucks and taken it out.
NM: Oh.
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: So, they had seen floods come and go –
THS: Oh, yeah.
NM: And they were not consequential.
THS: We used to – we used to get out there and fish, great big old fish. [Laughter] With a string
and – and a stick.
NM: Yeah.
THS: A stick off the – the trees, you know.
NM: Uh-huh.
�THS: And we tie a string on it; we thought we was fishing. [NM laughs] Great big old carp about
that big would come, you know, the water would bring ‘em back, and –
NM: Right, they would get landlocked.
THS: If it got a little bit higher, we’d get out there and swim in that dirty water.
NM: Oh, gee. Dangerous.
THS: It’s a wonder we didn’t get sick.
NM: Yeah, yeah.
THS: Yeah. We – we – we done it all. I mean, you know. And, I gotta tell you about this. This
Mr. Romero that lived in the slaughterhouse?
NM: Yeah?
THS: He was – they used to have a sale barn down here at the corner. Right on 11th Street, you
know, where that – that trail is.
NM: A barn?
THS: Right up on that hill, you know.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: There’s houses on this side, and there’s where Allen Press is, way back there. That used to
be Stokely’s, where they canned, uh, food, you know, beans and all that stuff, back there. Well,
they used to have sales every Saturday night. And Mr. Romero, he was no relation to any of the
Romeros. He used to go up there, he’d take a little – a little goat, or a little cow, or something,
you know. Not a cow, but a calf, you know.
NM: Yeah.
THS: And then he – he’d come by with a – a sack [laughs]. He’d tell us: “If you kids don’t say
anything, I’ll give you some meat after I cook it, okay?” [Laughs] He would tell us, of course we
wasn’t gonna say anything, ‘cause we didn’t eat meat that much, you know.
NM: Yeah. So he – he stole the calf from the slaughterhouse?
THS: Yes.
NM: Oh, gee.
�THS: Up here on the hill, there on 11th Street, where they had that – they had the sale every
Saturday morning.
NM: Oh. So, they were selling the cows and –
THS: The calves and everything.
NM: And he just snuck one out.
THS: He wouldn’t get the big cows, he would get the little calves, you know –
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Or the goats, you know. Then he, the goat, he would come down, dig a hole and – and, uh,
put some rocks down in there. And then he would put a – wrap the meat of the goat [laughs] and
put it down in there and then put ashes on top of that, and cook it all day and all night. And he
would say: “If you kids don’t say anything, I’ll give you some.” Well, we wasn’t about ready to
say anything if we was gonna get some meat, you know. But he used to do that quite a bit. And
then the, uh, the guys from…from the sale barn would come the next day, and they’d say: “Did
you kids see any – any, uh, we lost a goat.” [NM laughs] “A baby goat, did you kids see
anything?” “No, we didn’t see a thing.” Cause we knew that if we told them, we wasn’t gonna
get anything.
NM: How funny.
THS: And that was extra meat to eat, you know.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: Like I say, my mother cooked a chicken every Sunday. ‘Cause she raised chickens after a
while, after we was there. She’d cook the chicken every Sunday, the…uh…oh, the people that
came over would eat the chicken, if there was Sunday chicken left, we would eat it. If not, we ate
the soup off the chicken.
NM: Mmm. So, she had company?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: Every Sunday we had company, and she’d kill a chicken, ‘cause she – she raised some
chickens in the back, and so, uh, she’d kill a chicken.
NM: Now, you guys – did you all belong to St. John’s Church back then?
�THS: We went to St. John’s, when we had to sit on the three pews on the left-hand side. And we
had to pay a dime. They wouldn’t let us sit anywhere else in the church. We had to sit in the last
three pews.
NM: They had three pews set aside for the Mexican children?
THS: Uh-huh. In the back.
NM: Or Mexican-Americans, yeah?
THS: In the very back of the – of the church.
NM: In the back of the church.
THS: On the left-hand side.
NM: And you had to pay. Did other people have to pay to use the pews?
THS: I don’t know. I was too small, you know. I remember that – that my dad, on – when the
snow was so high, and it was so cold, he would carry me. But, you know, the men always walked
in front of the women. They’d never walk with them.
NM: Really?
THS: Uh-huh. That’s the truth.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Yeah, the men walked about three paces ahead of the women, and the women walked back
there.
NM: Hmm.
THS: And I always asked my mother how come they done that. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said,
“they just always done that.”
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Mm-hmm. They never walked together.
NM: Just the custom.
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Did you grow up speaking Spanish?
�THS: Uh, yeah.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: Yeah.
NM: And –
THS: I didn’t – I didn’t know any English till I went to school. I went to school at New York
School.
NM: New York School.
THS: Uh-huh. And they had a reunion there; I would have loved to have gone. A couple of
weeks ago, they had a reunion. I had – I went to that, uh…oh…that, uh, deal they had in Topeka,
you know, for the family. Uh, trying to think of the name. I’ll remember it pretty soon.
NM: Yeah.
THS: It was uh, you know, for all the family. So, I really wasn’t planning to go, but the girls
wanted to go, because they wanted to see, you know –
NM: Oh, a family reunion.
THS: A family reunion.
NM: Oh.
THS: Yeah, they had it in Topeka, in that church basement, in the church building over there.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: And so we went, but Andy said the only way he would take me would be in the – in the
wheelchair. And I knew he meant it. So I went, but he did take me in the wheelchair.
NM: Yeah. That’s fine.
THS: I don’t like to ride in the wagon – the wheelchair.
NM: Oh, you don’t? Does it make you nervous?
THS: It was my sister, my daughter-in-law’s wheelchair that had Huntington’s. And he still has
it. And so, he’ll bring it over and he’ll say: “I’m only gonna take you if I can take you in the
wheelchair. Or else we’re not going, Mama.”
NM: Well, I think it makes sense for you to go in the wheelchair.
�THS: Oh, it does to him, but not to me.
NM: Because then you get so tired, and dizzy, so, that way you can relax.
THS: I get really tired, too, them seats up there. And then they had this display of [murmurs]
cousins’ pictures on the table, but they was mostly from our – from my side of the family, you
know.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: There was hardly any pictures from the other side of the family.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So –
NM: So, you knew everything. You saw everything that you already knew. You were looking for
new things to see.
THS: Yeah, the girls was, uh, took me up there, you know: “Mom, do you know who this is?”
Sure, I knew – [NM laughs] I knew ‘em all, you know. We grew up together.
NM: Sure.
THS: And, uh, when, um, uh, we went to, uh, pick potatoes, my, uh, cousins from Topeka and
Pauline came over
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: To earn a little money, ‘cause Mexicans wasn’t hired back, way back then.
NM: The what?
THS: The Mexicans, they wouldn’t hire ‘em.
NM: Nobody would hire you?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Oh.
THS: And we went to eat, the only place we would be able to get a hamburger or a Coke would
be up at the bar. At the – even at the dime store. That’s – we couldn’t sit in a booth and – and eat,
they wouldn’t let us.
�NM: Really? And was it just understood, or was there a sign or…?
THS: No, they would tell you.
NM: Oh, they would tell you.
THS: They would tell you: “We will sell you food, but you can’t eat in in here. You’ll have to
take it with you.”
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Real quietly, you know, where nobody would hear.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: But that’s what they did. I remember Leo was, he – he was in Louisville, Kentucky. And
he hitchhiked home, so he could save money. Uh, he helped his mother pay the gas bill. She
owned a house there on Tennessee Street. 1321 Tennessee. And she rented it to Chinese people.
NM: Oh.
THS: And so, um, he always – she never had enough money because they didn’t pay very much.
But they did feed her. [Laughs] So Leo always, uh, he used to shine shoes in the service for other
guys to earn extra money.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So that he could help his mother pay the gas bill.
NM: Oh, mm-hmm.
THS: And so, he hitchhiked home, and they met him up at the TP Junction. And just coming
down north, that north street, there was a place there, a restaurant that they called Deluxe.
NM: Yeah.
THS: And – and so he stopped there, it was in the – it was hot. And he said, he stopped there and
he had his uniform on. He stopped there to get something to drink. She says – the lady came over
and said: “We’ll sell you the drink, but you can’t drink it in here.”
NM: What did she have against Leo? He wasn’t a Mexican.
THS: Eh, no, but he – he looked like one.
NM: Oh.
�THS: [Laughs] You know, he’s dark-complected.
NM: Oh, my goodness.
THS: And so, she says: “We’ll sell you the drink, but you can’t drink it in here.”
And he said: “I had my uniform on. I said, ‘Lady, you can keep your drink. I don’t need it
that bad.’” And he continued to walk down to his mother’s house on Tennessee Street. But he
always remembered that, that they told him…
NM: Wow.
THS: But, you know, we was used to it. Now, um, I remember my brother came home one day
and – and he told my mom, he says: “Mom?” ‘Cause my dad didn’t make very much money on
the railroad, no. They paid him the least they could pay him, you know? And they worked him
all day in the hot sun and in the cold wind and the cold – cold winter. Anyway, um, they,
uh…um, Leo says, he used to shine shoes for the other soldiers so he could earn enough money
to send to his mother to pay for the gas bills.
NM: Yeah.
THS: So, but he said he was happy that the Chinese fed her. [Laughter]
NM: They’re good cooks.
THS: She wouldn’t – she wouldn’t have been able to get out and – you know, she was kind of
crippled too.
NM: Yeah.
THS: So, she wouldn’t have been able to get out. Now, there was some stories that, you know –
NM: Well, when you were at New York School, were there a lot of Mexican kids there?
THS: Oh, yeah.
NM: And did the teachers treat you okay?
THS: Yeah, they treated us really good.
NM: Were there white – or whiter Americans, I don’t know what the other people were called?
THS: There was a – there was a few colored kids too, because, you know, we all lived down here
on the east part of town.
NM: Uh-huh.
�THS: You know, we didn’t live on that part of, any of that part of town over there.
NM: So, the teachers just taught you…
THS: Yeah, they taught us just like they did the rest of the kids.
NM: That’s where you learned English?
THS: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
NM: Did you start in kindergarten –
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Or did you start in first grade?
THS: No, kindergarten.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Yeah. We all did.
NM: Yeah.
THS: We went on clear up to junior high. We went to junior high when junior high was on
Kentucky Street.
NM: Oh.
THS: There was three buildings.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: One on each side, you know, on…
NM: Yeah, that’s where Langston Hughes went to school.
THS: And you had to cross the street; when there was too many cars, you was late to the other
deal. And you had – we had gym on the third floor of the one over on that side of Kentucky
Street.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: So, if we was over there on – on that side of Kentucky Street, we’d have to cross the street,
run all the way up the stairs to gym, and if we didn’t make it, we’d get wrote up. We didn’t have
to come up and say, but everybody did, you know.
�NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: But all them stairs, you had to run up them stairs to get up to the gym [NM laughs].
NM: Now, when you went to that school, what was that school called; do you remember?
THS: Um…they called it, well, it was Central.
NM: Okay.
THS: Yeah, Central.
NM: Alright. And, um, so the Pinckney kids came into that school also? Were there kids from
Pinckney school and New York School, and – ?
THS: They all came up –
NM: Maybe some other school?
THS: Till they – till they, uh, moved the high school, Lawrence High, to the big high school.
And then they made that a junior high.
NM: Mm.
THS: Yeah. Up to that time that – we was there.
NM: And were you okay there? I mean, were the teachers nice to you then, too?
THS: Uh-huh. The teachers was good to us, and – and so was the kids.
NM: Yeah?
THS: I remember we had – well, I don’t know, but you know [murmurs] and Miss Six. She was
an older teacher. She was the nicest teacher you ever did see. There was quite a few colored kids
and they put us up there on the top of this – the one on – on, uh, the east side. The building on
the – there was one on the east side, one on the west side, and then one on the north side. There
was three buildings, yeah.
NM: Okay.
THS: And that was junior high. Okay, so you go in one building, you had a class there, and
maybe you had to go clear over to the other building to get there, to go to the other class.
NM: Mm-hmm.
�THS: Well, like I say, if you had gym, clear up to the top of the north building, and if you was on
the east building, you wouldn’t make it there. You got wrote up and you had to go stay after
school.
NM: Right. Yeah.
THS: So, um – I had a sore there.
NM: Oh, dear.
THS: I think – I think it has to do with that cancer I got on my nose.
NM: Oh.
THS: Yeah. And they took that one out, and I think it’s come back again.
NM: Mm.
THS: They took one out about that big on my cheek. And I had just had surgery for my eye,
because it was swollen shut.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And they just went to get the stitches out, and they sent me to a dermatologist.
NM: Oh, boy.
THS: He said they’d have to take that out. So now my eye is going shut again. But I’m not gonna
have to [murmurs].
NM: Oh, dear.
THS: But, no. But…and – and, Miss Six over there on the top of the – of the south building over
there, yeah, the south building, um…most of them was colored kids in there. Yeah. I don’t know
if they divided ‘em because of that, or – or what. But, there was about three of us Mexicans in
there with all these colored kids.
NM: Oh.
THS: Well, she couldn’t handle the kids. They’d get up and sing, and dance, and just carry on,
and she – she would say: “Now, kids, if you behave yourselves, I will give you an A!”
[Laughter] Well, we’d get an A too, ‘cause we was right there. Oh, it was so funny.
NM: So, what did Mrs. Six teach? Was she an English teacher?
THS: No, history.
�NM: Oh, history. Okay.
THS: Said: “If you behave yourself, I’ll give you all an A.” We all got an A, every one of us.
[Laughter]
NM: So, were you – were you the same kids all day, or did you change; switch around?
THS: No, we would change, because some of the kids took, uh, some kind of, uh, subject and the
others took another, you know.
NM: Mm-hmm. Right.
THS: And like the boys, they would play basketball or anything like that, so, you know, they
would change, they would go to – the girls would go to gym all – all at one time.
NM: Oh.
THS: Not at one time, a certain hour, and then the boys would go at a certain hour.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: But never together, you know. But, no, it was – it was real fun to go to school there. Then
when we went to high school, then it was a little bit different.
NM: Oh, was it?
THS: We didn’t, uh, we was just mixed in with everybody, and everybody treated us like
anybody else.
NM: Okay, well, that’s good.
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: That kind of surprises me.
THS: Yeah, it does. But, uh, the church, and if you ever go to the cemetery, you will walk behind
the – the garage –
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And you see, most of the older Mexican people are buried back there, because we wasn’t
allowed to be buried anywhere else in the cemetery.
NM: You had a certain area of the cemetery, yeah.
�THS: The back of the garage.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And we had to dig our own graves.
NM: Gee.
THS: And they had to make their own stone.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: They made it out of concrete and they wrote the names on it.
NM: Mm-hmm. Are your parents buried back there?
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Yeah.
NM: In the Catholic church?
THS: But, when Leo and I went to get our lots, I told him, he says: “Where do you want to go?”
I said: “I want ‘em over there by the lake.”
He says: “What for? You’re not gonna be able to see anything.”
I said: “I don’t care, I want…” So our – our tombstone’s just as you come in the gate.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: And then, uh, he said: “I want a vault.”
I says: “What you want a vault for, you’re gonna go to ashes anyway.”
He says: “I don’t care. I want a vault.”
NM: He said he wanted a vault?
THS: So he got his vault and [laughs] I got the –
NM: And you got the spot that you wanted.
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: Yeah, that’s great [laughs].
�THS: But, you know, most of it, it was because, we was, were – was able to, you know, be
buried anywhere then.
NM: Yes, yes.
THS: We didn’t have to be buried back – well, my folks are buried out there. Back there,
so…but Mrs. Mitchell’s buried – uh, she – she was a colored lady, she’s buried right next to
them.
NM: Uh-huh. So, did the colored people get buried in the – in the same area that the, um,
Mexican people did?
THS: When, uh, when Father, I think it was Father Larry, or one of ‘em, Father O’Neill, I can’t
remember which one it was, but that’s when we got, uh, and then of course when Father Tao
came, he was more or less, you know, for the whole. Uh, all the people in the church.
NM: Which one? Father who?
THS: Father Tao.
NM: Tao?
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: Oh.
THS: He was Monsignor Tao, I guess.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: I don’t know if he was here before, um, when he was still…yeah, he – he married us,
Monsignor Tao, yeah.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Uh, I was in high school and my dad had been in the hospital for three, uh, three weeks in
Topeka. And there was no income coming in. And so, uh, Gladys Romero used to clean house
for Mary Tao. That was Monsignor’s sister. And so, she had to quit for so – well, she had breast
cancer. And she had to quit, and so she asked me if I wanted to go take that job over there. So
Mary, she hired me right away, you know. And – excuse me – and so, uh, she had me taking the
flowers off the altar and – and, uh, cleaning the – the house, you know, and
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And uh, uh…ironing, you know, tablecloths for the altar and all that. Oh, I done it all.
Yeah.
�NM: So, you kept the church clean.
THS: Yeah.
NM: And the –
THS: Well, they –
NM: Parish –
THS: They had people come in and clean the whole church, but –
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Uh, she had me wash and iron the – the table – the altar cloths.
NM: Oh.
THS: Uh-huh. And the – the altar boys,
NM: Oh, the albs?
THS: ‘Cause at that time they didn’t have no girls, you know.
NM: Sure.
THS: Just boys. So I ironed all of them, so then when Leo and I got married, they had pictures
taken of her – him and I together with Monsignor and her.
NM: Oh.
THS: Oh, yeah. We got pictures, and then I asked her if she would stand up when we had Andy.
We was married three and a half years before Andy was born.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And she said yeah. So her and Leo’s brother stood up for Andy.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Yeah. Well, she got to where she was liking me real well, you know, she would just leave
me at the house and say: “Answer the phone, do whatever you want to do.” You know, they
would go somewhere and, so that’s what I did. And, uh, then I went to work in the laundry for
$12.50 a week.
�NM: Oh, I remember you working at the laundry. Yeah, where was the laundry?
THS: At Independent. Independent Laundry, right across from the seniors’ place, over on
Vermont.
NM: On Vermont, across from where the senior center is now? Okay.
THS: No, it’s across the street from there.
NM: Oh, okay. Across the street.
THS: Yeah. It was right next to the Brand building, where they had the W.R.E.N., it was right
next to it.
NM: Okay.
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: So, what was that like? Was it all Mexican girls working there, or a whole bunch of
different girls?
THS: No, they had others. They had colored ladies working, and Mexican girls, and they had
white –
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: White women, but at that time, you know, we was kids, and everybody just took us under
their wing, you know, they just –
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: [Murmurs] Thought it was just a bunch of kids that just loved to work [laughter]. You
know.
NM: Well, it’s hard work, ironing all day.
THS: We worked from six…6:30 in the morning till 5:00 at night, mm-hmm. In that heat.
NM: And seven days a week, was it, or did you get Saturdays off?
THS: Ah, no, we had Saturday and Sunday.
NM: Oh, nice. Okay.
THS: Unless we – unless they was behind, ‘cause we had to do all the sheets of the – and the
pillowcases of the fraternity houses and the sorority houses.
�NM: Oh.
THS: And all the Memorial Hospital sheets. We had to do all the, I mean, Jenny and I used to, I
mean, leave piles of sheets, you know. But of course, they had some ladies put them in baskets,
you know –
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And then put their names up. But yeah, we done all of ‘em. All the fraternity and sorority
houses.
NM: Did they have big washing machines to wash ‘em?
THS: They had a big [unintelligible] Tommy. I think they had five of ‘em [unintelligible],
Tommy. And then they had, uh, women on that – they had another room. And then they had the
office upstairs. And the women in the other room, they sorted out all the clothes. Except the
hospital ones. And, uh, Tommy had to just throw ‘em in the washer like that.
NM: Oh, yeah.
THS: But you never know when – what you’re gonna find in that hospital.
NM: That’s what I’m thinking.
THS: He used to take it, take stuff and throw it clear over [laughs]. Make us jump. I learned how
to do it all, I learned how to press shirts, I learned how to fold clothes, I learned how to put
tickets on them, I learned how to separate things.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Yeah. I had to.
NM: I just gotta get one more story. I – I love that story you have of Christmas and how you’d
go to church, and then your dad…
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Would invite everybody home. So, tell me that story again.
THS: Yeah, um, we used to make tamales. My mother would get up at 3:00 in the morning, and
she would be on her knees with a metate, which is a rock, and then another rock, a big rock about
this – did you ever see one like that?
NM: Uh-uh.
�THS: Okay. It’s a big rock, about that wide, and about that, and it kind of slants down. And then
she used to have a – another rock about this – it was only about that wide. And it was about that
long. And so, she put the corn in there, and then get that rock, and rock back and forth, and back
and forth, till she got all that masa just right.
NM: Mmm.
THS: Okay. She’d get up at 3:00 in the morning, 2:00 in the morning, and be out there, uh –
NM: Outside?
THS: No, in the house.
NM: Oh.
THS: Yeah, they would cook the – the corn outside.
NM: Oh, they cooked it outside.
THS: Yeah, in great big old cans, about that big.
NM: Okay.
THS: Yeah, they built a fire –
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And cooked the corn. Then they would bring the corn in, and, uh, she would grind it. And
then they would take their hands and work with it, after she grinded it.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And so, then she had all the rest of the family come in and you’d take that spoon and you’d
put that corn on them corn shucks, you know, you spread it out just so-so. She had to have ‘em
just so-so. You talk about being young and trying to get that on there.
NM: Oh, yeah.
THS: You’d put it on there, it’d come back in your fingers. Then she would took – take a piece
of meat, and then she would fold ‘em so, and then she would stack – she would put a little
wooden thing, about that big, that my dad made with three – with…uh, four, uh, little doodads
about that big, just like a star.
NM: Mm-hmm.
�THS: Only it had one more than a star. And then, um, she would stack the tamales in that bucket
just so-so.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Because you had to have this, the steam – you can’t cook ‘em in water. You have to just
cook ‘em in steam. So, you let the steam go out –
NM: In between.
THS: And that’s what cooks the tamales.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: She would make two or three cans, and the cans was about that big, that used to be flour
cans.
NM: Yeah.
THS: Okay. And then, after – then we’d have to pray the rosary, and my grandmother: “We got
to pray the rosary before we go. You can’t go till we pray the rosary.” Well, it’d be alright if we
prayed the rosary, but after we’d prayed for John because he was sick, and – and Joe because he
was sick, and this and that, and us on our knees. She: “You have to get on your knees,” on a
concrete floor. You know.
NM: Cold floor. Mm-hmm.
THS: Then after that, we gotta lay the Baby Jesus down before we go to church. Okay. We gotta
lay the Baby Jesus down, and my dad would go to the store and he would buy bags of mixed nuts
and bags of hard candy, and they would have this great big old dish, and they would fill it up.
You can’t have any of that till after you lay the Baby Jesus down. Okay. Then we were allowed
to go and get a handful. [Laughs]
NM: After all those prayers.
THS: Then after, we’d go to Mass. Then after Mass, my dad would stand on – on the – on
the…steps of the church, after church. “Come on to the house for coffee and tamales. Come on
to the house,” my mother would say. They would set this great big old table in the kitchen and,
uh, so that’s…
NM: And that would be an afternoon Mass, or a – or a – ?
THS: No, midnight Mass.
NM: Midnight Mass?
�THS: Oh, we had to go to midnight Mass.
NM: Oh.
THS: We had to lay the Baby Jesus down.
NM: Oh.
THS: Before we went to midnight Mass. Oh, yeah.
NM: Ah, so it would be like…one in the morning by the time you were home.
THS: Yeah, by the time everybody left, it’d be six o’clock in the morning.
NM: Oh, goodness.
THS: And, uh, everybody would come in for coffee, my mother would make pots and pots of
coffee.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: For coffee and tamales, and of course, they start talking about way back in Mexico and
pretty soon it was six o’clock in the morning and [laughs] you know, but that was Christmas.
NM: What a party. Yeah.
THS: That was Christmas, and everybody always looked forward to it.
NM: Yeah.
THS: Not everybody came, you know, but we always had a houseful.
NM: Great story.
THS: Not just of our family, but…
NM: Yeah.
THS: You know, yeah. And my grandmother used to come, and she’d spend one month with –
with us, one month in Topeka with my aunt, and another month in Pauline with my uncle. And
then she would start over again. She said that way they won’t get tired of her. [NM laughs] So,
and she come over here, my dad would buy her a dress, and maybe shoes, or something like that.
Then she’d go to Matt’s in Topeka, and they’d do the same thing. ‘Cause way back then, you
didn’t get no Social Security or anything .
NM: No, there’s no –
�THS: So that was the only way that she could make it. Of course, when she lived there with ‘em
for that month, they would feed her and – and all that, you know, so…but no, she came, and
they’d, uh, I mean, coming from somebody that really owned so much stuff and then – it was
hard on her.
NM: Had to have been very hard, mm-hmm.
THS: But…they made it.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: You know.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And still they’re – she’s – she’s gone. She passed away. In fact, they’ve all passed away.
Actually, I’m the only oldest one out of the whole family.
NM: Mm.
THS: I mean, um…my dad’s and – and my uncles and my aunts, yeah.
NM: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
THS: Yeah. Everybody else has passed away.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So…but no, we had – we had some good times.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And, uh, we – we played – we didn’t have to go out and find somebody to play. It was
always the boys against the girls. [NM laughs] Well, that’s because they would just push us
around and everything. Yeah, okay. “We’re gonna play football. We’re gonna play us against the
girls.” [NM laughs] “We’re gonna play baseball. Come on, girls. We’re gonna play against you.”
You know, and: “We’re gonna play basketball,” well, they – we had a – a basket that they had
cut the bottom out of it.
NM: Oh.
THS: And hang it up. And that was –
NM: That was your basketball.
�THS: It was always the boys against the girls, ‘cause there were so many. See, the – the Romeros
had eleven. Uh, we had seven. Uh, the Ramirez had, uh…ten, I think. And the Garcias had
eleven, too, I think.
NM: Gee.
THS: Yeah. They all had a big family, so –
NM: Right.
THS: We didn’t have to go out and – we – we just got pushed around. We didn’t have to go out
and find somebody to play with. [NM laughs] And then until we got a little bit older, and then
the Ramirez moved on New Jersey Street, right across from the Holy Rollers Church. [NM
laughs] The day that the Holy Rollers was gonna have church, we was all up in that porch, the
Ramirez porch, waiting to see them carry the people out. They would sing –
NM: Yeah?
THS: So much, that they would have to carry ‘em out.
NM: Wow.
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: They would faint?
THS: We had a lot of fun. But, you know, we – we went to the movies, we had to sit way up
there in the balcony.
NM: You had to sit in the balcony.
THS: Yes, we wasn’t allowed to sit anywhere else in the movies. We did get in for ten cents, so
we had to save up fifty cents [murmurs, laughs]. And they had chapters, and we would go every
Saturday morning, to see the Lone Ranger and Gene Autry and Will Rogers and –
NM: Oh, yeah.
THS: For ten cents, but, yeah. We – we enjoyed it, and like I say, La Yarda, they had, you know,
bathrooms, but, oh, it was so cold [laughs].
NM: Oh, goodness.
THS: And, uh, in the house, uh, we had wood stoves.
NM: Mm-hmm.
�THS: And if the wood stove went out in the middle of the night, you were out of luck. You’re
gonna freeze to death [laughs].
NM: Did your dad try to keep wood in there all night?
THS: My dad did, mm-hmm.
NM: Oh.
THS: Yeah, he tried to keep it… ‘cause, you know, I still had one of my older sisters at home
with us, and then my other sister, she was married, but he was in the service, so she lived right
across from us.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: In the other row of houses.
NM: Did you help your mother cook and do all the chores?
THS: They did.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: I didn’t have to do it.
NM: You didn’t have to, ‘cause you were the youngest?
THS: Mm-hmm. The others always griped [unintelligible]. My mother always said: “Leave her
alone. She’s – she’s too young to get in here.” And so I didn’t learn how to do anything.
NM: Oh.
THS: No. Mm-mm. I didn’t have to, ‘cause, both the girls was –
NM: Well, how did you become such a great cook?
THS: I don’t know.
NM: Just experience.
THS: I just experienced – I didn’t know how to cook one bit when I got married to Leo. And he
knew how to cook.
NM: Yeah? ‘Cause he’d been in the army.
THS: Uh-huh. He knew how to cook real good, but I – I didn’t.
�NM: How funny.
THS: But I learned, mm-hmm.
NM: Yeah.
THS: And a lot of it, you know, I couldn’t remember what my mother used to tell us. ‘Cause she
used to sit me down with the other two [laughs] and tell us what we were supposed to do and
how we were supposed to do it.
NM: Uh-huh. But you didn’t remember.
THS: I was – I was always the youngest, so I didn’t have to. They did.
NM: Yeah.
THS: Yeah. And then in the summertime, like I say, we picked potatoes. Then we’d went to
California. My mother had an aunt up there. That’s where my sister got married. My dad was so
mad. [Laughs] He couldn’t find her, they took off and hid in – along the trees along the road.
And, uh, we used to, uh, the boys, well, they’d take me too, but they would take me till we got to
the peaches and apricots, because –
NM: Oh. Are we talking about California now?
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: Okay.
THS: They say that they made more money because they would be picking up, and they had little
buckets about that big.
NM: Yeah.
THS: So, all I did all day long was carry little buckets back and forth. The women was cutting
the apricots in half, and laying ‘em on this tray, my mother did it.
NM: Oh.
THS: To dry.
THS: And then they’d put ‘em in the oven.
NM: Oh. Now, when was it that you went to California?
THS: [Laughs] In the summertime.
�NM: Oh, in the summer. Just one summer, or different summers?
THS: No. Different summers.
NM: Several summers you went to California.
THS: We would go in time to – to work on the apricots.
NM: Oh.
THS: And then we worked on the peaches. We lived in a tent there. My mother cooked outside
in the pot.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: But the boys says: “Mom, we’d make more money if she carries them little buckets back.”
Well, you know, carry the – I was old enough to go to school, though, they made me go to school
in Cucamonga, and I’ll never forget that. I didn’t like that.
NM: The what?
THS: Cucamonga.
NM: What’s that?
THS: It’s a town in California.
NM: You went to school there?
THS: Where I went to school.
NM: Oh, so it was like a migrant children’s school, or…regular ?
THS: No, it was a mixed school, uh, but I didn’t know any – anybody. There was a row of
houses, great big old row of one-bedroom houses, I mean, it reached for about a mile.
NM: Yeah.
THS: Where they’d hire all these – where the let all these people live, to work on their grapes.
NM: Oh, on the grapes.
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: Oh.
�THS: So, we would go and work on the – on the apricots, and then the peaches, and then we’d
come back over to this little town, and the boys would work in the grapes.
NM: Oh.
THS: Well, the more grapes they picked, the more money they made.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: I must have been about eight or nine. Maybe not even that. I don’t think I was there…
Anyway, the truck would come and drop off all them little wooden boxes about that big.
NM: Right.
THS: Well, they didn’t want to stop picking, because the more boxes they would, so they
would…
NM: So, you were the go-fer, huh?
THS: I went to get them little boxes, I carried two, one in each hand, you know, and get over
there to ‘em.
NM: Were they cardboard or wood?
THS: Huh?
NM: Were they cardboard boxes, or wood?
THS: No, it was the wooden boxes.
NM: Ugh. Heavy.
THS: And so, I’d take one in each hand and then take ‘em to one, and then go get two more and
take ‘em to the other, and…
NM: Right.
THS: The other – my three brothers was working in the area [murmurs].
NM: Now, did you take the train to California, or how did you get there?
THS: We took the train.
NM: Oh.
�THS: See, my daddy got a pass, so we could go anywhere as long as the train ran.
NM: Right. And so, you knew people there that got you these jobs, and…
THS: Well, uh, my aunt, she – well you didn’t have to know anybody, you just go there. There
was plenty of people to –
NM: Oh.
THS: You know, they had to pick that before it would ripen.
NM: Right.
THS: And so then, when we went over to this other place after we got the peaches and we went
in the grapes, oh that sand was so hot, though, on your feet. But the boys would say: “Mom,”
‘cause the truck would dump the boxes clear out there.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Well, if they had to quit picking to get the boxes, then they made less money.
NM: Mm-hmm. There you go. So they got their little sister to help.
THS: Till I had to go to school, they told me I had to go to school. They told my mother she had
to send me. Well, she put me on this bus. I don’t know anybody on the bus, ‘cause none of the
people there was very friendly, you know.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: They all kept to themselves. She puts me on this bus, and we go all the way about from
here to Eudora on the bus.
NM: Mm.
THS: Maybe a little further. Then the bus goes in this place, the gates open. Great big old fence
about as tall as this house. The bus walks – drives in, they close the gate. There I was, standing in
the hallway crying, I didn’t know anybody there; I didn’t even know what class I was supposed
to be in.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: You know, she just put me on the bus and she says: “Go to the school.”
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And the gates didn’t open again until you got to go home.
�NM: Like a prison.
THS: Yeah.
NM: Wow.
THS: It was. To me it was a prison, anyway.
NM: Did – did anybody help you?
THS: No.
NM: No?
THS: Finally a teacher came over, and she asked me where I was from. And so, she took me
under her wing and took me to this grade, and, uh – uh, you know, told the teacher there and –
but none of the other kids ever talked to you. No.
NM: So strange.
THS: They wouldn’t even sit with you when you had lunch, because you’d go out in – in under
these trees, and they had –
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Picnic benches out there. None of ‘em would talk to you. They was Mexicans and white
kids there too.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: But they… oh well [murmurs], oh well. I made it. Then we’d come back and we’d go to
Minnesota to work in the potatoes, the carrots –
NM: Gee whiz.
THS: And the onions.
NM: Hmm. And you took the train out there?
THS: No. Raymond put us in the back end of this big old truck. Four families back there. And it
was cold back there, too.
NM: Oh, yeah.
�THS: In the wind, you know. And so, we’d go out there, and we’d sit – we’d live in the garage
on a dirt floor.
NM: Gee.
THS: One in each corner of the garage, you know. We all slept in the same garage.
NM: Ooh.
THS: We just had to, you know, and then the women cooked outside.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And then the man had some peach trees out there. And apricots. [Laughs] And, of course,
you know, we being kids, we’d go over there after dark and pick ‘em.
NM: Sure.
THS: Then the next morning he would come and he’d tell my – our mothers: “Would you please
keep your kids off of there.” Oh, we was hungry. You know, living in a place like that and
nowhere, you know. They’d take us to town on Saturday nights to watch a movie, you know, and
they wouldn’t let us off the truck, because they was afraid we’d get lost. So we sat in – on – in
the truck.
NM: A drive-in movie?
THS: Well, it really wasn’t a drive in, ‘cause all you got to see was the movie. You couldn’t –
they didn’t have no things to –
NM: You couldn’t hear it?
THS: Mm-mm. But we seen the movie. [NM laughs] Then they’d take us, uh, twice a week to go
take a bath in the – in the lake.
NM: Oh.
THS: Great big lakes in Minnesota.
NM: Oh, that’s the cold water.
THS: Yeah. Yeah. That’s where we went and got…
NM: And it – was that summertime, it was fall or…?
THS: It was fall, yeah, because that was the time we picked.
�NM: Oh, gee.
THS: But we made money, enough for the kids to come back and go to school.
NM: Yeah.
THS: You know, the boys. That was the important thing, that –
NM: Why did it cost money to go to school? Just for school supplies, you mean?
THS: For school supplies, mm-hmm.
NM: Did you have to wear a uniform to school?
THS: No.
NM: Okay.
THS: No. We – we wore just any…
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Any, uh, thing we wanted to. Of course, we didn’t look like the other kids did, but we was
dressed, you know, had shoes on.
NM: Sure.
THS: We didn’t have to go barefoot. Yeah, we done all that when we was in La Yarda. We
walked to school from the Santa Fe yards clear over to New York, and then to Central, and then
to the high school.
NM: That’s a walk. That’s –
THS: We didn’t have no rides. We just had, in the wintertime it was so cold.
NM: I bet. I’m trying to think, it must have been two miles to Central, a mile and a half maybe.
THS: Well, it was all the way on the other side from La Yarda, way back here, all the way on the
other side of Massachusetts Street, on Kentucky, and then high school clear over there where
Central was at.
NM: Yeah.
THS: So…but, we made it through, and we got, you know, things, after a while things got better,
like I say, we was able to sit anywhere in church, we was able to be buried anywhere in the
cemetery, and –
�NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And so, we was able to go anywhere and eat, you know, without saying: “No, we can’t
serve you.”
NM: Mm-hmm. That must have been hard for your parents, then, when they got here.
THS: It was. But, they didn’t go anywhere except to church, you know.
NM: Yeah.
THS: I don’t think my mother in her life ever went to the grocery store.
NM: Really?
THS: No.
NM: Did your dad go to the grocery store?
THS: Yeah.
NM: Oh.
THS: My dad went every two weeks, and bought pork chops. That’s…the only time we got to
eat meat, we didn’t have to [murmurs, laughs]. He brought a whole bunch of pork chops for us,
and then he brought back some fruit. Apples, oranges, bananas and everything. I always
remember he’d bring it, and my mother would divide each one of us a banana and an orange and
an apple, you know. ‘Course, the girls couldn’t eat theirs all. So what’d they do, we had no
icebox. They’d put it on top of the icebox. You know, they would eat one or two, and put the rest
of ‘em up there. What do you think, with three boys it’s gonna stay up there? No.
NM: It didn’t last.
THS: There would be arguments going on all the time because: “You ate my apple, you ate my
orange.” Mom says: “Well, you should have ate it, or you should have hid it instead of putting it
up there where the boys could – ” ‘Cause there was three boys, you know.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And so, but…that was the times that we had down in La Yarda, and like I say, we did play
a lot of games, but it was always the girls against the boys. They beat us every time. [Laughs]
And then of course we had, uh, places where we’d get to go out and dig caves on the side of the
–
NM: Oh.
�THS: Yeah, it was sandy ground, you know.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: Where the flood has – had been before.
NM: Right.
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: And so you dug caves.
THS: So we used to dig caves.
NM: Oh, good.
THS: We had a lot of fun. We didn’t have to go out and find anybody else to play with.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Till later on, but…it was fun.
NM: Yeah. Well –
THS: I can remember all of that, and if there’s anything else you want to know, I’ll be more than
glad to –
NM: Well, I think I should probably let you go now, because we’ve been talking for, like, an
hour. I don’t want to wear you down.
THS: Oh, that’s alright. I’m not planning to do anything, no.
NM: Well, I’m thinking I’ll come back maybe next Sunday. What do you think?
THS: Sure.
NM: Yeah?
THS: Sure.
NM: Alright. Well, I’ll give you a call, see what’s a good time.
THS: Yeah. You still working?
NM: I work part-time.
�THS: Part-time.
NM: Mostly Mondays and Fridays.
THS: In Topeka?
NM: No, um, I’m doing home health now.
THS: Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. I thought you was still working for the, uh…
NM: St. Francis? No, no.
THS: For the…oh…
NM: Oh, Democrats?
THS: Democratic.
NM: Yeah, well, I worked there for a while, and then there was a whole turnover, so I left with
the other people who were leaving, so…yeah, but I liked working there.
THS: Did you? Yeah, I know you said you did.
NM: Mm-hmm. [Laughs]
THS: Yeah, that’s what happens. They, you know, have turnovers.
NM: Well, your, uh, neighborhood’s changed. [Papers shuffling] I haven’t been here for a while.
THS: We got a church – [tape cuts off]
END OF TAPE
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Text
Interview with Teresa Hernandez Schwartz
Interviewer: Nora Murphy
Date of Interview: October 13, 2019
Length of Interview: 47:30
Location of Interview: Home of Teresa Hernandez Schwartz
Transcription Completion Date: 2021
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Teresa Hernandez Schwartz (Interviewee): So…
Nora Murphy (Interviewer): So, um, did you know Father John Cousins got installed?
THS: Yeah.
NM: Yesterday.
THS: Uh-huh. That’s what Monty said.
NM: It was very beautiful, yeah.
THS: Says the archbishop was there.
NM: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
THS: So, yeah.
NM: The church was packed, full of people.
THS: Was it?
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Yeah. He said it was at the 4:30 Mass.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Yeah. Did you go to it?
NM: Yeah, I don’t usually go to 4:30 Mass, but, um, I just wanted to support Father. He’s not a
spring chicken, you know, he’s…
THS: That’s what that – that’s what Monty said. Do you know he’s been there at Haskell before?
I thought that I had heard about him.
NM: Oh, yeah.
�THS: Yeah. ‘Cause he said he was at Haskell for a while.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So. But…he’s – he says he seems to be real nice.
NM: He is really, really nice. I wish you could – could meet him.
THS: Yeah. Well, maybe one of these days.
NM: Yeah.
THS: But Father, uh…what was his name that was here before, he lives up on the hill now.
NM: Oh, Father Curtis?
THS: Ah, yes.
NM: I’m gonna move this closer to you, ‘cause the machine is going.
THS: Okay, yeah. I – I’m sorry, but this goes on some Sundays, as you know, just –
NM: It’s a busy day.
THS: Yeah.
NM: Did your son come today, this morning?
THS: Yeah. And my grandson was here, too.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: You know, they just popped in and out.
NM: Yeah.
THS: And so, she came to some – think she only comes every other Sunday.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And then Anita was gonna have to work 12 hours today, but she decided she didn’t want
to, because she’s already worked. She worked 12 hours and then she – she got, well, she went to
work at 4:00, got off at 11:00, went back to work at – before 7:00, and then got off at, uh, 3:00
and then worked four more hours, so…
NM: Gee whiz.
�THS: Yeah. So…
NM: How many kids do you have?
THS: Four.
NM: Oh, four.
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: So there’s Anita, and –
THS: And Andy, Anna.
NM: Andy. Anna. They all start with “A”?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Who’s the fourth one?
THS: Well, except Richard. Richard.
NM: Oh, Richard [laughs].
THS: Yeah. He doesn’t, uh, start with “A”.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Yeah, he called me yesterday and he says on November the 12th he’s gonna have a knee
replacement.
NM: A knee replacement. Oh, that – he’s not that – he’s not very old, is he? Is he in his –
THS: Oh, yeah.
NM: In his 50s, maybe, or…?
THS: He’s, uh, Andy’s 61. And Richard’s 18 months younger than he is.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: So yeah, they’re – ‘cause the girls are gonna be 55 in December.
NM: Oh, really?
�THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Okay.
THS: Yeah. Anita’s thinking of retiring.
NM: Well, she’s young enough; she could have a second career doing something else.
THS: Yeah. She wants to go get a job, where she can have insurance.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: But Monty said today that if she went ahead and, uh, took disability, well she – she can.
She’s got that, uh, um, myasthenia gravis.
NM: Oh, she does. Oh.
THS: And so she – he said if she wants to take it, she could get, uh, her retirement from Frito
Lay and then get retirement, you know, disability.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So, I don’t know. She’s – he’s gonna talk to her and see.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Sorry, I started to put a tablecloth on the table this morning, and this is as far as I got.
NM: Oh, yeah, well, it looks just fine.
THS: Well, everything is stacked up there. I’ll clean it off before I [unintelligible].
NM: So, what, did you have any more stories for me today?
THS: Well, um…did you hear about the – of the…prisoners of war that was right – right there?
NM: Visitors of war?
THS: The prisoners.
NM: Prisoners?
THS: They had – there was prisoners, a camp right there.
NM: Oh, prisoners’ ward. Oh, no, I don’t know anything about that.
�THS: Yeah. Well, it was right in front of the railroad tracks. And, of course, we was down that
little hill from the railroad tracks. We used to sit there and watch ‘em play basketball and ping
pong and all that. They used to be out there, yeah. They had their barracks and they had a fence
clear around it; it’s right there, just at the end of 11th Street.
NM: Oh.
THS: That’s what that was.
NM: Now, was this during World War II?
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: And these were Germans?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Oh.
THS: German prisoners.
NM: Uh-huh, but you could just see them through the fence?
THS: Yeah, we used to sit on the railroad. Not all of us, just, you know, certain ones that wanted
to see. Sit on the rail – rails.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: And watch ‘em [NM laughs] play ball.
NM: What do you know?
THS: And then we used to, um, watch the circus come in.
NM: A circus.
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: Where did that set up?
THS: Uh, it would come in on the rail – on the – on the railroad.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: You know. I mean, not the railroad, but yeah, the railroad. And, uh, we could watch ‘em
unload the elephants and all these fancy-looking girls and –
�NM: Oh.
THS: You know, and all that stuff. Yeah, we used to sit on the rail and watch them whenever
they came to town. Yeah.
NM: Where would the circus set up; where would they set –
THS: Right up here.
NM: Really?
THS: Where I had to pick rocks up for years and I’m still picking, now I don’t get out there
anymore.
NM: In your yard?
THS: Mm-hmm. That was a parking lot.
NM: Oh, your yard was the parking lot for the circus, and the circus was a little bit north?
THS: No, it’s right up there.
NM: Oh, a little bit east?
THS: Yeah, where the park – next to the park.
NM: Really?
THS: You know where that glass house is?
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: Well right on the other side of the creek.
NM: Oh.
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: So, you really haven’t moved very far.
THS: No, uh-uh. No. It’s – it’s, um, we used to…well, when we moved here, Leo started to
plant, so there was rocks – I have picked rocks up just since the last couple of years, when I
haven’t been able to. Used to pick boxes of ‘em, and then Andy would take ‘em up to his house
and put ‘em in his driveway.
�NM: Oh, really?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Big rocks?
THS: Well, no, you know what they put in the parking lots.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Mm-hmm. About that size.
NM: Just gravel, uh-huh.
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: So, there was all these rocks because it used to be a driveway. Oh.
THS: No, it used to be a parking lot.
NM: A parking lot, I mean. Yeah.
THS: Uh-huh, right there.
NM: Uh-huh [laughs].
THS: So, yeah, the garden was full of ‘em. Leo plowed the ground up, and you could see ‘em
[murmurs].
NM: Oh, isn’t that funny.
THS: Mm-hmm. But, um –
NM: And did you ever go to the circus when you were a kid?
THS: Uh-uh.
NM: No?
THS: We didn’t have any money.
NM: Oh.
THS: Yeah.
NM: How much did it cost?
�THS: Ah, I can’t remember.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Just – we never went to it, because we couldn’t afford it.
NM: Right.
THS: We could sit far away and watch ‘em, you know.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: We could sit over there just as you get off the railroad tracks coming down 11th Street.
NM: Yeah.
THS: We used to sit up in there somewhere and watch ‘em.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: But we, of course they had a big tent, we couldn’t see anything.
Anita: Mom, are you cold? Do you want your jacket?
THS: Uh, no. [Murmurs]
Anita: I’ll bring it to you.
THS: Yeah. Um…any – would you like to have something to drink?
NM: No, I’m fine.
THS: Okay.
NM: Thank you.
THS: Yeah, there’s water, and –
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And Dr. Pepper.
Anita: [Murmurs] Excuse me.
THS: What’s the matter? Oh.
�Anita: No, I’m just waiting for the thing to [murmurs].
THS: Oh. Anyway, uh, we used to do all of that, yeah.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: I mean, you know, the circus would come park their car – the rail cars right in front of our
house, so we would see all the elephants, because after they got ‘em off, they would go to
Massachusetts Street and have a parade.
NM: Really?
THS: And so, we used to watch – watch ‘em unload the elephants, and all these fancy girls with
their feathers on and everything, you know. Yeah.
NM: Were there big crowds of people to –
THS: Not –
NM: Come to the –
THS: Not – not when they was here, ‘cause we didn’t go to Massachusetts Street.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: We – we watched everything just off of sitting on the railroad track.
NM: So, but, was there, like, a tent where people would come to see a show, or was it…?
THS: Well, there was a tent, yeah, down here.
NM: Did they get a lot of people to come to the tent to see the show?
THS: Well, if you had money.
NM: If you had money [laughs].
THS: Yeah, we didn’t have any money.
NM: Right.
THS: So, we would just sit far away and watch people walk in. We couldn’t see any of the – of
the tricks or anything that was going on.
NM: Yeah.
�THS: You know, but we did see them unload all the – everything. Their wagons and –
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: And the clowns, and everything, we…
NM: So, when you were talking about the, um…the prisoners of war, and you were saying they
were over there, were – are you – are we still talking about your parking lot here? Like outside
your house, or were they –
THS: No.
NM: They were further down.
THS: I’m talking – I’m talking about in front of La Yarda.
NM: In front of what?
THS: La Yarda.
NM: Oh, La Yarda.
THS: See, there was two rows of houses like this; they faced each other.
NM: Yeah.
THS: The water pump sat right in the middle. And, uh, then the railroad was here. It was just
about from here – wasn’t even as far as from here to the Fields house.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: It was closer than that. ‘Cause it just went up the hill.
NM: Oh.
THS: We used to slide down that hill when we got back from school, instead of going clear
around.
NM: Ah.
THS: A lot of times, we didn’t do that too much because we would dirty our clothes.
NM: Yeah.
Formatted: Spanish (Spain)
�THS: So we didn’t, uh…but no, we used to see the prisoner camp. You know, you come down
11th Street
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Do you know where that path is? Where that – you ride your bicycles and walk?
NM: Right.
THS: Okay. When you go to the end of the, uh, there’s the [unintelligible] – there’s the City
garage there.
NM: Yeah.
THS: Okay. You just go that way, and, uh, there’s buildings right in there. Just right off the 11th
Street.
NM: Right.
THS: That’s where the – that’s where they, uh, put their, uh…they built fences. Real tall fences,
you know.
NM: Isn’t that something.
THS: And they would bring ‘em in on a – on a – on a, not a boxcar, but they’d bring ‘em in on a
regular passenger car.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: The train, and then they would unload ‘em there.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: There was quite a few of ‘em.
NM: Hmm. Gee.
THS: We thought it was kind of fun, you know, sitting up there watching ‘em playing ball.
NM: Very unusual.
THS: Well – ‘cause we knew that they was prisoners of war, you know.
NM: Uh-huh. Now, how old were you then?
THS: I was, uh…oh, my, let’s see. Well, it was during World War II.
�NM: Right.
THS: And I was born in 1930.
NM: Okay. So you’re, like, in your teenage years.
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: Yeah, some –
THS: Did you know anybody that had to go to war?
THS: Yeah, my brother did.
NM: Your brother?
THS: And my sis – and my brother-in-law did. And then my other brother, but he didn’t go to
war. He just joined the Navy.
NM: Oh.
THS: Uh, but my brother Joe, he was up there.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And my, um, brother-in-law, he was, uh…he was right in the middle of the – of the
shooting, and they shot him in the leg, and he fell, he couldn’t – couldn’t move, you know, he
was there. And the – he said the Germans was coming with their rifles and their bar – bar –
NM: Bayonets?
THS: Bayonets, yes. And they would, uh, stick ‘em to make sure that they was – that they was
dead, you know, and he said he heard ‘em coming. So what he did, he said, he pulled one of ‘em,
a dead one, over on top of him. So, he says they came along and – and, uh, stuck the one on top
of him. And that’s the only way that he got saved, and he was able to get out of the war.
NM: Wow.
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: He came home.
THS: Yeah.
�NM: Did Joe come home?
THS: Joe came home, yes. Um, they both came home. Joe – Joe was, uh, in the Air Force. And,
uh, he was on the ground crew. And, uh, he said that, uh, the Germans was coming. And, uh, the
commander told ‘em to all go up, you know, with their rifles, you know, and fight. And he said
that they was just young kids in his, uh, in the squad…uh…
NM: Squadron?
THS: Squadron, yeah. My mouth isn’t just right today. And so, he says that the commander told
him, he started to run back. And he says the commander told him to shoot him.
NM: Oh!
THS: And he says, he told my mother: “Mom, I couldn’t shoot him. So, he told me, he said: ‘If
you don’t shoot him, I’m gonna shoot you.’” ‘Cause they didn’t want ‘em to run back, you
know.
NM: Yeah.
THS: They wanted ‘em to go forward.
NM: Right. And it started a panic if somebody runs back.
THS: And he says: “I wasn’t,” so they put him in the brig for six months because he didn’t – he
wouldn’t do that.
NM: Wow.
THS: And we didn’t know where he was at. We – we thought maybe he was dead somewhere,
‘cause we hadn’t heard from him. He used to write all the time to Mom, but he hadn’t wrote for
quite a while. And so my mother got, uh, this lady that was Spanish, she was [laughs], you know,
Mexican, that knew how to speak English.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So, she went to her and asked her if she would go to the Red Cross and find out, you know,
something had happened to him. And so, she went, and, uh, then, uh, they got – they got – he got
permission to write to my mother and tell her that he had been in the brigs for six months.
NM: Oh, gee whiz.
THS: ‘Cause he wouldn’t have shot that – he wouldn’t shoot that –
NM: Mm-hmm.
�THS: Young kid. But he says: “I can’t [murmurs] shoot him or anything.” I mean, he said: “I felt
like running back.”
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: You know.
NM: Yeah.
THS: You’re scared.
NM: Oh, of course.
THS: You see all these people coming after you.
NM: Right. It seems so immoral to shoot one of your own.
THS: But he wasn’t hurt. When the war was over, he came home.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And my brother-in-law came home too, but he was hobbling for quite a while after that.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Wasn’t able to do that, but yeah. [Murmurs]
NM: Do you remember any shortages during the war, or things that were different? Did you have
to get those coupons, or…?
THS: Yeah.
NM: Yeah?
THS: Mm-hmm. We had a coupon book for sugar.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: And coffee was really hard to get.
NM: Oh.
THS: You know, they would just give you one, I think, every month.
NM: Oh.
�THS: But of course, we wasn’t used to drinking coffee. We drank milk all the time.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: We got it from the farmer down here at the corner. Down 11th Street at the railroad. He had
some apple trees, so we got the apples too.
NM: You did? [Laughs]
THS: In fact, he said: “Don’t pick my apples. I’m selling ‘em.” [NM laughs] But that didn’t
make any difference till he put a bull in the pen.
NM: You did what?
THS: He put a bull…
NM: Put a bull?
THS: A bull – a bull.
NM: Oh.
THS: Mm-hmm, you know.
NM: Yeah.
THS: Not a cow, but a bull.
NM: Yeah.
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: In with the apple trees?
THS: Yeah, well, we had to get in there to get to the apple trees. [NM laughs] So he put him in
there so that, uh, we would stay out of there, but you know, we’d get in there anyway. And then
when they got after us, we would just run as fast as we could. [NM laughs] And jump over the
fence, yeah.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: We went to get milk there, from the farmer. And he used to say: “Don’t pick my apples,”
you know. On the way home, we used to fill our pockets with apples.
NM: Oh.
�THS: Mm-hmm. But that was a lot of fun.
NM: Yeah.
THS: You know, he didn’t want us – he said: “I sell my apples.”
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: You know, there – oh, and Peter, his folks moved from Quenemo to Lawrence to the La
Yarda, and they lived there for a while. And then they moved back to Quenemo. And they lived
in Quenemo for a while, and then they moved back to Lawrence.
NM: Now, who was Peter?
THS: Romero.
NM: Oh, okay. Pete Romero?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Oh, he went back and forth to Quenemo?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Okay, and is that the same village that your parents came from?
THS: No.
NM: No.
THS: My, uh, parents came from Topeka.
NM: Oh.
THS: His parents came from Quenemo.
NM: Oh, yeah, okay. Sorry.
THS: Yeah. That’s alright.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: I can’t talk today anyway, for some reason [NM laughs]. My mouth is…sticking together.
Anyway, uh, yeah, they – they didn’t live in La Yarda all the time.
�NM: Yeah.
THS: In all them pictures that you see, um, all them people – did you ever make it to Watkins
Museum?
NM: Um, you know, I went over there, but I didn’t see the pictures of – I got distracted, so I’ll
have to try it again.
THS: They said they were on the third or the fourth floor. I don’t know, though they’re not on
the first floor.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: But all them people that are there…
Anita: Here’s those, Mom. Some of ‘em are originals, and I have copies of – that’s the one that’s
in the Watkins Museum.
NM: Oh, oh. This one?
Anita: Yeah.
NM: Yeah, wow.
Anita: And some of these are originals, but I do have copies of most of ‘em.
NM: Mm-hmm.
Anita: Um…so, um, I mean, if you want to take a copy, that’s fine; I wouldn’t take the original.
But, like, that’s 1951, when the – when it flooded.
NM: Yeah.
Anita: And…
THS: Is that where La Yarda was?
NM: In the –
Anita: Yeah.
NM: Are those the boxcars?
THS: Yes. Yeah. Them are the boxcars, mm-hmm. Them are pile of they call ‘em ties. They’re
the ones that they put on the railroad tracks –
�NM: Uh-huh.
THS: Underneath the rails.
NM: Right.
THS: That’s what my – my dad and all them used to do. Um…
NM: Wow. So, here’s one with houses in it.
Anita: Okay, here you go.
NM: So that’s north of 11th and Haskell, 1951 flood.
THS: This is a…[murmurs]…it goes this way. Hmm. [Long pause] This is right here on 11th
Street. Uh…this goes like that [murmurs]. I don’t really know what that is, right there.
NM: The building?
THS: The building, yeah, but that’s the boxcars.
NM: Oh.
THS: And this is
Anita: Isn’t that Poehler’s?
THS: Poehler, no, uh-uh. No, I don’t know, really, what that is. Um…well, these I don’t
remember. Oh –
Anita: And then there’s some more.
THS: We had it upside down. That’s where the German camp was.
NM: Oh.
THS: See? We had it upside down.
NM: So…
THS: See, there’s another –
NM: Are those the buildings the barracks where the Germans lived?
THS: Yeah.
�NM: Oh.
THS: See, there’s more buildings on there too.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: I think there’s the same ones.
NM: Uh-huh. What do you know?
THS: We was looking at it upside down, that’s why.
Anita: I’ll look through the other ones, Mom, to see if there’s…
THS: Okay. I don’t know what she’s got there. That’s my sister’s house. And this is…this is my
mother’s, my mother and my dad.
NM: Now, is that at La Yarda, or a different place?
THS: No, that was on Rhode Island Street.
NM: Rhode Island? Uh-huh.
THS: Yeah. And this was too – that’s my mother, my sister, and, uh…that’s my – this is my
niece, my brother’s daughter, when she made her first Holy Communion. And that was my
mother and dad.
NM: That’s you, there?
THS: Yeah.
NM: Oh.
THS: Most of these pictures I think are from Rhode Island [murmurs].
NM: You’re so cute. Wait – Rita Hernandez, Avery, and Grandpa and Grandma.
THS: Yeah.
NM: Oh, so – that’s Rita.
THS: Oh, that’s Rita?
NM: It says –
THS: Oh, I guess it is. I thought it was –
�NM: On the back, it says Rita Hernandez and Avery.
THS: Yeah, it was Rita. I – I remember that.
NM: Awful cute.
THS: It was Rita. [Long pause] Let’s see…that’s my niece. That’s my…that’s my mother. And
that little lady was blind. She couldn’t see anything. But she could make it over to my mother’s
house and, um, visit my mother. I think this is – this is my dad and my grandmother, here.
NM: It says the little girl might be you, but I don’t know. Do you think that’s you?
THS: No.
NM: No, you were bigger than that in the Rhode Island house. Yeah.
THS: No, that’s not me. Mm-mm.
NM: Maybe it’s a different little girl.
THS: This is my sister, my other sister, my two cousins; one of them was a nun. This one was
the one that was a nun, right there.
NM: Oh.
THS: She went on to be a nun. This is my folks, this picture.
NM: Oh.
THS: I don’t know – did she show you something in here about –
NM: Um, there was a picture of a group of people from La Yarda in that book.
THS: Oh. Okay, then she knows, ‘cause she… [long pause, murmurs]
NM: You’re not in this picture, Teresa?
THS: No.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: I was too young.
NM: A wedding or something.
�THS: Mm-hmm. See, the ‘51 flood, um…see the railroad?
NM: Yeah.
THS: That’s where the men used to sit and watch to make sure that the water didn’t get over.
NM: Oh.
THS: For the trains to go in. And this is, uh…hmm. [Murmurs]. This is the Santa Fe depot.
NM: That’s –
THS: It was an old Santa Fe depot, and they knocked it down and they built a new one.
NM: Oh.
THS: After the flood, because they couldn’t leave the other one, ‘cause of that water all inside of
it and everything.
NM: Right. Yeah, the one that’s there today is, like, 1950s sort of architecture.
THS: Yeah. We used to play across from there. We used to play in the sand piles. They had sand
piles there, and we used to get up and – that’s the only pleasure besides, you know, we used to
go up on the great big old sand piles and jump all the way down. [NM laughs] Mm-hmm. Yeah,
so…but, uh…I didn’t realize that that was, you know, some – but that’s, you know, boxcars,
there. Just right across from La Yarda.
NM: Yeah. Anita showed me a picture of some girls, and…let me find it.
THS: She did? Okay.
NM: Yeah.
THS: I don’t know where she got that book.
NM: Yeah.
THS: Ordered it or something. She’s always wanting, uh, you know, to go back into history.
Then I lost the paper with the DNA. Now I gotta go talk to [Roger Rachel?] and have her send –
I thought I was a Mexican, but we was – we’re Indians, wasn’t it?
Anita: Yeah, but they were –
THS: Mexican-Indians.
Anita: Mexican-Indians. They were from the United States side.
Formatted: Spanish (Spain)
�NM: Oh.
Anita: And then when they took Texas over, then they got pushed back. There’s – those are the
only last of the originals that I got, Mom.
NM: Oh.
THS: Okay.
Anita: So, those…
THS: Yeah. That’s me.
NM: Oh, that’s you as a baby.
THS: Yeah.
NM: The baby picture, or the girl picture?
THS: Both.
NM: There’s two pictures. Oh, they’re both you. Let’s take a look.
THS: Did you find that one about the – the girls in the –
NM: Yeah.
THS: She’s looking for – oh, you found it. Yes. Oh, yes. Uh-huh. She’s got the little boys, see
the water? They told us that the bridge – they had this old bridge, and if you got on it during the
‘51 flood, you could stand on it and you could – it, you could, uh, feel it moving back and forth.
NM: Oooh.
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: Oooh, that sounds creepy.
THS: See, all of North Lawrence was flooded. And so, um…and so first we was being girls, we
had to go and see. We get on this bridge and –
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: Feel it swinging back and forth. We got off of it in a hurry.
NM: You went and got on there, wow.
�THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Look at this adorable baby picture, that is so cute.
THS: Yeah, that’s me. [Laughter]
NM: Looks really cute.
THS: Yeah, here we are – all are. And that’s Jenny, Mercy, Alberta, um, Gladys, me, and Toni.
Yep. The boys was – I think they was the Romeros. You know. Yeah, but, um, Peter and them,
they – they went to – they moved to Lawrence and then they moved back to – to, uh…is that
different from the – from the Santa Fe depot.
NM: Oh, yes, very.
THS: It was a lot different then.
NM: Different, yes.
THS: Yeah, they had to knock it down, ‘cause there was water all over the inside of it. Mmhmm. But, um, [murmurs]. I [murmurs] my next-door neighbor, Leroy Grummett. He had to go
in to get people out of North Lawrence, ‘cause North Lawrence was completely flooded.
NM: Wow.
THS: I mean, and people, you know, they told ‘em to get out, just like they told us, and –
NM: Right.
THS: And they wouldn’t get out. And so, he had a boat, and he would take the boat across and
he would get across all right, but on the way back, it would take him halfway to Eudora.
NM: Just the current, huh?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Wow.
THS: So, anyway, uh…but he – he volunteered to do that and for the longest –
NM: Now, who was that? Who did that?
THS: Leroy Grummett.
NM: Leroy Grummett.
�THS: And for the longest time, his picture was at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, before they put
that other front in.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: Where the – where the pond, or the fish in there, the kids used to call it fishing. [NM
laughs] But, where you throw a little money in.
NM: Yeah.
THS: So they built that.
NM: So his picture used to be there, like, in honor of him for doing all that brave work?
THS: Yeah. Yeah, his picture was in there for a long time.
NM: Huh.
THS: But, uh, you know. It’s…it was fun, you know. Like I say, we didn’t need to go out and
find somebody to play with.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Or somebody to walk to school with. We – we always had a big crowd.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So.
NM: Tell me again, what were the names of all the kids in your family?
THS: In my family?
NM: Yeah.
THS: Okay. Um, the…there’s my sisters. In California.
NM: Okay.
THS: And, uh, this is my other sister. And them are two of my cousins. That one’s the one that
was a nun.
NM: Now, what are your sisters’ names?
THS: Um, this one’s named Carmen.
�NM: Uh-huh.
THS: And this one was named Soledad.
NM: Soledad.
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: Wow.
THS: And then, uh, I have, uh, Pete and Joe and Chino and Jesse.
NM: Chino?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: What, is that short for something?
THS: Yeah. His name was Gabriel.
NM: Oh.
THS: But he had such curly hair, everybody called him Chino, which means curly hair in – in
English.
NM: Oh, it does?
THS: Yeah.
NM: Okay.
THS: He had real curly hair.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And so, everybody used to call him that because it was so short –
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: Instead of calling him Gabriel.
NM: Yeah. Did you have a nickname?
THS: Uh, no, my – my, um, brother that, uh, you know, was two years older than I was, uh, he
couldn’t call me Teresa. So, he called me, uh, “Chita.”
�NM: “Chita.”
THS: Uh-huh. ‘Cause my mother…and, you know, when I said the other day that – about them
sprinkling water all over? My grandmother used to keep us up on all that.
NM: Mm.
THS: Even when we was real little.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: She used to sit us and – and pray the rosary, and tell us what used to go in, you know.
What used to go in that little place where we used to live in Topeka. You know, where my
mother got up and watered the floor every morning –
NM: Yeah.
THS: And all that, yeah. My grandmother kept us up on that when we got a little bit older. Then
we didn’t, you know, where we came from.
NM: She told you how it used to be?
THS: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
NM: And she told you about old-time Mexico and the hacienda?
THS: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
NM: Those must have been good stories.
THS: Yeah, it was.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And, uh…you know, other than that, I don’t, uh, but anyway, that was her.
NM: Wow.
THS: That’s my dad and that was my grandmother.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Um, he brought her over. He would not leave her when he came to the United States, and
he would not leave my aunt and my two cousins. He brought them over as his daughters.
�NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: It’s a wonder they didn’t think that he had too many daughters all the same age. [NM
laughs] You know, because they was, you know, they was just about the same age.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: And there was four of ‘em, you know. All them four right there.
NM: Uh-huh. Yeah. And so then you were born here.
THS: Yeah.
NM: Uh-huh. And then, um, who else was born here; any of the boys?
THS: Uh, Pete and Carmen and Chole was born.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: In Mexico. Then they came to the United States when – when, uh – said that they had lost
the hacienda.
NM: Yeah.
THS: Because they was coming through and killing all the – all the men that was any – anybody
at all, you know. And so then, uh, they came back to the United States and Joe was born in
Kansas City. And then they went back, because they thought that they’d go and dig the – the
money out, but there was no digging money up, because it wasn’t worth the paper it was printed
on.
NM: Oh, yeah.
THS: So then, uh, Chino was born in Mexico, so there was, uh, Carmen – it was Pete, Carmen,
Chole, and Chino. And three of us was born here. Joe was born in Kansas City, and Jesse and I
was born in, we call him – well, we called him “Nutty” all the time, for Natividad.
NM: Oh.
THS: Till he went to work at the schools, and then the teachers refused for the kids to call him
that.
NM: Nutty. [Laughs]
THS: Yeah. They didn’t – they didn’t like it. They told ‘em that they – they had to call him
Jesse.
�NM: Okay.
THS: Or Natividad, ‘cause his name was Jesse Natividad.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: But, yeah, there was a big history, but…
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: It’s, uh…I didn’t know that that was Rita. I guess it was Rita. Huh. And that hasn’t been
too long before my mom and dad passed away.
NM: Mm.
THS: ‘Cause, um…she’s married. I mean, she’s married on – on this – yeah, she’s married to –
you can tell that, uh…
NM: That’s a cute picture.
THS: I mean, she wasn’t married there in the picture –
NM: No.
THS: But she – she was married later on.
NM: Right.
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: So, when did your mom and dad pass away?
THS: My mom and dad passed away, let’s see, the girls was, uh, in junior high.
NM: Oh.
THS: One in high school.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: Um…they asked me – my dad had – my dad was always falling. He had high blood
pressure. He was falling out in the yard, and the neighbors would call me and tell me, you know:
“Your dad has fallen, Teresa.” So, I kept getting in the car and go right up there and get
somebody to come pick him up, and – and, uh, he kept telling me: “Put us in a nursing home. Put
us – ”
�NM: Oh.
THS: I said: “I can’t do that.” I would go in the morning, give my mother an insulin shot, and my
dad would fix ‘em some – for them too, he would fix ‘em some eggs and toast for breakfast. And
then my sister-in-law, Jenny, would take lunch, and then I would take supper in for her. And, uh,
uh, put my mother to bed.
NM: Aww.
THS: You know, she was always in bed anyway, but I mean, you know, got her ready for bed.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: And, uh, he kept telling me, he says: “Put us in the nursing home.”
And I kept saying: “I can’t do that. I can’t do that.”
He says: “You got four kids. You can’t. And your husband’s working. You can’t
not…leave ‘em all the time and come over here every day, day after day.” You know, they was
living on, uh, Rhode Island and –
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So finally, I went up there one day, and he says: “Look, I have asked you and asked you to
put us in the home. And you don’t listen to me.”
I said: “I can’t do it.”
He said: “Yes, you can. You can do it.” And so, my – my brother in Topeka, his wife had
a sister that’s a nun, and St. Joseph, uh, nursing home.
NM: Oh.
THS: In Kansas City.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And so, he was over that afternoon, and – and they told – and my dad told ‘em:
“See, we keep telling her to put us in the nursing home. She just won’t listen to us.”
He said: “You know, [Aunt?] Rita works in the… ” Her – her, uh…her name really
wasn’t Rita any more, ‘cause she was a nun, you know, and they change their names.
NM: Right.
THS: And so, he said: “I’ll call her.” So he gets on the phone and calls her. Within an hour they
was over at the house [NM laughs] Her and another nun.
NM: Problem solved, huh? Wow.
�THS: And so, they signed the papers. He – my brother was there too. They signed the papers and
they said: “We’ll be ready for ‘em tomorrow.”
NM: My goodness.
THS: And my brother said: “Alright, I’ll bring ‘em down.”
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So, I was gonna drive, and he said: “No, I don’t want you to drive.” He said: “I’ll drive.”
So, him and my sister-in-law drove us, and then we took my mom and dad. Two weeks later, my
– well…a week later he – my dad had a stroke.
NM: Oh.
THS: So they put him in Providence Hospital.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: And then, uh, they sent him back to the…to the nursing home.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And, uh, he died a week later.
NM: My goodness.
THS: Two weeks after.
NM: Wow.
THS: Mm-hmm. So, I got the feeling that he probably knew that he was going, and he wanted
my mother in a…‘cause I had had her here when she had broke her hip. I had had her here for
about a month and a half, here at the house, and – and she didn’t want to be here, because she
says: “You’re taking the kids’ bedroom,” you know. We only had three bedrooms, you know, the
boys and the girls and then ours. And, uh…we, uh – Leo says: “We have to bring her home from
the hospital.” Him and I slept out on the back porch, next to the birdfeeder. It was so cold.
NM: Oh! So that you could talk privately.
THS: Yeah. Yeah. So that my mother wouldn’t be worried that we was – that we didn’t have a
place to sleep. [NM laughs] Anyway, he – he died two weeks later. We was all there.
NM: Mm-hmm.
�THS: Except my brother, he – my sister-in-law was a diabetic, and she forgot her pills, so he was
on his way home when we called him and told him that Dad had passed away.
NM: Oh, yeah.
THS: He felt bad, so bad, because we had been there all night. We went in there about two
o’clock in the afternoon, stayed there all night. All of us, you know. There was no chairs, there
was two chairs in there. The rest of us was – sitting on – on…my mother’s bed, where she was
laying, on the opposite bed.
NM: Oh.
THS: You know. And, uh, some of ‘em was…uh, leaning against the windowsill.
NM: Yeah.
THS: You know.
NM: Yeah.
THS: And the – the boys, some of ‘em was sitting on the floor.
NM: Oh, goodness. Yeah, yeah. A full house in that room.
THS: Mm-hmm. And so then, when he passed away, I asked my mother, I says:
“You want to go home with me? I can make room for you now.”
And she says: “No. They take me to Mass every morning; they take me to the rosary
every afternoon.”
NM: Uh-huh. Was your mom a religious woman? Mm-hmm?
THS: And she says: “I don’t want to go home.”
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: She didn’t know – speak English, I mean, a word of English. She just – all she learned how
to say is: “Nurse, bedpan.”
NM: Oh.
THS: She was a diabetic, and so, you know, that’s all she learned.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Uh-huh. But, uh, Rita would go over and see her, pretty near every day.
�NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And then, um, you know, they would let us know. And when she got real sick, they let us
know. We was all there in the end, you know, when she passed away.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Um, the doctors told us: “She’s got pneumonia. If we go ahead and clean her lungs out,
she’ll last two weeks. If we let her go, uh, she’ll be gone in three days.”
NM: Mm.
THS: And, uh, so then the kids says: “Well, you’re the one that took care of her. You make up
your mind what you want to do.”
NM: Oh, brother.
THS: I said: “Well, we’re all family.”
They said: “No, you – you talk to the doctor. You tell her what you want to do.”
I said: “You know, I can’t do that.”
They said: “Yes, you can.” So, I went in and I talked to my mother; she was still talking.
She said: “Let me go. Your dad’s already gone. Don’t do anything to me.”
I said: “Mom, I can’t do that to you.”
She said: “Yes, you can. You got your kids, you got your husband. Go ahead. Let me
go.”
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So, I told the doctor, I said: “She wants to go. She doesn’t want to stay.”
He said: “Well, that’s fine.” She was gone in three days.
NM: Wow.
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Just like he said.
THS: Yeah, just like he said. She was gone in three days.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So then we sold the house, and we used all the money for…to pay for both the funerals.
NM: Mm-hmm, sure. And were they buried through St. John’s?
THS: Mm-hmm.
�NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Both at St. John’s.
NM: Where – where did you meet Leo?
THS: Uh…he used to go to church. And I didn’t think much about it, because he was in the
service. And I always thought he was a [laughs]. He – he was – I always thought that he was
really thought he was really some – somebody, because his shoes was always so shiny. [NM
laughs] You could see yourself in them, you know? And he caught up with me. We used to go
every Saturday; a whole bunch of us girls used to go to the Meadow Acres in Topeka.
NM: Meadow Acres. Uh-huh.
THS: That’s a – that was a nightclub.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: And it was close to Forbes Fields. So, all the guys from Forbes Fields used to go over
there.
NM: Oh.
THS: And we would dance all night long, and about a half an hour before we left [unintelligible],
the dance was over, we would sneak out and go.
NM: Okay.
THS: Yeah. And get out, and – well, then they’d – our folks says: “You gotta go to Mass.” So
went to Mass and he caught up with me, and he – he started making a conversation. I didn’t want
to listen to him [laughs]. I was tired; I wanted to go home and lay down, ‘cause I had to go to
work on Monday.
NM: Oh, no.
THS: And – and so he says: “How would you like to have a cup of coffee?”
I said: “No, I don’t wanna have a cup of coffee. I wanna go home.”
So he said: “Alright.” So then the next Sunday, it happened again. Then the third Sunday,
I thought: “Gosh. If he – if I don’t go have coffee with him, he won’t leave me alone.” So – oh,
sorry.
NM: That’s okay.
THS: Anyway, uh, we went to have coffee, to the Deluxe Café there on Massachusetts Street.
And so then he asked, you know, he started asking me questions:
�“Do you work? Where do you work? How long have you been there?” And all this stuff,
you know. I was so tired, I didn’t even care what I was saying. Well, Monday morning comes. I
come out with my friend Jenny to go across the street to have coffee on our coffee break. And
who should be out there [NM laughs] but him and his friend Gene.
NM: Oh.
THS: He says: “We came to take you for coffee.”
I said: “I only have fifteen minutes.”
He says: “Well, it won’t take long.” So the next day, he was there again. With Gene. The
third day, it was him by himself [laughs]. Gene wasn’t with him. [NM laughs] Anyway, then, uh,
the next day, he was there, till they changed shifts when he – when he had to go on days, he
wasn’t there, because he would change shifts every other week.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Mm-hmm. Midnight shift, and then the 4:00-12:00 shift, and then day shifts, so, um…then
every day he was out there, and the ladies down where they was sorting the clothes out in that
big room:
“Guess who’s out there? Guess who’s out there?” [Laughs]
“I don’t know who’s out there,” you know? [NM laughs] So, then finally we decided that
we, you know, we started going together, and when we went to the Meadow Acres, we went
together.
NM: Oh.
THS: Yeah, we took all the rest of the girls, but we went together.
NM: Did Leo like to dance?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: He did?
THS: Yeah. He was a good dancer.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Yeah. And so, you know, uh, then after that it was just…you know, you never got married
way back then. I guess you – you know, I was a Mexican.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And he was German, you know. You didn’t get married out of your race.
NM: Mm.
�THS: Way back then.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: You know, it was – it was hard. You should have heard my dad.
NM: Really?
THS: Yes. But Leo had a way that he – people most – most people would like him, you know?
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And so, after that, Dad – Dad began to where he was pretty good with him. And then, uh,
when we moved out here, Dad used to come out and help him, you know, clean weeds, the
weeds out of the garden and all of that.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Yeah. But…we was married 57 years.
NM: Oh, my goodness.
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: A good long time.
THS: It is. It’s a long time.
NM: Well, I’m gonna have to get going.
THS: I’m sorry, I – you don’t – I was talking so much, I don’t know what you can use out of
there or not, but, yeah.
NM: Oh, yeah. That was great. I enjoyed hearing your stories. I – I can’t come for the next
couple of weeks though. I’ve gotta go do something else, so…
THS: Okay, that’s fine.
NM: Maybe in November I’ll swing by, see what you’re up to.
END OF TAPE
�
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246ded44ee1bee713df4b33af15b5355
PDF Text
Text
Interview with Teresa Hernandez Schwartz
Interviewer: Nora Murphy
Date of Interview: October 13, 2019
Length of Interview: 7:31
Location of Interview: Home of Teresa Hernandez Schwartz
Transcription Completion Date: 2021
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Teresa Hernandez Schwartz (Interviewee): …Them all up after I got married. With my mother
and all the rest of the older women. We used to go to the basement to make that hot chocolate,
stirring it from 5:30 in the morning till eleven o’clock at night.
Nora Murphy (Interviewer): Oooh.
THS: I mean, till 9:00 in the morning.
NM: Wow, four hours?
THS: And then we’d rush up and go to Mass.
NM: Gee.
THS: We used to do that every year for our Lady of Guadalupe Day.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And then of course we’d dance, you know.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And, uh, um…you, know, uh, the women. Because when the – when the women from the
church had a – a…
Unknown, possibly Anita: A dinner.
THS: They wouldn’t let us out in the – where they was serving.
NM: Oh.
THS: [Murmurs] The Mexicans stay in the kitchen washing dishes. So Miss DeAmber, Miss
Adamson, Miss Greeley, and about three more ladies. They felt – I guess they felt bad for us,
‘cause they told us that they wasn’t going to, uh, they wasn’t going to…um…they wasn’t going
to let us be treated like that.
NM: Oh.
�THS: So they started the group, where they had all these Mexican ladies. Started a group for the
ladies. And then, uh, we had a colored lady, Mrs.…oh, I can’t think. She’s been – she’s buried
next to my fath – to my folks up there Mt. Calvary. She came in our room. And we used to have
[murmurs], so way back then was when they started the Mexican fiesta.
NM: Oh.
THS: Uh-huh. Way back then, because we was all young enough that we couldn’t – all of us
girls was in there. And, uh, Mrs. DeAmber used to say – she used to be something else – her
husband took pictures here in town for people. You know, wedding pictures and –
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: Anyway, she used to say: “I don’t like the way they treat you. They won’t let you in their –
in their, uh, groups. So we’re gonna do a group ourselves.”
NM: Oh.
THS: Okay.
NM: Now, she wasn’t Mexican, right?
THS: No.
NM: Right? Okay.
THS: No, uh, Mrs. DeAmber, Mrs. Greeley, Mrs. Adamson, none of them was – was Mexicans.
But because they treated us so bad, they decided they was going to form their own group with
the Mexicans.
NM: So, did they form a group for the – the mothers, too, or just for the children?
THS: No, for the mothers.
NM: Oh, for the mothers to get together.
THS: Yeah, that was for the mothers, yeah.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And, uh, then this when they started – this was way, way before then.
NM: Right.
THS: But that’s when they started making the – they started the Mexican fiesta, too. Uh, way
back then, Loretta used to run it – Loretta Chavez.
�NM: Loretta? Uh-huh?
THS: She used to –
NM: She’s still there [laughs].
THS: Does she – does she still work there?
NM: Yes, she’s still cooking.
THS: I didn’t know if she did or not.
NM: She’s the lead – she’s the head of it.
THS: Oh, is she?
NM: I mean, she – ‘cause she has all – everything in her mind, like how everything has to go,
and how many…how many beans and how many pounds of pork and…she has that all
memorized, so…
THS: Yeah.
NM: She’s kind of in charge, yeah.
THS: I know what it’s like, ‘cause, see, uh, we used to clean all them peppers, Leo and I.
NM: Oh.
THS: Forty pounds of peppers.
NM: Oh.
THS: And the beans. Oh, my. We used to sit out on the back porch, Leo and I cleaned all the
peppers and all the…
NM: For the Mexican fiesta?
THS: The next morning he would say – he would say, you know: “My fingers are kind of hot.”
NM: Oh.
THS: I said: “That’s because you’re not a Mexican.” [NM laughs] Yeah, we used to – we used to
do that.
NM: The ladies told me they used to make the tortillas from scratch.
�THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Yeah, now, you know, they buy the tortillas now.
THS: I used to make that bread from scratch, too.
NM: Oh.
THS: And, uh, they – one year they told us, they says: “Well, we’re gonna let all the…all the
good women make the bread, and all the people that – and all the women that don’t know too
much make the cookies.”
NM: Oh, for Our Lady of Guadalupe?
THS: So they looked at me and they said: “You make cookies.” [Laughter] And then, uh, the last
year I went to help, uh, they went to put me to, uh, make burritos. I know how to make burritos.
Anyway, somebody – somebody went and told Loretta that I was too slow.
NM: Oh.
THS: So, I said: “To heck with it; I’m going home. You do ‘em.” You know.
NM: Yeah.
THS: And they told Joyce Mace too, Monty’s wife, [murmurs], they told her the same thing.
NM: Oh, no.
THS: I mean, you know, they says: “You’re too old. You – you can’t make ‘em fast enough.”
But we could do everything else fast enough.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: Like wash dishes.
NM: Oh.
THS: In the kitchen.
NM: Sure.
THS: Mm-hmm. Yeah. We could do all of that, but…
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Oh, well.
�NM: Well, you know, they didn’t do Our Lady of Guadalupe last year.
THS: Because, uh, I asked them – I was gonna make cookies, believe it or not. [NM laughs] I
had everything ready to make ‘em.
NM: Yeah.
THS: And they decided that they wasn’t gonna make ‘em, because the other group that goes to
church…had their own Our Lady of Guadalupe deal.
NM: Oh, like the New Mexicans.
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: That are –
THS: And they don’t really associate with these other women.
NM: Oh.
THS: I mean, you – you notice that when they – they used – if you ever went to the basement
[murmurs] hardly see any of them people down there.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: It was all the Mexicans that had been here for a long time.
NM: Right.
THS: So then they decided, I guess Loretta did, ‘cause she’s always been in charge of it, that
that, you know, they’d make theirs at midnight, and it was too soon to make it – make it the next
morning for us, but we used to go in there at 5:30 and start a batch of [unintelligible]. You
couldn’t burn it.
NM: Mm.
THS: You know, you had to be really careful.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Stir, and you couldn’t stop it, you know?
NM: Wow.
�THS: My sister-in-law done that for years and years. And I used to pick all the older Mexican
people, like her mother, my mother, Mrs. Garcia, all of ‘em.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And take ‘em up to the church, so they could start making the chocolate. Mm-hmm.
NM: Wow. That’s a labor of love.
THS: Yeah, it was [murmurs]. But that’s the reason – I said: “Oh, me. And here I got all this
stuff to make the cookies, and I won’t get to make ‘em.”
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: I’ll make some for my family this year. Still here, you know.
NM: It’ll be another good Christmas. [voice overlaps with THS]
THS: Yeah.
NM: Yeah. I’d better get going now.
END OF TAPE
�
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63fa2d2777c594cd066b0ccea01a102a
PDF Text
Text
Interview with Teresa Hernandez Schwartz
Interviewer: Nora Murphy
Date of Interview: November 14, 2019
Length of Interview: 65:25
Location of Interview: Home of Teresa Hernandez Schwartz
Transcription Completion Date: January 29, 2021
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Teresa Hernandez Schwartz (Interviewee): Mashed potatoes and gravy. Uh, Andy always comes
and has dinner with me on Sunday.
Nora Murphy (Interviewer): I hope you’re not doing Thanksgiving dinner by yourself.
THS: No. [NM laughs] Andy’s cooking the turkey and ham. Yeah.
NM: Oh, good.
THS: And I’m, uh, I’m just gonna help the girls.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: But Anna showed up with, um, breast cancer.
NM: Really?
THS: Mm-hmm. So, she’s going on chemotherapy.
NM: Oh, my gosh.
THS: I don’t think she’s gonna be much good for us, but, uh, and then I’m supposed to go on the
12th and get this taken out, the cancer. They hope they can get it all out.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: If they can’t – if they can get it all out the first time, I’ll be there and it’s just no time at all,
but if they can’t get it out, then I’m gonna have to stay for about four hours –
NM: Oh.
THS: Till they get everything checked and make sure, and then go back in again and see if they
can get some more out, but…oh well. That happened before with this.
NM: Oh, the skin cancer, yeah.
THS: They took one out about that big.
�NM: Really?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Wow.
THS: That hasn’t been a year [murmurs].
NM: Where do you go for that?
THS: I went to Overland Park.
NM: Oh, you did? Oh.
THS: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, now, this time I’m going to Topeka.
NM: Oh.
THS: They said I could go to Overland Park or go to Topeka.
NM: Oh, okay. I’d rather go to Topeka, it’s a lot closer.
NM: Right. Yeah, me too.
THS: Andy’s going – Andy will always drive, but it’s so much closer than – than Overland Park.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Then you gotta walk in and you gotta go clear down this hall, and he insists on taking me
in a wheelchair. He will not let me walk. And so then we get the elevator and go, I don’t know
how many floors.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So…but, I’d rather not go, but –
NM: Well, you –
THS: I ain’t got much choice.
NM: Gotta get certain things done.
THS: Yeah.
NM: Taken care of. Right?
�THS: Uh-huh. Right.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: But I – you know, I still – I still do laundry and cook and –
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: I don’t cook every day, ‘cause Anita, the – she likes salads and stuff like that. She’ll rather
eat salad. [Telephone rings] Excuse me.
NM: Oh, sure.
[THS has telephone conversation until 3:17]
THS: I have an appointment with – excuse me.
NM: Yeah, sure.
THS: With internal medicine at 10:30 on – on Friday, and then I have one with Dr. Costello, the
heart doctor, at one o’clock, so…
NM: Oh, the same day.
THS: Yeah.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Which will work out really good.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Because Anita’s off on Fridays. So, she’ll take me.
NM: Oh, that’s perfect. Yeah.
THS: When she can’t, then Andy will take me, but…
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Uh, he’s so busy out of town all the time. He –
NM: Is he the one that fixes the electrical transformers?
THS: Mm-hmm.
�NM: Boy, he must have had a busy year.
THS: Yeah.
NM: Storms everywhere.
THS: Yeah, he won’t go anymore.
NM: Oh, he won’t.
THS: Mm-mm. He told, well, he’s been there since he graduated from high school.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And he’s going to, uh, retire in four years.
NM: Really?
THS: So he’s – he’s pretty much on his own, you know. They let him go ahead and – but he told
‘em, he said: “I don’t wanna go anymore – ”
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: To all them places where the electricity, they need to work on it. The last time he went
was, uh, to South Dakota, I think. And before that, he went to New York. But he said: “No more,
Mom.” It’s – it’s, you know, the conditions are so bad. And you work clear down into the night.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: In the cold and the rain and everything.
NM: The worst weather there is – there he is.
THS: “So I told ‘em, I said: ‘I’m not going.’”
I said: “What are they gonna do, fire you?
He said: “No, they said ‘Alright.’”
NM: Okay.
THS: I says: “So you’re getting big enough now that you can make your own schedule.”
He said: “No,” he said, “I just told ‘em I didn’t wanna go anymore, you know. I’ll stay
here and do the works.”
NM: So he – they let him use – do the local work?
THS: Mm-hmm.
�NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Yeah. Kansas City, and I guess right now he’s working in Topeka.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: But he does go to Wichita and Dodge City and all of them, but going out of this – and
Kansas City, you know, Missouri and them, but not far away anymore.
NM: Yeah.
THS: But –
NM: Well, I’ve been thinking about La Yarda.
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: And I’ve got a question for you.
THS: Yeah?
NM: So, I read something about La Yarda, and it said – it suggested that, um, if you were, like, a
laborer on the railroad tracks, you’ve probably lived in a – a – what do you call ‘em, a boxcar
that moved back and forth with your family?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: But if you were more of a supervisor, or a foreman, then you stayed in these, uh, like, La
Yarda. Is – was your dad, like, a foreman or a supervisor?
THS: No. No, he was just a railroad worker.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Um, I was born in Topeka, and in Topeka they had these little houses for the workers. Uh,
they called them the Santa Fe houses. They was just little shacks made out of wood and – and
dirt floor. My mother used to say that she had to get up every morning and water the – the floors
so they wouldn’t be so dusty.
NM: Ah.
THS: Mm-hmm. And I remember her telling me that when I was born, we didn’t even have a
bed.
NM: Mm-hmm.
�THS: She put me in a cardboard box. [NM laughs] And she said one night I got to crying real
bad, and she didn’t know why, but when she picked me up, there was a mouse running in the
box. And she said I had blood on one of my fingers.
NM: Oh. Oh, no.
THS: So, when my dad got a chance, they had just built these La Yarda.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And there – there was brick houses, you know.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And, uh, you know, the floors was concrete and all that.
NM: Concrete.
THS: And – and so, um, he got a chance to come down here. And so, he jumped at the chance.
NM: Oh.
THS: But, no, he just worked. And in the wintertime they drove them little [laughs] – I – I can’t
remember what they called ‘em in English, but there was this little deals that they all sat in the
thing to go fix – they didn’t even have a thing over ‘em or anything.
NM: The things where you pushed down and the other guy pushed down, and you went back and
forth like that?
THS: Yeah.
NM: Oh, I don’t know what those things are called, either.
THS: They – they, uh…so he got a chance to go, come down here, and, uh, then we had a better
house. I mean, we had a better place to live than live on the dirt floor in the little old shack.
NM: Yeah.
THS: Made out of wood, you know, and…but that’s how they all lived. So then when my dad
got a chance to come down here, then my brother came down with his family.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And then my brother-in-law came down, him and my – my, um, sister.
�NM: Your brother was an adult by then, and you were still a kid?
THS: My – my brother, he was already married. He had a bunch of kids.
NM: Oh. You were, when you were small –
THS: That was the oldest one.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Yeah, that was the oldest one.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Uh, so, they came down with – with his wife and his kids, I can’t remember how many
kids he had. He – he probably had about four. Something like that. And my sister and her
husband, they never had any kids, so…
NM: Oh.
THS: So they, uh, all came down, and they all worked for the railroad. And then my brother-inlaw was drafted into World War II.
NM: Mm.
THS: So, he had to go fight in Germany.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And then my brother had – not the one – the oldest one. Uh…he was the fourth one. He got
to go, he went into the Air Force.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And – and, uh, he was, till the – till the war ended, and then they came home.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And then my brother got a job in Topeka, in the Santa Fe shops. Somebody told him about
that. So, he got a job there, and, you know, he advanced himself.
NM: Mm.
THS: And, uh, they bought a little house, a one-bedroom house. They had fourteen kids.
NM: Oh, they did?
�THS: Uh-huh.
NM: Now, which brother was this?
THS: My oldest brother.
NM: What’s his name?
THS: He was the oldest. Uh, Pete.
NM: Oh, Pete. Okay.
THS: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so, um, then they went back to Topeka, and then my brother-in-law,
when he came back from the service, he got a job up there, too.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: So, he went on back ‘cause it was better to be working inside the shops than it was out on
the cold, you know, winter. ‘Cause it was – my – my dad used to say to my mother, would they
all fix them a tortilla with beans on ‘em, you know, and – and, um, my dad used to say it was so
frozen, you couldn’t even bend it. He said they made a fire to try to warm ‘em up to get
something to eat, ‘cause they was out in the middle of nowhere, you know.
NM: And doing hard work.
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Yeah.
THS: So, but – we all survived. And I was gonna tell you about that fountain. I think – we still
think one of them guys threw that little snake in there [NM laughs] because there wasn’t much
water. It was just drain water. They had a floor underneath it, and then the pipe went clear down.
NM: Yeah.
THS: I don’t know where – unless the water we drank, the one that went clear down, but we
think them boys for orneriness threw. Yeah.
NM: Threw a snake down there.
THS: Well, it was just a little bitty snake about that big [NM laughs], and a little frog, you know,
so…something that they could catch. They wouldn’t catch a big one, you know. But anyway,
there was just about that much water, ‘cause there was a board underneath there in the tin.
NM: Oh.
�THS: So, it kept the rainwater up in there, but…it, the pipe went down deep.
NM: Funny.
THS: Oh, they was just ornery boys, yeah. They was wanting to play football, always wanted to
play against the girls [laughs]. They didn’t wanna have girls on their team.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: They just beat us around [laughter]. We got to where we wouldn’t want to play with them.
NM: [Laughs] Well, what would you girls play?
THS: Huh?
NM: What did you guys like to play, with the girls?
THS: Well, they either, uh – we played basketball, we played, you know, we played baseball.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: You know, and all that. Yeah, all the kind of sports, but we always – they always wanted
us to play, and they always wanted us to have our own team, not – not with them in it, you know.
NM: [Laughs] They wanted to win.
THS: Yeah. So…but, we – we walked to school. Uh, we went over to Central at, uh, 9th and
Kentucky.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: It was three buildings there.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And we – that’s where we – we went to, we went to New York School and then we went
on up there.
NM: Were there other, um, well, that was Liberty Memorial High School then, right? Were there
other high school – there was no other high school in town.
THS: Yeah.
NM: So, everybody in town went to that one high school.
�THS: Yeah, the one over on, uh, Massachusetts Street. But this was junior high school.
NM: Oh, that was junior high.
THS: Uh-huh. Yeah. We had a building in each corner of the – Kentucky, 9th and Kentucky.
NM: Did they call it Central Junior High then?
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Yeah. And when we – when the bell rang, we had to rush if we was upstairs on the second
or third floor. We had to rush all the way down and get across the street to go to another class.
NM: That sounds a little dangerous.
THS: If there was – if there was cars coming, we would be late, and then we’d get in trouble.
NM: Oh.
THS: Yeah, ‘cause we was late. To gym, we had to get down that other building, we had to – this
was one building, and on the other side was another building, and then on the other side was
another building.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: They wasn’t even close. I mean, you had to cross the street for all three.
NM: Right. That’s a strange configuration.
THS: And gym was clear up on the very top of, uh, one of the buildings. Uh, that was the one on
the north side. The office was downstairs, and you – when the bell rang, you had to run to get up
there, ‘cause if you was late, you were in trouble.
NM: Mm.
THS: You had to stay –
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: After school, and do what – what they was gonna do that day in gym. Yeah.
NM: Well, thinking back on your childhood, did you have a favorite teacher or, were there
different grades?
�THS: We had [laughs] Mrs. Six. We – we was the only class – I don’t know why they done this,
but we was a class where the Mexican kids and all the colored kids was. That was history.
NM: Oh, history.
THS: We was, uh, on the very top of the building on this side. Uh, and we had a lot of colored
kids in our class.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: Well, they would get up and dance and sing, you know, kids. Get up and dance and sing,
and she would say: “Now, listen. If you kids will behave yourself, I’ll give the whole class an
A!” [Laughs] Them kids would do that every time, so they could get an A. [NM laughs] She was
an older teacher. Her name was Mrs. Six. She had a son named Fred Six here in town.
NM: Oh.
THS: He done a business of some kind.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: But, yeah. She was – she would tell us.
NM: Oh, isn’t that funny.
THS: We – we – us girls never, you know, we had a couple of boys, but they didn’t, you know.
But you know how them colored kids will be dancing and singing, and they would be doing all
that, and then she – she’ll pound on her desk and she’ll say: “Now if everybody stays still, don’t
make any noise, I will give you an A.” [Laughter] And she would! We all got A’s in her history
class. I always remember her. She was – she was such a nice teacher. Like I said, she was an
older teacher and –
NM: Mm-hmm. What about in elementary school? Did you have a favorite teacher in elementary
school, in New York School?
THS: Uh, Mrs. Dawson. She was a sixth-grade teacher at New York School. We all went to New
York School, ‘cause –
NM: Sure. Yeah, you were in the neighborhood.
THS: So, but yeah. Mrs. Dawson was the one that was –
NM: She was your favorite?
THS: Mm-hmm.
�NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: ‘Cause she – she kind of looked after us, you know, you can tell.
NM: Yeah.
THS: You know. She was an older teacher, too, and she – she lived – actually, she lived there in
the – in the New York School area. I think she lived on Connecticut Street somewhere.
NM: Oh, so she was in the neighborhood.
THS: Mm-hmm. She was in the neighborhood.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: But, no, we went – then, of course, then they made, uh, Cent – they made…Well, after
they – they, um…they did away with them three buildings on Kentucky Street. Then they moved
Lawrence High up there.
NM: Oh, right.
THS: Or Lawrence High was a…yeah, Lawrence High was used to be there.
NM: Right.
THS: And then they moved it to high school. And then, uh, they put, uh, Central in.
NM: So, when you went to high school, did you go to Massachusetts Street, or did you go to –
like, Lou –
THS: I went to Massachusetts Street.
NM: Oh, you did. Okay.
THS: That’s where Central – that’s where Lawrence High was at.
NM: Right, that’s – yeah. Okay.
THS: And that’s where I – that’s where I went. That’s where most of the kids went. And then of
course, then there was – they moved it up there to – to where it’s at now.
NM: And did you have a favorite teacher in high school?
THS: Uh, not – not really, you know, um, it was so big.
NM: Yeah.
�THS: That you didn’t have a chance to – to, uh, ‘cause, that’s where the high school was at, you
know.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So you didn’t really, you just, well, at Central we used to change every hour, too. But up
here we didn’t have to, because it was all in the building.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: We didn’t have to cross the street to go to Central.
NM: That was a very odd configuration, crossing the street. Preteens.
THS: There was three or four of us girls always late. We had to run up them stairs. Oh, to get
there in time. And if for some reason there was too many cars coming down Kentucky Street, we
was out of luck.
NM: Oh, yeah. Hmm.
THS: But, no. We, uh – we all went, and [laughs] we went to, uh, high school, there where
Central is at. And we all took Spanish, because we thought it was gonna be an easy, [NM laughs]
an easy class to take, you know. We was sure we’d get an A.
NM: Sure.
THS: But, when we got – when we started there, we found out that it was an entirely different
Spanish. It wasn’t the same Spanish that we was talking – that we was taught, you know, to
speak. It was a different – it was a high-class Spanish.
NM: Like what they speak in Spain, that kind of Spanish?
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: Oh, that’s very different.
THS: Yeah. And so, um, only one girl, and that was Lupe Chavez, she was the only one that
passed that class.
NM: Oh, no.
THS: All the rest of [laughs] you know –
NM: The Mexican kids…failed Spanish?
�THS: They would make us get up there on top of the – in front of the class and speak Spanish.
Well, we used to speak Spanish the way we was taught as kids.
NM: Yeah.
THS: Not the – not the way they wanted it out of the book.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: So they would tell us: “Now, if you don’t speak it the way we tell you to, we’re gonna
flunk you.”
NM: Oh, my goodness.
THS: Mm-hmm. But they did, you know.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: We never got past that.
NM: Now, did you speak Spanish at home?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: And did you speak English at home as well?
THS: No.
NM: No?
THS: I didn’t speak English till I went to school.
NM: Really?
THS: Till I went to New York School.
NM: Really?
THS: None of us did.
NM: And how did – how did you do?
THS: Well, we had to –
NM: Must’ve been a struggle.
�THS: Yeah, we had to learn Spanish – I mean, English.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: One thing about it, though, [rustling, NM moves recorder closer] the teachers was very, uh,
they had a lot of patience with us because they knew that. And they helped us out the best they
could.
NM: About how many kids in your class were, um, from La Yarda? Were there a lot?
THS: Uh, well, there was all different classes because, like, us, now, I was – me and my brother
Jesse was the only ones that, uh, you know, was old – was young enough that we had to go to
school.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Now the others had already grown up. ‘Cause see, my mom and dad came to the United
States, and then they – they went back to Mexico. So, um, let’s see that was…They went back –
they came; he brought the whole family with him. Then they went back to Mexico, because they
had sold the hacienda that my grandfather, um…
NM: Yeah.
THS: And, uh, then they buried the money because they was coming and killing all of – all the,
uh, I don’t know whether it was Pancho Villa or – or one of the others, was coming along and
killing all the men that had any – any, uh, property – that had any money or anything.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: So what they did, they sold it when they heard they was coming, and so they buried the
money. So they came to the United States, and then when everything was settled, they decided to
go back and dig the money up. But the money wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.
NM: Oh.
THS: Because it had changed government.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And so, uh, they came back – they went up there, and they had – they had Pete, Chole,
Carmen. They had three kids.
NM: Mm-hmm.
�THS: And my dad left ‘em up there. He came down – he came down, back to Topeka, with my
grandmother. And so, he left my mother up there with the three kids. Well, he never sent them
any money to live on or to eat on.
NM: Wow.
THS: My mother said that the only way they got to live, ‘cause in Mexico they have a – well, all
the Mexican people [murmurs], which I don’t.
NM: They did what?
THS: You – you go visiting and they give you something to eat.
NM: Oh, yeah. Sure
THS: You know, bread, or they give you, uh, something, you know. Whatever they got in the
house, they’ll give you, you know. And so, my mother used to take an apron and they would give
her a piece of bread, a little loaf of bread, or – or some avocados or something. She – she
wouldn’t eat it. She would put it in her apron.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And then she’d take it home to the kids.
NM: Feed the kids, wow.
THS: That’s the only way they got anything to eat. And my oldest brother Pete, oh, he was so
mad all the time because Dad had left them up there. He said he went to work for this farmer one
time, worked from sunup to sundown, picking watermelons. And at the end of the day, he
thought they was gonna give him some money. They gave him a watermelon. Oh, he was so
mad.
NM: Oh, my goodness. Wow.
THS: I said: “Well, Pete, at least you had some watermelon.” [Laughs] Oh, he was mad. He was
always mad at my dad because he’d done that.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: You know.
NM: Your dad thought he would return with all this money, so –
THS: Yeah.
NM: Your dad probably thought he was doing a great thing.
�THS: Yeah.
NM: Yeah.
THS: But he didn’t. He left ‘em up there for a year.
NM: A year?
THS: Yeah, and so my, uh, other brother was buried – I mean, was born up there.
NM: Mm-hmm. Topeka?
THS: No, in Mexico.
NM: Oh, in Mexico.
THS: Yes. See, they took three kids up, and then they came back to the United States. And then
he decided to go back. Well, that’s when he left my mother up there, and she was pregnant, so
she – she had Chino up there, and then they came back. Well, during the time they was here the
first time, they had Joe. He was born in Kansas City. And then they went back and then they
came back a second time, and then, uh, Jesse and I was born here in Topeka.
NM: So, when you dad left your mom, he left her where, in Mexico, or in – ?
THS: Mexico.
NM: In Mexico. Oh, ‘cause when you said up there, I thought you meant Topeka.
THS: No. No, he left her in Mexico.
NM: Oh. Oh, okay.
THS: Without sending her any money or anything.
NM: And where did he go?
THS: If you get hot, we can turn that down.
NM: Oh, I’m fine. Where did he go when he left her in Mexico?
THS: My dad was – well, all the men in Mexico, think that they’re something big, and – and they
all run around on their wives, you know.
NM: Oh.
�THS: Every one of ‘em does that. I – I always remember when I was, you know, real small, my
dad would come home from work. One thing, he worked every day.
NM: Yeah.
THS: He never missed a day. But on Saturdays, he would come home, take a shower, eat supper,
and off he would go.
NM: To go partying?
THS: I – we don’t know where he went.
NM: Wow.
THS: Till eleven, twelve o’clock, he’d come home.
NM: Oh.
THS: My mother stayed home. She never once said anything about where you go, but it
basically, when we grew up, we knew that all these men, Mexican men, run around, you know.
NM: Oh, uh-huh.
THS: But my dad did a little more than run around, I guess.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And so, um, when he went – when he went, they went back to Mexico and he left her up
there, well – he was just here with my grandmother.
NM: He was here in Kansas?
THS: In Topeka. In Topeka.
NM: Oh, he came back to Topeka.
THS: Yeah, they came back.
NM: And he knew that they didn’t have the money.
THS: Yeah.
NM: And he didn’t send your mother any money.
THS: No.
�NM: Wow. That’s stressful.
THS: Yeah. Eventually he, uh, after a year or so, then he sent her some money. And then she
came back with, uh, three kids.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: My oldest brother Pete, he was so mad.
NM: Mm.
THS: Because he said he left ‘em up there without anything.
NM: Mm-hmm. But nobody said anything to him?
THS: No. My grandmother was with him.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: My dad’s mother. Yeah.
NM: And you would think she would say something, but didn’t. They just accepted it. That was
the way men are.
THS: That was the way men…
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Mm-hmm. And my – my, uh, when they first came down, my aunt’s husband had left her
up there with two girls. And they wouldn’t let her across the border, because she had no means
of taking care of herself.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: You know. So, my dad brought ‘em over as, uh, my aunt and the two girls as – as his
daughters. They’re on the passport as his daughters. He brought ‘em over. So, then they all
settled in Topeka.
NM: Did you have an idea in your head that you wanted to marry outside of the Mexican
community? No? It just happened that way.
THS: It just happened that way.
NM: Mm-hmm.
�THS: Mm-hmm. We used to go – a whole bunch of us girls used to go to the Meadow Acres in
Topeka dancing every Saturday night with the Forbes – the Forbes Fields was just right down the
road from there.
NM: Oh, okay. Forbes Field, yeah, yeah.
THS: And all them Air Force guys used to go to the, uh, Meadow Acres. It was just a block or
two from the Meadow Acres. So we’d go, a whole bunch of us get together in the car, and we’d
go up there. Just to dance, you know, and about a half an hour before the dance was over, we all
– we would sit over close to the door. We would all disappear. You know, they was up there,
drinking on the – at the bar, you know.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And so, we would all disappear. We’d –
NM and THS: Go home.
THS: So, we was tired when we got home. So, one day I was walking across the park from
church and Leo caught up with me and he said, uh, he got to talking. He was really a talker. He
got to talking, and then he said:
“Would you like to go have a cup of coffee?”
I said: “All I want to do is go home and go to bed.” I mean, I – we had been out till one
o’clock in the morning, you know, and then get up and go to church at 9:00.
And so I said: “No, I don’t want a coffee.” I said: “I want to go home and go to sleep.”
So the next Sunday, then, there he comes again.
I said: “No, I want to go home.” [laughs] “I’m tired. I don’t want any coffee.”
So then the third Sunday, he came again and I thought: “Well, he’s not gonna leave me
alone till I – you know – till he really knows that I’m not going.” So he started, you want a cup
of coffee and I thought: “Oh, gosh. Maybe if I go have a cup of coffee, he’ll leave me alone.” All
I wanted to do is go home and go to sleep, you know.
NM: Right.
THS: ‘Cause I had to go to work the next morning. I mean –
NM: On Sunday?
THS: On Monday morning. No, Monday morning.
NM: Oh, Monday. Sure.
THS: So, he said: “Well, what – you don’t want to go to the drugstore there.” The Rainey’s was
there at the corner.
I said: “No, I don’t want to go to the drugstore.”
He says: “Well, how about going to the Deluxe Café?”
�And I says: “Well, all right.”
So we went over there and then he started asking questions: “Are you working?”
I said: “Yes.”
I said – he said: “Where do you work?”
Big mouth me, I said: “Right behind here, at the Independent Laundry.”
He says: “You do? How long have you been working there?”
I said: “Oh, I been working there for a couple of years.”
NM: What was it called where you worked?
THS: Independent Laundry.
NM: Oh, Independent. Oh.
THS: Uh-huh. Yeah. I worked with Jenny Garcia folding sheets. We could really fold sheets. Oh,
my. We could – and it was so hot in there. You know, so the next morning I come – ‘cause I had,
you had to come through the room where – to go across the street to drink coffee, to where they
sorted out all the clothes.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: There was a couple of older women back there. And the minute I stepped to the door to
come through the big deal, they said: “Ha, ha, ha, guess who’s out there?” [NM laughs] I didn’t
know who in the world they was talking to, ‘cause there was a bunch of us, you know, going
over there for coffee. Well, who should…there he sat. With his friend Gene.
I said: “Oh, gosh.”
He said: “I come to take you for coffee.”
I said: “I only got fifteen minutes.” [Laughs] So, ‘course Jenny and I and all them girls
was going over there for coffee anyway, you know, so we went over, him and Gene went with
us, and we had coffee. And they paid for the whole bunch.
NM: Nice.
THS: So, then the next morning, there him and Gene was out there again. So, there we go for
coffee. Then the third morning, he was there by himself, ‘cause they worked shift work at – at
the Color Press. And Gene had to stay over, ‘cause the guy that was supposed to come in didn’t
come in on time, so he had to stay.
NM: Where were they working?
THS: At the Kansas Color Press.
NM: Kansas Color Press. Okay.
THS: It was right there on Haskell.
�NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Uh-huh. So, from then on, he was there every morning till he changed shifts. Then when
he changed ‘em he says, I told ‘em: “He’s not there today.” Well, the ladies would let me know:
“He’s not there today. You know, he’s not there today.” Well, we knew – I knew he had changed
shifts to days, ‘cause they had to be at work at eight o’clock to four, so…
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Then after –
NM: Now, did he go to those dances out in Topeka?
THS: Then he got to –
NM: Is that when he originally saw you?
THS: No, uh-uh.
NM: No? How did he happen to see you then, if you, ‘cause you said you were coming from
dance –
THS: He went to church.
NM: Oh, oh. So, you went to Mass –
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: And then you went –
THS: Yeah. We used to sing up in the choir.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Yeah.
NM: Oh, you went to church. And is he in the choir too?
THS: No, he didn’t.
NM: No, but he saw you.
THS: Uh-huh, yeah.
NM: Oh, okay.
�THS: Yeah, just the Mexican people.
NM: Oh, I thought maybe he bumped into you at that dance.
THS: No.
NM: Okay.
THS: No. He had just gotten out of the Army.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: I used to hate [laughs] he used to have his shoes so polished, you could see yourself in
‘em. I thought that was just…oh, gosh. How can he do something like that, you know?
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: And his uniform was just so – so clean and so nice, you know.
NM: Did he still wear his uniform?
THS: Um…well, yeah, ‘cause he was still, um, in Fort Riley.
NM: Oh.
THS: Uh-huh. See, he went into the Army at, uh, in Missouri. Can’t think of the name. And he
was there for quite a while. He was in the Korean War. And then from there, they said they
needed him over in Louisville, ‘cause Kentucky and the U.S., and the…um…oh, 101st Airborne.
NM: Oh, okay. 101st Airborne.
THS: Yeah. So they shipped him over there, but he wasn’t in the Airborne. He was – he went
into the Army.
NM: Oh.
THS: And then they shipped him over there, and then he came back. They shipped him, after a
year’s time they shipped him back to, uh, Fort Riley and then he was there at Fort Riley for quite
a while.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: So then –
�THS: But this – but this was before we ever started going out.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: I used to see him in church with his uniform, you know [NM laughs]. I – you know, I
didn’t know who he was or anything like that, you know, so…
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: But anyway…I think we got married about a year and a half later.
NM: Mm.
THS: And, uh, one day he drove up and he said: “We’re gonna go to church.”
I said: “Oh, we are? What are we going to church for?”
He says: “You’ll find out.” Well, he had made arrangements with Father Tao and Mary
Tao, that they were supposed to bless the engagement ring before he put it on my finger.
NM: And you didn’t know?
THS: I didn’t even know he had it.
NM: Wow.
THS: He didn’t tell me. He said we were just going to church. And I used to work for Mary Tao
at the parish house.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: I used to clean the – the house.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: And put – take flowers off the altar and, you know, I did a lot of work there. When I was
still going to high school.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And so, um, that was quite a ways back, you know.
NM: Right.
THS: Before I went to work in the laundry. Yeah, I worked for her for years and years. Uh-huh.
In fact, she kind of took me under her wing. She just, you know, uh, do a lot of things for me.
NM: Right.
�THS: You know.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And, uh, eventually there for a while I worked after I left high school. I worked there for a
couple of years, you know, in the daytime.
NM: Oh, really?
THS: Till I went to, uh, work at the laundry.
NM: Were you, like, the parish secretary or something, or – ?
THS: No, I just cleaned the house and –
NM: Uh-huh. Took care of things.
THS: And done – done errands for her, you know, and for Father. And, uh, she used to pay me
real good. So then when, um, when I went on to church, I didn’t know, but my parents was in
there. My mother and dad was sitting in there, and so was his mother. Yes. So I – I walked into
the church and Monsignor flagged at us to come on up, and so we went on up. I still didn’t know
what we was there for. Anyway, he takes the engagement ring out, and Father blesses it. Then he
puts it on my finger.
NM: Wow, with everybody watching?
THS: Hmm? Yeah.
NM: Goodness.
THS: Well, just, there wasn’t anybody there in church. Just my parents and – and, uh…
NM: And his parents.
THS: And his – and his mother. His dad was already gone.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Just his mother.
NM: Yeah.
THS: And his younger brother, ‘cause he drove his mother around everywhere.
NM: Uh-huh.
�THS: They lived there on 1321 Tennessee.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: So, they was pretty close to the church.
NM: Yeah, it’s right – right next door, yeah.
THS: But anyway, uh…that’s why – and I still got the paper that Father –
NM: Oh.
THS: Father, uh, Tao wrote, you know.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: To get the – now, I didn’t even know where he’d got the engagement ring or what. I mean,
he put it on my finger and Father blessed it.
NM: Isn’t that great?
THS: You’re talking about being surprised.
NM: Yeah.
THS: You know.
THS: But, anyway…
NM: That’s a good story.
THS: About a year later, then we got married.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: ‘Course, my mother didn’t like him.
NM: No?
THS: My father didn’t like him. And his mother didn’t like him. His mother said he had to marry
me because I probably – he got me pregnant.
NM: His mother didn’t like him, or his mother didn’t –
THS: His mother didn’t like me.
�NM: Oh.
THS: His mother didn’t like me.
NM: Was it a Mexican-German thing? German-American?
THS: Well, not really.
NM: No?
THS: Us, ‘cause she didn’t have any money. She – she ran that – the way it happened was that
his father, uh, passed away; he was forty-some years old. He had a heart attack. They lived in
this great big house on the road to Leavenworth. It had fourteen rooms.
NM: Oooh.
THS: A maid’s room. Yeah, she had a maid. She had a maid for the kids and a maid to do the
cooking.
NM: Gee.
THS: Uh-huh. Fourteen rooms they had in that house. And, uh, it was on the way to
Leavenworth, just going from Basehor on down. Uh, so, um, she – she went around and told –
telling everybody that he had gotten me pregnant. We didn’t have – we was married three and a
half years before Andy was born.
NM: Oh.
THS: You know.
NM: Yeah.
THS: It – but…I just, you know. Anyway, when – when his father passed away at 47, Joe was
going to St. Benedict’s. He was the oldest.
NM: Oh.
THS: So, he came right home and took over the farm.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: He just, I mean, he actually took it over. I mean everything, you know.
NM: Yeah.
�THS: And so, he used to tell the workers, cause he had quite a few workers.
NM: Yeah?
THS: Yeah, for him. Um, used to tell the workers that him and – and, uh, Leo was partners. And
two brothers was partners.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Well, then Leo finds out that, uh, he paid the far – the helpers more than he paid him.
NM: Oh, no.
THS: And then he finds out that he was keeping him out of the Army because he wanted him to
stay and work at the farm.
NM: Oh.
THS: You know.
NM: Yeah.
THS: At that time, if you had – if you was a farmer, you didn’t have to go into the service.
NM: Mm.
THS: You know.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Or if you ran something that, you know, you was – had to do with – with not being able to,
you know, people. You know, like –
NM: Somebody depending on you, yeah.
THS: Yeah. Anyway, Leo got mad, and he went and enlisted in the Army.
NM: Oh, gee. I bet his brother was mad. [Laughs]
THS: He was. Joe was mad. And then, he sells – he sells the farm.
NM: Really?
THS: Yeah. Well, him and this guy from, a lawyer from Kansas City, was in it together.
Uh…one of them owned all the stock, and the other one, the house, and the thing. Whatever they
�had on the farm. Anyway, Joe goes and sells everything. And, uh, of course he had to give half
of it to the guy in Kansas City.
NM: Yeah.
THS: But, uh, you know, they had got the money from to buy this – this farm.
NM: Oh, yeah.
THS: To begin with, his, uh…his grandfather gave his dad money to marry his mother.
NM: His grand…Oh, okay. Okay.
THS: She – she was, she had polio.
NM: Really?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Okay.
THS: And so, he gave him enough money to buy a farm.
NM: Wow.
THS: His dad, Leo’s dad, that was married to his mother.
NM: Yeah.
THS: Gave him enough money to buy a farm.
NM: Okay.
THS: ‘Cause he was rich. He – he was one of the first representatives in the state of Kansas. His
picture’s in the courthouse.
NM: This is Leo’s grandfather? Wow. Okay.
THS: Anyway, um, can you imagine him marrying that little old Mexican from La Yarda? [NM
laughs] Anyway, uh, Joe goes and sells all of this. He builds himself a new house, buys himself a
new car, buys himself a milk truck to deliver milk around there. Leo, nothing. Then he gets
$1500 and moves his mother to Lawrence and, uh, pays $1500 for that rooming house on – on
Tennessee.
NM: The poor mother must have been –
�THS: Yeah.
NM: Devastated.
THS: And, uh, that was it.
NM: Wow.
THS: So, about, we was married about five years, I think, when all his sisters came down and
asked Leo if he would go with them to court, to sue him.
NM: Oooh.
THS: Because that money should have been divided equally among the girls. There was, uh,
three girls.
NM: And to the mother.
THS: And to the mother.
NM: Gee.
THS: Leo was supporting his – he was shining shoes on the weekend in the Army to make
enough money to send her, so she could pay her gas bill.
NM: Wow.
THS: In that big rooming house.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And Joe was sitting up there in Basehor.
NM: What a selfish man. Wonder what happened to him?
THS: I don’t know. But he was buried. He was not buried, he was married, you know, he
married Anna, I mean, Edna up there.
NM: Oh.
THS: And when we got, Leo and I got married, he wouldn’t let her come.
NM: Really?
THS: He would not let her. He came.
�NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: I don’t know why, because him and Leo didn’t get along.
NM: Was he the brother that came to see the engagement ring?
THS: No.
NM: A different brother?
THS: Uh-huh.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: Yeah. Yeah, his younger brother.
NM: Oh.
THS: In fact, they still come over.
NM: Really?
THS: Him and Ruthie.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: She’s got money left and right.
NM: Really?
THS: You know, when she – when she comes – they came this summer. They had – they came,
and the girls had a picnic up in front; they invited the neighborhood.
NM: Uh-huh?
THS: You know, everybody has a good time when they do that, you know. And so, um, but he
came, the girls came, and they was here for – on a Sunday afternoon talking to Leo. They was
outside. I didn’t know what they was talking about. I – I didn’t care. I thought they had –
NM: Sure. Yeah, his sisters.
THS: None of my business. Anyway, when he come in, he said they wanted to take Joe to court.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And sue him for that money. Cause it should have been divided equally among all of them.
�NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: All the girls, and it wasn’t.
NM: Right.
THS: But Leo told ‘em no.
NM: Really? Said forget it?
THS: They – they wasn’t very happy with him, but he said he wasn’t. He said: “I got my house.”
He said: “I got my kids. I don’t need any more. I don’t need anything he’s got.”
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Was what he told ‘em.
NM: Yeah.
THS: So…but then after a while, they kind of all when Mary died; she left him some money.
And, uh, then [murmurs] passed away here not too long ago, just a couple years ago was when
she passed away in Emporia. But, uh, you know. It happens, I guess, with families.
NM: That rooming house thing’s very strange.
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: So, she was in charge of the rooming house and she had to run this thing, and – ?
THS: No, she charged ‘em, but they were Chinese.
NM: Oh. [Laughter] You have so many twists and turns in your story.
THS: They – they was all Chinese.
NM: Oh, okay.
THS: That she rented to.
NM: Okay.
THS: Yeah, Leo had a room upstairs, you know, where he slept and stuff.
NM: Yeah.
�THS: Ed slept on the couch down in the dining room.
NM: Oh.
THS: And Clara slept in the bedroom with her mother, you know, different beds, but they slept
in – yeah, so she could rent ‘em up there. But the only reason that they didn’t give her so much
money was because they fed her.
NM: They fed her? The Chinese food?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Wow.
THS: And she couldn’t get around very good, you know. She did get around –
NM: Right.
THS: ‘Cause she come one day, went out with Leo and picked strawberries out there, you know.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: Yeah, she could get around, but not that good. And – and so, uh, they – they would feed
her. They would cook. They didn’t have a stove upstairs, so they cooked down on her stove.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: And they would just make enough food for her, too.
NM: And where did all these Chinese people come from? I mean –
THS: They were going up to KU.
NM: Oh, they were at KU. Okay.
THS: Students.
NM: They were students. Interesting.
THS: And of course, they didn’t have very much money, either.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: You know. And one time, they sent her a whole bunch of stuff from China.
NM: Oh.
�THS: You know, their mothers. I guess they told her that she was so nice about [murmurs], so
they sent her some good luck charms and stuff like that, you know.
NM: Uh-huh. Oh, that’s really funny. Good story.
THS: But no, they cooked, ‘cause she was the only one in the house that had a stove downstairs.
NM: Sure.
THS: So, they came down and cooked, and while they was cooking, they knew she couldn’t get
around very good, so they – they fed her.
NM: Made enough for her, too.
THS: Mm-hmm. And then, of course, then they was students, so they didn’t have much. I guess
their parents did, up in China, but, uh…
NM: Oh, yeah.
THS: You know, whether they send ‘em money or not, I imagine they did. But they wasn’t
gonna tell her that.
NM: Yeah.
THS: You know. They was glad they was getting a place to cook and all that. And they would do
the dishes and everything.
NM: Yeah. Huh.
THS: They would go to the grocery store. Of course, Leo did too. Leo went to the grocery store
for her.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: But, uh…and he helped to pay for the gas bill, ‘cause the gas bill was terrible.
NM: Oh, it must have been terrible. Those big drafty houses.
THS: There was – it was…
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: But anyway, um…that’s the way things… You know, like I say, we never had – we was
pretty near going crazy ‘cause we thought we was – he wanted kids, and I wanted kids. I wanted
ten kids.
�NM: Oh.
THS: [Laughs] He wanted that many, but then after I had the girls, the doctor said, you know, he
says: “You’ll either – ” He called us both in to the doctor’s. He says: “You’ll either lose her, or
lose the baby.”
NM: What did you say?
THS: He, Dr. Herman called us both in, after I had the girls.
NM: After you had the girls?
THS: Yeah, and he told us, he said: “Leo,” he says, uh, “if she doesn’t have a hysterectomy,
she’ll – if she gets pregnant, she’ll either die or lose the baby.”
NM: Oh.
THS: “So which would you rather have?”
NM: Wow.
THS: Leo says: “We’ll just go ahead,” at that time you couldn’t; you wasn’t supposed to have a
hysterectomy.
NM: Yeah, it was unusual. How old were you?
THS: I was probably about 27.
NM: Oh, no. Oh, that’s too bad.
THS: I had the boys. The boys are eighteen – eighteen years apart. And – I mean, not eighteen
years, but four. And I say eighteen – eighteen months apart.
NM: Eighteen months apart.
THS: Then the girls – the girls was four years apart.
NM: Four years apart, okay.
THS: And Richard.
NM: Well, you have a great family.
THS: Yeah. But that was it.
�NM: Uh-huh.
THS: But, you know, we – we had the two boys, and we had the two girls.
NM: Yeah, you had two matched pairs. That’s great. Great, beautiful family you have.
THS: I remember Dr. Herman. Dr. Wilcox was in there, and he was delivering babies. And he
says: “Oh, my gosh, there’s another one coming.” ‘Cause at the time you didn’t know. You
didn’t have no sonograms.
NM: Right.
THS: And the only reason the doctor kept telling me I was gaining too much weight ‘cause I was
eating too much, and I was…uh, I was – had, he could hear a real strong heartbeat. That’s
because one of ‘em was this way, and the other one was this way.
NM: Wow.
THS: And he kept putting me on a diet, and kept telling me: “You’ve got to lose weight.
You’ve got to lose weight.”
So then when Dr. Wilcox, they was in together, him and Herman. And, uh, Dr. Wilcox
was delivering me. He got one out and then he turned around and he said:
“Oh, good heavens, put her to sleep. There’s another one coming.”
And I could hear Dr. Herman say: “Can I go tell – can I go tell Leo? Can I go tell Leo?”
[Laughter] And Dr. Herman – Dr. Wilcox says: “That’s alright, you go tell him.”
So he went out there laughing, and then he come back laughing, and he says:
“You know what?” He says Leo was pretty near asleep. ‘Course he was working the
midnight shift.
NM: Oh.
THS: He said Leo was pretty near asleep and he said:
“I told him to get up,” so he said, “he got up, he sat up, and he said: ‘What’s the matter?’
I said: ‘You just had two babies.’”
And he said: “He looked at me, didn’t say a word.” He said he looked down at the floor
and just stood there for a while.
And then he said: “But I only have one bed.” [NM laughs]
He said: “I told him we’d keep ‘em here long enough for him to go home and make
another one.” And he did. He made the little beds for ‘em.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: And he used to sit here and read, and he’d put one foot under one leg, under one of the legs
of the bed, and the other one on the other leg, and he would read and he would push one and then
push the other one while I got the meals done, you know.
�NM: Yeah.
THS: And the laundry and stuff like that.
NM: Isn’t that great?
THS: Yeah, he used to love to read.
NM: Yeah.
THS: And he kept the girls happy that way, because you know, he made them little beds no
bigger than that.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: In fact, when Rita’s granddaughter came, they asked for one. I don’t know whatever
happened to the other one.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: But he had made –
NM: Yeah. Yeah. What do you know?
THS: He loved to work with wood and plant a garden and everything.
NM: Mm-hmm. Well I’m gonna have to get going, Teresa.
THS: Well, sorry that we didn’t get too much [murmurs].
NM: Oh, you always have good stories.
THS: You know, it’s, uh…I don’t remember, you know, too much anymore, ‘cause I’m getting
up in years.
NM: You have a pretty good memory.
THS: But I do remember walking to church in the snow.
NM: Oh.
THS: We had to go to church. Raymond says: “I’ll give you a truck, I’ll give you a ride in the
back of the truck.” He had this great big huge truck. We climb in, and can you imagine how cold
it was?
NM: Oh, no. [Laughs]
�THS: He used to take us to Minnesota to work in the vegetables, too. In that big truck.
NM: Wow.
THS: Four families.
NM: That was in the summertime?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Yeah. That must have been fun, a little bit fun, huh?
THS: Well, it was, to a certain extent.
NM: Rough.
THS: But we had to, uh, we had to, uh…we had to work.
NM: Oh.
THS: And to get a shower, we had to go jump in the lake. We had no other way to take a shower.
NM: In Minnesota, I bet that water was cold.
THS: It was. [Laughter] And none of us knew how to swim. Now Raymond might’ve, but none
of us.
NM: Oh boy.
THS: But we had a good time.
NM: Yeah. Did you ever learn how to swim? No?
THS: I didn’t, but Leo did. Leo and the boys, he used to get the whole neighborhood in the
pickup truck, in his old pickup truck. Went all over to Lone Star Lake to swim.
NM: Oh, fun.
THS: Yeah. Take ‘em all. Neighborhood.
NM: Yeah.
THS: You know.
NM: Whole neighborhood.
�THS: The guys come in -- Andy: “Mom? Dad?”
I said: “No, don’t call Mom. Talk to your dad.” He had an old pickup that just went
[imitates putting noise] all the way to the lake.
NM: All the way to Lone Star Lake.
THS: But he had the back end full of girls and boys.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: That asked their mothers if they could go, you know. Of course, Leo knew how to swim
real good. I didn’t. I – I still don’t. I still don’t like the water.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: You know? I did in Minnesota, ‘cause we had to take a shower [laughs]
NM: Right, sure.
THS: Or you’d never get a shower.
NM: What did they have you picking there?
THS: Um…carrots and potatoes and onions.
NM: Mm.
THS: And, uh, we lived in a garage.
NM: Really?
THS: Mm-hmm. Four families. One in each corner of the garage.
NM: Was it hot?
THS: Uh-huh. And, uh, uh…they had – the ladies had to cook outside.
NM: Did they have a cement floor, or dirt floor?
THS: Dirt floor.
NM: Oh, gee whiz.
THS: Yeah. Oh, we had some – in California, when we had to – to work in the peaches, we, uh,
we lived in a tent. My mother cooked outside.
�NM: You did?
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Was that for, like, a summer, or…when – ?
THS: Well, that was just till the harvest was over. We – we picked peaches and then we picked
apricots.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And then when that was done, then we went over to pick grapes. Over to –
NM: Did she take you out of school?
THS: Huh? Yeah. They made me go to school.
NM: Oh, they made you go to school there.
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: So, you left New York school just to go to California for a while?
THS: Well, when I came back, I went back to New York School.
NM: New York School, yeah.
THS: That’s the only way that the boys would make any money to get clothes for school.
Nobody hired ‘em.
NM: Yeah.
THS: Nobody hired Mexican kids.
NM: Mm.
THS: And when we went to – to Minnesota, you know, like I say, four families made.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: Went because they had to have enough money for school.
NM: Right. Yeah.
THS: But…it was fun, though. You know, a whole bunch of kids together.
�NM: But hard work, very hard work.
THS: Yeah. We was so tired by the time we got in that garage, we didn’t care.
NM: No. Hard to play.
THS: We wanted to sleep.
NM: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
THS: And no, I had to go to school in Cucamonga, and I didn’t like that. I had to get on the bus.
NM: Where’s Cucamonga?
THS: In California.
NM: Oh. [Laughter]
THS: Yeah. That’s a town.
NM: Okay.
THS: The gates would – they had great big old fences, the gates would open, the bus would go
in, the gates would close.
NM: Mm.
THS: And you – they would open when the – at the end of the day when the bus was loaded up
again.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: They’d go and drop you off somewhere. Then you had to walk.
NM: Yeah. Hm.
THS: And if you got there early enough, if you woke up early enough, you could have cactus for
lunch.
NM: Cactus?
THS: Mm-hmm. But if you didn’t get up early enough, they was all gone.
NM: Oh.
�THS: Was a time my mother – my mother used to get up at daylight to go out there, and there’s a
whole row of cactus behind the houses where the – the boys went and picked grapes.
NM: Yeah?
THS: And, uh, if they got there early enough, if my mother got up early enough, we’d have
cactus for supper besides beans, you know. So, we ate cactus.
NM: How do you prepare cactus?
THS: My – you take all the stickers out with a little paring knife.
NM: Yeah.
THS: And then you cut ‘em.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: And then you, uh, put ‘em in to boil, and then you put ‘em on a skillet with some cilantro
and onion, and you mix ‘em up and they’re the best things.
NM: Are they really?
THS: With beans and tortillas. Oh boy.
NM: Oh, my gosh.
THS: That’s all we ever had to eat.
NM: Uh-huh. Cactus, beans, and tortillas.
THS: Except when the gypsies came. Then we had olives because they – there was a whole row
of olives in front of the houses. And so they’d come and they’d pick all the olives out and put in
a great big old, uh, tubs.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: And cooked them all night long. And so, we was kids, you know, and they was all dressed
like gypsies, and they drove, and they came in on buggies just like you see in a book.
NM: Yeah.
THS: Uh-huh. And they would come in and they’d pick all them olives off, the farmer didn’t
care. They’d pick ‘em all up and they would start cooking ‘em all night, and – and then the next
day they would ask us if we wanted some. Of course, we didn’t have anything but beans and
cactus [NM laughs].
�NM: Sure. But – but you didn’t know how to cook, um, olives, but they did.
THS: No. No, they had great big old pans. And I don’t know what they put in ‘em. But they built
a fire all night till one day it rained up in the mountains and the water came down. It came down
where the – their tents, where their little wagons was, and their tents, and their tubs, and it just
took the whole thing.
NM: Oh, no.
THS: That was the last time we seen ‘em there.
NM: Mm. What a disaster.
THS: We didn’t see ‘em there anymore.
NM: Yeah. How – how many years in a row did you go to California?
THS: Pretty near every year.
NM: Really?
THS: Till we got up into, uh, I think I got up into junior high.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: When we came – see, we had a pass. My dad got a pass. We could go anywhere the train
went.
NM: Oh.
THS: Without having to pay.
NM: Sure.
THS: And so, my sister had got married up there.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: First we went ‘cause my aunt was up there. And then, uh, my sister got married up there,
so she used to tell us: “Come on down.” And – and behind her was a orange grove. All we had to
do was just go about from here to that white pickup, and get oranges for breakfast.
NM: Oh, nice.
THS: Then there was, uh, row of English walnuts.
�NM: Mmm.
THS: And after they went through and harvested them, we could go over and pick all we wanted,
and there was a place right across from my sister’s house. And we could go sell ‘em there.
NM: Really?
THS: Oh, we done it all.
NM: You had – you had it all figured out.
THS: Yeah.
NM: All the angles.
THS: Well, because, you know, with that pass, we could go anywhere.
NM: Oh, yeah.
THS: Mm-hmm.
NM: Yeah, you were lucky to get those passes.
THS: In fact, the whole family, my brother and his kids, and my brother-in-law and my sister, we
was all going to California to live.
NM: Mm.
THS: When we got to Needles, California. There was no air conditioning in the car, so we got to
Needles, California, my brother-in-law [murmurs] jumped off – off the train and he says:
“Whew! I wanna go down and get some air.” He got – jumped down, jumped back up, and he
says, he told my sister: “Let me tell you something. If it’s this hot where we’re going, I’m
coming back tomorrow.” [Laughs] But they didn’t. They stayed and worked for that summer,
and then they all came back.
NM: No incentive to stay there. Yeah.
THS: No.
NM: Too hot.
THS: It was a beautiful place, you know, but…
NM: Mm.
�THS: You could see a lot of stuff, and –
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: And my, uh, brother-in-law in California worked in the – where they bring all this, uh,
garbage for the pigs they had.
NM: Oh
THS: They had pigs’ pens.
NM: Yeah.
THS: And, of course, um, there would be all kinds of silverware and everything, that people
would just drop it in, you know, accidentally.
NM: Sure.
THS: But it would be in there, and he’d pick it all up and bring it home and polish it up and take
it up, and make extra money.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: Besides what he was getting to feed the pigs and stuff.
NM: Yeah. Resourceful.
THS: In fact, I still got some up there.
NM: Do you, really?
THS: My mother left, uh-huh.
NM: Oh, wow.
THS: Sterling silver. All the kids can do whatever they want to.
NM: Sure. That’s amazing. What a great story.
THS: Uh-huh. It’s a – it was a tough world, but…
NM: Mm-hmm, yeah.
THS: You know, and then when I married Leo, it was entirely different, you know, ‘cause he
worked all the time.
�NM: Oh, he worked very hard.
THS: And then I worked, too, you know.
NM: Mm-hmm.
THS: After I left the laundry, then the kids, he wouldn’t let me work till they got into high
school. I mean junior high, the girls. Yeah. He said no. And so, I stood and I – I – done laundry
for people. I done the shirts for Butch.
NM: Yeah.
THS: ‘Cause he worked at – in the grocery store.
NM: Okay.
THS: I ironed all his shirts and washed ‘em.
NM: That’s a lot of work.
THS: I babysat. I done everything I could to give us extra money.
NM: Yeah.
THS: And then…then I went to work at the – when I worked at the laundry then. And then, uh,
he went to work for the City. And his legs was getting really bad, so I told him, I says: “Give it
up.” You know, I’m still working. I was working the Presbyterian Manor there.
NM: Oh, yeah.
THS: I said: “Just give it up. I’m working, and you can draw your Social Security.” So that’s
what he did
NM: Yeah. Good.
THS: But he was always mowing grass.
NM: I know.
THS: Cleaning garages for people, you know.
NM: Uh-huh.
THS: Just doing everything. Him and the boys. The boys all know how to work.
NM: Uh-huh. That’s right.
�THS: ‘Course Richard, all he does is sit in the chair and –
NM: Work on the computer? [Laughs]
THS: And make money. Yeah, he had a full knee replacement yesterday.
NM: Oh, really?
THS: I thought I wouldn’t call him maybe till tomorrow, until he got a little more rest.
NM: Yeah, good idea. Well, I’m gonna have to get going, Teresa
THS: Yeah, I don’t know about a knee replacement, ‘cause he sits in a chair all the time,
working on the computer.
NM: Yeah, that’s kind of funny.
THS: Not – not unless he – he hurt it, uh, taking the scooter to the swim –
NM: Does – does he go to the gym and exercise at the gym – [tape cuts off]
END OF TAPE
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Description
An account of the resource
La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers in Lawrence, Kansas; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. In 2006, Helen Krische, archivist at the Watkins Community Museum, began an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. The project was resumed in 2019 by Nora Murphy and Emily Raymond. The interviews primarily feature the children of the railroad workers who migrated to Lawrence in the early 20th century; they describe daily life, social activities, and living conditions in the Mexican-American community in Lawrence from roughly the 1920s through the 1970s.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
2019
2021
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
These works are the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Murphy, Nora
Raymond, Emily
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Schwartz, Teresa Hernandez
Schwartz, Anita
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
MP3
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:12:42 (2019-10-06)
00:47:30 (2019-10-13, pt. 1)
00:7:31 (2019-10-13, pt 2)
01:05:32 (2019-11-14)
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
192 kbps
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Teresa Hernandez Schwartz La Yarda Interview
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Schwartz, Teresa Hernandez
Schwartz, Anita
Description
An account of the resource
Teresa Hernandez Schwartz lived with her parents in Lawrence's La Yarda neighborhood. Teresa was interviewed by Nora Murphy on October 6, October 13, and November 14, 2019, as part of an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. Teresa describes her family's migration from Mexico to Kansas, their experiences living in railroad housing communities in Topeka and Lawrence, and the 1951 flood that forced the La Yarda community to disperse. Teresa also describes her family's relationships with other Mexican-American families in Lawrence, their experiences attending local schools and St. John's Church, their working life and family foodways, the effects of World War II and the German prisoner of war camp in Lawrence, and experiences of discrimination and segregation faced by the Mexican-American community in Lawrence. Teresa's daughter, Anita Schwartz, is also present for portions of the interview.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Murphy, Nora
Raymond, Emily
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lawrence (Kan.)
1920s - 1970s
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
October and November 2019
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
MP3 (audio recording)
PDF (transcription)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
2019-10-06 interview: 1-TSchwartz-20191006.mp3 (audio)/1-TSchwartz-20191006.pdf (transcription)
2019-10-13 interview: 2a-TSchwartz-20191013.mp3 and 2b-TSchwartz-20191013.mp3 (audio)/2a-TSchwartz-20191013.pdf and 2b-TSchwartz-20191013.pdf (transcription)
2019-11-14 interview: 3-TSchwartz-20191114.mp3 (audio)/3-TSchwartz-20191114.pdf (transcription)
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Relation
A related resource
To access the audio recording of these interviews, go to <a href="https://archive.org/details/1-tschwartz-20191006">https://archive.org/details/1-tschwartz-20191006</a>.
The <a href="https://www.watkinsmuseum.org/">Watkins Museum of History</a> also holds items related to this collection.
<a href="https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/resources/5295">Additional research on the La Yarda community</a> is held at the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Published with the permission of Teresa Hernandez Schwartz. This work is the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
-
https://history.lplks.org/files/original/a813f7874d4089114d00bcad93119e35.pdf
dcf9f9cfbbc4520f862b26b558fa5ac1
PDF Text
Text
Tape 25: Interview with Pedro (Pete) Romero
Interviewer: Helen Krische
Date of Interview: May 23, 2006
Length of Interview: 47:18
Location of Interview: St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church
Transcription Completion Date: 2021
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Pedro Romero (Interviewee): When I got more information, then – then I was able to put it
down, uh, as true figures.
Helen Krische (Interviewer): Okay, so you sketched all of this of the yards?
PR: Yeah, so that’s – so that I would have something to kind of go by so that I could, uh, uh,
relay the…the, uh…um…what I thought it looked like to the artist.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: The artist eventually, to do the painting.
HK: Mm-hmm. Okay.
PR: But, like I said, I – I got some pictures here, and…this – this is, uh, one of the pictures.
Okay, let – let’s go back to this.
HK: Okay.
PR: It was – I – I got some, I forgot to bring it – I got some pictures –
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: That I took with a camera.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: I forgot to bring ‘em with me.
HK: Oh, those would be –
PR: I tell you what, I was running late, but…um, um, you – have you seen the – the picture of
the buildings, well, what they looked like?
HK: The only thing I have are these that Buddy brought me.
PR: Okay –
�HK: And let me scan.
PR: Okay, there – there – there is an artist’s picture, of – the –
HK: Really?
PR: This artist, a guy by the name of Frankie Chavez.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: He – he’d, uh, he’d painted the, uh, what the building looked like.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: He got – he got a lot of the – he got a lot of the information from me.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: I was able to get it to him, and…lot of the people liked it, lot of the older people said that
was pretty much what – what it looked like, uh, we – we couldn’t, nobody had any pictures of it.
HK: Then.
PR: And I even went to the, uh, Topeka, to the Santa Fe, uh…railroad there, and they couldn’t
help me out, and I went up to, uh, the…what is it, the Kansas Historic…place in Topeka.
HK: Kansas Historical Society, yeah.
PR: I went there and they couldn’t help me, I went to the City, here in Lawrence, uh, they – they
was able to show me some maps.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: Some, uh, maps back in the 1940s, but none of the maps had this, uh, Santa Fe yards in it.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: It showed the tracks, which ran – I think east and west –
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: But there was never a picture of – of this…of this, uh…Santa Fe yards.
HK: Yeah. That’s great.
�PR: Well, and like I said, this is what I kind of showed the artist what – what, what I kind of
looked at. And then – and then here, here – back in 1951, the flood.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: It’s an old, it’s an old reprint, it’s kind of bad but you can see the – the building.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: The building was under the water. And…if you can use any of these pictures I’d be glad to –
HK: So was this – this building, or – ?
PR: Yeah, yeah.
HK: Okay, so it’s just –
PR: Um, I kind of wish I could have bought the, uh, the drawing. I mean, the drawing is, it’s
great, it’s all in color –
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: It’s uh, but this is the – gosh, I don’t even – this was the building [murmurs]. This was kind
of looking at the building like –
HK: In the back of it, yeah.
PR: Like this.
HK: Uh-huh.
PR: It was kind of looking in it. But, um, like I said, I’m – I really haven’t got too much to, uh, I
just thought I’d bring you what – what I had.
HK: Sure.
PR: And this – this is an old picture of the old Santa Fe depot there.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: At the time of the flood.
HK: The flood.
�PR: Uh… [long pause, pages turning]. This picture here…this picture here, uh, was looking, uh,
east about – about a quarter, about a quarter of a mile down these railroad tracks was where the –
where the apartments were at.
HK: Oh, okay.
PR: The Santa Fe apartments.
HK: Okay.
PR: And…and…now, I – I’m sure you – you can look through some of these pictures, but I’m
sure you’ve probably… [long pause, pages turning]
HK: Well, this is a different one I haven’t seen. Now, this one I do have a copy of.
PR: Yeah.
HK: Yeah. Got a copy of this one. Um…this one I don’t have a copy of. [Long pause, HK
murmurs, pages turning]. Now where is this looking from, or…?
PR: Um, that is looking, um, east.
HK: Okay.
PR: Of – of the, uh, the Santa Fe, apart – this was all during the 1951 flood.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: And the railroad tracks ran right up this way.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: They were up above; all that was flooded. It was funny because my parents, uh, the 1951
flood came and I remember we waited till the water went down and then we went back in, and
tried to clean up the apartments.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: So we could move back in there. The Romeros, the mud [murmurs], that the water had left.
HK: Mm-hmm. So did you live in – in these buildings?
PR: Uh…yes. Um…I really would like to have had you see the drawing, the artist’s drawing.
HK: Yeah.
Formatted: French (France)
�PR: [Murmurs] Um…
HK: Buddy is supposed to be making a copy of something, and I don’t know if it’s that drawing
or maybe it’s, is it? Okay.
PR: I have, um, I have a big artist’s, uh, drawing at home.
HK: Uh-huh.
PR: And then the – the ones that I gave Buddy and Irene are – are the smaller –
HK: Okay.
PR: Are the smaller ones, but I got the big –
HK: Oh, okay.
PR: I got the big one and it’s beautiful; I got it all framed up and all that. It’s a real pretty picture.
But, uh, if there’s any way I can help you, I’d be glad to.
HK: Yeah.
PR: I real – like I said, there’s not really much, too much that I got. I got a few pictures.
HK: Well, I might scan these.
PR: Yeah.
HK: And, do you know the names of all the people in them, or – ?
PR: Yeah.
HK: Okay.
PR: Pretty much.
HK: Yeah, I think that…
PR: I can’t remember – oh, I got a sinus headache.
HK: I’ll bet, so this weather is really bad.
PR: Yeah.
�HK: Yeah. This one I already have a scan of. Yeah, I’ve been trying to get people to identify the
people in the photographs for me, so [laughs] sometimes it’s been successful and sometimes it
hasn’t, so…
PR: I – I got a picture here; these are my brothers, here.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: Uh…I – I, I really like this picture here a lot because it’s got so much detail about what –
what the Santa Fe…what part of the Santa Fe buildings looked like. Um…we had
to…okay…where is it, come on…there was a – this – this was the end of the building here.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: This is the end of the building right here.
HK: Okay.
PR: [Murmurs] And back in the back, in these two, I think it was corn, a cornfield. Now right up
above here was the railroad track, the Santa Fe railroad track.
HK: Okay, and there’s…the Santa Fe depot, is that –
PR: No, no.
HK: No?
PR: The – the Santa Fe depot was farther; I believe, if my directions are right, west.
HK: Okay.
PR: It was farther west. I think the train runs east and west –
HK: Uh-huh.
PR: I think so.
HK: Yeah.
PR: Well, anyways, uh, this – this was kind of a – it looks like it’s corn.
HK: Uh-huh.
PR: And then back here, they, uh, somebody at one time had a – a corn…uh – uh, bin.
HK: Mm-hmm.
Formatted: Spanish (Spain)
�PR: It was, I think there was about two of them. This is one of them, where they stored the
popcorn. Popcorn. And then this – this was on the tracks, this one, the – the, um…I don’t
remember what it was called, tank or something like that [murmurs].
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: But anyways, uh…we had a water pump.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: We had a water pump right where…there – there used to be two, there used to be two units,
this one here and then there’s one right across, and – and this, the pump was right in between –
HK: Middle.
PR: Right between both of them.
HK: Neat. Can I scan this too?
PR: Yeah, yeah. You can – would you like to take the picture out of it? Take the picture out of it.
HK: It would probably work better. We were trying to do one inside a frame this morning and it
just didn’t –
PR: Yeah, yeah.
HK: So, um, Pete, if I could, this is a – this is a, uh, consent form, uh, for you to sign. Um, to do
the oral history with. And it basically just says that you give all the rights to, um, the recording,
to the museum, and a copy of it may go to the Kansas State Historical Society.
PR: Okay. Yeah, like I said, I’m not very good. I’m –
HK: Well, you know –
PR: On tape and all that.
HK: Yeah. We can just, you know, do an audiotape, that’s fine too. And if, you know, if you
ever want to stop during the interview, just let me know and we can just stop.
PR: So, what kind of questions would you ask me?
HK: Okay, well, I have a list of questions here that I kind of go down.
PR: Could you kind of go over them with me right now before –
�HK: Sure. Do you want to look at ‘em?
PR: Yeah, I’m – I’m not even properly dressed [laughs]. [Long pause] What – what if you don’t
know some of the answers?
HK: That’s fine. Usually I just, you know, I don’t really just ask question after question. I just
kind of, we just kind of talk and, um, usually the information comes out, I don’t even have to
ask, because, you know, when people start telling you their story, then it’s just kind of natural
that a lot of those questions are already answered, so… But if there’s any of them that you don’t
want me to ask you, that’s fine too. So… You can just tell me: “I don’t want to answer that
question,” and I [laughs] – that’s fine.
PR: So, I guess the purpose of me coming here was to, you know, be interviewed and all that.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: But mostly I just kind of wanted to help you out on any old pictures of something that I had.
HK: Yeah, but you have – you have memories too, of –
PR: Yeah.
HK: Since you lived there, you know, you can, um, you have firsthand experience.
PR: Do – do I have to be – because I’m being – if I’m photographed, will – will it be shown with
me in my old…[laughs].
HK: We don’t – we don’t have to run the camera, that’s fine.
PR: Okay.
HK: We can just do it with the – I have a tape in here, so we can just do it with the audiotape.
PR: You know, one of these days, like I said, I’m not very good at this, but one of these days this
is kind of what I – I – I wanted to do.
HK: Hmm, okay.
[Long pause]
PR: You know I – I’m kind of better when I’m by myself and –
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: I’m just writing notes down and thoughts [murmurs] and all that.
�[Long pause]
HK: You have all your information down here, don’t you?
PR: Well, yeah, I got some information, but like I said, I – I never did finish it. This is something
that I wanted to do, and – and I never finished it. But, you know, at least I got – I got started a
little bit on it, so, you know, I can pass it on to my grandkids and things like that.
HK: Yeah.
PR: But I – I really never, that’s as far as I got. And, I mean, there’s so much more. But like I
said, sometimes, I’m – I’m better when I’m, you know, by myself and just jotting down, you
know…
HK: Sure. [Long pause, pages turning] Okay. So I might just, um, scan this too. Just for
information about your family. Would that be okay?
PR: Yeah, I guess so. Is – is everybody that’s interviewed, are they gonna be used? I mean, are
they gonna be, uh, um…[murmurs] Everybody that has an interview will be, uh…in the
newspaper or whatever you –
HK: Well, not necessarily in the newspaper. What we’ll do is that we’ll keep a copy of the tape
at the museum. And then we’ll also send a copy of the tape to the Kansas State Historical Society
in Topeka. And, um, then eventually out of this, I hope that we can do a story, like in the, um, the
Kansas magazine – that’s the publication of the Kansas State Historical Society – about
Lawrence, because, I mean, things have been written about Topeka, things have been written
about Kansas City in the Argentine district, but nothing has been written about Lawrence and the
Mexican-American community that started here. And so I was trying to, um, get together enough
information so that Lawrence, the story of Lawrence would be heard too.
PR: Yeah.
HK: And, um, because I went to – I went to Spencer Research Library up at KU to try to find
information and they didn’t have anything. And then I went to, um, to the Kansas State
Historical Society to see if they had any information about Lawrence and they didn’t, so it’s kind
of, um, Lawrence has been forgotten, I think.
PR: Yeah, it really has. Um –
HK: And then Buddy called me and asked me if I would do something for the fiesta, because it’s
the 25th anniversary.
PR: Yeah.
HK: So…
�PR: Okay. I – I tell you what I’d like to do with this.
HK: Okay.
PR: Uh, I was kind of doing a project here with this person.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: And…I told ‘em that I would never use this.
HK: Oh, okay. That’s fine.
PR: Until – until I completed this.
HK: Okay, that’s fine.
PR: It was kind of a project between me and the other person.
HK: Okay, that’s fine.
PR: Okay. But, okay, I – I would be happy to help you do this.
HK: Okay.
PR: Um, like I said, there’s one or two questions that I may not be able to help you with.
HK: Okay.
PR: But I think my brother’s getting interviewed too, so –
HK: Okay, alright.
PR: In the next couple of days, so –
HK: Okay.
PR: Yeah, so I’ll be glad to help you with this.
HK: Okay. So…
PR: I – so do you ask me these questions or I write ‘em down or what?
HK: Okay. Did you sign the consent form already?
PR: Oh, okay.
�HK: ‘Cause we need to do that before we get started. For –
PR: Okay. Ink?
HK: Ink. Yes. I have ink. [Laughs]
PR: Okay…interviewee, that’d be me?
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: You know what? My name is Pete. I go by Pete, but my real name is Pedro. [Long pause]
Today’s five…
HK: 23rd.
PR: 23rd, ‘06. I’d better put my last name down.
HK: I’ll give you a copy of that before you leave.
PR: Okay. [Long pause] Okay.
HK: Alrighty. Fantastic. Oh, you need to put your name up here at the top.
PR: Oh.
HK: In that blank, there.
PR: Okay. Um, print?
HK: That’s fine. [Long pause]
PR: Okay.
HK: Alrighty. Okay. So I’ll just start out asking you a little bit –
PR: Okay.
HK: Um…uh, we can identify ourselves. Um, I’m Helen Krische, and…
PR: Uh…Pedro Romero.
HK: Okay. And, um, I’m gonna start this out by asking a question about your – your parents,
where they came from, and how you happened – the family happened to end up in Lawrence.
PR: Uh…my – my father was from Veracruz. And my mother was from, um, uh, Mexico City.
Formatted: Spanish (Spain)
�HK: Mm-hmm. And how they ended up in Lawrence.
PR: Oh. Uh…they – they wanted a better jobs. And they – they knew friends that had came to
the U.S. and, uh, they heard that there was jobs here in this country, so that’s – they came here to
this country looking for – for jobs or work.
HK: Mm-hmm. Did he start – did your father start out working on the railroad, or…?
PR: Uh, yes. Yes. He, um…um…I believe that, uh, the, uh, U.S. government, uh, needed
workers for the railroad, so, uh, they went down there to, uh, Mexico to find workers and they –
they brought ‘em over to this country.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: I think that’s how my parents, uh, got into this country, with the help of the U.S.
government.
HK: Mm-hmm. Do you know what year that was, or around what time that was?
PR: Um…[long pause]. I’m gonna say maybe, uh, 1917.
HK: Okay. I think that’s one of the earlier families –
PR: Yeah, oh, yeah. The – the first ones.
HK: Yeah.
PR: And – and can I tell you more?
HK: Sure, yeah. Just, you know, we don’t have to set, you just tell me whatever.
PR: Well, they, uh, my mother and dad both – I believe the year was 1917. And my dad was real
young, and my mother was even younger. I think my mother was about 6 years younger than
him. Uh, they married in, uh, 1921, I believe. Um…they raised thirteen kids.
HK: Wow.
PR: Thirteen kids, and that’s…I think I’m probably about the middle – about the middle child.
HK: Mm-hmm. What were their names?
PR: Um…Gonzalo Romero and Avelina Romero. Um…[murmurs] my dad, uh…had one sister.
And…his mother, uh, I believe his – his real dad died. So he – he had a stepfather by the name
of, um…what’s his name…God, I can’t remember [murmurs]. Felix. Felix Chavez.
HK: Oh, okay.
�PR: And that – that was his step – that was his stepdad. So, somewhere along the line, he – his
real dad must have been named Romero.
HK: Did they, uh, did your father speak English before he came to the United States, or was that
something that he – he learned while he was here?
PR: Um, it was something that he learned while he was here. He was – him and my mother were
always embarrassed by – by their English. So they – they spoke to us, they spoke to us in
Spanish.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: But, yeah, my – my dad learned – my dad learned English, but, you know, because he had,
uh, you know, because he…his whole life centered around the English language. But, uh, he was
more comfortable with the Spanish language.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: My mother – my mother never did learn, uh, to speak English very well. She would speak it,
she would speak English, but, uh…she – she was never comfortable with – with speaking
English, but we grew up, you know, both on, on…we grew up Spanish first of the language, then
English second.
HK: Mm-hmm. So were all the children born in the United States, or were some of them born in
Mexico before they moved here?
PR: No, we were all born in – in, we were all born in Kansas.
HK: Oh.
PR: Uh, we were all born in different towns, though, because my, uh, my dad, uh, would, uh, get
orders from the railroad to go to different – different towns to help…with the – with the railroad
tracks.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: So I think we lived, like, in Humboldt, we lived in Baldwin, we lived – I think we even lived
in the Kansas City area for a short time. Um…but I guess mostly all our life was here in
Lawrence. But we did – we did move around. But even though we – we did move around, my
brother – my older brothers and sisters would – would tell me about some of the places we – we
lived. Some of the towns we lived in, but I – I don’t remember. The only place I remember here
is in Lawrence.
HK: Mm-hmm.
�PR: That’s the only place I remember. But they did tell me, though, that we moved wherever the
railroad sent my dad, wherever they needed.
HK: Mm-hmm. So did he just work exclusively for the Santa Fe railroad, or did he work for
other railroads too?
PR: No, no, he just worked for the Santa Fe railroad. He – he worked on the crew – on the track
crew. Um, it was rough, it was rough, they worked outside all the time. I remember as a kid, that
my dad, I remember Dad coming home with his rain – his rain jacket on, and I remember during
the wintertime, um, when it snowed they – they…called my dad. They would go after my dad to,
uh, go to work to clear the tracks out.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: And it was funny because at that time, they didn’t have telephones.
HK: Yeah.
PR: So the only way that they could – they could get in touch with the men was somebody from
in town, the depot, would go up there. And it must have been a good experience –
HK: Yeah.
PR: To go to these different, uh…uh…places where the men lived, because at that time I don’t
think that too many Mexicans had telephones. I’m pretty sure they didn’t, so the only way they
could ever get in touch was to go out there. So…
HK: Huh. Did he work – did he work all year long on the railroad?
PR: Yeah, he worked for 46 years. Um, there was a time, uh, probably back in the 70s or 80s,
that he could have retired, but they – they lost track of his records –
HK: Oh, my gosh.
PR: They lost track of his records, so in – in order to, I guess get his full benefits, he had to work
– he had to work 46 years.
HK: Oh, geez.
PR: But it – it was, it was a tough life on guys [murmurs]. I really admired my dad for – for…for
working that many years.
HK: Yeah. Did he – did he just, did he have any other side jobs, or any other –
PR: No, no. Uh, he didn’t. The Santa Fe gave him a patch of ground right beside the tracks, and,
they gave the men, and the men would go out there and plant gardens.
�HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: And I remember as a kid, be hot out there and we’d be out there with our dad and help him
plant tomatoes and peppers and sweet potatoes and all that. And it was funny because we’d be
out there helping our dad and some of our friends, our age, would come down and want us to go
play. Go play with them, but we couldn’t do it because our dad wanted us there in the garden.
My dad was pretty strict, a good man, a good…but he was pretty strict with us. We always – we
always wanted to go play with our friends, but we couldn’t ever do it.
HK: Yeah.
PR: And – and that – that was about the only, that was about the only side job that – about the
only thing that he did, really. He didn’t have a side job, not that I know of.
HK: Mm-hmm. How did – how did he, um, make out during the Depression years?
PR: Well, I – I think they did okay because they – they lived there at the apartments.
HK: Uh-huh.
PR: And the apartments were free.
HK: Uh-huh.
PR: They were free, I – they had water, but it was from the pump.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: They – their light was, I think it was from this little, uh…kerosene lamps.
HK: Oh, uh-huh.
PR: Kerosene lamps. Um, that was their light, um…their heat was with coal. They used to have
the – the kitchen stove was, uh, coal-fed, the, uh, we had the potbelly stoves there, and that was
our heat. I – I remember, I remember wintertime, boy, I don’t see how we survived. I don’t see
how we survived, but we did. I remember as little kids, there was a bunch of us. Uh…as kids,
we, at nighttime we’d get up there and huddle around the…that potbelly, uh, stove and stay
warm, you know. Gosh I remember that potbelly stove being – being about as red as – as – that
purse there. And, um…um, for…food, my parents raised pretty much everything that we ate.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: Um, his job was always – I believe his job was always secure with the railroad, because they
all – the railroad was the only transportation, you know, at that time –
�HK: Uh-huh.
PR: So his, I think his job was pretty secure. Um, food-wise, everything, we – he, uh, raised
chickens, uh…I think he even had a hog or two.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: Um…for meat. For vegetables, he had this big garden and they stored a lot of the stuff.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: For the – for the winter time they [murmurs]. Canned tomatoes, peaches, um…pears. But, a
lot of the stuff that they – that we ate during the winter time was – was canned.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: So – so but they always, they always had something, they always had something to eat. I
remember we used to eat the heck out of chicken. [Both laugh] Chicken, chicken was always,
chicken was always there.
HK: It’s stable.
PR: Yeah, really.
HK: Yeah.
PR: I, uh, I’m really interested in completing this [murmurs], but like I said, I – I’m better, you
know, when I’m – when I’m by myself and [murmurs] special things, certain things happened
that bring me back to these memories.
HK: Yeah, sure.
PR: And I linger on these memories and I – I want to jot them down and to express the feelings
that I had about that time, so [murmurs] complete that.
HK: Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, your mom, did she – of course, she made all of her – she made
tortillas for bread and, um…
PR: Yeah
HK: Did she do a lot of sewing for the kids, for their clothing?
PR: Right, yeah. Uh…yeah, my mother, she did, um, she – she did all the cooking…she…did a
lot of the clothing.
HK: Mm-hmm.
�PR: I remember the girls, my sisters, would always get these real pretty flour dresses, you know,
made from the –
HK: Flour sacks.
PR: Flour sacks and things like that. And, um…my mother, well – our – our main ingredients of
food was instead of bread, we used to eat tortillas. So she made tortillas all the time.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: She made tortillas all the time. I mean, she made ‘em, I think, in the morning, and she’d
make ‘em again in the afternoon, so we – we’ve always had [murmurs] tortillas. We ate a lot of
frijoles.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: Potatoes and things like that.
HK: So what would be a typical meal at your house?
PR: Um, a typical meal would be, uh…then?
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: Oh, tortillas and frijoles. Potatoes. For meat, it – it was usually chicken.
HK: Chicken.
PR: So that – that was pretty typical.
HK: Did you have meat every day, or was it sort of a once or twice a week thing, or – ?
PR: Um, okay, I think it was maybe…I’m gonna say, I’m gonna go back about chicken on, you
know, I’ll go back, I think maybe chicken, maybe a couple of times a week. The – the rest of the
time, uh, my parents bought a lot of, like, uh…bologna meat and maybe pork chops, whatever. I
guess my parents would always get whenever on sale, the pork chops. But yes, we – we – we had
our share of, uh…of good healthy food.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: We, I can never say we went hungry. I mean, you know, there was probably a lot of times
we didn’t like what was being served, but, I mean, it was there for us to eat if we wanted to eat,
so…
�HK: Sure. Did you – did you as a child go downtown much; did you go, like, to different
businesses and…?
PR: Um…yeah, we – I tell you what, I lived there at the Santa Fe apartment till I was…I think it
might have been the sixth grade.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: And we all – we all decided, we all decided it was a…it was a joy to – to go into town.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: And we – we’d go to the movies. Um…our, the school – the school was in town, so you
know, we all went to New York School. And the Santa Fe – the Santa Fe apartment – well, we
call ‘em the Santa Fe yards. We did. Somebody else might call it the Santa Fe apartments, but we
called it the Santa Fe yards. We, to get to – to the town, we had to go over the tracks. Had kind
of a steep little hill, and that was the first set of tracks.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: And between – in between that track there and other tracks, it must have been about, I’m
gonna say at least five or six sets of tracks that – that we had to cross in order to say we were in
town. Once we got past the tracks, we would say we were in town. [HK laughs] But, um, there –
there was a road, there was a – a road where the – where the trucks and whatever needed to get
back in there used it [murmurs], but we always used the – we would always get to town by
crossing the tracks, either walking across the tracks or crawling, uh, crawling underneath the
track, underneath the boxcars.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: And a lot of times when we did crawl under the boxcars, you know, the engine would, you
could hear it start and the train would jerk and [murmurs], but we’d get out. We were so used to
– to crawling underneath the – the – the train tracks. The trains –
HK: Did anyone ever get hurt?
PR: No, nobody ever did. We did that a lot. That was, we probably did that as much as – there
was always, there was always trains there, so we – we – we did a lot of crawling underneath ‘em.
And every once in a while you know the train wouldn’t be there where you could stand up and
where you could walk across the tracks, but a lot of times the tracks – the – the trains would be
there, so we had to crawl, you know, crawl underneath ‘em to get, you know, into town. Um, we
did that as long as I can remember. Going to school, yeah, I don’t know how we did it with our
schoolbooks and all that. But, uh…we used to do it, and, oh…all – all of the stores that, uh, my
parents went to, um, like I said, my – my parents raised a lot of the food that they needed. We
were talking about the Depression. They – they did a lot of their – their food raising. But then, uh
– uh – they also did a lot of, uh, grocery shopping.
�HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: Um, in town. In town I’m talking about streets like, um, uh…9th and New York…9th and –
let’s see – 9th and New York. At 9th and New York there used to be a little store called Johnson’s
Grocery Store. And then, um, let’s see…and then there was another store, uh…another store…on
8th Street. We used to call one “The Little Store” and it was kind of a one flat deal. And then we
used to call – we used to call the – the other store “The Big Store” because it was a two-story
house [murmurs].
HK: So these were just little neighborhood grocery stores.
PR: Right, yes. We did – we did a lot of the, uh…one of the reasons why we went in town was to
go to the store, or go to school, or go to our church, St. John’s Church, which – which I think
must have been, I’m gonna say, from the Santa Fe yard to the church, I’m gonna say it was about
a mile.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: It might have been more, maybe a mile and a half. But we used to, we used to walk that…on
Sundays. We would all walk down to – we all walked to church. And it would be cold
[murmurs]. We used to go to the movies. Our parents would give us, like, what was it, fifty
cents. You could – you could always see a movie and buy popcorn and all that stuff for fifty
cents. And, um, other times we came into town was, well…we – we’d play baseball. We’d play
baseball at the South Park. We’d play, uh baseball at the Municipal Stadium.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: It’s right there, right off –
HK: Hobbs Park, yeah.
PR: Yeah. But we – we – we came into town quite a bit. We always envied the – the kids in the
city. Yeah, we – we’d always envy them kids ‘cause they – we were ashamed. We were ashamed
to be living at the Santa Fe apartments because, you know, the Santa Fe apartments, um,
uh…everybody, all our friends had – all our friends – some of our friends, now, the ones that
lived in town, they had addresses.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: House addresses, and we didn’t have one like that.
HK: Hmm.
PR: Uh…there – there must have been – there must have been an address for that. Otherwise
how could we have gotten our mail?
�HK: Yeah.
PR: But, um, we always envied our friends in the town because, you know, they – they, uh, they
had – they had an address and all that, and all we were – we were just the, uh, the Santa Fe yards.
HK: So did you experience a lot of prejudice?
PR: Um…
HK: In Lawrence at that time?
PR: Myself…I didn’t think so then. But now, I – I – I think I did. For one thing, you know, I go
by Pete, but my real name is Pedro on my birth certificate. And I had thought about it years later
and I said: “Why, how come I didn’t keep my – my name Pedro?”
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: And, uh…um…I – I really didn’t experience a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh…racial things like that.
I did notice it, you know, that the groups all kind of stuck, you know, the kids all stuck to
themselves, the white groups would stick to themselves, the Hispanics would to themselves, the
blacks to themselves and all that. But, um…I guess I did experience it, because, uh, it was
always us. It was always us, it wasn’t us mingling in with the other kids and all that. We – we
were just…we were just as a group, like we knew we had to stay together.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: Um…[sighs, long pause]
HK: Is there – was there any difference between, like, the – the kids who came from the Santa Fe
yards and the kids who actually lived in houses?
PR: Yes.
HK: Around on Pennsylvania – and New York Streets?
PR: Yeah.
HK: Those Hispanic children?
PR: Yes, yeah.
HK: Was there a lot of difference between the two, or…?
PR: Oh…
�HK: Did you still hang together close?
PR: Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, we – we hung around them and, um…we always thought that they
were better than us. But, I mean, you know, we all got along real good and all that, so – I really
don’t think there was too much, uh…difference. Only that, you know, they – they lived in houses
and we lived in – in the apartment building.
HK: Yeah. How did school go for you? Was it…?
PR: [Sighs]. School to me was hard. School to me was hard, I was…I was pretty attached to
home.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: And it was hard for me when I had to go to kindergarten at the school, it was hard for me. I
remember looking out the window, the school window, wishing I would go home. It was – it
was, it was – it was scary for me, it was, because like I said, we’d always – we’d always pretty
much, uh, um…stayed at the – the apartments.
HK: Mm-hmm.
PR: And then when it came time to go away, like being, uh, being home for the first time. But, I
mean, you know, I guess all – all kids experience that.
HK: Yeah. Did you speak any English before you started school, or – ?
PR: Um…I did speak English. I – I, it’s funny because – [tape cuts off at 47:18]
END OF TAPE 25
�
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PDF Text
Text
Interview with Pedro (Pete) Romero
Interviewer: Emily Raymond
Date of Interview: January 29, 2021
Length of Interview: 19:03
Location of Interview: Recorded over telephone
Transcription Completion Date: February 1, 2021
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Emily Raymond (Interviewer): Alright. For the purposes of the tape, my name is Emily
Raymond. Today’s date is Friday, January 29, 2021, and I am about to call Pete Romero to
interview him. [Dial tone]
Pete Romero (Interviewee): Hello?
ER: Hello, Pete. It’s Emily.
PR: Hi, Emily! How’s it going?
ER: I’m doing well, how are you?
PR: Hey, okay, I just got through stepping in the house; I’m doing some chores.
ER: Is this still a good time?
PR: Uh…yeah. Yeah, it is a good time. Uh, yeah, go – let’s go ahead.
ER: Okay.
PR: Okay.
ER: Well, let me introduce myself first. We – we’ve never met. And I wish we could do it in
person, but unfortunately –
PR: Yeah. Hey, you know what, maybe if you want to, maybe next time we get – maybe next
time we can get together, and I – I can kind of show you things – things, uh, uh, pictures and –
and, uh, you know, maybe there’s some things maybe that, uh, maybe nobody has seen, and
maybe – maybe you – you might be able to, uh…maybe there’s something there that, you know,
you might be able to use. But yes, uh, um, you know, it kind of would be kind of nice to, uh, to –
to meet in person, but, ah, you know, right now with everything that’s going on and all that, it –
it’s, uh, um…I’m kind of a little, uh, stay-at-home person. I’d rather do things here at home. But
do you know what, Emily? If there’s a good place that we could meet, where there’s not a lot of
people…
ER: Would you prefer to do that?
PR: Sure.
�ER: Okay. That way, you can bring some of the paintings and the drawings.
PR: Sure, yeah. Sure, yeah, we can do that. Uh…is there, uh, things we can discuss right now?
ER: We can, if you like. I can just start by asking you a few questions.
PR: Okay. Now, so, this is all being recorded, right?
ER: Yes, this is being recorded.
PR: Okay. Oh, okay. Okay, well, um…I’m not gonna say nothing that I shouldn’t say, so it’s all
right. And I guess, what that letter was from, uh, that, uh, uh – is it Noreen?
ER: It’s Nora Murphy.
PR: Nora. Nora. Nora. Nora. I always call her Noreen. Nora. Okay. Yeah, so that letter that she
sent me, uh, she had me fill it out and, uh, I went ahead with it. So…
ER: Well, that sounds good. We just wanted to make sure we had all of the necessary forms
before we did the interview.
PR: Yeah. Could – could you hold on for a second, okay? The – the phone’s ringing and I’m on
–
ER: Yes, of course.
PR: See, we’re expecting a phone call. Just a second. [Background conversation continues until
4:07] Uh, Emily, I was – we’re kind of, hoping to hear from the – from the Douglas County
Health, to have my wife have her shot taken, and, uh, well, we just kind of hanging around the
phone, so…when they call up, so she can get – so she can get, uh, on the list to have that shot
taken.
ER: Good, I hope she can.
PR: I – I took my shot at the VA hospital there in Topeka, the first one. I haven’t taken the
second one, that’s in a couple more weeks. That’s, uh, that’s where I’m kind of at right now.
ER: Well, I hope she can get her shot, too.
PR: Yeah, yeah. It just seems like the ones that need it the most aren’t getting it. Like – like me, I
– I’m in pretty good health, but, you know, ‘cause being that I was a veteran, I got to – I got to
go in to get my shot, so…
ER: Oh, excellent. Good.
�PR: Yeah. Okay –
ER: Well, one of the things I was going to ask anyway was about your family. During the first
interview, I – we didn’t find out whether you had a wife or kids, so could you – could you tell
me a bit about your family?
PR: Uh, well, yes. Uh, um, I’m married to, uh, uh…my wife is named Anna Marie Romero.
ER: Anna Marie.
PR: Romero.
ER: Alright.
PR: Her maiden name was Perez.
ER: Oh, okay.
PR: Uh, I have two sons, uh…Paul. Paul Romero, who is, uh, 51 years old. He lives in Kansas
City. He’s a banker in, uh, that UMB Bank in Kansas City.
ER: Oh, good. So, he’s close by, so you can visit him.
PR: Yeah, yeah, he’s close by. Then I have my son Vince. Vince Romero, who – who is, um,
uh…he’s married to, uh, Samantha. And, uh…let’s see, okay. He – he’s got – he’s got seven
kids.
ER: Seven, my goodness.
PR: Yeah.
ER: You must be proud.
PR: He’s got seven kids. And – and, uh, my son Paul has two.
ER: Okay.
PR: Three, three. Three, three.
ER: So, between all of those two, you’ve got ten grandkids?
PR: Right.
ER: Oh, congratulations. [PR laughs] Do you get to see them pretty often?
�PR: Uh, yeah, uh, yeah…I, uh, I try to see ‘em as much as I can. Some – sometimes I think I – I
can be a nuisance to – to, uh, to my, uh, two boys, ‘cause I’m always, you know, calling ‘em up
and asking ‘em about the grandkids and wanting to talk to ‘em and…
ER: I don’t – I don’t think that would be a nuisance. I – I enjoy talking to my grandparents.
PR: Yes.
ER: What do you like to do with your grandkids?
PR: What do I like to do? Oh, I – oh, I – um, they’re – they’re into sports. They’re – they’re into
sports, uh…uh, baseball, uh, soccer. Football. Um…them are my grandsons. My – my
granddaughters, I like to just, you know, um…I like to – to, uh, they’re – one of ‘em is in ballet,
and the other one is, uh, is a real good, uh, uh, street – seamstress.
ER: Oh.
PR: Likes to sew and things like that. Okay, so…I could, uh, my grandkids on – on my – on my
son Vince’s side – side, they range in age from two to thirteen years old, and they all attend St.
John’s School.
ER: Oh, my goodness. I have actually never been to St. John’s School.
PR: What’s that?
ER: I have never been to St. John’s School.
PR: Oh, it – it’s a nice church. It’s really a good church. There’s so much, uh, uh…diversity in –
in the St. John’s Church.
ER: Well, that’s refreshing to hear.
PR: Yeah, it’s – it’s a pretty neat church. We’re – me and the wife, we’re pretty involved in it.
We try to get involved in quite a bit of it. I’m, uh, I’m an usher at, uh, the 4:30 Mass, and, um…I
just, yeah, so much of our life centers around the church. I think the church is our second home.
ER: Is it? I’m glad.
PR: Yeah.
ER: My parents are very involved in their church back home. I grew up Baptist.
PR: Right. Yes.
ER: So they are much the same. And so, you grew up Catholic, is that correct?
�PR: Right, yeah, I grew up Catholic. And all my life I’ve been – been around the church. Altar
boy, just everything that, uh, everything that – that – that, uh, involved the church, I try to get
involved in it.
ER: Excellent. Well, how did you meet your wife?
PR: Uh, well, we – we met, uh, I met my wife through a cousin of hers. Um, I met her – she’s
from Topeka.
ER: Okay.
PR: I – I met her at a, there was a dance. Uh, we – we all liked to go to the dances. Long time
ago, you know, that was one of the things, you know, people went to dances and things like that.
ER: Right.
PR: That’s where, uh…that – that is where a lot of our people, uh, used to – used to like to do.
They used to like to, on the weekends, maybe, uh, be a dance in Topeka or Ottawa, or you know,
just someplace. And we’ll all like to go out there and just meet up friends and dance and things
like that. Uh, I – I met her in, uh, 1964. Uh, we got married two years later, uh, got married in
1966. Got married at, uh, Lady Guadalupe Church in Topeka.
ER: Oh. That’s special. I’m glad for you.
PR: Well, thank you. Thank you.
ER: I – in fact, I think ‘64, yeah, that was the year that my dad was born.
PR: Oh, oh really? In ‘64, really?
ER: Yes.
PR: Wow.
ER: It’s a small world.
PR: Well, yes. Uh, let’s see, uh, ‘64, so you’re – you’re, okay. Okay, so your dad is, uh,
uh…how old is your dad?
ER: He’s – oh, good question. 56, I believe. I’m not very good at math.
PR: 56, okay, okay. Okay.
ER: Yep, 56. That’s what it is.
�PR: Yeah. Okay. So, Emily, you’re – you’re, Amy, you’re – you’re doing school, uh, this is a
kind of a school project you’re doing?
ER: Well, in part. I’m – right now I am a graduate student at the KU History Department.
PR: Okay.
ER: And about, uh, well, at some point last year, they sent out an e-mail asking if someone
would like to help with transcription, with the Watkins History Museum.
PR: Right.
ER: And I – before I started my graduate career, I was a transcriptionist at a doctor’s office.
PR: Uh-huh.
ER: So…
PR: Yes.
ER: I said I would love to help, and it is definitely much more interesting than listening to
medical cases.
PR: [Laughs] Oh, for sure. For sure, yeah.
ER: I actually get to talk to people.
PR: Right. Yeah. I, um, my – my son works for, uh, a hospital there in Kansas City. He’s uh,
he’s the health, um, administration department.
ER: Oh, very good. I hope he’s got his vaccine, then.
PR: No, no, he’s not. He – he’s, uh, he – he’s doing real good. No, he’s – so far, he hasn’t got
nothing, and he’s taken shots and things like that, so everything’s okay.
ER: Good, I’m glad to hear that. It’s – it’s incredible what we have available today.
PR: Right, yeah.
ER: What was – what was healthcare like for you? I mean, I imagine we – we’ve grown in leaps
and bounds, but what was it like when you were a kid? What kind of things were available to
you, healthcare-wise?
PR: Oh, my – my goodness, Amy, it – it – okay, we – we grew up, uh, in, uh, La Yarda. It’s a
place, uh, down there by the Santa Fe, uh, by the Santa Fe depot. Uh…um, well, it’s, uh…it – it
�was – it was pretty tough. It was pretty hard, but – oh, we didn’t know it. We, to us it was just –
it was just part of, uh, living, uh, where we were living. Um, gosh. Um…
ER: Sure, of course. That was – it was normal for you, when you were growing up.
PR: Yeah. You – you know what? Emily? Amy? Emily or Amy?
ER: It’s Emily.
PR: Emily. Okay, Emily. You know, Emily, I – I’d like to get together with you in person.
ER: That would be wonderful.
PR: Would that be okay? And – and I can show you more of what I got.
ER: Yes, I would. Is there a – a place you had in mind? I will happily go wherever you’re
comfortable.
PR: Well, I – I’d like to get together with you where there’s not too many people. Uh, um, how
about – can we get into the, uh, Watkins, uh, museum?
ER: That’s a good question. I will ask Nora. She would – she would know more about that,
having access to it. That would be a good idea, because there wouldn’t be too many people
around.
PR: No, there wouldn’t be too many people. And you know, being that it’s part of history that
we’re going after, this might be a good deal.
ER: That’s a good idea, Pete. I will – I will contact Nora, and I’ll ask her about availability.
How’s that?
PR: Yeah, and – and you might mention to Nora that I’ve been trying to get ahold of her. And
her line seems to be busy all the time.
ER: Oh. That’s odd. Okay, what I’ll do is send her an e-mail. That’s usually the way I
communicate with her, and –
PR: Right.
ER: I’ll let her know you’ve been trying to get ahold of her. But yes, I’d really like to meet with
you in person.
PR: Sure, yeah. That would be better. You know, I got a lot of, uh, I got a lot of transcripts here,
and I’d like to show ‘em to you and all that. But I – I can’t, well, we can’t do that over the phone.
ER: Yeah.
�PR: But, yeah, I’d like to get together with you.
ER: Okay. And I – we’ll both wear masks, and we’ll – we’ll definitely be safe. So, I will –
PR: Sure.
ER: I’ll check with Nora, and see what might be available.
PR: Yeah, check and – and see, see if there’s a place where we can – where we can get together.
ER: Okay. That sounds like a good idea, Pete.
PR: Yeah, okay. And I’ll bring you – I’ll bring you everything that I got, and we can go from
there.
ER: Wonderful. I’ll look forward to it.
PR: Okay. Emily, uh, I’m – I’m anxious to meet with you, uh, um…I – I think I got an exciting
childhood life that I’d like to share with you, and –
ER: I agree.
PR: And maybe with, uh…the people here in Lawrence.
ER: Yes. I – I would like them to know about it as well. So I – I’m looking forward to our
meeting.
PR: Sure. I’ll be excited to do that, okay?
ER: Okay. I’ll give you a call when I’ve talked to Nora.
PR: Oh, for sure, yeah. Maybe we can make it next week or something like that, someplace.
ER: Yes, that sounds very good.
PR: That sounds great. Okay, Emily?
ER: Alright.
PR: I’m – I’m sorry I can’t help you.
ER: No, you – you are being helpful. And we’ll talk more in person; it will be easier that way.
PR: Okay, sure. So, is – is it easy for you to, you know, just kind of get away, and –
�ER: I teach classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
PR: Oh, really?
ER: So usually Tuesdays and Thursdays are – are more open.
PR: Yeah. Oh, hey, that sounds good. Thursdays, yeah.
ER: Okay.
PR: That sounds – what – what building do you teach in?
ER: Well, I’m doing it remotely this semester; I’m an adjunct professor.
PR: Oh, okay.
ER: Yeah.
PR: Oh, okay.
ER: But I have an office on the KU campus.
PR: Sure. Yeah, I – I worked for the – I worked for KU for quite a few years, and I think I know
every building on the campus there.
ER: Oh, yeah. You probably know Wescoe Hall, then.
PR: Oh, yeah. I been there a lot of times in Wescoe Hall, yeah.
ER: Yeah, that’s where my office is.
PR: Okay, okay, Emily. So, I think we can get together again?
ER: Yes, I would enjoy that.
PR: Okay. I – I’m sorry, like I said, I – I just, I – I had some, uh, grocery shopping and I, uh, I
tried to hurry as much as I could so I could get together with you.
ER: That sounds good. And no worries.
PR: I – okay.
ER: Okay. I’ll talk with Nora and I’ll get back with you, alright?
PR: Yeah, yeah. Okay. Talk to Nora, and you might mention that I tried to get her on – on her –
on her cell phone, and, uh, every time I call up, her line seems to be busy.
�ER: Okay. I’ll send her an e-mail right now.
PR: Okay. Thank you, Emily.
ER: Thank you, Pete. Have a good day.
PR: Okay, bye-bye.
ER: Bye.
END OF TAPE
�
https://history.lplks.org/files/original/d5f3464009622564fed2b0ba480dfd0c.pdf
1c663ad92d460fe2c0fd3cfc972ec866
PDF Text
Text
Interview with Pedro (Pete) Romero
Interviewer: Emily Raymond
Date of Interview: February 4, 2021
Length of Interview: 90:46
Location of Interview: St. John’s Parish House
Transcription Completion Date: February 25, 2021
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Pete Romero (Interviewee): I – you know, I’ve always wanted to write down a lot of notes about
– about my life, and, uh, oh, you know, I like to do this here, write notes down. And then one –
one day, maybe, get it all together and – and maybe…making a book out of it, you know.
Emily Raymond (Interviewer): I think you should.
PR: Kind of pass it on to the family.
ER: You’ve gone to all this trouble to make all the notes.
PR: Well, yeah. I was gonna…
ER: And with the self-publishing platforms nowadays…
PR: Right.
ER: You can – you can publish books yourself as often as you like.
PR: Here’s – here’s the history of the Romero family.
ER: Oh, that’s right. I remember you said your parents were Gonzalo and Avelina.
PR: Yeah, yeah. Let’s see…
ER: Oh, you’re so lucky to have these pictures.
PR: And there was, uh –
ER: Your parents.
PR: Thirteen of us and – and we’re – we’re all in that book. We’re all in that book.
ER: Oh, you have a table of contents, good.
PR: Yeah.
ER: There are you. December 7th. Okay, so that’s – you called her Jennie. Okay.
�PR: Yeah.
ER: I’ll be sure to spell it with an “ie” when I do the transcript. I’ve heard the name before, but I
wanted to make sure I got all the spellings right.
PR: I checked it out with the family and asked ‘em if it was okay if I used this – if I could,
uh…uh…take this book and let somebody look at it and – I got their permission, you know, to…
ER: Oh, okay. Of course.
PR: So, anything that you can use in there, you can – you’re welcome to use, and…
ER: Topeka, Kansas. Okay. [Background voices for several seconds] Okay, so your mother was
– your mother lived to 89 years old.
PR: Yes.
ER: That’s impressive.
PR: Yeah. She passed away when – when she passed away, I, uh…you know, there was thirteen
of us, so we all took our turns going down there every evening. Somebody went down there
every – every evening to check ‘em out, to make sure they were okay, ‘cause they wanted to live
in that house.
ER: Oh, okay.
PR: They wanted – they wanted to live in that house, so, there was thirteen of us, so everybody
took their turn. Uh…in the evening; on the weekends, um, on the weekends, we stood there all
day with them. And then we left them alone in the evenings, you know, because they –
ER: Of course.
PR: You know, they, that’s the way they wanted it, you know. They just wanted to be there in
the daytime. And, well, really, they probably didn’t even want us there [laughs], but they were so
– you know, they like to have their independence and all that. It was their house, and I just
wanted to do things.
ER: But you still want to look out for them, and just check in, make sure they’re okay.
PR: Yeah, so, anyways, uh, it was, um…it was – it was on the weekend, and it was my turn. So, I
went down to – went down to my parents’ house and the house…my mother was cooking. And it
– she had a heart attack. Anyways, the house filled up with smoke.
ER: Oh, no.
�PR: So anyways, when I got there, I drove through the alley, and I seen all the smoke coming out
of the house. So, I parked the car in – I parked the car in the parking lot there, and I – it was, I
think it was, like, in spring. It was April or something. Anyways, anyways, I – I parked my car,
and I seen, uh, a pile, looked like a pile of rags out there. Well, it was my dad. My dad was pretty
– pretty much blind. Somehow, he had managed to get himself out of the house. He got out of
the house, probably looking – looking for help, and I guess he just…fatigue got to him, and he
was laying out there and I found him out there. And I asked him where Mom was, and he said:
“She’s inside the house.” So I said: “Okay, Dad, I’m gonna put – put you” – let me see, how it
was that I did it – I put him in the house that wasn’t full of smoke, and, you know, to get him out
of the rain. Right inside the house, and I couldn’t see nothing. It was all full of smoke. My mom
had been cooking something, and, uh…um…
ER: It started burning.
PR: It just, you know, started – started a smoke fire. Smoke. Anyway, I found her, she was on
the floor, so I – I’m the one that found my mom. But anyways, and…she died. She – she died
from a heart attack that day.
ER: Oh.
PR: Um, and my dad after that, he – he didn’t want to continue living. You know, he said he
wanted to be with – with Avelina. Uh, so, I think he maybe lasted about a year. My – my dad
really gave up on living after he lost my mom. Um…
ER: How long were they married?
PR: 76 years.
ER: Oh, my gosh.
PR: 76.
ER: I think that’s a personal record for me.
PR: Right, yeah, that was – that was a long time.
ER: I – I don’t blame him for feeling that way, when you spend so much time with someone, it’s
hard to imagine living without them.
PR: Right, yeah. It was hard.
ER: I like how you wrote here, he liked to fish.
PR: Yeah. He liked to go fishing.
�ER: And he’s got his – his birthday cake with all the candles. It sounds like you had a really
close family.
PR: Oh, we were close. We were big. We were a big family, but you know, we – we took care of
each other and all that. And we were poor. And you know, working, my dad worked for the
railroad.
ER: Yeah, tell me about that a bit. I’m – I’m interested about what – what was it like, just
growing up, daily living there?
PR: Well, we, uh…like I said, we – we were poor, but we didn’t know it. Um…I – I think we
lived – we had six rooms that…let’s see [murmurs] that fourteen of us shared.
ER: Fourteen people for six rooms? Wow.
PR: Yeah, uh, my parents, and my brothers and sisters. Somehow, we managed in these – in, um,
to, uh, live there in La Yarda. You know, the – the rooms – the little rooms were six – I think
they were, like, eight by ten. They were eight by ten rooms. And, uh, um…they were concrete.
Concrete floors and all that.
ER: Must have been cold.
PR: Oh, it was. In the wintertime it was cold. We used to have to, in order to heat the house, we
had to haul wood. Wood – we had the little wood stoves.
ER: Oh, the little potbelly stoves.
PR: Yeah, potbellied, to keep us warm and all that. It was cold. It was cold in there. Gosh, I
remember as a little kid, in the wintertime, looking out the windows, and the windows would be
all frosted with ice.
ER: Oh.
PR: It was that – it was that cold. We had – if we had to go to the bathroom, the bathroom was
outside, like around 40 feet.
ER: Oh, that’s right.
PR: And, oh gosh, I remember having to go – I remember having to use the bathroom a few
times, and I looked – went outside and looked up in the sky at the bright stars and all that, and
went to the bathroom and came right back in. We didn’t stay out there very long.
ER: No.
�PR: No, and – and, well, to this day I don’t know how my parents did it. All them kids and we all
had to sleep, uh, we all had to sleep together. I think it, like all the boys slept together. It was,
gosh, I think two of the rooms that we used were for the boys to sleep.
ER: Mm-hmm.
PR: And then my sisters had a couple rooms for theirselves, and Mom and Dad in their room.
Had a little kitchen. But, that was – it was pretty rough. Our – our water, our water was at the
water pump outside, and –
ER: Right.
PR: We had to get the water and haul it from outside, inside the house.
ER: Oh.
PR: For drinking water and taking a bath and things like that. Um…
ER: The amount of work.
PR: Oh, yeah. I – I don’t know how my parents did it, but we did it – and, you know, to us, it – it
must have been rough. It – it had to be tough.
ER: No doubt.
PR: But us guys didn’t know it. I knew, you know, we – we had something in our tummy and
woke up next morning and all that. We were – we were surviving and all that. And it – it, um, it
was pretty rough there at the – La Yarda. Going to school – going – little kids, little kids…there
was no sidewalks or anything.
ER: Oh, back then.
PR: In La Yarda. It was just a path. A path that had just been worn in time by people going
through that little path, and we had to, uh, to go to school we had to climb this – this little hill; on
top of the hill was the railroad tracks. And, Emily, I tell you, in the wintertime, I – I don’t even
think we had galoshes. I – I think it was just our regular shoes and things like that.
ER: Oh, not even waterproof boots.
PR: No, no waterproof, no, we didn’t know such – there was no such thing existed like that for
us, you know. The – the – um, can I say “The white kids” or “Anglo kids”?
ER: Yeah, absolutely.
PR: Yeah, it won’t offend you? Okay. You know, you know, the – the little white kids we’d go
to school with, they had their galoshes on, and big old mittens – gloves, and all that.
�ER: Fluffy coats.
PR: Yeah. We always thought they were – we always thought they were rich, because, you
know, they – they had better stuff than us. But anyways, we went to New York School. And,
um…we went to New York School, and I remember going to New York School, uh, we all had –
we all had Spanish, and we were all – we were born, given Spanish names. But when we went to
school, they changed our names.
ER: Oh.
PR: My name was Pedro. That’s what my parents got on – but I got to school, and they called me
Peter, okay?
ER: Oh. Okay.
PR: I had a brother named Tony. Antonio. Went to school, and from Antonio, they called him
Tony. Francisco, Frank. Juanita, Jennie.
ER: So, they Anglicized everyone’s names.
PR: Yeah, that’s – that’s what happened to us. When we went there, and it was hard for us,
because…
ER: I imagine it was.
PR: Yeah, ‘cause we grew up on Spanish. Our parents, that’s what they talked to us, in Spanish.
So, anyways, we – we’d go to school, and, uh…we were – we were – it was hard for us, because,
uh, a lot of the words that they used, the teachers used, well, we didn’t know that. We were, you
know, taught the – the words in Spanish. And it – it was a little tough. It was a little tough.
ER: I imagine it was. And you must have done remarkably well, for not knowing any English
when you arrived.
PR: And you know, to us, oh, my gosh, New York School was a – it was like a palace!
ER: Oh, was it?
PR: Wow, in these scripts that I got, I’ll describe some of that, but gosh, we went to New York
School. Beautiful building there, and we went inside and the floors were tiled, and we’d never
seen – we’d never seen nothing like tiled floors and all that. And, God, we were amazed by that,
and how nice and warm – how nice and warm it was.
ER: Oh, the school was heated.
PR: Inside the school, compared to our house –
�ER: True.
PR: In La Yarda. Going to New York School, gosh, bathrooms.
ER: Actual bathrooms.
PR: Inside bathroom, and we couldn’t get over it. Gosh. We were so used to the outhouse out
there in La Yarda and all that, my gosh, that was so neat.
ER: Seemed like a luxury.
PR: Oh, my God. Water fountains.
ER: Water fountains.
PR: They had water fountains inside – inside the – inside the building. We were used to going
outside and getting our water in – had little buckets, I guess that’s what we had, buckets, and
whenever we wanted water, we’d just get a drink of water, but it – it was – oh, New York School
was so beautiful. And it – it was funny because, um, I – I remember – I remember one time, we –
to, uh, for lunch, we used to take our little lunch, uh, sacks. The – the white kids had their little,
real nice.
ER: Oh, the tin boxes.
PR: Nice buckets and things like that. And now, today, you know, they – they eat in school and
all that. They eat in the school, but…
ER: So, there wasn’t a cafeteria back then?
PR: No. No, there was no cafeteria.
ER: Okay.
PR: So, um, gosh, the kids would – us guys, we had paper sacks.
ER: Yeah, like that.
PR: And we’d take our little lunch and all that. And the other kids, white kids, had – had lunch
buckets and nice pails and all that. I remember one time, I remember we – we grew up on – on
tacos and things like that, um, burritos. You know, at – at that time, I thought, “Gosh, we’re
poor.” We eat this food, ‘cause that’s all we had, you know, tortillas. Tortillas, and we’d make
burritos and all that. So anyways, uh – uh, I remember one time we, uh, we – my parents, my
mother made us some burritos for us. It’s a tortilla, and inside was –
ER: I like burritos, yeah.
�PR: So, anyways, uh, we – one time we took them and – and, uh, the white kids looked at us,
checking out our little burritos, and they’d say: “What the heck is that?” And – and, uh, we –
we’d tell ‘em that’s what we ate. And then I guess we must have told our mother and all that, our
mother about it, you know, the kids wondering what that was. Kind of odd-looking food. So,
after that my mother started making us butter and jelly sandwiches.
ER: Oh, okay, with the –
PR: But, yeah, you know, things like that, that happened to us, and…
ER: Were you ever teased for that kind of food, or were they more curious about it?
PR: I think they were more curious.
ER: Okay.
PR: Yeah, I – I think they were more curious about what, you know, but, you know, it was funny
because, um…Um – okay, I’m gonna read some of these; is that okay?
ER: Oh, yes, go ahead.
PR: What was – my – my, uh…thoughts get a little, uh, um…
ER: Well, and you said you have a headache, too.
PR: Yeah, I’ve got – I’ve got my headache, but I – I don’t know, about school…uh, the kids –
the – the – we felt different. But we felt different because we were – our features were different.
The color of our skin was different. Um, our language was different. Okay, um…we – we never
really had real nice clothes.
ER: Right.
PR: Most of our clothes were hand-me-down clothes, things like that. Um…and I don’t know,
we always felt that the other kids were better than us. Um…now, we were – we had to speak –
we were always kind of…scared, because we didn’t know if we were gonna say the right thing.
ER: Right.
PR: You know, use the right word. We were bilingual, I guess.
ER: You – oh, absolutely.
PR: Yeah, we were bilingual, at home Spanish, at school was English and all that, so we were
always a little bit, uh, I think we were always a little scared to get up there and talk and all that.
We felt so much better when we were in our group.
�ER: Right.
PR: When all the little Mexicans were all together. Um – we felt much better, you know, and…
ER: Did you stick together at school that way?
PR: Oh, yeah. For – yeah, for sure, yeah, we did. We – we stuck pretty much together. We did
everything. We did everything together. Our…our best friends were the – our own MexicanAmerican – Mexican kids. We – we never did go to any of our white friends’ house.
ER: No?
PR: No, we never did. We always stuck around with – with our kind. Oh, gosh, we – at church,
St. John’s Church, we were little kids, maybe…seven, six, seven years old.
ER: Oh.
PR: We were altar boys at – at the St. John’s Church here.
ER: Oh, yeah, that’s right; you were an altar boy.
PR: Yeah, we were altar boys. We had our own group. Uh…then, um, we had a lot of altar boys
and they were all put in different – in squads, we called ‘em – they called ‘em squads.
ER: Squads.
PR: Squad Two, Squad…
ER: Oh, okay.
PR: And – and, um, um…it was – it was – it was always, always kids that, you know, they was
only Mexican kids that – that, uh, that made up that group. And then – and then, when we got a
little older and we all played on the same baseball team. So, we stuck together pretty much.
Today – today, they’re – they’re still our best friends.
ER: Oh.
PR: Today they’re still our – today they’re still –
ER: I’m glad.
PR: Our best friends, and some of ‘em have passed away, and – and we’ve always – we always
relied on each other. They – we felt so comfortable when we were with our own kind. Um…
ER: So, you – you played baseball at – was it South Park, or Hobbs Park?
�PR: Uh – uh, well, we played at South Park.
ER: At South Park, okay.
PR: We played at South Park, at South Park and the other Hobbs Park.
ER: Okay.
PR: Yeah.
ER: I remember from your first transcript, you had mentioned playing in a park.
PR: Yeah – we played there. We played for the St. John’s…uh…team.
ER: Oh, they had a team?
PR: Yeah – the –
ER: I didn’t know that.
PR: Yeah. It was St. John’s team. In fact, we got some – we got a lot of pictures of –
ER: Were you good?
PR: I was average. I was average [laughs].
ER: Are you being modest?
PR: Yeah, I was pretty – yeah, I, uh, I had other brothers that were quite a bit better than me. But
I mean, you know, I knew the game, and I knew the position to play, and I – yeah, I just, um…
ER: Did you play any other sports? Um, let’s see – basketball, football?
PR: Well, that was funny. That was funny, Emily, ‘cause like I said, uh, we’d always felt
comfortable playing with each other. In fact, when we were, like, maybe…twenty…eighteen,
nineteen, twenty, we formed our own baseball. We had our own baseball team. Softball. Fast
pitch. And, uh, we – we would go, uh, on these baseball, these, uh, Mexican-American
tournaments. There’d be some in Topeka, there’d be some in Kansas City, Chanute, uh…
ER: I never knew about this.
PR: Uh, yes, uh…Salina, it was – we had a team, um, I don’t even know what we called each
other, but we had a team – we were – we were pretty good. We were pretty good. You know,
Mexican-Americans, uh, there – there were some pretty good athletes. But when you got to
school, it was funny because, uh, the Mexican-Americans, they – they – they, uh, they were all
�smaller people, you know. For instance, uh, in junior high and high school, it seemed like the –
the bigger – the American kids…they – they, uh, they were bigger kids. You know, they – the
little, the Hispanic people, they’re not real tall people and then –
ER: Right.
PR: Yeah. So anyways, uh – um, um, the – the Mexican-American kids, they were good, but,
you know, they – they, you know, in football you need the big old guys and all that.
ER: Yes.
PR: So that was one of the reasons why we kind of stuck together.
ER: That makes sense.
PR: Yeah, we kinda stuck together. Um, gosh…oh, gosh, I [murmurs] but, yeah, um, we – we
stuck together pretty good. [Murmurs]
ER: I like how you’re all still friends, that you still maintain that connection over the years.
PR: Oh, yeah.
ER: That’s special.
PR: And you know what, yeah, we – we – we still – we – we still look out for each other. You
know, we – we always want to know how a certain person is, you know, like I got some friends
like, um, Izzy Bermudez.
ER: Yes.
PR: He’s a fireman, he’s – he’s not doing too good, but I – I always manage to find out how he’s
doing, and we, uh, um…um, later in life, we – we – we cut grass at the cemetery. The Catholic
cemetery.
ER: Oh, so you were responsible for keeping that up.
PR: Yeah.
ER: Okay.
PR: We cut – we volunteered to do that, so we did that. It was – at first it was all Mexican
people, the guys that did it and all that, and slowly the, uh, the white – white guys would come
out there and help us later on and all that, but we – we did – we did a lot of things together, and
we were well…uh…how do I put it? We were – we looked out after each other. That was – that
was the thing, looking out for each other. We always did that.
�ER: A community in the true sense.
PR: Yeah. Yeah, that was – that was the way our parents, um, taught us to be. To – to look out
for each other, take care of yourself, you know. In the end, you’re gonna realize how important it
was. And everything they said is true. You know, you care for – care for other people, and you
show ‘em, and they’re gonna do the same for you, so…
ER: And you must have seen them demonstrate examples of this. While you were growing up,
they would take care of your neighbors, for example.
PR: Oh, for sure.
ER: If they were sick, or –
PR: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I’m – I was told by my older sisters that when we were young and,
um, my mother would have to have a doctor’s appointment or something like that, or she had to
do something, well, all the neighbor ladies would, um, take care of us kids.
ER: Oh.
PR: And – and there’s some pictures out there where there’s a bunch of kids, and there’s a lady
in the background. I guess she’s taking care of all them kids [laughs]. Yeah, it was things like
that, you know. It was just – it was really something, because it’s nothing like that today.
Nothing today, we – well, then, to the Hispanics, they always had big families.
ER: Right.
PR: They were – they were all Catholics and all that, so they all had big families. Today you got
your family, maybe four, maybe three or four kids, and that’s about it. But, um…yeah, the –
living at La Yarda taught us a lot. Taught us a lot. My dad – my dad was, uh, given a piece of
land by the, um, by the railroad.
ER: Oh, okay.
PR: And – and, uh, my dad, uh, on this piece of land that they gave him, it was just not very far
from where La Yarda was, maybe…two, maybe a hundred feet away. My dad would grow, uh,
tomatoes, corn, radishes, things like that. Things like – things that he – we could grow that we
didn’t need to go to the store.
ER: Sure. That makes sense.
PR: Yeah. We didn’t need to go to the store. Oh, gosh, I remember when he – I remember my
dad had the garden. He – he would plant the tomato plants in the ground, and our job was to get
water from – from, um, a pump, a water pump that was farther up the track. I remember them
buckets full of water. By the time – by the time we got from the pump to the – the plants that
were in the ground to be watered, well, we had lost half of the water, because we were young,
�going along, all the water was sloshing out. Oh my gosh, Emily, I told myself, I told myself, I’ll
– I’ll never have a garden, because it – it was rough, and my dad, you know, he paid pretty good
attention to the garden. He made it – he made sure we did it right.
ER: Yes.
PR: He made sure it was right.
ER: It’s a lot of work, keeping up a garden.
PR: Sure. For little kids, it was – it was, like I said, it was – it was tough. ‘Course, you know, we
didn’t know it, because it was expected of us.
ER: Right.
PR: To help do the chores and all that. So anyways, I always thought: “Man, I’m never gonna
have a garden. That’s too hard.” So anyways, I got married and got a garden.
ER: Yeah, of course you did.
PR: Got a garden. Same thing with the fireplace. In the winter times at La Yarda, oh my gosh,
them buildings got so cold. Oh, Emily, I tell you –
ER: With the concrete floors.
PR: Oh, the concrete floor and the windows would cake up with – with ice, I guess it was
because all the – all of us being inside, these six rooms that we lived in, and all that heat.
ER: Mm-hmm.
PR: Hitting that glass, and just all ice. I remember we used to have to scrub the, uh –
ER: Oh, to see outside.
PR: The ice off to see [murmurs].
ER: My goodness.
PR: My, um, we cut our own firewood. Oh, God, them days. I remember the days that little kids
[murmurs] hand saws, sawing the logs.
ER: Gosh, and they’re kids, too.
PR: Small enough to – to put into the woodstove. Oh, gosh. I don’t know how my mother did it.
Oh, gosh. All them kids and feedin’ all them kids, and –
�ER: What would she make? I mean, I know you said she made burritos. What else would she
make?
PR: Oh, we ate beans. Frijoles. Frijoles.
ER: Frijoles.
PR: You know, Emily, it’s – it’s funny because today, all this food that we ate – we thought –
man, this is – this is poor man’s food. Today, man, shoot, this food that we’re eating now, today,
oh, it’s…probably [unintelligible, dollar’s?] business, you know. Taco Bell, and –
ER: Yeah, it’s –
PR: Things like that.
ER: Taco Bueno.
PR: All the – God, all that food that we ate, and we – we got tired of [laughter]. Got tired of
eating the same food, eating our frijoles with our tortilla. And instead of using a spoon or fork,
the Mexicans used, uh, the tortilla.
ER: Yeah, strips of tortilla.
PR: Into the strips and, like that. But anyways, gosh, we – anyways, yeah. The, uh, uh…we had
stoves. My mother had stoves, and that’s the way she cooked, with a woodstove. Um…it, uh, it
was very tough.
ER: Did you eat vegetables from your dad’s garden?
PR: Uh, yeah.
ER: So a lot of tomatoes, then?
PR: Yeah. Oh, yeah, we, yeah, my mother would, uh, can. She – she would can the, um, um,
tomatoes.
ER: Oh, okay.
PR: Yeah, and –
ER: So you’d have some for the winter.
PR: Yeah, for the wintertime and all that, so – yeah, so, oh, gosh, you know, I – I remember too,
is my – my, uh, there was – La Yarda was down here, and right across the tracks was the City.
We had a lot of – we had a lot of cousins that – that lived – that – we didn’t have a lot, but we –
some of our cousins lived across the tracks, which was the City. And we always thought that was
�so neat. We always envied, as little kids from La Yarda, we always envied our – our relatives
that lived in the City part. The City part – part – they had houses with electricity.
ER: Running water.
PR: Running water. Some of ‘em had bathrooms inside, latrines inside. I think there were some
they had outside too. But we always envied them kids. I – I remember, I remember going to
school and – and, I mean, the teacher would ask us: “Well, what does your dad do for a living?”
And – and we – we didn’t know exactly what to say. We know that he worked for the railroads.
His job was – my dad’s job was, and all these other people that lived at La Yarda, the men, their
job was what they called a section gang.
ER: Section gang.
PR: Yeah. They’re the ones that cleaned up, cleaned the, uh, the – the tracks.
ER: Oh, okay.
PR: Yeah, they – they cleaned the tracks in the wintertime. I remember the wintertime, my dad
would come home all full of snow.
ER: Oh.
PR: Full of snow, or a lot of times, in the winter times when it was storming real hard, they’d call
out the men, and, um, tell ‘em that they had to report to work, because the railroad tracks were
getting covered with snow.
ER: In the middle of the night?
PR: Yes, I remember that. I remember, they would – the – the – they used to call him the
foreman. The foreman would get somebody and – and go – the guy would, the man would come
to the yard on foot and tell the men that they were to report to work.
ER: Oh, that’s right, because you didn’t have telephones.
PR: Yeah, they didn’t have telephones, so…gosh, I – I remember my dad going to work and all
that, on the tracks. But anyways, going back to the City, yes, going back to the City. Um, our –
our City relatives, that’s what I’m gonna call ‘em, they had addresses on their house. 910 New
Jersey Street.
ER: Oh, that’s right.
PR: Or 820 New Jersey Street, and all that. We – we didn’t even have an – we didn’t even have
an address to where we lived. The teachers would ask us: “What’s your address?”
ER: Oh.
�PR: We didn’t know. All we knew is that – there used to be a mailbox. It was for the people that
worked – that lived there at the Santa Fe apartments, La Yarda.
ER: Uh-huh.
PR: I – there used to be a – a mailbox. Oh, gosh. It must have been about a quarter of a mile from
La Yarda.
ER: Really?
PR: Yes. So – so we have to walk all that ways down there. Yeah, that was one thing I
remember. Our cousins that lived in the City, we always wished: “Gosh, one of these days we’ll
be – we’ll live in the City.”
ER: You’ll have an address.
PR: Yeah, we’ll have an address. Yeah, things like that I remember. I – I too, you know, I
remember the – the, um – we didn’t have no electricity.
ER: Mm-hmm.
PR: Uh, my parents – my parents had these, uh, kerosene lamps.
ER: Oh, okay.
PR: To, you know, for nighttime. That’s the – that’s the light we had. Kerosene lamps. Uh, later
on – later on, we, uh, they – they, uh, installed electric. We had electric lights. But for a long
time, that’s what we lived with, just, uh…gasoline lamps.
ER: Did they ever get knocked over by accident, or…? It must have been a fire hazard.
PR: No, not really.
ER: Not really?
PR: Not, not really.
ER: Well, that’s good.
PR: Yeah, that was good, but…I – I don’t know, I don’t know how we did it. That many people
living in them little rooms?
ER: I don’t know how you did it, either.
�PR: It, oh, my gosh, I remember one time as a little kid, the Mexican-Americans, they were
superstitious, okay? I remember, uh, when I was a kid, my dad, there was – there was always –
there was sometime there’d be an owl, you know, squeaking at nighttime. And I mean, you
know, when you hear something like that, I’m sure it’s – with the Anglos too, you know. Owl
howling at night means that somebody’s gonna die.
ER: Oh, is that what it means?
PR: Well, in the Mexican-American, yes, it is. So, I remember my dad, he had a .22 rifle, and
he’d go out there in the middle of the night and try to find that owl.
ER: And shoot the owl? [Laughter]
PR: Yeah, because really, it was. It was, uh, an old superstitious, uh, uh, tale that if an owl
hooted at nighttime, somebody was gonna die.
ER: I’ve never heard of that one before.
PR: Yeah. Somebody was gonna die, and –
ER: Do you remember other ones like that?
PR: Well, yeah, like La Llorona.
ER: Oh, the weeping woman.
PR: Yeah, the weeping woman.
ER: I heard about that in Spanish class.
PR: Yeah, you heard that in Spanish. Yeah, people were scared to go out at – at night at the river,
‘cause if La Llorona was there…
ER: I don’t blame them, I don’t think I’d want to, either. [Laughter]
PR: Yeah, you know, things like that – that, uh, that happened, and…Christmastime. I – I
remember Christmastimes. My sisters – my parents didn’t have no money. Gosh, in fact, my dad
worked for the railroad, uh, when I was a kid. Summertime would come, and there used to be
farmers out – out in the country, that they’d, uh, they’d grow potatoes.
ER: Oh, okay.
PR: And – and in the summertime, instead of my dad taking vacation time, he would spend it out
there picking potatoes to earn extra money.
ER: For Christmas?
�PR: Well, for –
ER: For everything.
PR: For everything. And I – I picked potatoes for a long time, too.
ER: Did you?
PR: Yeah, I picked, oh gosh, I must have been maybe eleven years old. Out there – out there in
the fields picking, uh, potatoes.
ER: That must have been hot work, just…
PR: It – it was hot, but us kids, we were ornery.
ER: Oh.
PR: We used to make – we used to make games out of picking –
ER: Did you?
PR: Throwing tomatoes – ah, throwing potatoes at – at the railroad tracks, at the railroads. Okay,
the – the railroad cars.
ER: That sounds about right.
PR: That would pass by there on the tracks, and we’d be out there [laughs] throwing potatoes at
them.
ER: You made your own fun.
PR: Yeah, we – we made our own fun. And my sisters, for Christmastime…they – they would –
they would save their money and buy us, man, like a little truck or a little car or something like
that. I remember that. We didn’t have no money. They didn’t have much money, but they always
managed to – to buy something for us.
ER: Get something, at least.
PR: Little thing, and God, we thought, man, that was the greatest thing. The greatest thing, yeah.
Gosh. We – we used to make tamales at –
ER: Oh, I love tamales.
PR: That – that’s a Christmas tradition. We used to make tamales. My dad would get the corn,
and we had a room where we grinded up the corn kernels.
�ER: By hand?
PR: Yeah, by hand.
ER: Oh, my gosh.
PR: And – and they – they made the masa, which is the dough. And the women would, um, they,
uh, the women would get in there and work –
ER: Knead it?
PR: Whatever you call it, yeah. That, and, uh…it was just – the process of making tamales,
getting the corn husk and all that, and –
ER: It’s an all-day process.
PR: Oh, yeah.
ER: In the town where I grew up, there were families used to make ‘em.
PR: They take all day.
ER: Yes, all day long.
PR: You start early in the morning, and maybe by 9:00, you know, maybe you quit about that
time, about 9:00 that evening you’d be, yeah, we – things like that, made tamales. My – my dad
had two chicken pens. Had two chicken pens out there that we raised chicken to eat. We ate the
heck out of chickens. [ER laughs] Our poor little chickens, I remember, you know, as we got
older, our job was to wring the – wring the necks.
ER: Oh, my gosh.
PR: Yeah, so we al – we always had chicken. Sunday. Sunday as a little kid, Sunday was a big
day, ‘cause my mom went out, went all out and made us a good dinner.
ER: Chicken dinner.
PR: Yeah, chicken dinner, we had chicken. We ate sopa, I’m sure you know sopa, and, uh, um…
ER: What about eggs? Did –
PR: Oh, yes. We – we had our own – we grew – my dad had all these chickens. Doggone it, I
remember…
ER: That’s a lot of eggs.
�PR: Yeah, I remember my dad bought the little chickens. The little chicks, oh, they were so –
ER: They were tiny ones.
PR: Yeah, they were so beautiful little chickens, and – and, uh, they grew to be bigger, and we
raised ‘em for eggs, for the eggs, for the meat. My – my dad had two chicken pens. And it was
our job to go feed ‘em, oh, gosh, be – before we did anything, before we went out there and
played with our friends or anything, one of our deal was to go feed the chickens. Feed them,
chicken, feed the chicken, water the chickens. It was –
ER: So that was one of your chores.
PR: Yeah, it was a chore. We – we had to do chores. We had chores to do. And like I said, haul
wood or water, but, uh, we – we’ve always, you know, we grew up learning to do things. I mean,
it – it, uh, it was – it was hard work, but we – we did it, and, you know, we just thought that was
part of living our life.
ER: Sure.
PR: Like that, so, yeah, and…
ER: Did your dad ever teach you things, like when he would work on house renovation or
construction? My dad used to teach us how to do that.
PR: Ah…
ER: When he would work on the house, we were little, and we’d watch him, and he’d show us
how to do things.
PR: Yeah…I tell you…my dad, he – he was – he was kind of a quiet man. He was kind of a quiet
man. He’s – he’s in, uh, yeah…my mom, if us boys did something, if the boy – if any of the
brothers and sisters did something, mostly the brothers, if the brothers did something wrong,
well, that evening my mom would tell – would, uh, would tell my dad.
ER: Oh.
PR: And, uh, I remember my dad would – he – he – he’d get after us. [ER laughs]. He’d get after
us. A lot of times I don’t even think that my dad knew why he was getting after us [laughter]. All
he knew was that Mom said we did something wrong. We had a fight amongst each other or
something like that, and, uh, we were well-disciplined.
ER: I imagine you were.
PR: Discipline. Discipline is a big word for us. Discipline, we – to this day, there was – my
parents taught us that respect, to have for the women. To the women, especially our sisters.
�Today – to this day, my sisters can get after us boys [ER laughs] and us boys won’t say nothin’
to ‘em. We would not say…you had to get after us and all that, and we just – we don’t say
nothing to ‘em, and, a lot of times they’ll kid around, they’ll say: “You guys better be – you guys
better behave. Today. Today. You guys better do this and that.” And: “Okay, okay.”
ER: Do what you’re told.
PR: Yeah, my – oh, my parents were real, real – that was one of the thumbs of rule, is to respect
the women. That was one thing they always taught us. Respect the women.
ER: And your friends, were they raised the same way?
PR: Yeah. Yeah, yes.
ER: So, this is community values, just part of it.
PR: Yeah, that was – that was – that was one of the culture things. One of the culture things.
Music, we – we all listened to the same type of music, and I was gonna show you…this is, you –
you say you’re from Texas?
ER: I am.
PR: You’ve been around all the Spanish people then.
ER: I have. That’s why we have the good tamales instead of having to go to Taco Bueno.
PR: You know, the – the music like this.
ER: Oh, you’ve got records.
PR: Yeah, we – these are old. These are – these are some of my mother’s, we grew up on this
type of music here.
ER: [Band name]
PR: Yeah. I could – I could…I wish my mind wasn’t so blank.
ER: I don’t think I’ve ever actually listened to a record. I’ve never had a turntable.
PR: Oh, yeah, we – oh, this kind of music we grew up on. Gosh. You know, as kids, every
Saturday on the weekend, there’d be a Mexican dance. And we all went to it.
ER: Oh, did you?
PR: Oh, my gosh, yeah, we went to every – we all looked forward to Saturday night, when we’d
go to the dances and meet – meet all the girls, and –
�ER: Of course.
PR: And – oh gosh, I remember going, buying a special shirt or pants.
ER: Oh, okay.
PR: Just going down there. That was – that was something we looked forward to, the dances on
the weekends. Now, there’s no more things like that. And there’s nothing like that anymore, but
that was one of the big ways the Mexican-Americans got together.
ER: Sure.
PR: Here in Lawrence, uh, it’s funny, ‘cause here in Lawrence, when the Mexican-Americans
came to this country, my parents, they came to this – they came to Kansas. They settled here in
Kansas, so they – they would tell their – their relatives in Mexico: “Hey, Kansas ain’t a bad
place; come on down.”
ER: Sure.
PR: And – and, you know, it was different. It was cold.
ER: I imagine.
PR: So, some of ‘em went back, but a lot of ‘em that stayed – well, what happened was that we
were all related.
ER: Oh, okay.
PR: At La Yarda. I think we were all related, so – so when it came time to dating and all that,
well, the – the – all the girls that we knew, we were all related to [ER laughs], so I ended up
getting married to a girl from Topeka – Anna, my wife Anna, Anna Perez. But she was in
Topeka, that’s how I met her, because there wasn’t no girls here, here in Lawrence.
ER: That you weren’t related to.
PR: That we weren’t related. That, or the – the ones that we did know that weren’t related to us,
well, they were like, almost sisters to us.
ER: Yeah, sure.
PR: Because we grew around, you know, like the Bermudezes. Uh, uh…Rachel Bermudez, she
wasn’t related to us, but we knew her so good –
ER: It felt like family.
�PR: They felt like sisters, so… or – or – or the Chavez, um, they had a lot of daughters about my
age, but, doggone it all, you grew up together.
ER: Just not the same.
PR: She’s like a sister, I can’t – so I, like I said, we used to go to the dances on the weekends. I
met my wife at a dance.
ER: And that’s where you met her.
PR: Oh, my God, yeah. Oh, gosh. I remember the day I met her.
ER: You do?
PR: I remember the day I met her. I got – she – her cousin introduced me to her, and gosh, she
was – she was dressed in a – she was dressed in a black dress. Oh, my God, she – whoo!
[Laughter] Beautiful.
ER: Swept off your feet.
PR: Oh, my God, yeah, she was beautiful, man. So I married her, and…two boys. Got two boys,
uh, Paul.
ER: And Vince.
PR: And Vince. And Vince – Vince’s got – Vince’s got six kids, all going to St. John’s School.
He’s – they got their seventh one coming up in May. But anyway, that – that’s how – that’s how
I met my wife, through the, uh, going to dances back then.
ER: That’s sweet, though.
PR: We were all related. You know, like I said, when the people, uh, from Kansas told the
people in Mexico: “Hey, come on down up here,” it’s, you know, when they told their cousins
and things like that. So, all the cousins would come to live in Kansas, and like I said, we were all
related when it came to dating and all that.
ER: Had to go elsewhere.
PR: We had to go someplace and look. And – and at school. And at school. Let me tell you, in
school, when I was in grade school, we were – we – we were – we were…us, and the Anglo kids,
the white kids. We – we got along okay. We got along okay. Uh, in junior high, junior high was
a little different. Junior high, the white kids would – they liked to hang around with us. We got
along with them pretty good. Um…high school. High school was way different. I – I don’t know
what – what – in high school, I – I think what happened was the – the white kids, um…they
didn’t – they didn’t associate with us as much as they used to when we were younger.
�ER: Right. ‘Cause kids will play together when they’re younger.
PR: Yeah. But as we got older, you know, they – they kind of stuck to their own selves.
ER: Mm-hmm.
PR: They stuck to their own selves. In my time, you – you couldn’t date a white girl.
ER: Oh.
PR: You couldn’t date a white girl.
ER: It just wasn’t done.
PR: Yeah. If – if you dated a white girl, you – you know, people kind of looked – it wasn’t like
today, you know. Today, interracial marriages are –
ER: Are more common.
PR: But then, gosh, so it – it was hard growing up for me, ‘cause I – I, well, I liked girls and all
that, but I couldn’t really date.
ER: Yeah.
PR: Really date, so…back again, you know, it goes back to having these social events. Um,
Mexican dances and all that. So, but – but I did notice, in high school. The kids sort of – it’s
almost like, if – if they felt that we were different, and – and – even with the – the black kids –
ER: Mm-hmm.
PR: They – they kind of stuck together, in their groups. As a kid – as a young junior high school
kid, high school mostly, the only really good friends I had were the Mexican friends. The kids
that I grew up with.
ER: The ones you played baseball with.
PR: Yeah, I played baseball, altar boy, and – but that – that’s the closest I’ve – that’s…that’s
why I was so close to them. High school, that’s – that’s all I ever hung around with, was the
Mexican kids that I knew. I felt comfortable with them. I really felt real comfortable with them. I
– I remember – I remember, um, segregation.
ER: Oh, you remember that?
PR: Oh, my gosh, yeah. I – I remember as a kid, um, we – we weren’t allowed in the swimming
pools.
�ER: Really?
PR: Yeah, we weren’t allowed in the swimming pools. So, we would go down there to the
swimming pools, and – and watch all these kids swimming and all that, and I remember [laughs]
I remember leaning against the fence and watching the kids swimming in there.
ER: Oh.
PR: And they always told us: “Well, you can’t get in there because you have to pay.”
ER: Oh.
PR: You had to be a member. But that was their way of keeping out
ER: That was, yeah, that was what they said was technically the reason.
PR: They said: “You gotta be a member.” Oh, gosh, I remember so many times watching, going
down there, watching all them kids, white kids, out there in the swimming pool, and…uh…
ER: That seems cruel.
PR: It…
ER: You’re just kids, you know.
PR: Gosh, I remember us guys…ten, eleven, twelve years old, going out there to the country and
finding some pond out there and – and swimming in them ponds. And you know what, it was
funny because [laughs] pretty soon, the farmers’ cows would [laughs] and – and, uh, drink water
out of the – out of the –
ER: The stock ponds, I think they call ‘em.
PR: The stock pond, yeah. Them things, we’d go out there, and that was our way of getting in the
water. We had to go to places like that. Or go to the river. The Kaw River.
ER: That must have been dangerous, too.
PR: Oh. Oh, my gosh, yeah. You know, Emily, I remember one time as little kids, we were little
kids. Our – our parents…good parents, excellent parents, but a lot of the time, they – they didn’t
know where we were at because, you know, at that, a long time ago, you could send your kids
out there and – and they were safe.
ER: Yeah.
PR: You know, you didn’t have to worry about predators being out there and things like that.
You – you – you send your kids out there and say: “You kids come back for lunch.” So, we’d go
�out there, I remember one time we were at the river, wading in the river, and then, uh, we were
getting ready to leave, and we were standing by – on the bank of the river. And we were – we’d
left, and about twelve seconds later, that bank that we were standing on caved in. I mean, you
could just see it – whoosh!
ER: Oh, my gosh.
PR: That whole section.
ER: All of it? Wow.
PR: Yes, if we would have been there, um, a few seconds earlier, us guys would have been in the
river. But that’s things that we had to do, because we weren’t allowed in the swimming pools. I –
I – I remember when me and my wife Anna got married, and, uh, in the evening we’d go out
for…you know, a root beer or something like that.
ER: Yeah.
PR: I remember going to the – there was one stand, a root beer stand here – here in Lawrence,
that, uh, all them people would get served in them, you know, glass…
ER: Oh, like in the pictures that have the glass with the straws.
PR: That, uh, ice and all that kind of…we – we were put in cups.
ER: Just plain old cups.
PR: They had paper cups. We were put in paper – they put our drinks in the paper cups.
ER: What a shame.
PR: And…I remember going into the service, and I was stationed in, um, in, uh, the South. I – I
remember Atlanta, Georgia. I remember, uh, getting off a plane in Atlanta, Georgia. I went – I
was hungry, so I stopped at this one place, this – they used to call ‘em drugstores, then.
ER: Oh, okay. I gotcha.
PR: And I went to this drugstore to get something to eat. When I went in there – this was in the
‘60s – went to this place to get something to eat, and they had – there was like a big old, there
was a table and counter.
ER: Oh, yeah.
PR: A table, this is the counter.
ER: Yeah, with stools.
�PR: Yeah, with stools, there you go. So, I went in there, and they had for whites, this section was
for whites, this section was for blacks, and I went in there, thinking to myself: “Where do I go?”
ER: Oh, my gosh.
PR: I’m not white. Or I’m not black.
ER: What did you do?
PR: I got to sit in the middle.
ER: That sounds smart.
PR: Even doing that, you know, they looked at me. White people would look at me. The black
people would look at me. I – I didn’t know where to go. So I, like I already said, I went in the
middle, in the middle of the counter there, and I was okay there. Same thing, you see the
bathrooms. Using the bathrooms.
ER: My gosh.
PR: What bathroom do I use? Do I use the white or black? I was in between. And using the
bathroom, the water fountains. Remember the water fountains too, white and black, and there
was nothing for us, there wasn’t no middle person, so…
ER: It must have been bewildering, just not knowing where you fit.
PR: Oh, for sure, yeah. But you know what? I – I don’t know. I don’t know which I felt better
with. I might have felt better with the blacks, because…I’m a little darker, closer to the blacks
than I am to the whites. So, I – I was probably closer to being with the black people. Oh, gosh…
ER: That’s unfathomable. I never grew up with that.
PR: Yeah.
ER: We grew up with smoking and nonsmoking sections, but I – never, never like that.
PR: Yeah. It – it was quite, yeah. And in the South.
ER: It was – it was very bad in the South.
PR: Sure.
ER: More pronounced, anyway. I know racism is everywhere, but in the South it was – it was
very prevalent.
�PR: It was tough, it was tough – it, uh, I didn’t know where, which one to go to. So, like I said, I
just found the middle of the counter and went to the middle counter, I got served…oh.
Bathrooms, water fountains, everything like that. Um, I was gonna show you, this –
ER: Oh, you got a picture there.
PR: That’s a picture of my two little brothers.
ER: Oh. I love their overalls.
PR: And then – that was La Yarda right, well, this is – this was La Yarda.
ER: Okay, it’s right behind them.
PR: This was the…
ER: Which brothers are these?
PR: Uh…okay, that’s my brother, uh, uh…Rick. Enrique.
ER: Enrique.
PR: And then my brother Omar. Gonzalo Romero.
ER: Oh. On the left.
PR: Yeah, this – this…
ER: I see, oh, he’s got – okay, so you’ve got shoes, but they definitely weren’t the waterproof
kind.
PR: No, no – I, yeah, really, they weren’t.
ER: That’s a cute picture.
PR: Yeah, that’s a cute picture. That was back probably about 19…maybe 19, in the ‘50s,
probably early ‘50s.
ER: So, do you remember when the flood happened?
PR: Yeah.
ER: Other people have talked about that in their interviews.
PR: Yeah, they talked…and – and I was – okay – do you, uh…this – this was the layout and –as
I can remember. I’m no artist, okay, but I can remember.
�ER: Oh, but this will do.
PR: These were the La Yarda, the two buildings. Okay – walked south, and there was the
railroad tracks.
ER: Oh, okay.
PR: Yeah, this was the railroad tracks there. You had to climb up a little s – a little hill, uh, to
cross the tracks. Once you got across the tracks, that was the City.
ER: Oh, okay.
PR: Everything out here was in the country. But I remember as a kid, I remember this here. I
remember this little – it was a dirt road, a dirt road that ran down, uh, east and west. Uh, I
remember some of the buildings. There was a little pond out here. Here’s the two bathrooms.
ER: And there’s your chicken pens.
PR: Yeah, a chicken pen there, and another chicken pen. Gosh, I think I drew this back in
19…about 20-02. ‘Cause this is still fresh in my mind. I tell you, my – my memory is still okay,
but…
ER: I’d say it’s good. You have excellent recall.
PR: I – I feel that, you know, this is necessary to do, because one of these days, there ain’t gonna
be nobody around, you know.
ER: To remember.
PR: That actually lived in these places here. So, this – this is what I find, this is what I find real
interesting, I – I’d like to really get involved in this, but one of my biggest drawbacks is that I’m
not a very good speaker, you know? Like I can put things down on paper better than I can talk
about it – I’ve always been like that.
ER: I’m the same way. I like to write things down.
PR: Yeah. I like to write, seem like I could express myself better. I mean, gosh, I envy the people
that can get up there and speak and…
ER: Oh, it’s such a gift.
PR: All they do is open their mouth and these words are coming out. Me, I’m thinking about:
“What am I gonna say, am I saying it right?” [Murmurs] Oh, gosh.
ER: Even when I do lectures, I have to write out what I’m going to say.
�PR: Yeah, I’m – I’m like that. You – you know, I was – I was…[rustling]
ER: I like that magic bag. It’s like Mary Poppins. You just –
PR: What’s that?
ER: Like Mary Poppins’ bag, that she could just –
PR: Oh!
ER: Put all these things in there.
PR: Yeah. [Paper rustling]
ER: It’s just – it’s fascinating that these pictures here, you know, of the foundation, you know,
that’s the pump. That’s where it was.
PR: Right, yeah, yeah.
ER: That’s amazing.
PR: Did you ever see this? [paper rustling]
ER: What’s this? “La Yarda: Undiscovered Oasis.”
PR: Did you – you ever see it?
ER: No, I haven’t.
PR: Okay.
ER: But this would be the kind of thing that they would – if they could restore the area, they
could put this on plaques.
PR: Yes. They – they have…they have, uh, the, uh, they keep telling me they got money. They
keep telling me they – they got some grant money, that they could do – that they could help, uh,
maybe making this possible. But…
ER: I don’t see why not.
PR: I tell you what, it –
ER: Especially with volunteer work, I mean –
�PR: It – the – the land today, the – the railroad, the Santa Fe Railroad gave, uh, um, the land to
the – to the City. So, what the City doing now, is they – where La Yarda sits, right, not too far,
maybe a couple hundred, maybe a hundred feet or something like that. They built – the City’s
got sewers, um, City sanitation.
ER: Oh, okay.
PR: Plants out there. I guess that’s what you call ‘em. But I was thinking, son of a gun, if – if the
City just – it belongs to the City now. If – if they could just buy a little piece of land –
ER: Sure.
PR: Clear that area out, and – and fence it, maybe fence it? I don’t know how long the fence
would last, but –
ER: Still.
PR: They could do something like that.
ER: Oh, I like that picture.
PR: Yeah.
ER: All the little kids. 1933.
PR: This is the way – this is the way La Yarda looked like.
ER: Oh, okay. I got you.
PR: There was two of them. There was two of ‘em.
ER: And there’s the pump in between the two.
PR: Yeah, there’s the pump, and these were the two ends. The – the two ends were the biggest
part of the…of the building there. But yeah, there was these – there was all these doors, and all
these doors led to a different room.
ER: I wonder who was responsible for making the drawing here.
PR: Ah…
ER: Do you – was that Frank Chavez?
PR: Yeah, I –
ER: Was it –
�PR: I got the original picture of that.
ER: That’s right. That’s the one you showed me on your cell phone. So, this is that.
PR: I can – yeah. That is it.
ER: Wow.
PR: The slab is still out there. The slab is still out there, it’s –
ER: I’d like to go out there and see it.
PR: One of these days –
ER: Yeah, when it’s not snowing.
PR: No, no, one of these days – if – one of the best times might be in the springtime, because
well, right now it’s all right, but it’s cold and…
ER: Yeah.
PR: Today is a good – um…before – while – while it’s still cold, and there’s poison ivy, and
that’s not out there, it’s dead, but –
ER: Oh, that’s true. That’s right.
PR: Yeah, there’s…in springtime, summertime, there’s, you have to watch it, ‘cause there’s
poison ivy out there.
ER: Maybe at the end of February, or March, when it warms up, but the plants having started
coming back yet.
PR: Go out there. Man, I – I thought about how we could preserve, uh…
ER: Even a small piece, like –
PR: This piece of land, yes.
ER: Just seems like such a shame.
PR: And – and the City – the – the City could go in there and take care of it. Could – Park and
Recreation.
ER: Just like a park, you know, hire people to mow the lawn, and…
�PR: Get, you know, clean it out, and maybe put…grass and all that, and keep it mowed and all
that, and…God, it’s very interesting. Like I said, there was a German camp just right – right up
the road.
ER: That’s fascinating. I wouldn’t have thought that – right there, you know.
PR: There’s a lot of history in there, that deal there. Lot of history.
ER: Especially when you think: Lawrence is a community that’s really proud of its history –
PR: Right, yeah.
ER: So, why not preserve this?
PR: Yeah. To me, the Hispanics are left out.
ER: I would agree.
PR: They – they are left out. One of the – one of the reasons was because the – the MexicanAmerican community, they all lived in La Yarda, and East Lawrence. New Jersey Street,
Pennsylvania and all that. Their parents made it a goal in their life to get their kids educated.
That was very important, get them kids to school, make a better life for themselves. Get out. Get
something nice out there. The Mexican-American people in – in Lawrence, they’re spread all
over Lawrence now. You know? Once they got a chance to get a good job…
ER: They left.
PR: They wanted something better. So, man, you’ll find ‘em all over now. West side,
south…they’re all there.
ER: Mm-hmm.
PR: But not in a group anymore. The – the first, the chance that they got to get out, make
something for, you know, make ‘em a better life, they – they moved away. They…different parts
of Lawrence now. But at one time, they were all pretty much on the east side.
ER: And that needs to be preserved, because that’s – that’s where your parents lived. They
helped you…
PR: Right
ER: Think about something else beyond La Yarda, and that’s where you started, so I think it’s a
shame that it would just go unpreserved like that.
PR: Yeah, they’re – like I said, about the only time you see the Mexican-American people get
together is when they go to church.
�ER: Oh, when – okay.
PR: You go to church or the fiesta, the fiesta that’s held in June. And you see all the Mexicans
and all that. They’re all here in Lawrence. They’re all here in Lawrence, but they’re all spread
out.
ER: Yeah, just not in the same place.
PR: No, not no more. Once they got a chance to, uh, uh, get out and…get better jobs, better jobs
and…get out there, and instead of living, you know, there’s nothing wrong with the east side, but
that’s where we all kind of grew up on.
ER: Yeah.
PR: But you know, there’s places, nice places out there that they can – they can have.
ER: So, you’ve been going to St. John’s for – how long, would you say?
PR: Oh, forever. I been – I was baptized here in Lawrence. I was baptized at St. John’s.
ER: Oh, were you?
PR: Um…we were altar boys. Little kids.
ER: In the squads.
PR: Yeah, in the squads. We always made fun of each other, because [ER laughs] you know,
we’d be altar boys, and the altar – are you Catholic?
ER: Ah, no. I have some Catholic family members, but I was raised Baptist.
PR: The altar was kind of steps, and I remember we – we’d be kneeling down on the top stairs,
and – and you could always see the shoes, all the little Mexican shoes all had holes in ‘em.
[Laughter]
ER: Oh.
PR: Holes in ‘em, and maybe some cardboard, you know.
ER: I believe you.
PR: And they, uh, all the shoes had holes in ‘em, with cardboard. But yeah, um, like I said, you –
you see all the Mexican-American community at places, at church. They’re mostly all Catholic,
so…yeah, we – we – we never have gotten away from the church. This church is our second
home.
�ER: That’s what you said on the – on the phone, you and your wife, you know, it feels like a
second home to you.
PR: Oh, it is a second home. It’s, um, all the people that got baptized, got married, and got buried
there. That’s – church is about – it is our second home.
ER: Are you still – are you able to have in-person services over here yet, or…?
PR: Um…
ER: How did that change with the pandemic?
PR: Okay…let’s see…you – there’s church service, but you have to sign up.
ER: Oh, okay.
PR: You have to sign up, and then once you get in church, and the pews – you, they’re distanced
six feet.
ER: Right.
PR: But the first thing you gotta do is you got to, uh, uh, you got to, uh, make an appointment.
Um, and then once, once you make an appointment ,you can get in, then, uh, they…have you,
every six feet apart. So, at church, I – I’m gonna say there’s maybe…a couple hundred people
when the church is filled up. With – with this epidemic and all that, there might be, like, thirty
people in there.
ER: Oh, my gosh.
PR: Thirty people that, you know, signed up. A lot of people still don’t want to go, because, you
know, they don’t feel safe. But it – it’s still open, and it’s – it’s different. It don’t even seem like
a church hardly any more, because of the restrictions that there is.
ER: That’s what I miss, I think, most about, ‘cause we’re not having in person services at church.
I miss seeing people every week.
PR: Yeah.
ER: That I wouldn’t necessarily…it’s just not having that close community in person. They have
‘em online, but it’s not the same – it’s not the same.
PR: My wife, Anna – she – she likes to watch it on – there’s a Catholic station on TV.
ER: Oh, is there?
�PR: Yeah, yeah, I think it’s Channel 91. Midco. I think it’s Channel 91 – she’ll watch it on –
ER: I haven’t got cable.
PR: So, she’ll watch it on Sunday at, uh, 7:00 Mass. But me, I…I like to come into the church,
but I like to stay my distance, but it’s – it’s not – it’s not like it used to be.
ER: No.
PR: Yeah, used to be you could go to church and meet your friends and talk and all that. Now
you go to church, you know – you’re too far away to talk to each other.
ER: Can’t shake hands.
PR: You can’t shake hands, or…it just – and then after church is over, you know, we used to get
outside and talk and all that, but you can’t.
ER: Maybe even go out to lunch, or…?
PR: What’s that?
ER: Maybe go out to lunch, or something like that, and…
PR: Yeah.
ER: Just visit.
PR: Yeah. We used to do that, but not no more, no. Um…
ER: It seems so strange to think that a year ago, you know, I’d just go and get some coffee, talk
with people.
PR: For sure.
ER: We’d stand around talking, and we’d shake hands, we’d sing together, and then…nothing.
That’s – it’s been difficult, adjusting to the lack of community.
PR: Yeah. Hey, so, Emily, how can your project, uh, how can you help us?
ER: I’d like to know that. I’d like to ask Nora how I could be involved.
PR: How can you be of help to us?
ER: What do you think?
�PR: I – I think…I really think that this – this – this is possible. This is possible, but we have to
get people involved. I’m, uh, I’m all for it. I’d like to –
ER: Maybe preserving –
PR: But, yes, I’d preserve, maybe do something to – to La Yarda. Uh…I’d like to preserve it, but
we – we need the people, and, I don’t know, it just seems that people…it just seems like people
just aren’t interested in it. I mean, you know, we – we tell our – our – our grandkids, we tell our
two boys about how it was and all that, and they – they listen to us, and, you know, they can’t
believe that – that, you know. We had a life there in La Yarda and all that.
ER: Right.
PR: But…I don’t know, I – I just, I – I wish there was a way that, uh, we could do something
about this.
ER: I think it is doable.
PR: Yeah.
ER: And I’m hoping that when Nora finishes the project, maybe she can…present it to – to a
committee, maybe even to the City –
PR: Right.
ER: Some members of the City, and get them interested, but even something as simple as writing
letters, if we could get people to inquire about what might be possible.
PR: You know…I know a lot of these people. They’re – they’re, uh…they’re smart people.
They’re smart people, but, and just like the Mexican-Americans, like the Mexican-Americans,
they – they’re kind of, uh, quiet people.
ER: Mm-hmm.
PR: They’re kind of quiet. The – they’re smart, they’re smart people. But – but they’re – they’re
kind of quiet, you know, they – they don’t like to get out there and – and speak up.
ER: Sure.
PR: I’m – I’m the same way, too, like I said, I’m…I’m pretty good at writing stuff – I don’t
know if I am, but, you know.
ER: I think you are.
PR: Like I said, you know, writing stuff down.
�ER: You’ve had years of practice.
PR: Yeah, and like I said, I’m better at –
ER: I got it.
PR: Oh, thank you. Try and open my sinus up. I – I, yeah, I’m – I’d like to be, I’d like to help as
much as I could, I can, but I – I can’t see myself speaking up there in front of the City, the City
leaders.
ER: And that’s just it; you shouldn’t have to. Like, there should be people that can do that, with
different talents. You do the writing, and someone else can, say, do the speaking if they’re
comfortable with that, they have….
PR: That – that’s me right there.
ER: That’s – that’s what we need, is more people involved.
PR: Right. I…I, um, I got the – I got the feelings to do it and all this stuff, my intention’s good,
but like I said, I’m just, I just can’t, I’m just not that kind of a person that…that can get up and
talk about this to the public, like the City and all that.
ER: Someone else can do that. Look at this – all this foundational work that you’ve done. It
would make an excellent book.
PR: Oh, my God. That’s, well, I – I’m, well, I, living in La Yarda, it just made me
appreciate…people. Caring for each other. I don’t know, it’s – it’s a good feeling, you know,
to…um, caring for people. Respecting people. I think – I think we lost a lot of that respect today.
ER: That’s a shame.
PR: It’s a shame, because we said – like we live, we live for ourselves now. We could reach out,
reach out and try to help each other, like we used to do. Like we used to do. We used to reach out
and help each other and…
ER: And you’ve been honest about how hard it was. You know, it wasn’t an easy life, but…
PR: For sure.
ER: But you’re right, you also – when you leave that behind, now we miss the community
aspect.
PR: Yeah, yeah.
ER: Where people wouldn’t think twice about, you know, helping someone else, and of course
you’d do that.
�PR: Yeah. Gosh.
ER: Now, it seems people are more hesitant to just reach out.
PR: Right.
ER: I think this – this deserves to be remembered.
PR: Well, you know, if this – if this, I’ll be glad to help you any way I can. [Murmurs] I don’t
know, if you’ve seen any of these pictures there.
ER: I haven’t seen any pictures.
PR: Okay, you haven’t seen no pictures at all? Okay, this –
ER: No, all I’m doing is transcription, so I never saw any of the materials. Gosh, all those skirts.
All made by hand. Oh, Mary Nunez. I did – I transcribed her interview.
PR: Mary Nunez?
ER: Mm-hmm.
PR: Mary Nunez. You – you did an interview with her?
ER: Oh, I transcribed it. I think Helen had done that. Helen Krische was the first one to start
working on this.
PR: Oh, okay, okay.
ER: Yeah.
PR: Okay, yeah.
ER: But I had done…Garcia…I love the costumes.
PR: That’s – that’s me right there.
ER: That’s you?
PR: Yeah.
ER: Oh, my goodness.
PR: We used to have a dance group.
�ER: Do you?
PR: We used to have, when we were small kids, about that age there, what, eleven years, maybe?
ER: I love the gold braid on that costume.
PR: Yeah, we used – we used to go around and dance for the Kiwanis Club or the Lions’ Club.
ER: Oh, okay. I gotcha.
PR: And the people ate all that stuff up [laughs]. Seeing us little Mexicans out there dancing.
ER: It’s cute. So, here’s the railroad tracks.
PR: That – that was the flood. That was the flood.
ER: The ‘51 flood, is that right?
PR: The ‘51 flood. Okay, this – this right here, these, um…
ER: Oh, my gosh.
PR: These were little buildings that the railroad men, my dad, they had all their tools in these
sheds there, and every morning they’d go out there, that’s where they would meet. From there
they got the orders to go wherever, wherever they had to.
ER: All that water. Gosh.
PR: But all that was underwater, at one time.
ER: That’s unfathomable. Oh, here – wow, right up to the –
PR: The railroad tracks are right here. And all that was flooded, that’s why my parents had to
move. They got tired of…they got tired of cleaning up that mud, and all that.
ER: I would too. Oh, my gosh.
PR: This was La Yarda. Okay, this – this is the roof. That is the roof.
ER: Up to the power lines.
PR: That’s the roof there, and that’s that little piece that sticks out.
ER: All just underwater.
PR: All underwater.
�ER: I can’t imagine what that was like. I’ve never lived on a coast, or even lived through a huge
flood like this, so…my gosh, such destruction.
PR: That’s an old picture of my…
ER: Oh, that’s your mom and dad?
PR: Yeah, that’s my mom. My dad.
ER: You have your mom’s eyes, I think.
PR: [Laughs] My grandma.
ER: Is that your dad’s mom, or your mom’s mom?
PR: Yeah, my dad’s mom.
ER: What was her name?
PR: Gregoria.
ER: Okay.
PR: Gregoria.
ER: Okay, she had written –
PR: Yeah.
ER: It was in the book, there.
PR: She was…
ER: You’re lucky to have so many good pictures.
PR: Oh, my – okay, my mom was from Mexico City, and my dad was from Veracruz. And I tell
you what, as kids, boy, we – we were taught to respect our elders. Oh, my gosh. Oh, like we – we
– the elders, like the women, we would call ‘em Dona Maria, Dona Rosa. Everything – well, in
English, it’d be like “Ma’am” or –
ER: Yeah.
PR: But, everybody, all the ladies we talked to, we – we’d address ‘em by Dona. D-O-N-A.
Dona Maria. Dona Rosa.
�ER: My parents raised us to do that, too. You know, Mr. John or Miss Ramona.
PR: Yeah, right.
ER: I still – I still do that now, because it just feels odd not to call them by their first names.
PR: Yeah.
ER: But you’re right, I – this – it deserves to be preserved.
PR: Yeah, so if there’s any way that you could help us, oh gosh, you know, we have a lot of
young kids today. Young kids in their 40s, 50s, probably – intelligent Mexican Americans. But, I
don’t know, I’d like to see some of them kids step up today. Step up, um, and – and take more
interest in – in their roots. You know, these – my two boys, okay, Paul graduated from the, um,
business, school of business. He’s, uh, he’s, um…he works at – for the UMBA, uh, bank in
Kansas City. In Kansas City, Missouri. I got my son Vincent, who works at, uh…
ER: Healthcare, was it?
PR: He’s health administration.
ER: That’s right.
PR: He works at the hospital there in, um, Kansas City, Shawnee…uh, I think it’s called Advent
now.
ER: Oh, okay.
PR: But, you know, I’d like to see our younger people step up. A lot of them, you know, are
smart kids.
ER: Of course they are.
PR: They’re smart kids, but, I just, I don’t know, they’re just – really, you know, on – on the
school board, we don’t have anybody on the school board, um, I wish we did. I – I, that’s one of
the things I’d like to see happen while I’m still living, to see some of these young kids grow up,
you know, and be on the school board, or be on the City commission. I – I look forward to the
day –
ER: To have a voice in the town.
PR: Yeah, have a voice in – in Lawrence. But we don’t have nothing like that. We don’t have
nothing like that. I don’t know. I don’t know why.
ER: I hope that happens for you. I hope you get to see that.
�PR: I do, I live for the day that I see one of these, somebody on the school board.
ER: One of your grandkids, even, maybe.
PR: Yeah. Like I said, the Hispanic-American community here in Lawrence…they’re – they’re –
they’re there, but they’re – but they won’t – they – they just don’t stand out.
ER: Right.
PR: You know, to be noticed.
ER: Like you said, quiet.
PR: Yeah, they’re quiet. They’re – I guess we all –
ER: Smart, intelligent, full of history and – and knowledge, but just not…
PR: And all this history and all that, we’re keeping it to ourselves. And one of these days, all that
history’s gonna die with people that actually lived in, you know, like in La Yarda and all that,
so…anyways, um…
ER: Well, thank you for sitting down and showing me all of this.
PR: If – if I can be of any help, I’ll be glad to help you out, and, um, like I said, I wish – I wish
more could be done.
ER: I think it can.
PR: I hope so.
ER: And I’m hoping that when Nora’s carrying this project through to completion, that that will
go some way to at least putting it out there, and being visible.
PR: Yes. I always think of myself as being a – not a leader, but a follower. You know, I –
ER: And we need both.
PR: Well, yeah.
ER: Just like we need the Marys and the Marthas.
PR: Right, yeah.
ER: That’s what keeps us going.
�PR: I’ll be glad to help Nora in any way I can. But…we – we gotta do something. If we don’t,
history’s gonna pass us by.
ER: And that will be a shame that we can’t fix.
PR: Yeah…well.
ER: I’ll go ahead and turn this off.
PR: Okay. Okay, well, I’ll gather up –
END OF TAPE
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Description
An account of the resource
La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers in Lawrence, Kansas; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. In 2006, Helen Krische, archivist at the Watkins Community Museum, began an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. The project was resumed in 2019 by Nora Murphy and Emily Raymond. The interviews primarily feature the children of the railroad workers who migrated to Lawrence in the early 20th century; they describe daily life, social activities, and living conditions in the Mexican-American community in Lawrence from roughly the 1920s through the 1970s.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
2019
2021
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
These works are the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Raymond, Emily
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Romero, Pedro (Pete)
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
MP3
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:47:18 (2006)
00:19:03 (2021-01-29)
01:30:46 (2021-02-04)
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
84 kbps (2006)/192 kbps (2021)
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Pedro (Pete) Romero La Yarda Interview
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Romero, Pedro (Pete)
Description
An account of the resource
Pedro (Pete) Romero was interviewed by Helen Krische on May 23, 2006, and then by Emily Raymond on January 29 and February 4, 2021, as part of an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. Pedro lived with his parents and siblings in Lawrence's La Yarda neighborhood. La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River; the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. In the 2006 interview, Pedro and Helen discuss photos and drawings of the Santa Fe depot and the La Yarda area. Pedro also describes his family's migration from Mexico to Lawrence, his father's experiences as a railroad worker, and his experiences growing up in La Yarda and East Lawrence. In the 2021 interviews, Pedro talks about how he met his wife, their involvement with St. John's Catholic Church, and their two sons. He also also describes his family's relationships with other Mexican-American families in Lawrence, their experiences attending local schools and playing sports, their family's foodways and social life, and experiences of discrimination and segregation faced by the Mexican-American community in Lawrence.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Raymond, Emily
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lawrence (Kan.)
1920s - 1970s
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006, January and February 2021
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
MP3 (audio recording)
PDF (transcription)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
2006 interview: 25-PRomero-2006.mp3 (audio)/25-PRomero-2006.pdf (transcription)
2021-01-29 interview: 5-PRomero-20210129.mp3 (audio)/5-PRomero-20210129.pdf (transcription)
2021-02-04 interview: 6-PRomero-20210204.mp3 (audio)/6-PRomero-20210204.pdf (transcription)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Relation
A related resource
To access the audio recording of these interviews, go to <a href="https://archive.org/details/6-promero-202102204">https://archive.org/details/6-promero-202102204</a>.
The <a href="https://www.watkinsmuseum.org/">Watkins Museum of History</a> also holds items related to this collection.
<a href="https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/resources/5295">Additional research on the La Yarda community</a> is held at the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Published with the permission of Peter Romero. This work is the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
-
https://history.lplks.org/files/original/d573eaee3640c532c74b8cf4a8510191.pdf
d04be8501cc9c819c81dc0aefc6888b9
PDF Text
Text
Interview with Isabel (Chavez) Gonzales
Interviewer: Emily Raymond
Date of Interview: February 19, 2021
Length of Interview: 41:21
Location of Interview: Recorded over telephone
Transcription Completion Date: February 28, 2021
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Isabel Gonzales (Interviewee): Well, most of ‘em are older than me, but – but I did know who
they were, yeah.
Emily Raymond (Interviewer): So, how did you find out about the project?
IG: Um, my friend, Judy Romero, uh, e-mailed me and said somebody had asked her to do some
proofreading. She’s really busy right now taking care of her mom, uh, that she said she wouldn’t
have time, and she asked if I was interested, and I said: “Yeah I can,” and so she gave me the
information.
ER: Well, that’s fantastic. So, well, I mean, there are standard questions that – a woman named
Helen Krische started this project, and she had a list of questions that she would just go down
and ask people. So, I have those, but I’m also just interested in hearing about anything you have
to remember; we don’t have to stick to a script.
IG: Mm-hmm.
ER: So, let’s just start with – what was daily life like, when you were growing up in La Yarda?
IG: Well, here’s, yes, I didn’t know if Nora had told you, that it was about La Yarda, but I, no, I
told her I didn’t, uh, grow up there or even – well, not too far from it, but, no, I told her I really
didn’t have anything to say about La Yarda. I went to pick up a friend, and – or walked her
home, but that’s all. And so, um, and the same thing with my brother Carlos, who’s younger than
me. And she said, well, that – that, um, are you the doctoral student?
ER: Yes, that’s me.
IG: Yeah, well, she said she thought you might be interested in just, uh, I guess, the life growing
up in East Lawrence, and that’s why, but if you only are interested in La Yarda, I couldn’t help
you with that.
ER: No, we – I’m interested in – in all of it, actually, because it helps to get a picture of what life
was like outside of La Yarda in Lawrence as well, because some of the kids who grew up in La
Yarda, they would say, well, you know, we went to school, we went to church, but we didn’t
know much about what was going on in the town. Maybe they went to the movie theater, or
something like that. So, it’s – it would be helpful for us to have a little bit of context form
someone who’s – who was living outside the community at that time. So yes, please, tell me
what you remember.
�IG: Well – well, because it was, we lived at 805 Pennsylvania Street. Are you in – you’re from
Lawrence, right? Or are you there now?
ER: Oh, yeah. I know where Pennsylvania Street is.
IG: Okay. At the time, the 800 block of Pennsylvania was the most east street in Lawrence. The
next – the next over, there was just, right across the street from us, were all, uh, buildings, like
the cider building and there was an egg plant, and different things like that, but no houses. But
one house on the corner, but after that there were no more streets. But if you walked down 8th
Street, I think there was maybe a couple blocks, if I remember right, that was La Yarda.
ER: Oh, okay.
IG: So, they were – they were kind of separate, but we were the last three east that was nearest
La Yarda. Um, and a friend of mine, Celia Garcia, lived there, and, uh, actually, she’s two years
older, she’s a friend of my sister, and sometimes we’d walk her home or – or walk, you know, to
and from, so I remember just barely, barely remember entering that – that area. But, uh, as far as,
you know, if you’re interested in just what – what it was like, our childhood, is that what you’re
wanting to know?
ER: Oh, yes. I do. I – I’d love to know things like whether you had any holidays that you
enjoyed celebrating, what your mom would cook for dinner –
IG: Uh-huh.
ER: Traditions that you guys had, just what it was like growing up in East Lawrence at that time.
IG: Yeah, well, the main thing is that there was so many big families, you know, I’m one of
fourteen children.
ER: Oh, my goodness.
IG: And then – and then down the street, there was, uh, the Romeros, and the Ramirezes and the
Romeros and [unintelligible] the Bermudezes, everybody had either – anywhere from seven
children to, I think the Romeros had sixteen children.
ER: I think you’re right.
IG: But everybody had – huh?
ER: I think you’re right, what Pete said.
IG: Pete, yeah. And then the, um, Ramirezes had eleven, the, um, Mendozas I think had ten or
eleven, so what was very fun was that almost all of us had somebody our age, two or three or
four people our age that we could play with and grow up with, so we always had lots and lots of
�fun, ‘cause we, you know, played baseball in the street, since we were the last street besides
those businesses, so by the evenings, there was no traffic down that street.
ER: Oh, that’s right.
IG: We’d play baseball in the street, uh, just stay up real late at night, not like today, we could
stay up till ten or eleven, dark, you know, in the summer, play that “Truth, Dare, Promise, or
Repeat.” Uh, we – we just had lots of children to play with. I do remember that. We put on plays
with the Grand Ole Opry and Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls, and commercials, we
just had a lot of kids to do things with, which was fun. One thing that I never thought was
dangerous, but, until I grew up, of course [ER laughs], going – going east, let’s see, it would be
north. North, right at the 800 block of Pennsylvania going north, there was nothing but, um,
these big sand piles. I don’t know if it belonged to the railroad. The Santa Fe railroad or who –
ER: Interesting.
IG: But there was huge – pardon?
ER: Interesting. I – I remember someone mentioning those sand piles, but I don’t remember what
they were for.
IG: Yeah, I don’t either. We didn’t know, ‘cause we were children, but they were huge. Now, to
me, they were, like, two stories high, but I was a kid. And what we used to do, which now I think
would be very dangerous, is a lot of us would go over there, we’d climb to the top and slide
down. And we just kept doing it over and over, I’m sure we brought those sand piles down some,
but they were always so high. Nobody ever got buried in it or hurt, but that was one of our, that
was our entertainment, one of the things we used to do, but um, just, I always remember lots and
lots of kids and outdoors, we were just outdoors all the time, you know, in the winter playing
outside, not that we – nobody made us, but we just were, um, well, I didn’t, I’m the tenth child,
so there’s just four under me. And so, we never had a TV till I was thirteen in our household.
ER: Oh, okay.
IG: So you could tell, there’s nothing to do in the house, there’s no TV, so, uh, we just played
outside all the time. Uh, had a couple of bikes, and everybody took turns riding those. Just made
up games to – to play outside, but, uh, the – and then, of course, in the winter not so much unless
there was snow outside. Um, our parents were very, very devout Catholics, and I think all the
Mexican families were in that area.
ER: Mm-hmm.
IG: Um, and, um, so, you know, we went to church every, uh, Sunday, of course, and during
Lent, we went twice during the week for services. Um, my father especially was, uh, head of our
family, as far as religion went.
ER: Oh, okay
�IG: I don’t know if any – we used to say the rosary every night. He built an altar, like a roomsize altar; it was tall.
ER: Oh, really?
IG: And he built – oh, yeah, it was really beautiful, looked like a little bit of an altar you’d see in
a church. Not that elaborate, but of – it was an altar that, um, and he led the rosary every night,
uh, sometimes in Spanish, sometimes in English, ‘cause he mostly spoke Spanish. My mom
spoke both. And, um…but, and then we went to Catholic school when it was open, I started there
in fourth grade, I think. There was no Catholic school before that.
ER: Oh, okay.
IG: Um, so I went fourth through eighth, and then my younger siblings got to go when they were
younger. All of the older siblings did not go. We used to go to, uh, catechism, like on Saturday
morning.
ER: Oh, okay.
IG: CCD. And, uh, you know, I’m thinking of all of the stuff in my childhood was good, it was
positive, uh, it was good. Except for one thing, and it’s super sad, because of what it was, and it
was the church. Um, at the time we were growing up, St. John’s was the only Catholic Church in
Lawrence. And, uh, unfortunately, there was a priest there that was, uh, very prejudiced against
blacks, Mexicans, um…yeah. And we were very – even though all the Mexicans went there, we
were still a minority. The church was mainly white. I think there might have been one or maybe
two black families that went there. But, uh, uh, I, you know, this incident was never reported or
told or anything, and I – I happened to tell Nora about it because I felt – I felt like, you know,
that it – it probably should be known. Uh, there was an incident where, uh, somebody tore up the
bulletins. They used to have the bulletins in the back of the church, and when you left you picked
one up, and –
ER: Oh, sure.
IG: Uh, yeah, so somebody had torn some up, and – and uh, we got a phone call. I don’t know if
it was that same Sunday or on Monday, the next day, from the Monsignor. And he said that my
brother Frankie, who was at that time fourteen, I was ten, uh, that Frankie had torn them. Well,
we always went to church and we sat way towards the front ‘cause that’s where my dad wanted
to sit. Like maybe, I don’t know, I don’t know if you’re familiar with St. John’s Church, but
we’d sit about ten pews back.
ER: Oh, okay.
IG: Out of the – you know, it was pretty close to the front.
ER: Sure.
�IG: Uh, and, uh, and, um, Mom – Mom, I guess, was the one that answered the phone, and she
says: “No, it’s impossible; he would not have done that.” And, um, you know, thought probably
some little kid did it. And he said – well no, I don’t know how he – how he thought, why he
thought, that my brother had done that, and my brother said of course he didn’t tear up bulletins
at church, and so, um, that priest told Mom if she didn’t write a letter apologizing, uh, for her son
tearing up the bulletins, that we could not go back to that church. Well, us being such a Catholic
family, we never missed a Sunday Mass.
ER: Of course.
IG: Mom, she said: “I don’t have a choice. I have to write this. There’s no other church.” It was
the only Catholic church in Lawrence, and I remember, I’m 74 years old right now, but the
reason I remember it so distinctly is because it affected me so strongly. I was ten, I saw my mom
sitting down with a paper and a pen, and she was crying.
And I said: “Mom, do not write that letter. Frankie didn’t do it.”
And she said: “I have to, because we can’t – otherwise, we can’t go to church.”
And, um, to this day, that’s what I remember. I do not remember if she actually wrote it.
I’m assuming she did, because we continued going to church. But that incident just stuck so
much in my head because of, um, the tremendous meaning it was for us. My dad even, um, we
didn’t have a car, so we always walked to church from 8th and Pennsylvania to where it is at 12th
and Kentucky, I guess.
ER: Yeah, that sounds about right.
IG: Uh, 1234, ‘cause we went there so much, I remember. But um, on Sundays, my mom – I
didn’t know this till after my dad had died – my mom told us that not all Sundays, but she said
many Sundays he would go to Mass twice. And we said: “Why?” – excuse me – and she said:
“Well, because he went the first time out of obligation,” ‘cause as Catholics we’re, uh, that’s,
we’re obligated to attend Mass once a week, you know, on Sundays. Back then they didn’t have
Saturday Masses. And then he said he went the second time because he loved God. And so, it
was like, he didn’t want to go out of obligation only. He wanted to go to, you know, tell God he
loved Him. And then he’d walk us, because we would go to a later Mass, and he’d walk us. I
remember walking with him to church. But, uh, he was just very, very devout person. You know,
all the time, when we left for school, he gave all of us a blessing, and before we went to bed he
blessed us, and, you know, that’s the way we were raised, uh, knowing that how – how important
church was. But other than that, I didn’t, you know, uh, feel any discrimination, like a lot of
people have, throughout, um, other than that priest and his sister, who taught us CCD, because
from first, second, and third grade, me and then all of my siblings went, his sister taught, uh, the
Monsignor’s sister taught, uh, the catechism classes on Saturday morning.
ER: Oh, okay.
IG: And so we went to her, and she was the same way. She pretty much ignored anybody, like
the few Mexican kids that were there. Um, if she passed out a treat at the end, uh, we got skipped
over, and the Monsignor did that too, when we were in the school. When we got our report cards,
�he would – every time we got our report cards, he’d come and pass ‘em out, say the name, kind
of look at it, make a comment, give it to the person. But he never called us up at all. We just got
handed the report cards later, same thing, passed out a treat, we didn’t get it. So, they were very,
uh, very, uh, prejudiced.
ER: How spiteful. That’s horrible. Especially for a man of the cloth.
IG: Yeah, I agree now. As a child I didn’t – I noticed it, but I didn’t think too much of it. But as
an adult, when I think back, yeah, it was. And it happened for many, many years, but that was a
time during the ‘50s, um, and ‘60s, probably early ‘60s, that, people didn’t talk so much about it
or protest too much about it, because it was pretty common. Discrimination was, you know, I
don’t know if you know, but my older sister said there was signs everywhere, you know, where
they – they couldn’t do into a restaurant to get anything. They could get it to go. They had to go
to the back door to get a drink, or, uh, something to eat.
ER: Oh, right, yes.
IG: That was pretty, uh, obvious in the ‘40s and ‘50s, anywhere. Um, but, um, anyway, uh, but
other than that, my – at the schools, the nuns were very nice to us. The nuns were really nice to
us, the, uh…[child yelling] okay, just a second.
ER: You’re fine.
IG: The, uh, the other teachers that I had when I was in, um, uh, middle school and high school,
they were all – they were all super good, and I never dis – uh, experienced any, uh,
discrimination at the – I went to Lawrence Junior High, uh, right there on Massachusetts.
ER: Oh, okay.
IG: And then on – and then, Lawrence High School. Uh, you know, good experience, I just – I
just didn’t have any other problems. Um, so the childhood really was, I thought, very good. And
then you were asking about, um, uh, like holidays we celebrate?
ER: Yeah, like did you have any family traditions that you would celebrate every year, or…I
know you lived in a large community, so did you ever get together with people and, I don’t
know, have cookouts or picnics or something like that?
IG: No, no, because each family was so big that we just did it with our own family. And later
when older sisters and older siblings were married, they would come with their children, so we
would have our nieces and nephews, and, um, like my oldest brother is, um, 20 – I think 23 or 24
years older than me. I don’t remember living with him at all. He had gotten married by the time I
have a memory. So, I was really young. So, and my sister too, so we weren’t all fourteen in the
same house at the same time. Some were gone and married, or moved out before the younger
ones were born. But, uh, well, we always, of course, celebrated Christmas and, uh, birthdays,
um, Easter. But always just with our own family, not with the neighbors.
�ER: Oh, okay.
IG: Yeah.
ER: I was curious as – as to whether you had done church activities like that. I mean, I remember
when I was growing up, we did a lot of things with – with our church family, but that’s because
our – we didn’t really have any relatives, so we were just kind of adopted.
IG: Oh, you don’t have, uh, siblings?
ER: I have – I have a brother.
IG: Oh, okay.
ER: So…
IG: Just two of you? Sorry.
ER: I know, it’s – it’s strange because we –
IG: No, I’m sorry. You know, it’s different. Because one Thanksgiving, on Thanksgiving, our
older siblings that were married and had children, maybe they’d had two or three by then, or
four, they would come for Thanksgiving and we’d have lots of people there. And my – my
younger sister, one year none of them could come, the weather was real bad, so none of the
married siblings and children came. And I remember my sister Vicky, when we sat down to eat,
she looked real said and she says: “This is so sad, there’s only ten of us.”
ER: Oh.
IG: Cause there’s probably like 25 or more, 30 normally.
ER: Oh, my goodness.
IG: Yeah. So, you know, we’re always used to, uh, lots and lots of family and friends, actually. I
had, uh, three really good friends, and, um, that lived like, one block away, and another that lived
close, and um, and then they would come for Christmas Eve Mass and to eat tamales at our
house afterwards. They came a lot to our house, my close friends. More than any of the other
siblings – an older brother used to have a lot of friends come over, too.
ER: Oh, okay. That must have been special. I’m glad that you had some – some friends that you
could just invite over to your house. Now, you said your – your dad spoke Spanish, yes? And
your mother spoke both?
IG: Both of our parents were born in Mexico.
ER: Oh, when was that?
�IG: They, yeah, my – my dad didn’t come till he was about fifteen, walked from central Mexico,
Guanajuato, all the way, he worked in Texas for a while, then in Colorado for a while, then
finally worked for the Union Pacific railroad, you know, and ended up here in Topeka, but – but,
uh, he came at fifteen, and my mom was brought by her parents when she was three years old.
ER: Oh, okay.
IG: So, they grew up speaking Spanish, yeah.
ER: Do you remember anything about your dad’s job during that time? I mean, obviously he was
away from the home, but did he ever come home and tell you stories about it?
IG: Not too much, I just knew that, um, it was real hard work. He was a – they fixed the tracks,
repaired the tracks.
ER: Oh, okay.
IG: That was his main job, and he had to travel to a lot of different towns, too. And it was all
outdoor work, and, you know, he’d have to work no matter what the weather, storm real bad,
cold weather or snow. Or the heat. And he always had two jobs. He worked as a custodian for the
school, and I forgot what else, but he almost always had two jobs. But, you know, we saw him of
course on weekends, and in the evenings when he came home. But no, he – he never really spoke
English at – at home. I understood that he – he knew Spanish, I mean he knew English, but he
just preferred to speak Spanish, and so we didn’t talk to him a lot. Mom would – Mom was the
translator between us and our dad, really. Our – my older siblings all spoke Spanish first. So they
knew it. The younger ones did not.
ER: Did you ever have to take a Spanish class in high school?
IG: Well, I didn’t have to, I chose to, I took it all through high school and KU. And I’m a
Spanish – retired Spanish teacher. Uh, ‘cause I – I love the language, and we have relatives in
Guanajuato, Mexico, and I used to go every two years to visit them. I lived with them a couple
summers, and so uh, um, I took it because I wanted to. And, uh, some of my siblings speak, the
younger ones speak it, some do not, or – or know some, but not a lot. Um…but they – both
parents came here because of the extreme poverty that they lived in, you know, sometimes my
dad told me the story about, um, uh, well his parents both died when he was really young, I think
by five years old he was an orphan.
ER: Oh, my gosh.
IG: Went to live with an uncle. Yeah, went to live with an uncle, and he became a shepherd. He
had him watching the sheep all during the night. And, uh, not treated, didn’t treat him too good,
didn’t feed him really very much, and so he chose to – to leave when he was either fourteen and
a half, fifteen, or something like that. But he said when he was young that sometimes they had no
food, and, uh, that they were given marijuana plants to chew on. And I remember telling my
�students this one time and they said: “What?” You know, they say marijuana’s supposed to make
you hun – make you, uh, hungry or something, I forgot what they said.
ER: Is it? I don’t know.
IG: But that’s what I think they told me. But – I taught at Topeka High for many years, in
Topeka West, but, no, he – they said – no, he said that – you know how today, it’s medicinal. He
said no, it would – it would curb their hunger. It was looked – it was used as medicine. So their –
so they wouldn’t feel hunger pangs. And, uh –
ER: I didn’t know that.
IG: Yeah, that’s what they – ‘cause it grew freely. It, you know, they didn’t have to buy it or
anything. It just grew in the fields. And, uh, uh, even today, they – they know that they can use
that for, like, use the leaves and put ‘em on your – if you have arthritis, um, our cousins and,
‘cause they had come here one time, and my sister, older sister has arthritis, and they said, she
said: “Oh, it hurts,” and she tried different medicines.
And then my cousin said: “Well, have you tried marijuana?” This was, like, thirty years
ago. [Laughter]
And she says: “Well, no, it’s illegal.”
And he – and we said: “Isn’t that illegal in Mexico?”
And he says: “Yes, but nobody cares.” You know, I know that a lot of – they have a lot of
laws, but they don’t really enforce them very much.
ER: Right.
IG: So, he said: “Ah, we just go down the street.” He named the lady who had it, and he said you
soak the, uh, leaves in alcohol, and then you lay it on top of wherever you have the arthritis pain.
And it’s supposed to help. And now we’re finding out today, yes, they’re using it for medicine,
so –
ER: Oh, my gosh. I guess – I just, I never knew that about it. I knew that, you know, regular
smoking can be an appetite suppressant, but I didn’t know that just chewing the leaves would
have a similar effect.
IG: Yeah, that’s what they – they just chewed the leaves. They just picked ‘em for free out in the
fields, so –
ER: Oh, my goodness.
IG: But anyway, I know that both my mom’s family too were just really poor and when she
came, there was a revolution was going on and there was, you know, burning – burning, you
know, villages. And they – they had to flee. But, uh, anyway, I – they had a difficult childhood,
both of ‘em. Ours was very pleasant, even though we had a big family, you know, we always had
enough food, we had – our parents were good people, and, uh, I don’t remember any, you know,
really anything negative. Um…I know my brother Carlos probably, he’s four years younger than
�me. I told, um, Nora because – in that La Yarda, uh, interview, uh, my sister Helen and my
brother John Chavez were interviewed.
ER: Oh, okay. I remember that I transcribed their interview as well.
IG: Oh, okay. Well, I proofread ‘em, and, um, I laugh ‘cause I said – because one of the
questions was, you know, was anything negative or did you feel, you know, any prejudice? And,
uh, both of ‘em were just real pleasant and sweet [laughs]. And they didn’t mention anything,
and so I told Nora, you got the two angels in our family.
ER: Oh, my gosh.
IG: ‘Cause they are. They just don’t – they don’t say anything negative, or even if it’s the truth,
of course, I’m not – I’m not making things up – they just steer away from saying anything that
might be, um, uh, negative. So, I said, I told Nora, kiddingly, I said: “You should interview my
brother Carlos. He’ll tell you the true story. Or – or I know some things.” But no, ‘cause they’re
– they’re older, and so they would know more about stuff before, like, in the – probably the ‘30s
and ‘40s, instead of – mine is, like, ‘50s, really, when I was a child, it was in the ‘50s.
ER: Right. Well, and it’s just good to talk to different people of varying ages so that we can kind
of see what changed over time, what might have stayed the same. I’ve, you know, I’ve had a
couple people say they experienced a lot of discrimination growing up, and then others like you,
they said, well, there was a couple of isolated incidents. I believe one of them remembered going
to church and being asked to sit in the very back, instead of –
IG: Oh, yeah.
ER: Instead of up front, which shocked me, honestly, I…
IG: Oh, actually, the – the, you know, we use kneelers. The kneelers, you know how they have
pads on ‘em?
ER: Yeah.
IG: They took the pads – they took the pads off of the last two rows I think, all the way across.
And, uh, that’s where, before I went to church, the older ones said they were – they were all
supposed to sit in the back.
ER: Oh, my gosh.
IG: Oh, there’s just tons of incidences. It was not nice, what happened. Oh, gosh, one time I
remember the procession, we used to practice this. When we were going to St. John’s, we
practiced for the May procession. And, uh, we’re, you know, lined up two by two, the nuns lined
us up and everything, and Father came over to watch the practice one time. And Cecelia Garcia,
which, she was a good friend of my older sister’s, two years older than me, she was the one that
�lived in La Yarda. She – I guess she got a little bit ahead of her partner, ‘cause I was – I was near
her, but I don’t remember how far, and Father just yanked her back so hard he tore her dress.
ER: Oh, my gosh.
IG: And, yeah. And, uh, just a lot of little things, lot of things that happened because of who
those two people were. But, you know, I think everybody just wanted to forget that. I don’t
know. ‘Cause other than that, we had a – it was good. Life was – life was not bad. For my older
siblings, I’m sure they had more things that happened.
ER: Sure.
IG: But anyway.
ER: I’m glad that, you know, we are seeing this change over time.
IG: Yes.
ER: I think the worst story I heard was, and I cannot remember the name of the interviewee, but
she would say that every time they did the passing of the peace, she would, you know, put her
hand out, and she said: “Nobody would take my hand.”
IG: Oh, yeah. That had been before my time. I don’t remember that. But I’m sure that did
happen, yeah.
ER: It just –
IG: It’s really sad, uh, Emily, because even today, all the stuff that’s going on, with mainly black
but Asian now too because of the virus, but you know – all - starting with George Floyd and all
that, I was just shocked at all the – the really bad discrimination against blacks. And not
everywhere, but it’s definitely still here. We just have to work harder and harder at, uh,
informing young people.
ER: It’s sad that it takes tragedies to – to get us to think about these things.
IG: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
ER: I mean, yes, of course things have gotten better, but it definitely doesn’t mean we need to
become complacent, so you have an excellent point.
IG: Right. Right.
ER: Goodness. Speaking of –
IG: I’m not sure what else, any other questions –
�ER: I was gonna ask you a question about, um, what about healthcare? I study the history of
medicine, so maybe this is more personal interest, but what – what was healthcare like back
then?
IG: Um, well, you know how today everybody goes for maybe a yearly physical? We did not.
We went when we were sick. Um, and I – it was rare. People, you know, even though we were
poor, we ate well, but I don’t, I don’t remember anybody getting sick very often, or needing to
go to the doctor. Uh, we would get the shots. We did go to the dentist.
ER: Okay.
IG: Uh, but we did not, we did not, I – it was rarely I think that we, in my memory, I could be
not remembering well, but I don’t remember going for physicals at all, really, maybe, yeah, till I
was an adult. And you know, already married and living here in Topeka, and go for your yearly
checkup. But, uh…but that’s about it, I – I know that we did go to the dentist. Um –
ER: I was curious about the dentist. Others had said, you know, we – we went maybe once or
twice, when we were in elementary school, and then someone else said: “Well, I didn’t go until I
was married.” It’s amazing how much changed in such a short period of time.
IG: Mm-hmm. Yeah, um, yeah, it just – it wasn’t, I guess I didn’t even see that people were
getting sick very much. That they needed to go to a doctor appointment.
ER: Were the diets pretty good, I mean, back then?
IG: The food, yeah. Well, um, I – we had, um, we ate, I think beans and – and tortillas and chili
pretty much every day, but my mom also made, um, I remember her making, like, goulash and
hamburgers and, um –
ER: Oh, okay.
IG: Mexican food, like tostadas and enchiladas. Tacos. Um…but, um, mainly Mexican food, but
we did eat American food, too. Mashed potatoes and, uh, like green beans and things like that.
Um…
ER: And you said you were outside really often, you know, playing, like –
IG: Oh, yeah, all day. In the summer, from the time you get up till you go to bed almost, except
for coming in to eat, we were outside all the time, yes.’
ER: What about swimming?
IG: We got a lot of sun, never used, uh, what do you call it? Sun…
ER: Suntan lotion?
�IG: Sunblock? Yeah, whatever.
ER: Sunblock, oh my gosh.
IG: Sunscreen, never, I didn’t even know it existed, so we never, ever used that. And we were
out in the sun all the time, everybody, all the kids. Oh, and then fruit in the summer. We always
had, uh, my dad would – used to come around with trucks of watermelons and cantaloupe.
ER: Oh, my gosh.
IG: And they were real cheap, so we always bought lots of watermelons and cantaloupes. So we
had a lot of that in the summer. In the winter, um, I think mainly, like, plums and apples. But not
– peaches, my mom used to can. Oh, and my dad had a huge – two – two gardens, actually three
gardens. He had one in North Lawrence.
ER: Three gardens. Oh, my gosh.
IG: A huge garden, and he did corn, and – and carrots, and radishes, and tomatoes. Tons of
tomatoes, and, um, lots and lots, onions, he did – he planted a lot of stuff, ‘cause we used to go to
the gardens with him and pick. He’d bring bushels and bushel baskets home. Somebody –
somebody who had a truck would bring ‘em for him.
ER: Okay.
IG: But he’d walk from our house to North Lawrence to where his garden was, and then when
the produce was ready, they would help him bring it home, and then my mom did a lot of
canning. So, she canned a lot of that – the fruits and the vegetables. And then, somebody said he
had one near our house, which I didn’t know about that one. And then he had one in our
backyard. So we, he grew a lot of, uh, vegetables.
ER: That must have been an enormous amount of work.
IG: Yeah, so I think we ate – ate well.
ER: Did he sell any of the vegetables, or did your mom just can whatever was left over?
IG: No, yeah, she just canned it. Yeah.
ER: What about swimming? Um, I remember some people I interviewed said that they were not
allowed to go to the swimming pool in Lawrence, and so they went to the river instead. They
said that was pretty dangerous.
IG: Yes, well, that’s another sad thing, none of us learned how to swim, except for I think one
brother, ‘cause he used to go to the river to swim. But that was – that’s true, you couldn’t use the
public swimming pool. But no, none of us ever learned to swim, to this day I didn’t, because I
�guess when you grow up and you’ve never been around water that – to swim, you just, I had a
little fear of it, so I just never…never did learn to swim.
ER: Oh, okay. I was – I was curious about that. I’d actually heard several talk about how – you
know, they’d say, well, we went down to the river, stood on the sandbars, and it was so
dangerous, but we didn’t think that at the time you know, because when you’re kids, you just
don’t think about it.
IG: Well, and then our parents, uh, forbid us to go after one of the Mendoza boys, a young boy, I
think he was about nine or ten, was swimming in the river, and he drowned.
ER: Oh, my gosh.
IG: I remember that, he would have – I think he was, like, a couple years younger than me. And
so then, you know, our parents didn’t – didn’t allow us to go there. One brother went anyway.
Um, so he was a – one of the rebellious ones that had all kinds of experiences that –
ER: Oh, my gosh.
IG: Some he’s shared, some he has not shared. But, uh…
ER: Probably for the best.
IG: Yeah. Anyway. But, um, so as far as – we used to play, um, we went to New York School,
which was just, like, a block and a half from our house. And, um, they, um, had a big, you know,
playground outside, and a jungle gym, and a few equipment, so all summer when school was out,
we could go there to play.
ER: Oh, how fun.
IG: We used to go. And then they had a summer, some kind of summer program where they –
they would set up ping pong tables and box hockey and have competitions, you get a snack, so
all the kids, we always went there. And then on Sundays, we’d go play baseball on their field
there. So, it was real nice that we had that, uh, that school so close to our house.
ER: I imagine that was fun.
IG: Oh, yeah. It was a lot of fun to go there. And I remember when it snowed a whole bunch,
‘cause when I was little, it seemed like it snowed more in the winter. Uh, I just remember my, we
kind of enjoyed it when it was a lot of snow, because my dad would not let us go to school. We
walked. We walked to – now, this would not have been New York School. It would have been
St. John’s, which was about a mile.
ER: Oh, okay.
�IG: It would have been the middle school, uh, Central Junior High, which was 14th and Mass
[Street]. And then the high school, which was about three miles. But I used to walk home. We
got a ride to school, but I’d always walk home from Lawrence High or Central Junior High. But
if it was real high snow, because, you know, back then I forgot, you know, girls didn’t wear
pants. So, we only wore skirts.
ER: Yeah, that’s true.
IG: Yeah, so we had skirts on, and then, you know, short socks, and the shoes. So your legs are
exposed, of course we have a coat on, but not to cover our legs, and so, I just remember we, our
legs would be red.
ER: Oh, my gosh.
IG: Our faces were red when we got to school, bright red. Uh, and I remember one teacher at
Lawrence, I mean at the Central Junior High, my ninth grade English teacher, Mrs. Black. My
locker was right outside her room, and you go to your locker first, and I got there and it was a
real cold winter day, and I know my face was bright red, and my legs. She came out of her room
and saw me getting in my locker, and she – she came up and started, like, patting and rubbing my
cheeks and saying: “You poor little thing,” ‘cause I was all red.
ER: Oh.
IG: But, uh, she was feeling sorry for me, for walking, but, um. So, on those days, especially
deep snow, we didn’t have boots. He said: “No, don’t” – he’d tell my mom, he’d go to work, but
he’d tell my mom: “Don’t send the kids.” Because he didn’t want us to be out in the snow and
that cold without, you know, proper – proper clothing. And I don’t know if the boys went, they
had pants. I don’t remember. But he didn’t want us to go, because it was just too cold, he said.
ER: I can’t, I can’t imagine walking to school dressed like that in the kind of weather that we had
just last week.
IG: Yeah. Yeah, no.
ER: I was thinking, my gosh, it’s dangerous for kids just to be out in this kind of weather, and…
IG: And some of ‘em, like, waiting for a bus now, that’s, yeah. That’s why they canceled for a
couple of days.
ER: That was a wise decision. I…
IG: Mm-hmm.
ER: It’s so easy to take for granted all the things that we have now, especially in – in doing these
interviews, you know, things that never even occurred to me that we just have access to.
�IG: Oh, yeah, we just – well, everybody had outhouses back then. I remember outhouses. So you
know, if you had to go when it’s dark or raining or cold –
ER: Oh, my gosh.
IG: You still had to go outside to go to the outhouse, but also, we didn’t have, uh, since we had
an outhouse only, we didn’t have a tub, like with running water.
ER: Oh, that’s right.
IG: So we had a big, what they called a [unintelligible]. It’s a metal, round metal container, and
one of ‘em was kind of oblong, like what you see is a horse trough, you know the horses, they
get water?
ER: Yeah, yeah.
IG: We had two, a round one and then an oblong one. And we, Mom would put – in the winter,
she’d put it in the kitchen and then boil water and then put regular water and hot water in there,
and, uh, everybody would have to take turns taking baths there in the kitchen, where it was
warm.
ER: Oh, so much work. Oh, my gosh.
IG: In summer. Lot of work, yeah, with so many children. Well, Saturday, and that was probably
a lot of people, Saturday was your bath day, so it was just once a week. But everybody had to
take turns, and I think we did it, ‘cause I always did it with my sister, who was two years older
than me, so we were in that tub two at a time. And then, uh, in the summer she put the – it was
outside. And she’d fill it up and we’d take our baths on the side of our house. Just outside.
ER: Oh, my goodness.
IG: I know! One thing is, we – we, the neighbors on one side would be the opposite side of our
house. They couldn’t see us. It was a real small little house, with an elderly couple. And then on
the other side was a barn. I don’t even know what it was. It was a big huge barn that ran from the
front of our house to the end of our house, the alley. So, there’s nobody in there to see us either,
so we were, uh, so, you know, we weren’t exposed to anybody. But I don’t even know what kind
of barn that was, it was a huge barn, at first I thought it was some kind of a car place, but now I
don’t even remember what it was.
ER: So no livestock or anything, just…
IG: No.
ER: I mean, I guess you would have smelled that if it was.
IG: Yeah. Yeah.
�ER: Oh, my goodness. Well, thank you for taking the time to talk with me.
IG: Sure.
ER: I don’t want to take up too much of your time, I know you’ve got things to take care of, but I
appreciate you telling me about what life was like back then.
IG: Sure. Sure, you’re welcome. And good luck. Are you, you say, you’re the doctoral student,
right?
ER: Yes, ma’am.
IG: That – that is amazing. I just – I went to KU, but only got the graduate. I didn’t go get a
Master’s or anything. This was a long time ago, I was there in the ‘60s, and um, nobody
encourages us back then to go to school at all, or even continue. I don’t know, it’s just, I guess
being poor, nobody thought we could do it, but my daughter is a teacher also, and, uh, she has a
Master’s, and she so badly wants to get a doctorate, but, um, she has four children and it’s kind
of hard right now. But she really, really wants to do that. I hope she gets to, so congratulations to
you, best of luck.
ER: Thank you. And best of luck to your daughter. If she can get a Master’s, she can get a
doctorate. I promise.
IG: That’s what I’m saying. She’s real smart. So I’m sure she will eventually, some time.
ER: I’m actually enjoying the doctorate more than I enjoyed the Master’s work, so I hope the
same is true for her.
IG: Oh, good. Good.
ER: Well, thank you, Isabel.
IG: Okay. Thank you.
ER: Have a wonderful evening.
IG: Okay. Uh-huh. Bye-bye.
ER: Take care. Bye.
IG: You too. Bye.
END OF TAPE
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Description
An account of the resource
La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers in Lawrence, Kansas; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. In 2006, Helen Krische, archivist at the Watkins Community Museum, began an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. The project was resumed in 2019 by Nora Murphy and Emily Raymond. The interviews primarily feature the children of the railroad workers who migrated to Lawrence in the early 20th century; they describe daily life, social activities, and living conditions in the Mexican-American community in Lawrence from roughly the 1920s through the 1970s.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
2019
2021
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
These works are the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Raymond, Emily
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Gonzales, Isabel (Chavez)
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
MP3
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:41:21
Bit Rate/Frequency
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192 kbps
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Isabel (Chavez) Gonzales La Yarda Interview
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Gonzales, Isabel (Chavez)
Description
An account of the resource
Isabel (Chavez) Gonzalez was interviewed by Emily Raymond on February 19, 2021, as part of an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. Isabel grew up in East Lawrence, and recounts her childhood as part of Lawrence's Mexican-American community. She attended St. John's School, Central Middle School, and Lawrence High School; she also discusses her family's experiences as part of the St. John's Church congregation. She shares memories of childhood pasttimes, life without indoor plumbing, and her father's extensive vegetable gardens. Isabel describes her family's migration from Mexico to Lawrence, and discusses experiences of discrimination and segregation faced by the Mexican-American community in Lawrence.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Raymond, Emily
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lawrence (Kan.)
1920s - 1970s
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-02-19
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
MP3 (audio recording)
PDF (transcription)
Identifier
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7-IGonzales-20210219.mp3 (audio)
7-IGonzales-20210219.pdf (transcription)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Relation
A related resource
To access the audio recording of this interview, go to <a href="https://archive.org/details/7-igonzales-20210219">https://archive.org/details/7-igonzales-20210219</a>.
The <a href="https://www.watkinsmuseum.org/">Watkins Museum of History</a> also holds items related to this collection.
<a href="https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/resources/5295">Additional research on the La Yarda community</a> is held at the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Published with the permission of Isabel Gonzales. This work is the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
-
https://history.lplks.org/files/original/79660d494d7d21a98a60b982ae111cfe.pdf
4081ad5c7304f0e0d64e7d80298f503b
PDF Text
Text
Interview with Carlos Chavez
Interviewer: Emily Raymond
Date of Interview: March 9, 2021
Length of Interview: 36:43
Location of Interview: Recorded over telephone
Transcription Completion Date: March 14, 2021
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Carlos Chavez (Interviewee): Like, uh, this is, like, from the mid-‘50s to early ‘60s. So, uh, we
used to have, uh, some KU students who would come to all of our neighborhood houses at
Christmastime, and they used to take us, uh, to some building at KU, on a horse-pulling wagon,
and we sat on bales of hay, and uh, we would sing Christmas carols. And then we got to this big
building, uh, where they took us to, and they would have snacks, and they had a gift for each one
of us with our names on it under this huge tree. And, uh, then they would bring us back after we
celebrated a little bit, which was different. And they always gave us toys, not like we got at
home, just clothes [laughs].
Emily Raymond (Interviewer): That’s sweet. I hadn’t heard anyone tell me about that before.
CC: Really?
ER: Nope.
CC: Yeah. And, you know, we see our neighbors that we grew up with and played with all the
time, going too, ‘cause, you know, I guess we were all poor in that neighborhood. Uh, and then
sometimes I’d go with my mom pulling a wagon with jars and a bag of vegetables. And we went
to 9th and New York Street. And there’s a church basement there, we would go down, and I
didn’t know, I can’t remember the name of that church. It’s still there. Where, uh, she and other
ladies were canning vegetables. And it was real hot in there, and I know I’d meet a couple of my
buddies there, and we’d play outside, around the churchyard, while they were down there
canning. But, um…and then during the summer, at New York School, uh, they had a summer
playground for us, from ages to, like, about 10 to 17-year-olds. And from around the
neighborhood.
ER: Oh, okay.
CC: And they played games like, uh, they had, like, checkers and caroms, Ping-Pong, box
hockey, and then all sports to play catch with. You know, they had balls and gloves and stuff.
And you had to sign in and sign out, so you couldn’t leave without signing out, so they would
have an idea of who all was there.
ER: Sure.
CC: But, uh, and then, some of the home games that we played, you know, at our houses in the
neighborhood, were, like, “Rover, Red Rover,” and “Truth, Dare, Promise or Repeat.” And we’d
play ditch-‘em – that was mostly the guys on bikes.
�ER: “Ditch-‘em?”
CC: Ditch-‘em, yeah, it’s on bicycles, you have two teams and you just drive all around the back
of the neighborhood and stuff and, uh, try and catch up with ‘em. When you catch up with
somebody, you tag ‘em, you know, then they’re out. Just eliminating people.
ER: Oh, okay. I gotcha.
CC: Yeah. And then we had, like, spear fights with those cornstalks back behind the buildings
[ER laughs]. But you couldn’t have dirt clods on ‘em, so, that was illegal.
ER: Oh. I – okay, you got rules for –
CC: Oh, yeah. And our favorite game was “rubbers.” And this, you probably don’t know what
that is, but that’s when we used to have, uh, old inner tubes, ‘cause we had a lot of flats over
there, with all the glass and stuff.
ER: Right.
CC: And you’d get an old inner tube and you’d cut up rings. And then you tie ‘em together, and
it was, like, you could have four to five rings, and then each one got five of those. And then you
had teams, and of course you chased each other, shooting somebody. And then you can’t shoot in
the face. And, uh, you eliminated people that way. So, that was a game we all really liked to
play. And then, of course, we – some of us were by ourselves or something, we’d just, uh, we’d
go down to the dump and, uh, look around there, and you could catch tadpoles in a puddle that
was by the waste plant. I don’t understand how there was always, uh, tadpoles there. Now that
I’m grown, I don’t understand it.
ER: I don’t either.
CC: And then we’d play in the sand piles over by the Santa Fe depot, and we’d catch lizards
there. There was a lot of lizards. They were real fast.
ER: Oh, ‘cause they like – they like the hot, arid environments with the sand.
CC: Right. Right. Or we’d just play in the woods, you know, a lot of wooded area there. Or go
swimming in the river, you know, ‘cause of course, the pools were off-limits for us, so…
ER: The pools were off-limits?
CC: Yeah, there was a sign: “Whites Only,” there. And so, we would just go down by the river,
but it was usually with older guys, and they would talk us into coming in, but, you know, it’s just
more or less wading in the water. None of us really knew how to swim. All I knew how to do
was dog-paddle.
�ER: That must have been dangerous.
CC: It was dangerous. Of course, we didn’t know it at the time.
ER: No, of course.
CC: The older ones would tell us, you know, you have to stay close to the shore and stuff. But,
uh…and another favorite thing was, uh, they butchered across the street, and we’d go down there
and watch ‘em butcher cows and pigs on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But there was a real small
ledge that you had to drop down into and see a small – through a small window. And it was a
tight fit, and we’d have to take turns climbing in and out, so everybody could watch ‘em butcher,
but yeah, I got to know how they butchered each one of those animals.
ER: Goodness.
CC: Yeah. ‘Course, in the inside, you know, like in wintertime and stuff, you know, one thing
we hated was our phone was on a party line. ‘Course, that didn’t bother me until I was later in
my teens, but [ER laughs]. Yeah.
ER: That – that makes sense.
CC: Everybody listening in on your conversations. But, uh, then when we were littler, I had an
older brother than came in from Kansas City. And on Saturdays, and then he would let us watch
this shock show, with Gregory Graves. I don’t know if you know anything about that. It was just
shows like The Mummy and Frankenstein movies and stuff.
ER: Oh, okay.
CC: It was usually at about [9:30?] at night. And, uh, we’d watch that, and of course my mom
would always be at the back room with my littlest brother; he was a baby. And we had an
outhouse, and the girls were always afraid to go out there, so I always had to go out there with
‘em and stand out there [laughs]. It was weird because they were scared too, because there was,
uh, a place called the Tampico, which was a bar, it was just – uh, not next door, but the door after
that.
ER: Okay.
CC: And there was always a lot of, you know, drunk guys walking around out there and stuff.
You could hear ‘em laughing and hollering and stuff.
ER: Oh. Alright.
CC: Yeah. And then, uh, I was gonna tell you about a – a kind of a work history that you
wouldn’t see today, and that’s when I was seven years old, I started selling newspapers. But they
were just walking up and down Massachusetts. And I only had, like, four blocks that I could be
on, and that was on the west side of the street. And I would sell the Journal-World paper going
�up and down Massachusetts Street, and, uh, they were seven cents a paper. They gave us ten
[papers] to start off with.
ER: Seven cents. My gosh.
CC: Yeah.
ER: You wouldn’t get that today.
CC: No, no. And the Kansas-City Star right now about the cheap price. But, uh, if they gave you
a dime, sometimes they would say, “Keep the change,” and we got to keep it ourselves. I can’t
remember if they even paid us for that, but I know we always had the – the three cents if they
gave you a dime. I would even ask, you know, if I could keep the change.
ER: Oh. That’s cute.
CC: The one thing I always did was, I was – I stayed close by this, uh, it was a midget named
Leo. And he rode a small cart, selling things, you know, I’m sure that’s even in the papers and
stuff, about him and his history. And, uh, ‘cause he attracted a lot of people, so it helped me sell
more papers.
ER: I never heard about Leo. No one ever told me about him.
CC: Really? Oh, yeah, you can look that up, ‘cause he was real popular in, you know, he wore
glasses, and he wore, like, an engineer cap, you know, train engineer cap.
ER: Oh.
CC: And, uh, I could just picture him right now, too. But when I was ten, I was selling peanuts at
KU football stadium, and Gale Sayers was playing there at that time. So I – I got to see him play,
but I didn’t ever meet him. And then at twelve and thirteen, it was funny because, uh, at twelve I
was working on a farm for Paul [name?] across from Garrett’s Market in North Lawrence.
ER: Okay.
CC: And they would leave me there in a field of soybeans, just to pull weeds. And I’d be there
by myself, and that’s, you know, at twelve years old. And at thirteen, I went to, uh, Hemphill’s
farm, which was also in North Lawrence, and that was, uh, uh, baling hay. And both those jobs, I
never even tried to get – my mom, somehow, talked to somebody and told me: “Hey, you’re
gonna go with this guy, he’s gonna pick you up,” you know, so he was a stranger to me.
ER: Oh, my goodness.
CC: Yeah, by myself out there, you know, in these fields. It was really different. And you
wouldn’t see that today.
�ER: No. Now you have to fill out paperwork – well, and then kids can’t even work, you know,
under a certain age.
CC: Right.
ER: Goodness. So, did you get to keep the money that you earned, or did you give it to your
family to kind of help out with expenses, or…?
CC: No, no, I had to help give it to my mom, other than that. And, uh, in fact when I was making
money then, I would go downtown. I don’t know if you remember, they used to be open until
8:30 on Thursdays. And I would always go up town and buy her something and bring it back,
and sometimes I’d get me, like, a shirt, maybe, or something.
ER: What would you get her?
CC: Oh, cooking stuff. I mean, kitchen stuff, you know, like that. Spoons and stuff, you know,
she always – I always saw pans that were old, I would see, but of course she liked using her own,
but –
ER: That’s sweet.
CC: To me, I thought she would – yeah [laughs]. And, uh, and then after that, at fourteen I was a
custodian at a community building. And at fifteen I was – I worked at the sirloin stockade in
Lawrence. And, uh, but I got some funny stories about disciplinary times. When I –
ER: I’d like to hear about those.
CC: Yeah, when I was real little, I used to think that my older brothers and sisters – they lived
out of town – were my aunts and uncles, ‘cause, you know, they were a lot older than I was.
ER: Oh, okay.
CC: I don’t even remember them being at the house or, you know, anything. And so, one day my
oldest brother came to visit, and asked if we – I wanted to go to the dump with him. Of course I
did, yeah. And he started gathering all these broken parts of bikes and stuff, and I thought:
“Wow,” and he was putting ‘em in his station wagon. Well, when he took me home, he just
dropped me off and left. And I was telling my mom I didn’t like him anymore, because, you
know, he stoled our toys.
She said: “What do you mean he stoled your toys?”
I said: “From the dump, and took them. They, you know, those were ours.” And she
didn’t see it that way, ‘cause he was gonna take ‘em to his own kids and fix’ em up.
ER: Oh, I see.
CC: Yeah. And I didn’t know anything about that. I just thought he was gonna bring ‘em to our
house, and fix ‘em up.
�ER: Oh, no.
CC: But…and then when I was ten years old, we used to go around to different gardens. They
had gardens everywhere around there. And, uh, I used to carry around a salt shaker. You know,
I’d put wax paper under the lid and screw it down. Those old glass ones.
ER: Yeah.
CC: And carry it around. And, uh, so one time I stopped at a garden, and, uh, was filling up on
tomatoes, and I fell asleep. And I was laying there, and my belly was full, and then I was
awakened by this older woman. She was a small woman, but she – shadowed over me and
blocked out the sun [laughs] in a loud voice, that I didn’t understand what she was saying. She
grabbed me by the ear and – and walked me down the alley where my dad was out there burning
trash. And she spoke to him in Spanish, and it sounded pretty dramatic, anyway. He pulled me in
the yard and gave me a boot in the rear [laughs] and then –
ER: Oh, my gosh.
CC: Up to the house where my mom was already waiting. She heard her talking. Waiting with
the belt. And I guess that was called stealing, but to us, we just thought: “Well, you know,
there’s a lot of gardens; a lot of tomatoes out there.”
ER: Yeah, sure. Why not, you know, just…
CC: Yeah.
ER: Oh.
CC: And when I was nine years old, um, I was mad because, uh, my shoes had holes in ‘em. And
I wanted some Keds, you know, everybody was getting those Keds.
ER: Oh, yeah. I know what you mean. Those…
CC: Yeah, Mom said we couldn’t afford ‘em, so I decided to run away to Texas and make
money [ER laughs]. So, I had to take my little brother – he was four and a half – because I was
supposed to be watching him. So, I got a bag with an extra shirt for him and a long-sleeved shirt
for me in the winter months, working outside, ‘cause, like, my dad was always wearing longsleeved shirts. And I also took my big sombrero that I got to block out the sun, that my older
brother gave me. We headed down the tracks behind those buildings, the cider building and
those.
ER: Yeah.
CC: So we wouldn’t be seen, and also, I figured the track would lead us to Texas.
�ER: That’s so cute.
CC: Yeah, we were by my sister’s house, who lived at 12th and 13th in Haskell. And, uh, she
lived up, kind of on a hill, to me. Well, right now it just seems like, you know, nothing. But then
it was like a hill. And when my brother had to use the bathroom, so I told him to go up in there
and tell her – tell her that I’m out here. And so I laid belly-down along the curb, hiding under my
sombrero. And it wasn’t long that I heard: “Carlos? Carlos? Get up here.” And she took me
inside and he was sitting there with a milk mustache, eating cookies.
ER: Oh, my gosh. So that was the end of the runaway plot.
CC: Oh, yeah. She called my mom and took me home. And Mom hugged my little brother, and
the belt started hugging me.
ER: I bet. Oh, my gosh. I like that you thought you could run to Texas on the track. That’s –
CC: Oh, yeah. Yeah, anything was possible back then when you’re a kid. You know, there was a
lot of – lot of free space there, that you could explore and do things.
ER: Your sister had mentioned that you guys spent a lot of time outside.
CC: Oh, yeah. Yeah, we did. Yeah, like especially playing those, uh, “Rover, Red Rover” games
and that “Truth, Dare, Promise or Repeat.” That was our biggest one.
ER: Was it?
CC: The neighbors would even come up and we’d play that one.
ER: I remember those two. We also played Kick the Can; did you ever do that?
CC: Kick the Can? No, no.
ER: Oh, well, it’s pretty simple. It was just an outdoor game where everyone would hide and
then one person would be looking for them, and the idea was for someone in hiding to come out
and kick the can down the curb, and then you’d have to go run back and hide. And if you were
caught, then you were “it,” and you had to – had to find –
CC: Oh really?
ER: It was a silly game, but we would spend hours outside, doing that.
CC: Oh, yeah. Yeah. We were outside all the time, even in the wintertime. We’d make snow, uh,
forts, and we used to pile all that snow up against our fence, and that helped build the fort, you
know, and throw snowballs. It was great.
ER: That sounds like fun.
�CC: Yeah. And in the summertime too, we had a couple – we had a guy, a Mr. Hill that used to
come around in this blue pickup truck, and he had watermelons and cantaloupes. And he was a
real nice guy, because when we were little, you know, he would ask me if I would go up to the
different houses, and run up there and just let ‘em know that he was out there. He didn’t have a
bell or anything like that, you know, like an ice cream truck.
ER: Right.
CC: But he had a whole back bin full of watermelons and cantaloupes. And he would even let us
try ‘em. He’d cut out a little triangle and plug, and let us taste it, and then, you know, of course
we’d buy watermelon. And then, for the littlest guys, he would give us those little round ones. I
don’t see them anymore, but they – they were just, looked like the size of a baseball or softball.
ER: Oh, okay.
CC: And they were good. He would give us those free. So…but that’s pretty much all I had
thought about and stuff. I’m not sure what all you really wanted.
ER: No, I like those memories. I just like, um, a bit of context. Like I told your sister, even
though you didn’t grow up in La Yarda –
CC: Yes.
ER: It’s helpful to know what was going on in Lawrence at the time, like you said, things like
“Whites Only” at the swimming pool. Uh, I wouldn’t have known about that otherwise. So…
CC: Right.
ER: It’s all important. I’m curious – how did you enjoy school?
CC: Well, we – it was three miles away. We walked. It was, uh, St. John’s. And, uh, it was good.
It was good. Uh, we – we played in the South Park there – it’s South Park, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s still
–
ER: Yeah.
CC: Called South Park. Where the fire engine is. Yeah. And we used to have races there, going
around those trails, with sidewalks. Uh, but no, school was real good. In fact, you know, being in
a Catholic school, they’re – they are real strict, and so when I got to Central Junior High one
year, there, in ninth grade, I was like, uh, “A” average. Which didn’t last long, but [laughs] yeah,
it was – they were pretty much advanced in, uh…private school.
ER: And how about church life? Um, you sister said your parents were – were very involved in
the church.
�CC: Yeah.
ER: Especially your dad.
CC: Oh, yeah, he was. Yeah. And, uh, uh, of course we said the rosary every night, you know, in
front of an altar that he built. And that was something else, ‘cause man, he would be in front. He
had a huge rosary, and then of course my mom would be in the back, ‘cause, uh, she was the
disciplinarian. Start giggling and you had to go to the bathroom real quick, because by then we
had a regular bathroom inside, and – and I remember that once one started giggling, the other
one’d start, and oh man, my two sisters that are older than me – but, uh, Isabel, the oldest one,
she was pretty strict. The three of us were just gigglers.
ER: Giggles are contagious.
CC: Oh, yeah, they are. Yeah, they are. For no reason. [Laughs]
ER: So how about this altar? Your sister mentioned it as well. What did it look like?
CC: He made about five altars. And, uh, right now the older siblings, each one of ‘em have one
at their house, you know.
ER: Oh.
CC: Mom passed, ‘cause she used to have all of ‘em. But, uh, oh, it’s – it’s huge. It’s probably
six or seven feet tall. And, uh, and it looks like an altar you would see at a church. It even had a
tabernacle and it had little – little, uh, chalices inside.
ER: Oh, my goodness.
CC: The doors would open. Oh, yeah, it was good too, you know, and detailed. And I have
pictures of saints and everything, and it had a crucifix. And underneath it, it had a glass that
covered, uh, the Last Supper. And it had all the picture, of all the apostles and everything in
there. So, it was, yeah, it was nice.
ER: That’s nice that you have those things to remember them by. That he made – so you can
share ‘em around.
CC: Right, right.
ER: So, how about – tell me about your family now. When did you meet your wife?
CC: Well, I’m divorced now, but I met her in – when, not until I moved here to Kansas City.
But, uh, and actually I was married twice, because I used to be married to a – she’s passed away,
but, uh, in Coffeyville. And I had one son there. And, uh, I moved here years later, and I met
another lady, and then I’ve got three kids by her. But, um, no, we – we still get together. We
have, uh, family reunions, like, every three to five years. And I usually was the one that started
�those, but, you know, wanting to pass that on to the younger generation. I did that, uh, two –
three years ago. And they had one, but it was a small one, so we were planning a big one this
year. And they’re always in Lawrence, since we all started out there. But there’s four families,
and there’s, like, and what I have is a family tree that I created, and it’s a website. And right
now, there’s 547 names.
ER: Oh, my goodness.
CC: Of just family, yeah, there’s – there’s four families, uh, mainly, that are from the same
ancestors. And those are Estrada, Gonzales, Chavez, and Alvarez. So…yeah, we have a big
family, so we’re looking forward to getting together again, which was planned already for last
year, but that didn’t happen ‘cause of the COVID. But, um, probably not this year either. I’m not
sure. But –
ER: It will depend on how they get the vaccines out, and –
CC: Right.
ER: How effective they are.
CC: They’re usually at the 4-H grounds.
ER: Hmm.
CC: There in Lawrence.
ER: Well, I hope that can happen for you. I mean, that sounds like a really nice thing to be able
to do.
CC: Yeah. And it’s funny because most of the ones that, uh, the girls married guys from Topeka,
and then the guys married girls from Topeka, so [laughs] and that’s where mostly everybody is,
between Topeka and Lawrence. There are some in Texas.
ER: So, how did they meet in Topeka, if you lived in Lawrence?
CC: They always had dances there in Topeka.
ER: Oh, dances.
CC: And, uh, yeah, oh, yeah. Weddings and everybody was always invited. And so, they’re
usually in Topeka where everybody met, because they would have dances, you know, and of
course that’s where they would meet [murmurs]. Everybody went to ‘em. That’s mostly how
they went.
ER: How old did you have to be to go to one of those?
�CC: There was no age. There was no age.
ER: Oh, just anyone.
CC: Most of the family, though, of the wedding party or whatever, they would have younger kids
there, but the rest of ‘em would just be, you know, teenagers on up to 70s and 80s. Man, there
was, you know, everybody loved to dance at the dances there. And as a kid, you kind of had to
know, learn how to do those dances, you know. [Cungas?] and rancheras and [unintelligible]
stuff.
ER: That sounds like fun.
CC: Oh, it was. It was, it’s always fun.
ER: So, I’m curious, apart from the “Whites Only” sign at the swimming pool, which takes me
by surprise, um, did you ever experience any other kinds of discrimination, or witness it firsthand
while you were growing up?
CC: Uh…not so much. I – I mean, I did when I was older, you know, I was in high school and
stuff, but that was, you know, back when they were having riots and stuff. And that was already
in the ‘60s.
ER: Oh, okay.
CC: But, no, before that, I – I was trying to remember, but I barely remember, um, friend of
mine, and I don’t even remember who it was, but he was taking me to go swimming, and ‘cause
this was after I was in, uh, Cub Scouts.
ER: Oh, okay.
CC: Now, that was a story, because my dad, I didn’t know him very much, you know. He died
when I was eleven. But I remember one time I had a – I was gonna get an award, and I told my
mom, so she told him to take me, you know, walking, and that was up to St. John’s, you know.
We went up there and, uh, I was supposed to get a Wolf badge. And, uh, so he knew I was gonna
get an award. Well, I was up in line, and they didn’t have mine for some reason. It was a
mistake, and my, uh, Mrs. Boyle was her name. She was our den leader. And she came up to me
and apologized and said, you know, she was gonna get it to me, you know, within a week or two,
but it didn’t come in. And so, I just said: “Okay,” you know, but I couldn’t tell my dad, because,
you know, he didn’t speak English. And I didn’t know how to tell him that, he was kind of
looking at me, you know, he would – in Spanish I did understand what he said: “Y tu?” You
know: “And you?”
ER: Mm-hmm.
CC: Like “Everybody got one, but where was yours?” and stuff. And I just didn’t know what to
do. I shrugged my shoulders. It’s funny ‘cause he was so tall, uh, my oldest brother and my
�youngest brother, they’re both six foot, and the rest of us in between are five [feet] eight [inches].
So, they were the bookends. But he was six foot also, and he had those long legs, and I
remember walking with him, holding his hand, and I was taking, like, three steps to every one of
his. And, uh, it wasn’t till we had to get all the way home to tell my mom, you know, what
happened. And then she explained it to him.
ER: Oh, okay. So, your mom would translate for you guys.
CC: Yeah.
ER: I didn’t know if you had grown up speaking both Spanish and English.
CC: No, not at that age, when it was him, ‘cause she would speak to us in English. And, uh, I
didn’t learn my Spanish till I was older, in the service and stuff. But, um, my dad – I hardly ever
even saw him, ‘cause he was always gone. He was always working. He worked two jobs and
stuff, all the time, you know, and then of course when he got sick, he was in the hospital and
stuff, so, yeah…
ER: You said you were in the service; which branch?
CC: I was in the Marine Corps.
ER: Oh, okay.
CC: Yeah. I started out about three years in the reserves. I had about four cousins and a brotherin-law that was in that reserve unit. But then I just couldn’t take that once a month and
everything, so I went ahead and went into active service. And, uh, I avoided Vietnam when I
went in, because the outfit they sent me to had just gotten back. But, oh, there’s a – there’s a
Twilight Zone story there, because when I got out in ‘75, I was overseas, and then when I came
back, I didn’t get any mail or – the right mail. My mom and all of ‘em had moved. She was the
last one to move out of Lawrence, and she went to Topeka.
ER: Uh-huh.
CC: They tore that whole block down. Pennsylvania Street. They were gonna build a highway, I
guess from K-10 or something, to North Lawrence, I’m not sure what they were gonna do there.
Well, I never received a letter, and so when I got out in ‘75, I got to the bus station, it was
already about 4:00 in the morning. And I had all my gear with me, and I had no money. I’d been
just eating chips and stuff, because I had a check for five hundred dollars, but I didn’t have it
cashed at the time.
ER: Right.
CC: So I was walking down Massachusetts Street, and I noticed there was a restaurant open, I
can’t remember if it was Rainey’s or something. It was kind of like a drugstore restaurant. But I
went in there, and there was Judge Rankin, was there, and I – he talked to me, you know, about
�being in the service and stuff, and he bought me breakfast, and then he asked me if I needed a
ride home. And I said: “Yeah, I’ll take one,” and he told those police officers to give me a ride
home. And so they were gonna turn their car in, they were done. And they asked where I lived,
and I said 805 Pennsylvania.
And they said, uh, “No, you don’t live there.”
I said: “Sure I do, I’ve lived there all my life.” And they took me there, and there was
nothing there.
ER: Oh, how bizarre.
CC: What in the world? And, uh, I said: “Well, go down the alley,” ‘cause, you know, where are
they at?
And they said: “No, well, we gotta turn this car in.”
I said: “Well, I have a brother that lives on Craig Court,” but I didn’t know the address.
And they took me up to that circle drive, and, gosh, it was on the other side of these huge bushes.
But I didn’t know, you know, his address, and it wasn’t out there on the box – mailbox or
anything, so…
And they said: “Well, we gotta turn this car in. Where do you wanna go?”
I said: “Well, just take me back to 805 Pennsylvania,” and they dropped me off there.
And I was walking down the alley, and then I decided to go out in the street, in New Jersey
Street, and I walked all the way down to about, um, well, it was the 10th or between 10th and
1100 block. And, uh, I saw a light come on, and it was [Jamie’s] house. And so, I went and I
knocked on the door, and [Jamie?], he was getting ready to go to Stokely’s, where he worked. A
lot of ‘em worked at Stokely’s, a [murmurs] there on 9th Street. And, uh, he was surprised to see
me, you know, and I said, yeah, I said:
“Hey,” I said, “I was supposed to go home, but there’s not even a house there.”
He just laughed, he said: “You didn’t know that?”
And I said: “No, where’s my mom? Where is she living?”
ER: Oh, my gosh.
CC: “Oh, they moved to Topeka.” He said that she was the last one to move out, but they, you
know, they bought everybody out on that block. And then they already tore it all down. And, uh,
so anyway, I got to call my sister that lived over on 6th Street, and, uh, she came, and her
husband came and got me. And then they took me to Topeka, to where my mom lived. That was
– that was just crazy, they couldn’t believe I didn’t know.
ER: No one had written to tell you?
CC: Well, my mom said she wrote to me, but I didn’t get the mail, ‘cause I was overseas I guess,
that’s why.
ER: Oh, that’s – that is so strange. So disorienting, my gosh.
CC: But no, as far as, uh, uh, I was – like I was saying, there was a kid that took me to some club
place. That they had a pool there, an inside pool. And, uh, they asked me if I had an ID and I said
�no, I just had told them my name. And they said: “Well, you can’t come in here.” Now, I don’t
know if they were saying it was because of the ID, because I told ‘em my name, but he didn’t
have an ID. You know, they were members, his family was.
ER: Oh, okay.
CC: And so, his mom, I remember, just brought me back and dropped me off at home. But,
uh…that, and, man, I can’t remember the name of the kid. And I – but I remember going to
school with him for a few years, when I was a kid, real kid. So, that’s about the only thing. No,
after that, though, you know, with the riots and stuff. That was – that came way later.
ER: Do you still keep in touch with some of your friends from school?
CC: Yeah, yeah. I have. I haven’t been to a reunion. I did go to, well, I was living in Coffeyville,
and then I came down to pick up a car in Topeka, and I stopped in Lawrence, but it was the day
before the reunion, and, uh, that was our 40th. And then I, uh, went to a club there in Lawrence,
that I knew a guy that was running it. And I met a lot of the guys there that came in for the
reunion. I got to see them, anyway, but… There’s a few of them that I still stay in touch with, but
not many – not – not a whole lot. I got so much family, it’s hard to keep up with the other
people.
ER: I imagine it is. Your sister said something like that.
CC: Every month or so, which I’ve gotta do, uh, today or tomorrow, is I write a letter – or, you
know, just a – talking about what’s going on, if anybody has any news, you know, graduations or
weddings or anything, you know. I call it the family network. And then I send out a birthday list
with the month of everybody’s birthdays, so everybody can keep up with whose birthday it is.
And I’ve been doing that for several years now, so…
ER: That’s a special thing to do.
CC: Yeah, that takes up times, too, so, ‘cause I gotta know what to write, you know, some
suggestions like – obey your parents, hug your kids, stuff like that. Just a whole bunch of those
in.
ER: And what do you do for work? Or are you retired?
CC: I retired last year. I worked for Proctor and Gamble. I loaded rail cars and trucks and, uh,
made soap.
ER: And –
CC: I worked there 30 years.
ER: 30 years.
�CC: Mm-hmm.
ER: And you do the writing in your spare time?
CC: Yes.
ER: Good, you keep busy.
CC: Oh, yeah, I stay busy. I got two kids living with me, you know, they’re busy with them too,
you know, stuff that they’re going through and everything, and trying to get ‘em to go through
some different stuff and more stuff [laughs].
ER: What do you like to do with your grandkids?
CC: Oh, I like playing with them. ‘Cause I, man, I tell you what, it’s a whole ‘nother world; I’m
not at all good with, uh, phones and computers and stuff like that, you know, other than emails
and stuff, but gosh, the three-year-old, the four-year-old, they know how to work an iPad and of
course, you know, they – I can’t show ‘em anything. But now, I do make sure that they don’t use
it very much time with that, ‘cause they might at home, but not – not here. ‘Cause I want ‘em to,
you know, play and talk, you know, see what they like to do, and – and go outside and do
walking and stuff. That kind of playing.
ER: Sure. Take them outside of the digital world for a while.
CC: Yeah.
ER: Well, I hope you can do more of that, now that some of the restrictions are being lifted.
CC: Yes, yes, that did, uh, take a toll on it, so…
ER: Must have been kind of difficult to adjust.
CC: Yeah. Yeah, it was different.
ER: Do you still attend church at St. John’s?
CC: No, no, I live in Shawnee.
ER: Oh, you live in Shawnee. Okay.
CC: Yeah.
ER: For some reason I thought you lived in Lawrence.
CC: No. Uh, I – we tried to go – my brother, I got an older brother that lives here in Shawnee, we
sometimes go visit family together, but, uh, we try to go there on, uh, the – December the 12th,
�the Lady Guadalupe Day. And, uh, they usually have a – we meet people there, and then they
have in the basement, they have that, uh hot chocolate, what you call atole. And, uh [murmurs]
so we get to talk to some of the older people, friends and stuff there. But, you know, and then we
went to a lot of funerals, too, that they had there, and of course now you can’t go.
ER: That’s true.
CC: Well…
ER: Many things have changed.
CC: Yeah. And I keep up with some of the stuff that goes on in Lawrence, because I got two
sisters and a brother that live there now.
ER: Oh, okay.
CC: And they got families, too.
ER: Well, I’m glad you can still keep up with them to some extent.
CC: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we’re a close family. We’re – everybody’s, you know, involved with
each other and stuff. And it just keeps growing and growing. Like I said, there’s 547 names, but I
know there’s probably five or six that are not on there, of new ones that [laughs].
ER: That’s a family forest, I think, not a tree.
CC: Yeah [laughs].
ER: Well, I’m happy for you. I’m glad that you have such a support network.
CC: Yes, yes.
ER: Well, is there anything else that you remember, or that you had written down?
CC: Nothing that I can tell. [Laughs] There’s a lot of stories, but – that I told my sister about, and
that’s probably why she recommended me. But, no, those stories are – they’re just for family
[laughs].
ER: Yeah. Well, that’s good. It will give you something to pass on.
CC: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
ER: Well, I really appreciate –
CC: Do you have a big family?
�ER: I’m – do I have a big family? Um, not really. I grew up in Texas, and our relatives live in
New England, so we would see them sometimes, maybe if we’d go up there annually, when I
was a kid, but –
CC: Yeah.
ER: We – we grew up in a pretty small town, so the people we lived with became our family.
CC: Gotcha. That’s good, too. That’s good, too.
ER: I still keep I touch with all of them like I do with regular family, so it’s nice. It’s – there are
some definite advantages to growing up in a small town.
CC: Right, right.
ER: Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me, Carlos.
CC: Sure, sure. Not a problem.
ER: And if you remember anything else, or you have anything else you want to share, please feel
free to give me a call again.
CC: Okay. I will.
ER: Alright. Enjoy the rest of your day, and good luck recovering from your surgery.
CC: Thank you. You too. Be careful.
ER: Bye.
CC: God bless you. Bye.
END OF TAPE
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Description
An account of the resource
La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers in Lawrence, Kansas; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. In 2006, Helen Krische, archivist at the Watkins Community Museum, began an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. The project was resumed in 2019 by Nora Murphy and Emily Raymond. The interviews primarily feature the children of the railroad workers who migrated to Lawrence in the early 20th century; they describe daily life, social activities, and living conditions in the Mexican-American community in Lawrence from roughly the 1920s through the 1970s.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
2019
2021
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
These works are the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Raymond, Emily
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Chavez, Carlos
Original Format
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MP3
Duration
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0:36:43
Bit Rate/Frequency
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192 kbps
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Carlos Chavez La Yarda Interview
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chavez, Carlos
Description
An account of the resource
Carlos Chavez was interviewed by Emily Raymond on March 9, 2021, as part of an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. Carlos grew up in East Lawrence, and recounts his memories of his childhood as part of Lawrence's Mexican-American community in the 1950s and 1960s. Carlos describes jobs that he had while growing up, pasttimes enjoyed by neighborhood children, and aspects of the social life of Lawrence's Mexican-American community. He describes his experience returning to Lawrence after military service in the mid-1970s. Carlos also discusses experiences of discrimination and segregation faced by the Mexican-American community in Lawrence.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Raymond, Emily
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lawrence (Kan.)
1920s - 1970s
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-03-09
Format
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MP3 (audio recording)
PDF (transcription)
Identifier
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8-CChavez-20210309.mp3 (audio)
8-CChavez-20210309.pdf (transcription)
Publisher
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Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Relation
A related resource
To access the audio recording of this interview, go to <a href="https://archive.org/details/8-cchavez-20210309">https://archive.org/details/8-cchavez-20210309</a>.
The <a href="https://www.watkinsmuseum.org/">Watkins Museum of History</a> also holds items related to this collection.
<a href="https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/resources/5295">Additional research on the La Yarda community</a> is held at the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Published with the permission of Carlos Chavez. This work is the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
-
https://history.lplks.org/files/original/43bd5177d90f5d3d518fb28cefdc2240.pdf
d30907553b068631a2445be18bed7cc7
PDF Text
Text
Tape 15: Interview with Tiburcio Reyes, Sr.
Interviewer: Helen Krische
Date of Interview: 2006
Length of Interview: 37:13
Location of Interview: St. John the Evangelist Church, Lawrence, KS
Transcription Completion Date: September 13, 2020
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Proofreader: Silvia Peralez
Helen Krische (Interviewer): There we go. Alright, I think we’re rolling. Alrighty. Um…these
are just some, some pictures that I’ve gotten from other people and –
Tiburcio Reyes, Sr. (Interviewee): Uh-huh.
HK: What I do is I make a copy of them and then I ask them to identify people that are in the
pictures so that we get a handle on who’s who –
TRS: Uh-huh.
HK: But, um, when you bring your pictures in that’s probably what I’ll do too is just –
TRS: Okay.
HK: I’ll make a copy like this, I’ll scan them into the computer.
TRS: Uh-huh.
HK: But I’ll also make a copy so that you can write the names of whoever the people are on
there, so…and you’re welcome to bring those in either later today, or tomorrow I’ll be here all
day long, too. So you can just bring them in whenever you’re ready. Um…so I guess that
basically what this is about is that we’re just trying to get information from people about, you
know, the first, the first, uh, Mexican-Americans that came here to Lawrence. And I know a lot
of them came in on the railroad, and –
TRS: Right.
HK: Was that – was that the situation with your parents?
TRS: Yes, my dad come to the railroad Union Pacific, work on the Union Pacific in Sackerville.
They – he was born in Ranger, Texas and they…they come up to the railroad. And he went to
school in Sackerville, which is on the other side of Emporia. And then they moved up here, Mom
and Dad. Um…and they married and I was born in Wellington, Kansas in 1942. So they came
here in 1943, say a year after I was born. They come to Lawrence and that’s where we reside
ever since.
HK: So he was born in Texas, your father.
1
�TRS: Right. Yes.
HK: And what was his name?
TRS: Tiburcio. Joe. Tiburcio L. Reyes, excuse me.
HK: And your mother?
TRS: [hard to decipher name – Felicia maybe?] Garcia was her maiden name, and she’ll, uh,
you’ll have information on my marriage, she’s a Garcia. They had – my grandfather – they had
eleven children, which my [unintelligible] mama was six girls and five boys, I believe, on my
mom’s side. And Dad, he was an only child that we knew of. He was adopted, also. So he was
adopted from his father’s…his name was…Espinoza was his last name.
HK: So that was his adoptive father?
TRS: No, yeah, no, the one that adopted. The adoptive father is [Lino?] Reyes.
HK: Ok, so his real father was…
TRS: Right, yeah. Manuel Espinoza. Adopted I guess when he was a year old.
HK: Okay. Do you know from what area of Mexico they were originally from?
TRS: No, I don’t, not on my father’s side. Now, my mother’s side, my aunt will have all of that.
They was, my grandmother and grandpa was from San Juan de Los Lagos, from what I
understand. So that’s where I know they’re from. But as far as Dad’s concerned, no I never got
into that – that – knowing where his dad come from. I knew that he was born in Texas, and they
raised him in Sackerville. And he went to school in Sackerville.
HK: So he spoke English.
TRS: Oh yes.
HK: Did he speak any Spanish growing up?
TRS: Yes, Dad spoke fluent Spanish, so did Mom. And I speak Spanish and my oldest sister and
I speak Spanish. I got a younger brother and younger sister that don’t…comprehend it hardly at
all.
HK: Do any of your children speak Spanish?
TRS: They’re starting, they’re trying to learn now, which is something of a lost art. We talked
about that. We lost our language back in, back when I was come over and was going to school
here because they didn’t use it…we had a Spanish class, but not that much, so most of it was
2
�English. So we kind of lost contact with our language. Which now it’s a good start bringing it
back and learning it, so I got a grandson’s taking Spanish in school, my daughter’s trying to learn
little by little, you know, trying to converse more in Spanish too. Yeah, we lost all that when I
was – like I said, from my younger sister and younger brother, they, I was fortunate, we lived
with my grandmother and grandfather for a year or two, me and my sister, so we was young
enough that we had to speak both languages, cause that’s what they – mostly they communicated
with us in Spanish, and that helped a lot. And I used to run errands for some older ladies here in
town when I was – on the east side. I’d go to the grocery store for them, and so I had to learn – I
learned how to speak – and if I didn’t know I called grandmother and my mom up and we’d get
it lined out for me there. I was very fortunate that way.
HK: Where does your family live here in Lawrence?
TRS: Where do we live?
HK: Mm-hmm.
TRS: We lived – we lived on, uh, that I remember was on New Jersey Street [unintelligible]. But
mostly on the east side. New Jersey Street and we lived on Pennsylvania, 745 Pennsylvania, I
remember that, that’s when I was going to junior high school, I think. Grade school we lived on
814 New Jersey, I believe, it was right in that area there. And then we moved to Rhode Island
Street just, uh, before we come to North Lawrence in the ‘50s. And then we went to North
Lawrence and then been there ever since in the 1950s Mom and Dad opened the El Matador
Café.
HK: Oh, okay.
TRS: Which has been there now, we’re going on 50 years. It’s gone on for 49, almost 50 years
now. They opened it in the ‘50s when I was in school.
HK: Okay. That’s my favorite one, yeah. [laughs]
TRS: See, Grandfather and Uncle Leon originally opened the Tropicana. And then it changed
hands. He went out, my uncle got out, and my mom operated it for my grandfather for about a
year or so, in the middle ‘50s. And that didn’t work out, so we went and bought the building
where the Matador is at now, and Mom ran the kitchen at the 1040 Cafe. Our mayor then who
was John Emick [A Google search brought up Emick’s name in the Lawrence city records], liked
Mom’s cooking, and…he got her into there and we ran the kitchen there for a year or so. And
that’s when we bought – they purchased the building.
HK: Where was that located at?
TRS: The 1040 Cafe was right across from where McDonald’s is now. It used to be a, was it the
college motel? There was a motel in there also. Right on the corner there of, uh, Michigan and
6th Street.
3
�HK: Oh, okay.
TRS: Where the old Dillons store used to be. Before the Dillons store went in there, there was a
car lot on the corner, 1040 Café and then the Jayhawk gas station on the north side of the road
before Dillons was. They operated that when I was in high school…
HK: That – that was just American food?
TRS: No, she done both. We done both. She – Mom was a very good cook, she was a fry cook,
dinner, she would bring up dinner and everything. So we had everything. On football game days
I remember we had a turkey, she cooked roast pork, roast beef, we had steaks, you know the
shrimp, I remember fried shrimp, fried oysters, T-bones, KC [Kansas City] strip. They had a
beautiful broiler there, ‘cause I been cooking since I was 12 years old with Mom. And they had a
great broiler. They had a broiler that you could bring the meat right up underneath the flame,
instead of having it on top of the flame. I always liked it when the…all the grease stuff falls
down there. Lotta people like the smoke in it, but you know, I loved that broiler. It was a great
broiler…
HK: Is that building still there, or not?
TRS: No. It tore down when Dillons put their store in there. Dillons put their grocery store in
there. And that’s when they tore it down. And we – we’d been out for a while, we’d been over to
start a restaurant in North Lawrence.
HK: Now was that, was that the same time that Michigan Street BBQ was on that street?
TRS: You know, I don’t remember it being there at that - I think it was, I don’t remember when
the year that Michigan St BBQ was there. I know what you’re talking about. Uh…I think it
was…I wanna say it was there, yeah. I don’t remember the years exactly, but I do remember
Michigan Street Barbecue being there.
HK: Okay…okay. So when did they open up El Matador?
TRS: You know, I’m not real sure about that. Once they, in about 1956, uh, ‘cause we bought it
when we went over to 1040. I can research that, find out the exact dates, but I can find out
through…I guess when we started paying taxes on it. And it’s right around 1956. I got married in
‘57, I was young and so I remember that. We was already at the restaurant. So we was already
there. And we’d been open for a while. So I’m gonna say ‘56, ‘55-‘56, somewhere in that area.
HK: So this was a whole family-operated business?
TRS: Mom and Dad started, and I been carrying on. I got a daughter works for me now. And
grandkids.
HK: So you currently –
4
�TRS: Yeah, I currently own it and operate it. Yeah, with my – with my daughter and my
grandkids.
HK: Okay, great.
TRS: So we’ll keep it going, hope for another 50 years. It’s a great meeting place for family, I
remember my mama always liked the family together, so we’d do all Thanksgivings, Christmas
dinners over there. We’d have like 35, 45 people for Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner,
you know.
HK: I love the way that the menu is geared toward the people who eat there all the time, you
know.
TRS: Our oldest name on the menu was Fire Chief Miller. Do you remember him?
HK: No.
TRS: Fire Chief Miller was our fire chief back in the ‘50s. And he started being a customer at the
Tropicana when we ran it before we moved to 1040. And that’s the reason, that’s why they got
their name on the menu. Mom would say, well, Fire Chief Miller, or so-and-so, that’s what
they’ll order is this. And usually they ordered it, the same thing every time they come in. Dr.
Reed, and Dr. Branson’s up the hill, you do what they want to order…they more or less order the
same thing all the time.
HK: So the Dr. Branson Special.
TRS: Mm-hmm. We have, uh, have one man that had three names on there. Three specials. But
he was a regular customer for Mom and Dad for years and years and his name was Mr. Bradley.
Frank Bradley, who was also their bookkeeper. And through the years he would change his
special to another special, so Frank Bradley one, two, and three, which is the only one that has
three names on there. So I’ve kind of continued it, you know, I didn’t do it for a few years after I
took it over, but I starting getting a lot of people asking about getting their name on the menu. I
said, well…
HK: That’s a great piece of history.
TRS: Yeah, it is, lot of people in there…lot of good customers. Lot of regular customers came
through the doors.
HK: Well, back to when you were growing up, um…what school did you attend?
TRS: I went to New York School from the front door to the back door, first through the sixth,
and then I went to Central Junior High School. Then I went to Lawrence High.
HK: Okay. And how did you, did you experience any type of prejudice while you were going to
school, or…
5
�TRS: Yeah. It was sad, you know. I don’t think that so much in grade school…uh, it wasn’t that
much, maybe ‘cause we was young, and everybody, you know, there wasn’t a difference. It
started when I was in – went to junior high school. Course I was in the seventh grade. I was very
gymnastic, I loved gymnastics. And I was very good. And I went in – seventh grade I was put on
the gymnastic squad…but again, then I come back and then for my junior year, my next year, the
eighth grade, I came back and they wouldn’t, when I started [combing?] my hair. You know that
‘50s look, and I had to have sideburns, you know, so I was kind of…and, uh…it was really sad,
you know, because I did enjoy the gymnastics squad. So that and, uh, I had some problems with
some school kids, school…cause they was on the football team, just stuff like that. We had a
little few problems with them, you know. It was more evident in there. Then, then in high school
the coach, our coach there…I shouldn’t say his name…but we had, me and a colored friend of
mine, just a friend, we was in gym together and one of the – the gym teacher got sick and went to
the hospital. And we had a student teacher come down from KU hill. And he said, “Why are you
guys” – he’d just set everything up, bars and rings and everything – “but I’m giving you three
hours, so I can see what you guys do, ‘cause the teacher’s sick and I want to know what you guys
do.” [unintelligible] He walked over to us and pulled us off to the side, said, “I want to talk to
you two guys.” We said, “What did we do?” [laughs] He said, “[unintelligible] I want to know
what you guys are doing making Fs. You see, you guys shouldn’t be on the gymnastics team.”
Well, the school told him. And he said: “Well, first of all, unless you excel” – the effort; I don’t
know what he called it, effort or excel – “then you don’t get a better grade.” You know. But also
you can’t do anything to excel unless you have somebody to spot you and help you get past it.
That’s where you’re left in limbo. But, it’s sad that some guys couldn’t do anything, but I guess
cause they – they applied themselves more or something. I don’t know, you know. But he says:
“Well I can’t rectify what has been going on for years,” he said, “but I can give you a better
grade this semester.” And I meant to go back and find, and I had another teacher, very
prominent, known teacher was, uh…we was talking about immigration, that’s funny, this comes
up right now too [laughs]: “Should we shut our borders to immigration?” And he popped off and
said – I don’t know whether he thought it was funny or what, but he said: “No…well, you know,
I’ll accept Mexico cause we do need somebody to run our laundries.”
[prolonged pause]
TRS: Very prominent coach. Very, very well-known coach. So it kind of struck a sour note with
Joe. [laughs] And I never forgot it. I never forgot it. So there was. There was. I don’t think it was
as bad here in Lawrence as it was in other towns. I have relation in Newton, Wichita and I had
been, I worked for an outfit out of Wichita and I was up north and I heard something about it and
we weren’t treated very well up there. But we went in and worked and I hauled tile for an outfit.
We was in a town up north, there, Bellville or something like that. Anyhow, up north, and we
went in this restaurant. And, of course, I was with four other guys, five of them, and the waitress
went back to the kitchen and was asking if I could be served. And I told the guys, I said, “We
may not get served here, guys,” cause I could see her. I said, “I think she’s asking permission to
serve me,” and they looked back and said “By God, I think she is too.” Said, “Well if you don’t
get served none of us gonna get served, you know, so we’ll all leave.” I got served, we got
served, but…was about five years ago. Yes, and uh, like I say, Lawrence I don’t think was as bad
as a lot of places. Do you, I remember when there was a Santa Fe lunch down here where I
6
�remember blacks sat on one side, whites sat on the other side, right across from the Santa Fe
depot, there was two counters.
HK: Really?
TRS: I could sit on any side I want to. [Laughs]
HK: There you go. What about other businesses downtown, when you went, like, to the movies
or to any of those places downtown?
TRS: Ah…in some places sometimes…and I, you know, even sometimes in this day and age you
still get it. I’ve had it happen to me at businesses where I go to a store and shop around and
somebody will follow you around the aisles. My son has had it happen at Jayhawk Bookstore,
few years back, just recently, about two weeks back, and his brother-in-law was with him. And,
uh, my son worked for KU and he was walking around the bookstore looking at something and,
uh, my, his brother-in-law noticed this guy following them around the aisles and he asked him:
“What was that going, what was that all about back there?” He said: “What do you think?” And
he said: “You’re kidding me,” he said, “I’d never have thought that.” He said, “Well, you
wouldn’t. You wouldn’t know it. You don’t know the feeling.” [laughs] But it’s true. And it
does. And it is. And there’s something you have to know, being, you know, uh, you have to feel
it, have it happen to you to know what it feels like. Yeah, it has been. There’s still some, yeah, in
Lawrence. I like Lawrence; I wouldn’t live anywhere else. I’ve lived and went a lot of places,
I’ve been quite a few places.
HK: Going back to your father working for the railroad, did he help any of the other people that
were coming in new from Mexico working on the railroad, did he assist them at all?
TRS: You know, I think they had, yeah, they had some friends and stuff, but it was, you know,
back then, I don’t think it was near as much as it is now of the new people come in – people
come up to the railroads, things like that while working, you know, branching out.
[unintelligible] Lawrence [unintelligible] branch out. Dad got away from the railroad, went to
work construction, got in the restaurant business, things like that. But, um, they, you know, they,
Dad and Mom was always helping somebody, but I’m not gonna say it was all anybody else
coming up from Mexico. Cause, I didn’t, I don’t remember that many people coming into
Lawrence at that time. Course, you know, I was young, so I don’t know.
HK: Did they go to St. John’s Church, or did they –
TRS: No, they didn’t. They did not. My grandmother and grandfather went to St. John’s. Dad
was a Baptist. Mom was baptized Catholic but she followed Dad’s religion. We was all baptized
in the Catholic church. My grandparents baptized all my family in the Catholic church.
HK: Did your dad do any other kind of work besides work construction and work in the
restaurants?
7
�TRS: Ah, he was an instrument repairman at the Odell Music Store for quite a few years. He
picked that up, and he done some instrument repair work. So that –
HK: So he was a woodworker too?
TRS: No, an instrument repair, like the flutes and –
HK: Oh, okay.
TRS: Saxophones, trumpets and everything, they – he re-reed them and re-cushion and just, you
know he repaired them, so he knew what he was – got into that. I don’t know how he got into
that, but he did, I remember him doing that for a long time. We was kids, young kids, you know,
so…
HK: And how many were in your family?
TRS: We had four. Two brothers, two sisters.
HK: Okay. Do they still live in Lawrence?
TRS: My brother lives in California. And he went out there in the 50s and joined the Marine
Corps and he stayed out there ever since. My two sisters and I live here. One lives in, my sister
lives in Baldwin and Overbrook, my other sister lives over here off of 27th St. [Unintelligible]
District. And I live in North Lawrence.
HK: Okay. And when you were growing up, what was the healthcare like for you? Did your dad
have insurance, or…
TRS: Ah, you know, I don’t remember whether Dad had insurance…he did…we had Dr.
[Margaret? Dr. Ray Clark?], so they was very good. I don’t know, I really can’t say that he had, I
know they didn’t have health insurance in later years. I really don’t, I don’t remember any health
insurance at all. It could have been when he worked with – he worked at KU Hill for a while, the
janitor there. But no, I don’t remember health insurance.
HK: So there wasn’t any kind of dental care?
TRS: No, we just, whenever we – when I needed a tooth pulled. [laughs] But no, other than that,
no. But we had a very good doctor [Dr. Margaret? Dr. Ray Clark?] was very close to Mom and
Dad, so I never had any problem there at all.
HK: And, um, your mom when you were growing up, did she, she obviously did all the cooking
and…did she make your clothes, the girls’ dresses anyway?
TRS: No, Grandmother did make all of our clothes and stuff. Shirts and stuff like that, I
remember that. No, Mom didn’t do any much of sewing, but she would cook. She was always a
cook. She worked at, oh, God, various cafes: [Gilkerson’s Café?] downtown, the [Crown?], then
8
�she worked for Jim Star, which is Jim’s, uh, Jim’s Drive-In, I think in North Lawrence was what
it was years ago before they went into business herself. She had always cooked, had all these
cooking jobs.
HK: So did you have your grandparents living with you while you were growing up, or –
TRS: No.
HK: Did they have a separate house?
TRS: They had a separate home. They had a separate house. My – we had the opportunity to go
live with them for a while, me and my older sister. Dad and Mom, I – got sick and they was
away for a while, so we had to go, we went to stay with my grandparents. I’m gonna say a year
or two, I remember it was a couple years. We were young.
HK: Did you learn a lot while you were living with your grandparents, any of the traditional
ways?
TRS: Any what?
HK: Any of the traditional Mexican ways that you didn’t learn from your parents?
TRS: Well, no I don’t know, I guess I remembered everything just, you know, growing up with
them. I knew my grandfather made wine, I wished I’d learned the recipes! And grandmother
made, she made very, she was always an excellent cook. So we had tamales around
Christmastime she made, I’d help her grind corn and she had a very strict way she had to do it.
Other than that, everything made from scratch. Excellent cook.
HK: So what would be a typical meal?
TRS: You know, [unintelligible] beans and potatoes and fried fish and spiced pork with pepper
and course my grandmother and even aunts, they…fresh tortillas made, you know, at mealtimes
instead of going to Dillons. [laughs] I got to have ‘em brought in from Kansas City now, but
there’s no way you can. All enough to run a restaurant, yeah, fresh tortillas and fresh peppers
made in a bowl. Pepper with your eggs, something like that. There really was a, they’ve always
said the joke at home at my house was “Dad, if you had to live on fried potatoes and beans and
tortillas and pepper, you’d be happy.” [Laughs] He’d be happy all the time, so…
HK: Did your parents raise a garden?
TRS: My parents didn’t. My grandfather, he gardened a lot. Big gardener. Very big gardener. He
always gardened a lot. But Mom and Dad never did.
HK: What kinds of vegetables?
9
�TRS: Oh, he had strawberries, he had some strawberries, and he moved to North Lawrence, had
pear trees, apple trees, plum trees and everything. But he always raised peppers. He always had
peppers, tomatoes and, um, strawberries, um, onions of course, everything, you know, just a
typical garden. I don’t, uh, remember what else. Corn, corn, you know, we planted corn, you
know, sometimes had watermelons.
HK: So did you as grandkids have to go over and help with the garden, or…
TRS: We didn’t, you know, I don’t think he had us around there too much…we made more
mess…but when I got older, when Grandpa’d go off to Mexico I’d have to tend to help the
garden stuff. I was real close to my grandparents and my grandfather, yeah.
HK: So did they go back to Mexico quite frequently, or…
TRS: No, they – they went a few times earlier in the days, uh, when I was a kid. Um, but one of
my aunts married and moved, they moved her to, she moved to Mexico with her husband.
Consequently, my grandfather brought three of the older children back to the United States in the
late ‘40s, I’m gonna say, from Mexico. He went down and brought them back with him and then
later on in the year he was instrumental in bringing the – his daughter back, which was [their?]
mom, and the rest of the family in, uh, I’m gonna say, in the ‘50s. He brought her back and with
the rest of the family. I can’t name exactly how many kids they had, when he brought them all
back. [Unintelligible] My cousin and her family back in the ‘60s. Grandpa did help a lot bringing
them to the United States.
HK: And did they all settle in Lawrence?
TRS: Mm-hmm. Most of them, now probably have some in Topeka. Most of them in this area
though, most of ‘em in the area here, in Topeka and Lawrence.
HK: Where’s your wife from?
TRS: My wife? Mine’s from here, Lawrence.
HK: From Lawrence?
TRS: Yeah, I’ve been married three times.
HK: Oh, okay.
TRS: My first wife was from, um, Bazaar, round the area where my dad was raised at, from
Bazaar, and my second wife was from Arkansas. And my third wife was from here, Lawrence
area. I’ve been married three times.
HK: Well, in talking with some of the other people, they said that it was so hard to find anybody
here in Lawrence ‘cause everybody was related to each other; that they had to go to Topeka or
Kansas City or… [laughs]
10
�TRS: Yeah, you gotta tell your kids, now so-and-so, that’s your cousin. [Laughs]
HK: So you had to really be careful there.
TRS: Everybody’s more or less kinda related here in town, related to everybody.
HK: Well, what do you think of the, um, children of today? Do you think that they’re carrying on
the traditional ways, or do you think that they need to revisit the traditional ways?
TRS: Well, you know, I think that that changes with all, everybody I think, you know, the times
change and everything. I think they’re trying a lot, but I don’t think there’s as many, as much,
what do I wanna say…in all – all the families, you know, and some families carry it on to their
families. And, of course, you know, you get involved, like my family went in the restaurant
business, so you get involved in your different way of life. People have different occupations and
you know, different things they get into, so, you know, they’ll get off into doing that. I think we
lose track of a lot of traditions over the years. I think we’ve lost track of a lot of tradition over the
years. I think that’s, uh, that’s like the language, you know, we should have kept it up. Our
grandkids, my children, all of our children should have been speaking Spanish a lot more but, we
didn’t, and we did, we lost that, you know. But it’s nice that they’re trying to pick it up now.
They’re trying, you know, it’s good to try.
HK: Are you familiar with the Days of the Dead?
TRS: Not exactly familiar with it and how they honored the Dia de Los Muertos. I’m not really,
it’s like our Memorial Day, I think.
HK: Well, I think it’s All Saints Day. It’s, um, the first part of November.
TRS: Hmm, okay.
HK: When they have all the saints.
TRS: I kinda [laughs] kind of relate that to the Cinco de Mayo sometimes, with that – that was
kinda my, oh, there’s this story, it’s funny, we gotta turn that thing off. [laughs]
HK: No, let’s hear it!
TRS: Cinco de Mayo, you know, these guys, we go celebrate Cinco de Mayo. [Unintelligible] I
don’t know, I think it’s Mexican independence – no, that’s February 16th or 15th. Well, you know
I’m not real sure. I call it the Budweiser Holiday. [laughs] So, when I got on the bandwagon, I
had my girlfriend, my cousin, get on the computer and print out what the Cinco de Mayo is. You
know, what happened on that day. [Unintelligible] So I’d lay ‘em around so everybody would
know what they were celebrating.
HK: That’s funny.
11
�TRS: What are you celebrating? [laughs] Not real sure… That’s like the Dia de los Muertos. I’m
not that [unintelligible].
HK: I know that it’s sort of having a resurgence recently, I know that there’s a lot of – and it may
be because of the immigrants – the new immigrants coming up from Mexico and bringing it with
them, that tradition.
TRS: I heard, some friends I knew from Mexico, they said no, everything’s celebrated down
there. It’s kinds like that, it just a certain place I guess, you know, like around [Pueblo?] you
know, but it’s not a big holiday down there or anything like that.
HK: So going back to the immigration question [both laugh]…I’m not gonna be as bad as your
high school, but, um, do you have any thoughts on that?
TRS: Yes, I, you know, I know it’s a sad situation, but they’re looking, this country was made on
immigrants and immigration, and people looking for a better life. Freedom. And that’s where our
foundation is. And there’s nothing different with these people, they’re looking for a better life for
their families because poverty is very bad in Mexico. We know that, and it’s, I don’t know, you
just don’t know how to do it, they’re gonna come up here and work. I think that the sad thing is,
they’ve been doing it for years and years, they should have had a – and a lot of them don’t want
to live here. Lot of them like their homeland. Lot of people like their homeland. Which is like
me, I’ve lived here all my life in Lawrence, so I, maybe that’s why I like Lawrence, I wouldn’t
wanna go anywhere else. But the poverty, they came here looking for a better life. And they’d
like to work, and some of ‘em would like to work and go back home. [Unintelligible] the older I
get. But if they’d fix up a way that they could work, if they want to become citizens that’s fine,
you know. But [unintelligible] saying and we know that we have, 9/11 woke us up, that there’s a
lot of bad stuff coming across the borders that, you know, need to be in check too, but people are
willing to work, I’m sure are willing to get a picture, an ID, so they can have a right to work and
make money and take care of their families. And I think there should be a way to do it. I think
this, government, bureaucrat, all that stuff will go, you know, the amnesty things and stuff like
that I think it’d work but they need to get, uh, some kind of documentation to help these people.
And I’ve always said, if they’re here to work and to do good, they’re, they’d be willing to get the
ID with their picture, but the way it’s going now is not good. Not good at all. It makes them feel
like criminals, and if you help somebody, you’re gonna, they’re gonna criminalize that, make
you a criminal for doing that. If you’re helping illegals, they wanna put [5,000? 10,000?] after so
many times, it’s 3-10 years in prison, just cause you helped, like I say, one of my people, you
know. And there are a lot of people that are doing bad, they know that as a – being a construction
worker myself, I know there are companies that treat ‘em and work ‘em very much like dogs.
And then they don’t pay ‘em, or say: “Hey, I don’t got no money, you know, you’re out. Turn
me in, what are you gonna do?” You know? And that’s sad. That’s sad. But this is in all – there’s
stuff like that goes on all the time, and it’s not right, but it happens. And a lot of them are
working without insurance and things like that. And all they’re doing is making a – one thing I
will guarantee you one thing, these people that come up here don’t forget their families back
home. Like a lot of people that leave home here, go off somewhere else, “Bye Mom and Dad,
send me some money would you please? I’m out of money again.” But these people, every week
12
�the money goes back to their families. They don’t forget about home, you know, whether it’s
brother, sisters, mom, dad, whatever, or family, you know, wives and children.
HK: You said your brother was in the military. Were you in the military?
TRS: Yes. I was in the Army.
HK: Where did you serve?
TRS: I served in the Army.
HK: Did you stay in the United States during your –
TRS: No, I was in Vietnam. And he served in Vietnam before me. He come back the year and I
went over the year after.
HK: What years did you serve?
TRS: I was there from January 15, 1966 to January 15, 1967. He was there in, uh, ‘65 to ’66, I’m
gonna say. He come back before I went over.
HK: So you were there when it was starting to escalate?
TRS: Mm-hmm. I got a cousin served also, he was in the Navy.
HK: Well, um, is there anything you want to add to this?
TRS: I can’t think of anything, we went through quite a bit. [laughs] No, I can’t think of
anything.
HK: I think you told us all the information about your dad, and, your parents and your
grandparents, and –
TRS: Hopefully that’s everything. I’ll try to find some pictures. I got some pictures of my
grandmother and grandfather and my dad and I, the family together.
HK: Oh, that would be great.
TRS: And, some pictures of Mom and Dad.
HK: Okay. Fantastic. Alright, well let me turn this off.
END OF TAPE 15
13
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Description
An account of the resource
La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers in Lawrence, Kansas; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. In 2006, Helen Krische, archivist at the Watkins Community Museum, began an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. The project was resumed in 2019 by Nora Murphy and Emily Raymond. The interviews primarily feature the children of the railroad workers who migrated to Lawrence in the early 20th century; they describe daily life, social activities, and living conditions in the Mexican-American community in Lawrence from roughly the 1920s through the 1970s.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
2019
2021
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
These works are the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Reyes, Tiburcio, Sr.
Original Format
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MP4
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:41:25 (video)
00:37:13 (audio)
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
95 kbps
3323 kbps
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Tiburcio Reyes, Sr., La Yarda Interview
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Reyes, Tiburcio, Sr.
Description
An account of the resource
Tiburcio Reyes, Sr. was interviewed by Helen Krische in 2006 as part of an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. Tiburcio grew up in East and North Lawrence; his father was one of a number of Mexican-American railroad workers who settled in Lawrence before 1950. Tiburcio describes his family's migration from Mexico to Lawrence, and their work to establish the Tropicana and El Matador restaurants in North Lawrence; at the time of the interview, Tiburcio owned and operated the El Matador Cafe with his daughter and grandchildren. He discussed his military service during the Vietnam War, and his thoughts about immigration. Tiburcio also discusses experiences of discrimination and segregation faced by the Mexican-American community in Lawrence.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Peralez, Silvia
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lawrence (Kan.)
1920s - 1970s
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
MP4 (video recording)
MP3 (audio recording)
PDF (transcription)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
15-TReyesSr-2006.mp4 (video)
15-TReyesSr-2006.mp3 (audio)
15-TReyesSr-2006.pdf (transcription)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Relation
A related resource
To access the video and audio recordings of this interview, go to <a href="https://archive.org/details/15-treyes-sr-2006">https://archive.org/details/15-treyes-sr-2006</a>.
The <a href="https://www.watkinsmuseum.org/">Watkins Museum of History</a> also holds items related to this collection.
<a href="https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/resources/5295">Additional research on the La Yarda community</a> is held at the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Published with the permission of Tiburcio Reyes, Jr., on behalf of Tiburcio Reyes, Sr. This work is the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
-
https://history.lplks.org/files/original/1e8c62773a81a06c250fa439d79d0736.pdf
283295463d0facfc7ec41dee87b2f097
PDF Text
Text
Tape 16a: Interview with Israel Bermudez and Rachel Lemus
Interviewer: Helen Krische
Date of Interview: 2006
Length of Interview: 31:49
Location of Interview: St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church
Transcription Completion Date: September 30, 2020
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Israel Bermudez (Interviewee): …Yeah, yeah. Some of the stuff she brought up I can just barely
remember. But the first priest that was there, then a different priest…my God, how does she
remember all that?
Helen Krische (Interviewer): She must have a good one. Are we ready to roll? We have tape in
the thing here?
Unknown Male: Yep, it’s ready.
HK: Okay. Alright, first what I’m gonna do is, let’s see, we need to get two consent forms going
here. Um, this consent form is just, um, to let you know that this is an oral history of MexicanAmericans here in Lawrence. And that, uh, we’ll keep a copy at the Watkins Community
Museum of History and we’ll also probably give a copy to the Kansas State Historical Society
and, uh, we will make a copy for you. And, um, basically it’s just to kind of tell you that, um, in
doing this that, that you will grant us all the rights and, uh, and intellectual property rights, uh,
for this interview and that we can, um, make other audiotapes of it and we can use it for research
and publications and also for, um, putting on the website if we choose to do that.
IB: [unintelligible]
HK: Oh yeah, sure! [laughs]
IB: All the stories –
HK: If you let us do movies, that would be great too. So, I’m gonna give this one to you to sign.
We’ll need your name up here at the top and then there are two options here that says that you
won’t have any restrictions on what we’ve recorded and then there’s one underneath that says
that you do want restrictions on what has been recorded. And then fill out the other information
down at the bottom…I’ll give you just a minute, Rachel… [long silence, picks back up at 2:18]
IB: So you want my name here again, and –
HK: Uh-huh, your address and everything so that we can contact you.
IB: In print? I print better than I can write.
HK: Okay, well that’s fine. [laughs] Let’s see.
�IB: Cause I went to New York School.
HK: Here you go…Use that pen.
IB: What’s the date today?
HK: 22nd.
[long silence, picks back up at 3:19]
IB: [unintelligible, maybe asks who someone is]
HK: Oh, it’s Brian. [laughs]
IB: Okay.
HK: Alrighty.
IB: It’s kind of legible [unintelligible].
HK: [laughs] True brother and sister. Alright, um, I’m Helen Krische, we’re doing this for the
tape, and this is Israel, um, Bermudez and Rachel Lemus.
Rachel Lemus (Interviewee): Yes.
HK: And they’re brother and sister, we might add that to the tape. And, um, first of all I guess
one of the, one of the basic questions is, what part of Mexico is your family originally, originally
from?
RL: My dad was from the state of Sacatecas. And my mother was from the state of Torion.
HK: Okay. And how did they happen to, um, come all the way out to settle in Kansas?
RL: Well, it’s the same thing they’re doing now, they’re looking for work, my dad, he…the way
I talked to him one time, they came from Mexico and they went to Nebraska.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RL: G-e-r-i-n-g, Nebraska. That’s where my first, my oldest sister was born. And then they came
over to Kansas ‘cause of the railroad was hiring Mexicans. And that’s what I understand, I don’t
know about him.
IB: Most of, most of…work [unintelligible].
RL: And then they came here I think to Kansas City, then they came, I don’t think they lived in
Kansas City, but then they came here.
�HK: Do you know around what time this was?
RL: Well, my oldest sister was, is, was born 1926.
HK: Okay.
RL: So that’s about the time and the rest of us were born here in Lawrence, Kansas. And the next
one was in the 1920s, I would say about 19, between 1928 and Ruben was born here too, he was
born in February 1928. And they were already here in Lawrence.
HK: Did they join the St. John’s Church as soon as they moved here, or –
RL: I don’t remember. I’m sure they did. I mean, I’m sure they did. Very, very religious.
IB: Baptized [unintelligible] in the church.
HK: Did they work for the, uh, Santa Fe railroad or the Union Pacific?
IB: I’m not sure. I think Santa Fe. I’m not sure.
HK: Do you know where –
IB: Yeah, I don’t think he worked with the railroad too long. ‘Cause he had an injury and he had
to quit that and then go to work somewhere else.
RL: At KU?
IB: Yeah.
HK: Okay. So, do you know if they lived in, um, any of the housing complexes that –
IB: [unintelligible]
RL: Santa Fe, I don’t remember them…
IB: Um…I think…
RL: I remember being there but I don’t think visiting, but I don’t, cause we lived in New Jersey
and 7th and the 8th.
IB: Mm-hmm.
RL: And then they…the last house was 810 New Jersey. It was same little vicinity.
IB: We all lived two or three blocks of each other.
�RL: I don’t remember unless somebody comes in [ad?] tells you that…[unintelligible] Older but
better memory, but I don’t remember living there.
HK: Yeah.
IB: [unintelligible] …I can remember when I was about four or five, we lived on New Jersey
street. 740 wasn’t it?
RL: 19 New Jersey. Because then you would, I understood, the only ones that could live in them,
they call it the yards was like, just a
IB: Two-row houses. Little apartments.
RL: And then I remember that the water, everybody used, the faucet was right there in the
middle. The outhouses were over there, they had their side and they had their side. But I
guess…like he said, my dad went to work, he worked over on the –
IB: I don’t think, on the railroad he didn’t work too long. So that’s probably one of the reasons
we never lived in those houses.
HK: Mm-hmm. Did you have, um, was it just your parents and, um, you kids, or did you have
other extended family members living with you, or…?
RL: Just visit –
IB: Visit.
RL: Stay a little longer [when?] visiting maybe.
IB: Sometimes a couple of [unintelligible] [laughs] [says something about jokes, maybe?]
RL: That’s, my mother stayed home, there was 12 of us.
HK: Wow. That’s a big family.
RL: Well, after me there was three that passed, and I never really asked her if they were stillborn
[“probably”?] But after I was born there was, there was I didn’t know whether you wanted
pictures but –
HK: Oh, yeah.
RL: I had these, I should have taken time [unintelligible] my mother. That’s my dad and that’s…
IB: That’s Ruben…
�RL: [We/You?] weren’t even here yet.
IB: No, I said, Ruben…
RL: That was my oldest sister and my oldest brother. And my mom.
IB: Yeah, I think I was out picking up beer cans. [laughs]
RL: Huh?
IB: I think I was out, out picking up beer cans. That’s why I’m not in that picture. [laughs]
IB: And the [unintelligible]
RL: And this is, that’s, the twelve – the nine of us living here. But I think they were stillborn
‘cause we had no pictures or my mother became a diabetic about that time, got pretty bad, so
probably that’s why she didn’t, they didn’t live, or something. I wish I’d have asked, but at the
time, you know –
IB: Well, I think the, I think the gravestone was just the birthday –
RL: Well yeah, that’s what I got off of the old ones.
IB: So there was, they must have been stillborn.
HK: So are they buried here at Mt. Calvary?
RL: Mm-hmm.
HK: Yeah, we’ll probably scan these, and then…
RL: Yeah, they were, the time the father wanted them to, some of them to have markers, so the, I
don’t know that we were rich but important they, I remember my dad getting this, uh, Coca-Cola
cart, wasn’t it, Izzy? Put concrete in it and then he kind of, like, built up a cross and then just put
the dates that I copied.
HK: Oh.
RL: And he said that everything had, should be marked up there. And after my dad passed away,
I was executor and I thought: “The first thing I’m gonna do is buy them, um, their, so that’s what
they got now. Theirs is newer than all, all the rest of [unintelligible]. And that’s the dates I got,
19, let’s see, ’41…
IB: ‘43, and ‘46.
RL: ‘43 and ‘46.
�IB: [unintelligible]
RL: Yeah, he volunteers to cut the grass, that’s why it always [unintelligible].
IB: Cut, cut grass over there, yeah.
HK: So, did you grow up, um, in your household, did, did you grow up speaking Spanish,
or…speaking –
RL: Both.
HK: …English also?
RL: Both.
HK: Both?
RL: And that’s why I don’t know how to speak Spanish good, or English –
IB: Mom and Dad never spoke English, so we had to learn Spanish and speak Spanish.
RL: Mother would never speak Spanish.
IB: And English rather.
RL: And English, she’d probably, she went downtown to pay the gas bill or Duckwalls
[unintelligible] she didn’t have to speak. She went to get thread and she knew [unintelligible],
she knew how much, and for gas bill, whatever she paid, she knew how much, and…My
husband tried to trick her one time. She wouldn’t speak…so we, that’s what we learned. They
didn’t go to – really probably grade-school level. So the Spanish I know, I get real embarrassed
when I meet, I’ve met lots of people from Mexico. My husband hasn’t had the schooling either.
But the, the girls that I’ve met and worked with, they’ve gone to, let’s see, high school level and
I always tell ‘em: “Don’t laugh at me and, because the Spanish I know is…”
IB: Slim. It’s slim.
RL: And then my mother and them didn’t go to probably grade school level, [that’s the?]
Spanish, and I hesitate to, when I speak [I say?] “No, no, you go ahead,” you know…
HK: So do, do your children speak Spanish, or…?
IB: Mine don’t.
RL: Mine understand it, but more than they can speak it.
�IB: When you start speaking Spanish, my kids, they start looking, ‘cause they know something’s
going on. [unintelligible] they can pick up what you’re talking about by…
RL: And I regretted not, not speaking to them, you know. Because now, my husband came from
Mexico. And I got some friends and their kids, and they’re just little you know, right now those
little kids speak English and Spanish just like that. And I thought, why didn’t I speak to, you
know. It’s [not?] too late. [unintelligible] or something, I feel awful. ‘Cause you know, we didn’t
speak to –
IB: Well, that’s like, we went to Mexico, all of us together. Brothers and sisters and
[unintelligible]. And I was in Mexico, and down there they don’t speak no English. And I was
like, in a foreign country. I could understand them, but I couldn’t speak, ‘cause they speak fast.
And I was in Korea and Japan during the service, and I, I could speak to those people more than I
could speak to the people in Mexico, seemed like. I felt…I don’t know why, I just felt different.
‘Cause in Mexico they just rattle off, and I don’t speak that good, so I, I was kind of ashamed
trying to speak, I couldn’t speak. But I feel really bad cause they were interpreting too, the
people who were talking to me. He said this, [unintelligible] and I said that, couldn’t speak. But I
just didn’t use it that much. If you don’t use it, it just kind of goes away. So of course we was
going to school, back then, back then they didn’t want you speaking any Spanish in school, even
to each other. So they always kind of frowned on it. Didn’t speak it to other kids because they
didn’t want you to, so the only time you spoke it when you went home, the rest of the time you
were speaking English. You learn both at the same time.
HK: Did you go to the, what schools did you attend here in Lawrence?
RL: New York School, for grade school, and then over here on 9th and, uh, what was that oneway street? Kentucky. There’s a filling station.
IB: 9th and Kentucky. Oh, you mean Central.
RL: Central.
IB: Junior high used to be on 9th and Kentucky.
RL: There’s a bank over there, and then there’s a, the offices and then I think it’s a gas place.
There was three buildings and I can’t remember all of them. Central –
IB: …Ohio –
RL: [Manuel?]
IB: Ohio and Central.
RL: There was three buildings that we had to change classes, you know. That’s where we went
to junior high, and then we went to, um…
�IB: High school.
RL: You went to –
IB: Central.
RL: Where did you go to high school?
IB: Central.
RL: Central. Central down Massachusetts was high school. But I didn’t, I got to go to Lawrence
High. And that was [unintelligible] graduated and that was it.
IB: And we had, they had St. John’s when I was growing up [unintelligible] ‘Cause I remember
the nuns. They were, they were kinda strict, and they’d pull your ear, and…
RL: And my kids did –
IB: They’re gonna have trouble enough trying to learn without somebody pinching, pulling their
ear, so I said [unintelligible] public school.
RL: And my kids did go to St. John’s, and my grandkids are in St. John’s. And my daughter’s
kind of, like, you know, she lives way over there by Corpus Christi. I went to [unintelligible] and
that’s where I want my kids to go, unless there was no room. Then her boy, instead of going
from sixth grade to wherever he had to go to the new schools. She’s got ‘em over here in Central
because she went to Central. And then he would be going to Lawrence High. When he should
probably be going, I don’t know what the boundaries, but as long as there’s room they can go.
She said: “I went there, I want them to go there.”
IB: Well, usually if they have a choice, the school system [unintelligible] Lawrence High, rather
than Free State.
RL: Yeah, if there’s any room.
IB: Yeah.
RL: As I say, as long as there’s room she could do this.
IB: I said, hardly anybody get turned down going to Lawrence High, Central or other schools,
anybody who wants to go to Central. The other way around, and it’s in the system, it still is…
[certain?] people somewhere. That’s probably – like I say, if you want to go to Central and you
live somewhere else, they usually let you go to Central. If you’re here and you want to go to one
of the other junior highs, most of the time, [unintelligible] unless they got a lot of room, or you
got some reason [unintelligible].
HK: Well, what was it like growing up in Lawrence?
�RL: Fun. I tell my grandkids, they got all these expensive toys, blah blah blah. We had, I said,
we had, it wasn’t Barbie doll then. I remember getting these dolls. I could never understand
when did they buy them, we were with them when they went to town. My sister I remember had
a big sack of these dolls, and you know, we just cherished that doll like it was made out of gold.
Our kids, Barbie’s in, next year it’s something else, and it’s, ah, well, you know. I don’t think
they – they just lookin’ to see what’s next and then they’re gonna get it. And then we had all of,
after supper was all over, we all lived, all the Mexicans lived in one section. We were Mexicans,
black and white. Middle of the day if you were cooking and you needed [unintelligible] you
needed three eggs and you just had two, you could go next door and, “Can I borrow a egg?” Now
we don’t even know who our neighbors are. In the evening we’d all get down on the street,
Pennsylvania Street, ‘cause there was, I guess cause there’s not many cars at the end of the road
there. And we’d play hide-and-seek, we’d play, the guys would make this thing, what is it, where
you jump, you know, the, higher…the wood? thing you guys built. You know, we just –
IB: What do you call that, I can’t remember.
RL: We were happy. That was our happy – we didn’t, we didn’t go to the parks. Walked
everywhere, every Saturday we went to confession, walked from 810 New Jersey up to the
church.
IB: Only time you crossed Connecticut Street was to go to church [unintelligible] Connecticut.
The rest of the time you didn’t. Only time we went over there was, there’s people, trying to, I
don’t know, beat us up or whatever, but…you gotta be fast.
HK: So was there, did you experience any prejudice growing up?
IB and RL: Yes. Yes.
RL: Even up – I met my husband here. We came to – it was a friend in Topeka. And then there
were dances or something, and he stayed in my sister-in-law’s house which I used to remember
was her younger sister, and that’s how we met. But they started giving these Mexican shows and
you had to go to Topeka. And my dad, you know, we didn’t have that. We don’t have what we
got now, videos, we got a channel, I wish we had, my parents it was nothing, you didn’t hear
nothing, no music, no CDs, now you can go everywhere and…food, same thing, cause we, they
made it at home. But back in ‘62 we, he says: “You wanna go to Topeka, take your dad and we
go to the movies.” So we were going to Topeka for the first time and we knew the day – the
night, the night it was. We knew where, North Topeka. We got there like an hour early. So my
dad, he spotted a bar [laughs] he told my husband, “Let’s go have a beer, Frank.” He says: “Your
dad wants to go over there and even if I don’t get one I wanna be with him.” I said, “Oh, go
ahead.” “What are you gonna do?” I said, I’ll just, they had kind of like a waiting area, you’d go
in. I said: “I’ll just sit here.” Well they came back right away and they said “No…”
IB: Wouldn’t serve them.
�RL: “We don’t serve” – and that was in ‘62 in Topeka. And then the guys experienced a lot when
they went into the service.
IB: Yeah, I went into the service in ‘53, and I came home and there was two of us that – that
were on leave, and we was gonna have a little party, after – before we left. And so we went to,
back then they didn’t sell liquor to the Indians. Specially in Haskell, ‘cause most of them were
young, and they’d always get drunk and get in trouble, so they just wouldn’t do it. But we
usually didn’t have – we usually didn’t drink liquor anyway. If we – but anyway, we was going
to, we went to the liquor store to get something to drink, and ‘cause we was gonna leave in a
couple of days, and the guy said, he wasn’t gonna sell it to us. So we said: “Well, why?” He said
“Cause I don’t have to.” We said: “Well, you know, there’s gotta be a reason you don’t want to
sell it to us.” And he said: “Well, I just don’t have to.” And, and back then like I said, they
wouldn’t sell to Indians, so we said: “Well, we’re not Indians, we’re Mexicans.” And he said: “I
don’t care what you are, you know, I don’t have to sell it to you.” So then my friend was getting
kind of mad and he’s kind of a burly guy, and so I was trying to hold him back and, you know, I
said: “You know,” I said, “we’re not gonna bother you. Just give us a bottle, we’re gone.” He
said: “Well I don’t have to sell to you people.” So I thought, okay. So we went outside and of
course we went somewhere else [unintelligible]. Course after you’ve had a few then you kinda
start, you’re still boiling inside, and I can see why people go through life and they’re – they’re
trying to live the right life and [faint sounds] intoxicated, go back and do something we shouldn’t
have done. And then, after that you’re on the wrong side of the law all the time. And I can see
why people do that, you know. But I mean, that was for no reason. We wasn’t, we wasn’t gonna
sit in there and drink, you know. Like you couldn’t go to bars and sit and drink in bars, ‘cause
they didn’t let you. You’d go in and buy your stuff and leave [unintelligible]. But the liquor store
was the same way. You could go in and buy it long as you had an ID that you was old enough. In
those days, and I used to get irritated, ‘cause I was in the service going to Korea and [laughs] I’m
going out to war and I can’t even get a, you know, something to drink in a bar or liquor store or
something. And there was a lot of places you couldn’t go in. And they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t
have a sign up there, but they would, if you went in to get something they would just see you
there at the bar or the counter and they would just ignore you.
RL: Ignore you, like you weren’t there.
IB: Anybody else come in there and you, you know, after a while, you know they’re not gonna
serve you, so even – even if you want to get it to go, you know. It’s just like, I grew up with a lot
of black friends and we had a Mexican ball club and they had a black ball club and we used to
play each other all the time. And we’d get together and drink a few beers and stuff, and we was
always teasing each other. And I was teasing this one black kid and I said [unintelligible]. He
said, well yeah, he said, “You guys think it’s easy, you – you try growing up having to sit in the
back of the bus all the time.” And I say, “You mean you guys got on the bus?” I said, “Why
didn’t you get on the bus?” And he started laughing, he thought that was a joke, but that was, that
was true. Most of the time you [unintelligible] the bus. If you had legs you could walk.
RL: Well, the movies, down here at the Granada…
IB: Yeah [unintelligible] –
�RL: We could go in but we had to sit in the back row, we weren’t allowed to go. And if you went
up beyond… Well, you tell them about that incident with, uh –
IB: Well, I, I had two friends that were older friends. One was a black man and one was white.
The white person was, he was like 17. He was a real good friend of ours, the family. Then the
other guy was kind of in the service and he was a [unintelligible] but he used to take me to the
movies on Saturdays. So every once in a while, that’s the only way I got to go to the movies
when I was a kid. They, one of them would take me, and when I went with the – and the movies
had sections for the blacks that sat in the back, usually up in the balcony in the corner [in the
back?] in a certain area, three rows or something like that. Every time I went with the black man,
he always, he always, uh, bought my ticket for me, which I would [owe him for?] Every time I
went with this friend of mine who was a white boy, he was 17 and he always gave me the
money. Back then it was 11 cents, to go to the movie. He always gave me the 11 cents to go to
the movie. And it used to make feel good so I’d get up there, put the 11 cents up there. I
remember this one time I, I was going to put my 11 cents this gal at the door and she said: “We
don’t have no more colored seats.” And I didn’t understand what she meant, so I said: “What?”
And she said: “We don’t have no more colored seats.” What’s, I’m trying to think, what’s a
colored seat? And so finally he says, he was standing behind me, and he says, he said: “What’s
the problem?” And she said: “Oh, is he with you? And he said, “Yeah, why, what’s the
problem?” “No problem,” and she gave me the ticket, you know. And I went home to tell, and I
told my brothers. Of course, they just started laughing, all over the chair and, you know, I still
don’t know what it means or what it is. And then finally they said, they said: “Well, they thought
you was a little black kid.” ‘Cause I was real dark anyway. And then they would laugh and then I
go, “Oh, that’s what it was.” [laughs] But I mean, you know, you grow up, I grew up like that,
with things like that. And even today there’s still stuff.
RL: Yeah, I feel like it’s coming. I don’t know why.
IB: And I – I figure if I’m in a group of white people, you know and they’re talking and they’re
talking about black people in a certain way, oh, I know if I’m not in the group they’re gonna talk
about me. I mean, not all people, but the people that are that way, ‘cause you know I was in the
[fire department?] and we had, like, maybe two black people on there. And every once in a while
when they weren’t around, these guys would be talking about them. And I’d get mad, because
you know, I knew they were talking about me and I was – you know and I kind of get, get
almost, you know, “Why are you talking about the other guys, you know, they’re just people like
anybody else.” [unintelligible] But, I mean, that’s how I felt. And I always told my kids, you
know, “If somebody’s standing there talking about another race in a certain way, they’re gonna
be talking about you when you’re not there. And it is true. That’s why I said, it still goes on.
‘Cause I’m still around people who, who talk about somebody else, you know…and I know
you’re gonna say that about me.
RL: But like I said, we were in the neighborhood with black people next door, Mexican, another
black, white person. We were all together, you know, all kind of like a family. All got along.
�IB: And I remember growing up with people, too, that, I went to [Oregon?] on New Hampshire,
there. And we had this, I worked with this, these voicers make the music and [unintelligible] and
I, I worked for a guy named [Ricky?] who was from Arkansas. And he started working there
sweeping floors when he was 16, 17 and he ended up, you know, doing things, he, he invented a
lot of the stuff that they made. But he got to be what they call a voicer, he’s the guy that tunes all
the organs and stuff. And he had like a 11th grade, 10th grade education from Arkansas. But he
wasn’t dumb, he was smart. And then after that they uh, they got a union in there and the union,
you know, they [fight?] for all the [bandmen?] in the union, and he ended up being president of
the union. And so the – the company didn’t like him because he was the president of the union,
you know, he was – getting good money. And they had, uh, they, they didn’t have no steps for
how much people could – they just paid ‘em, you know, nobody knew what the other guy made.
So they decided to get a union, because there was some guys that came in [unintelligible] related
to the supervisor, and they’d come and [unintelligible] everybody else started [unintelligible]
And so when they got the union, they thought, you know, they made ‘em have steps that you go
up the ladder and you get paid, and all that. Anyway, so one of the deals with him they were, the
company didn’t like him because he was the president of the union, and he was getting big
bucks, so they turn around and put one of the, one of the deals for a voicer, you had to have a
college education in music. And of course, so then they try to get him out of there, but you
couldn’t do it because he was already there before this came out. And they were trying to get him
out of there, and they, they couldn’t. ‘Cause it’s against the law, you know. And so all the time
he was in there, they hired all these college people with music degrees and stuff. And he was the
only one…but he invented half of the stuff that was there. So he knew down the road, you know,
something like [unintelligible]. So he, when he invented stuff he would put part of the stuff here
and part of it here and part of it at home so they couldn’t just come in and say, “Okay, this is
what you do now.” There was always something missing and that’s the way he kept his security
more or less. And I remember he had these other guys around him, they were all college people,
he was the only one that was 11th grade education. And then he’d always, when they talked about
black people he’d always bring me in there and say, “You know, he grew up with black people
[unintelligible].”
All of them would always say: “Well, I have black friends too.”
And so he said: “Well, who are they?”
“Well, some guy I went to college with.”
And he said: “No, it was just somebody you got acquainted with.” Said: “No, black friends are
people that you, you know, that you know everything about them. Like you know their kids, you
know where they live, you know their mother’s name and all that.” And that’s the way I
explained it to him.
So this guy says: “No, I have one. My best friend’s a black man.”
I said: “Where’d you meet him?”
“I met him in college, and then he went to our church and we played organs together and stuff.
And I said, I said: “Well, what’s his wife’s name?”
He said: “Well, I think her name’s – ”
“How many kids do they have?”
“Well, I think he has – ”
I said: “What do you mean, you think he has?”
“Have you ever been to his house?”
He says: “No.”
�“Has he ever been to your house?”
“No.”
I said, “Then you, he’s not really a friend, he’s just an acquaintance.” I said: “A friend, usually
you know everything about them, they know everything about you.” I said [unintelligible] Or
smoke a cigarette and give ‘em, you know. I said, that’s, you know, those are friends, they’re not
acquaintances. But that’s [unintelligible]. And there was a lot of, some, not a lot of – some still to
this day. But I grew up, you know, prejudice was…The only thing I, where I didn’t see a lot of
prejudice was when I went into the service. ‘Cause then if you performed [unintelligible] I
remember, my life completely changed when I went into the service, ‘cause then we were all
equal. You know, when I went and joined up, there was a bunch of Topeka, this area, we all met
in Kansas City. And there was a group that came from Chicago or somewhere, where we all met
in Kansas City, on the trains that went from Kansas City to California. We – I joined the
Marines, so all the way out there, there was, like, gangs of guys from, you know, Chicago, and
there was guys from the Kansas City area, and a lot of them were just from little towns like I
was. And they were kind of like, you know, all the guys from Chicago would sit together, they
had their big ducktails and their little, you know, back then it was ducktails and [pink? big?]
pants and all that, and they all smoked and drank. Tattoos and everything, I was just, I was
scared to death of ‘em. [laughs] And they were tough, you know, and they’d push each other
around, and they had, they carried their knives, and they got out there, you know, and I’m sitting
on the train, it took us three days to get out there [tape goes silent, then cuts off]
END OF TAPE 16A
�
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Tape 16b: Interview with Israel Bermudez and Rachel Lemus
Interviewer: Helen Krische
Date of Interview: 2006
Length of Interview: 31:46
Location of Interview: St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church
Transcription Completion Date: October 13, 2020
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
[Tape begins with buzzing and static noise]
Israel Bermudez (Interviewee): …It was an accident, but just…happened to get hurt.
HK: Was that at New York School where they were congregated.
IB: Now, that was a bad time too, because there was a lot of people that came in from out of
town to get, you know, in trouble, and down in East Lawrence –
RL: They’re doing that now.
IB: East Lawrence, they shot out all the streetlights. And then they’d go down the street in their
cars with their lights [off? out?] And you know, if they see somebody they didn’t like, or
something, they’d start chasing or shooting them or whatever. I mean, you can sit there in the
evenings on your porch and there’s bullets come through the leaves in the trees, you know. And
that didn’t last long, couple of weeks, maybe two or three. The thing about it is, I went to the – to
the store one time, and like I said, I had black friends, that I grew up with and played ball with,
and when those riots and things were going on, there was a lot of, like, [unintelligible] people
came in too. And then you had the black [unintelligible]. And they were all around. And there
was, there was a lot of tension here, when you walk in a store somewhere, they look at you, and
try to figure out: Are you a militant, or are you with them, or are you with them? I, I was in a
store one time talking to this black fellow that I went with, played ball, and there was, some
college, I think they were college kids, and they were older. And I don’t think they were from
town. I think they were just troublemakers. And they came in, we was standing there and they
got all around, about six of ‘em. [murmurs] “They’re gonna, they’re gonna beat us up, boy.” And
so I thought: “Well, all we can do is stand back to back and fight as many as we can.” But back
then I didn’t think about it, you know. Back then fights were just hands, you know. Didn’t use
nothing. The militants did, but most of the time, when you see somebody, [unintelligible] they
was just fistfighting, you know. One got beat up and then get up and go home. And after that it
started turning into knives and guns and all that kind of stuff. [unintelligible] There was a lot of –
RL: We had a – funerals, we was just talking about this the other day – we didn’t go to the
funeral home, they brought the body to the home.
IB: Yeah.
RL: And then in those days you brought the body to the home, and okay, let’s say somebody
died, I don’t think we ever had one for us, but you know, somebody [unintelligible]. And the
�parents would get together and they figured, you know, you’re gonna, after the rosary, you’re
gonna offer coffee and rolls. So that’s when my mother sometimes would say, “Go get the
coffee,” you know, big can, or “Go get the five pounds of sugar and we’ll take it over, take it to
her before so she know they have it.” Somebody else would bring – buy bread, and then after the
rosary we had – we were little, we were looking forward to that bread. We, we drank coffee all
our lives, since we were little.
IB: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
RL: Us kids were, I remember, I remember some putting in a milk bottle.
IB: You had milk, but you [unintelligible], but that was it.
RL: Lot of milk, and, but we drank coffee. And up to this day I, my husband’s trying to, “You
drink too much coffee.” I said, “Oh, that’s okay.” Something’s gonna take me one of these days
anyhow, I believe. It isn’t like, you know, I’m bothering somebody else by, you know, smoking
in your face, or nothing, but…the funerals were like that. Very seldom did they go to the little –
IB: The whole family went to the funeral, these little kids would be [unintelligible], everybody
else [unintelligible] Having the rosary or something like that. The person’s laying right there in
the dining room [unintelligible] in the casket. So the little kids just didn’t want to stand there, so
they’d be outside. [murmurs] We’d always peek in the window, you know, to see the body, what
was there. That’s the way it was.
RL: It’s all, like I said, we’re all together.
IB: Lotta that growing up like that is just because you were poor. And you, you know, you
couldn’t afford this and that. So that’s the way you had to do things.
RL: Well, I have a piece of paper, ‘cause my dad lived with me after my mom passed away, he
came to live with me. And I found this little paper that’s handwritten, I think he paid $300 for the
house, $10 payment. I’ve got that.
HK: Oh.
RL: And he got this little house, then he built two bedrooms. It was just the living room, really a
living room, one bedroom, kitchen, and the back like a porch. Then he, then the city came, you
had outhouses, then the city came and said no more outhouses, you’re gonna have to put your
bathroom in there. And that was fine. But down the basement of that house my dad had, there
was a faucet, he put up walls and there was a stool, a real stool, you know, it might have been
used, but –
IB: We dug the, we dug the line, sewer line, to the, to the –
RL: And the way you flushed it, there was a faucet there, and there was a bucket, so you know,
when you needed to flush it you just fill it and it would flush. But then the city came and says no
�more, they give us a [unintelligible], so then he put the bathroom upstairs. Then he built two
bedrooms, one for the boys and one for the girls. Cause we had, they had their own little –
IB: See, back then you –
RL: I can’t remember how we slept.
IB: Back then you didn’t know, [murmurs] let anybody in that door if you didn’t want to. Even
the police. But back then you didn’t want that. So the city would come and the police would
come.
HK: What house was this, what is the address?
RL: 810 New Jersey.
HK: 810 New Jersey.
RL: That I remember that there, I remember the 740 and 819 before that, I don’t remember. But
the 810 New Jersey I remember, we had the outhouses, you go out there, and there was just, what
outhouses looks like. And then, the city came in and said we were kind of lucky ‘cause Dad, he
got, measured, there was like a porch and he divided a little wall and then we’d put the stool, the
tub and the basin, and this, my mother’s Maytag with her washer. He had a few tools. But we
had that, and then he made a shower downstairs, just put a wall like, you know, a wall and then
we had a curtain, in case somebody had to go to the bathroom and then it was a shower.
IB: You might have one lightbulb in that one room.
RL: Yeah.
IB: There wasn’t outlets or anything. Just the light would hang, you know, most of the time you
had kerosene lamps [unintelligible]
RL: And my dad would put them, yeah, nowadays, when my dad was doing some work. For
them to learn – well, to help him too – that’s why my brothers all know how to do things ‘cause
my dad had ‘em right there. You know, right there, and they –
IB: We used to run away, but then we had to come back and [murmurs] [laughs]
RL: But you know, they had, like [unintelligible], we burned a fire, I remember we had a big
stove in the living room. Big top like that. And we would dry our socks, and it took forever, thick
socks. Cause there was a little, he made a little wooden box and he’d tell these boys, “When I
come back from work, that wood has to be all cut so I can” – big enough to put in the fireplace.
Wood and the guys would do it. I mean, they knew it had to be done, but first they’d come home
and have a cup of coffee. And then they’d get out there and do that and my dad would never get
after, that I can remember, get after them, get in here. Now the kids, “Eh, I’ll do it later Mom.”
Not my kids, but –
�IB: He went down to KU and, landscaping. They cut trees and stuff down. So he’d always take
‘em to the landfill, and so he’d always tell the children, “Just take it to the backyard and drop
them off.” I mean, these logs were that big around. They would just drop ‘em in the yard and so
it was our job to get them [unintelligible]. And then we had this crosscut saw, needed two guys,
one on each side, and one of our jobs was to cut wood every day for the stove, you know, and
then we could play. So we, so we’d always start doing that and then the little ones would sit on
the logs so we couldn’t move them, [unintelligible] get up there. And after a while the neighbor
kids would come around, say “That looks like fun,” you know, like Tom, you know, like
painting the fence. So pretty soon they get, rather than just stand there and watch,
“[unintelligible] My turn!” You know, they kinda, so, they’d all come home, we’d saw the wood
and then we’d go play ball, you know.
HK: Mm-hmm.
IB: But it was, that’s the way –
RL: Our swings were a rope in the tree. Remember, Izzy? And Daddy had a little work shed, and
then he had a garage and it was swinging from that rope clear across. That was, like I said, we
didn’t have nothing like a little, uh – swing set.
IB: Only problem there was we had a mean dog, and he was always chained there. When you
swung across there –
HK: He’d try to get you.
IB: He’d try to get you. Every once in a while he would, too. [laughs]
RL: But no, we just looked forward, you know, we knew we had to get our work done. And like
I said, I remember my dad would have those boys, they built the two bedrooms. And he had ‘em
right there, watching him, handing him, they know what a screwdriver was, a whatever, you
know, that’s how they learned.
IB: Other thing about it was you had two [murmurs] screwdriver, one hammer and all this,
sometimes get [rocks? nails?] somebody come along with a hammer, but you just didn’t have a
whole lot of stuff to work with.
RL: In those days my dad worked his self, and he became a foreman for KU. I’ve got some
newspapers on it. He became a landscaper for the grounds. And he had no education by the time
he got in there. You know, sometimes people don’t know, they have the education, go to school,
but they got it up here.
IB: [Murmurs] Well, my dad, at the beginning he didn’t know English, so he [unintelligible] He
got records to learn how to do English. That’s how he kind of learned. My oldest brother has
some really good stories –
�RL: He’s coming for the fiesta. He comes every year, he’s in, he lives up in the mountains in
Denver, about 20 miles from Denver. He comes, he’ll be coming Thursday and he – he can
remember things and I said, “Too bad he’s not coming,” you know. That – later he’ll be here, but
I mean, that…My dad, um, he liked to drink, like, he wasn’t one of those, like some people and
they go to the bar every day or every weekend, not like that. We, we were, us kids were first.
You know, like I say, he didn’t take much to get drunk, you know, like people, but we were, we
came first for him. I mean, he had two jobs. He worked, uh, I guess when he worked at KU,
right? Then they, the older men made these carts, big square and those big wheels put in the
middle and then they put handles, they’d go down the alleys, pick up cardboard, ‘cause you
could sell cardboard, copper, which you could get more money even now. Pop bottles –
IB: Pop bottles.
RL: He’d get all that and go sell it for extra money.
IB: We kids did that too. We, I did that growing up.
RL: But actually the older men, you know, Mr. Garcia, Mr…
IB: Used to do that all the time.
RL: They’d go down the alleys.
IB: As a little kid, you know, we used to get wagons or we’d carry, cardboard, you know, you
had to break the boxes down and carry the cardboard, and, uh, we used to have to go to this
junkyard which was only about two blocks down the street. But as a little kid you come in there
too, you maybe pulled the wagon, cardboard, and they’d – they’d put it on the scale and weigh it
and then whatever it was they give you so much per pound. And the guys that run that thing
would cheat you. I mean, you were a little kid, and you were coming in with this cardboard. And
these guys are cheating you. They’d always stand in front of the [unintelligible], and they’d
never let you see what it weighed. And so we knew it weighed more than that, ‘cause you know,
they’d give us half of what it was. And we knew, we carried it over there. And so then one time
we was in the yard doing that, and this lady that used to do that, she used to live in
[unintelligible]. She’d go up and down the alley getting stuff and taking it back. She said, “Well
what you do to get back at em,” she said, “when you get the cardboard lay it down, get you a
bucket of water and then just sprinkle it, to make it heavier [unintelligible]. And we thought, you
know, it’ll work. [laughs] So we did that and we’d take it in and the guys said, “Well that’s only
about 15 pounds [murmurs; then says 25 pounds?]. But then, so he’d cheat you down to 20, 15
pounds so we end up, you know, getting even. But with metal you couldn’t do that, ‘cause it was
metal. You’d find metal stuff. And so after awhile, this is getting to be bad, ‘cause you know
they’re cheating you. But there was nothing you could do, and as little kids you start thinking,
“Well, they’re cheating us and they’re grown men and we can’t do nothing about it.” So we go
“Well, in the evenings when the thing closes down, the junkyard closes down, let’s go jump the
fence and throw half that stuff back and resell it to them.” [laughs] So we did that, we did that for
a while and then they got a dog and we couldn’t jump the fence anymore. That’s where this
junkyard dog came in. We, we was trying to get one guy over there, you know, with the dog, but
�they have high fences, [unintelligible] room, you know. You’re a little kid, you know, you gotta
run fast, hit that thing, get up that thing, that dog’s right behind you, so. Sometimes you could do
it and sometimes you couldn’t.
RL: The other way that we made money for us younger kids was, he was a farmer, Heck?
murmurs] I think they still have a farm.
IB: There was three or four farmers, they were all brothers.
RL: They’d bring this, like I guess, it’s a truck, right? Am I right?
IB: Flatbed truck.
RL: And he’d park in the middle of the block, two times, here, and he’d – he’d pick us up. And
we’d get in the back of the truck and he’d keep us all day picking potatoes.
IB: …No more than sixteen, they always had a place, they’d pick you up either this corner or this
corner. You had to be there at like 6:30 or something. So everybody that could walk around, five
years old, everybody got on that truck and went. You sat there in the morning with your little bag
of, your little lunch. And the truck would come and everybody gets on there and I mean
everybody, if there’s 50 people there, there’s only room for 30, otherwise everybody’s gonna be
standing up or they’d be hanging over the side.
RL: We were young –
IB: Oh, yeah.
RL: Like 12 and 10 years old when we went –
HK: So what year was this? About what time period?
IB: Late ‘40s.
HK: Okay.
IB: Then you went out there and you picked potatoes, you know, family, you’d go out there and
get what they called a station [tape fades briefly] there and the next guy, and as a family you
went out there and you kind of all stayed together, you know, until, most of the time. Unless
there was some girls, and the older guys –
RL: That’s what I was saying. Instead of him helping his sister, he went to help his girlfriend.
[laughs]
IB: Some days I would pick five bushels when I should have picked 35 or something.
�RL: And we had a lot of Mexicans, young men, single, come in, and where would they go? They
send ‘em to Bermuda’s. ‘Cause like I said, my dad was a foreman, and if somebody looking for a
job, they send ‘em to Bermudas. But they didn’t have no papers, the ones that came from
Mexico, and my dad said: “You’re better off going to the city, because you won’t be able to get
nothing here.” And, uh, but we had fun too, getting in that truck and going out there, we’re
standing up in the truck, ‘cause he had, he had these boards there, and but, that was help for us
and we really –
IB: It was dangerous, ‘cause you –
RL: But we had –
IB: Kids, and the whole family, and they had grandmas out there, you know, like 75 years old.
They were out there picking potatoes. And the only shade you had was when you found a
sunflower stalk, and then you’d turn around and pretend like this is buried in the ground and you
put a piece, some sacks over it. And then there was competition because sometimes you run short
on sacks. The truck had come around. You got potatoes, you gotta put ‘em in a sack, so you was
running over there and steal some sacks. [laughs] And there’d be little fights. Just little
[unintelligible]. I mean, [unintelligible] but it was kinda funny, you know. You had to survive,
kind of.
RL: But we always, you guys had, like I was telling her, a lot of boys came, from – I don’t know
where they came from. Spanish speaking, those had to come from Mexico. But they’d always,
sometimes our porch was a bit, you know, was hot, so you had no, little, one fan for the whole
household. When we were young, we’d sleep out on the porch, and as soon as it was getting
light, Dad would wake us up: “Come on in.” And then we’d come in the house.
IB: Or the dogs would carry you away.
RL: But we had, we had, well they were friends, we didn’t really know ‘em. But they’d take ‘em
in, and they’d stay at our house.
IB: When we was, uh –
RL: And, and you more like [unintelligible] our house.
IB: When we was kids, I mean, we was real poor, a quarter go a long way. And there would be
bums that would get off the train ‘cause we lived about a block from a train station. The railroad
tracks, and they’d, hobos and stuff, would come down that alley all the time. And they must’ve
marked the houses, cause they’d go along and they’d come up to that house, and my mom would
always feed ‘em.
RL: Always.
IB: And we had –
�RL: Always. Always.
IB: She’d always make something for ‘em, and have ‘em sit on the back step there, and she’d
give ‘em coffee and [unintelligible]. And then one guy told me that’s what they do, they’d go
down and mark a house, they’d put an X or something on it. And the next one will come down,
he knows he can get something to eat there. But she never turned ‘em down.
RL: Never turned ‘em down. Fed ‘em, I don’t care if they’re black, white or Hispanic.
IB: She would make ‘em something like [unintelligible] tortillas, we always had tortillas. My
mom, seemed like she’d sit there and make tortillas, round the back –
RL: Flour tortillas.
IB: There’d be six of us sitting at the table [unintelligible], she’d have a little pile like that of
tortillas. And everybody grabs one, and it takes thirty seconds to get rid of it. And she would
keep that thing like that all the time, cooking and rolling ‘em out and making the dough and all
that. After a while you get to thinking, you know, she was pretty good. Pretty fast.
RL: Like I said, they didn’t go to school but my mom sometimes would tell us, she told me one
time, she said: “Your mother, what a mother” or something like that. She says: “You get the
stupid mother.” I said: Why do you say that? She says: “‘Cause I never went to school.” I said:
“Well, your parents didn’t let you, I mean, they felt like you didn’t need to go to school.” It was
just gonna be work, work, work. But yet, her and the whole neighborhood, there was like three or
four women, after they ate lunch and got their dishes – they’d sit together in one house. They’d
take turns. And they had crochet, you know, like they’d make a curtain for that –
HK: Mm-hmm.
RL: And form a – a little angel, a horse, a basket with flowers, and they’d, she’d put a, you
know, they were gonna quit time to go get supper, she’d put a little safety pin, you know, she’d –
and then she’d go to the Salvation Army and she seen a dress that was a little, seen a dress for
larger person. She’d look at the material: “That’s practically new.” Well, she’d buy it and
downsize it to fit us. And you know, and then she, I said, “Who else, Mother, you don’t need no
education, you’ve had twelve children. Nine of us living. Dad was never on welfare. And you
could crochet anything. You could sew anything. You could cook.” I remember this cornbread
she – I think it’s cool, I think I’m gonna make cornbread. She was going to get her flour, put
whatever, no measuring, break the egg, and I remember a little crack coming down that
cornbread. No recipe. I said: “Well, who had, you had twelve kids. You could cook anything you
want. Sew, crochet, what else does a woman need to know?”
IB: Even when she went blind later on in life, she would sit there and crochet all the time, just –
RL: Yeah, diabetic. She was a diabetic. But no, we were – after they’re gone, you – I said a lot of
times to my husband, thinking about it, you know, what you don’t say to your parents when
they’re living, you know. You know, they came to a country with not knowing anybody. Now
�the people that are coming, they have somebody, you know, somebody’s already here for them,
so they got two or three families there. They had nobody. Took a chance and came because, you
know. But they didn’t – and here my dad [had?] the education, he didn’t have it, became a
foreman for KU over…over…I think right, over 30 years, 35?
IB: He’s a [unintelligible] now.
HK: Well, what would you do when someone became ill?
RL: Uh…the…
IB: You’d never see a doctor. The only time you see a person that was, the school nurse. That’s
the only time you ever see any medical people, unless you really got real sick, or cut your leg or
– ‘cause I remember my brother cut his, almost cut his foot off. Stepped on a Mason jar or
[unintelligible]. Cut all the [unintelligible], they had to take him to the doctor then. And then he
come back and he needed crutches. Well, we couldn’t afford crutches. So my dad cut a limb that
had a fork in it, and there, and put a deal up here, and that was his crutch. He was pretty fast.
You could still catch him.
RL: Homemade scooters, uh, the boys, uh, stilts out of wood –
IB: You made – you made up your own games.
RL: That was fun.
IB: We had games where we’d, like we had stilts, everybody had stilts, and we’d get up there
and then we’d fight on stilts, try to get – or we’d get a smaller guy in the back and, you know,
you’re the horse and he’s the – and they’d fight, they’d pull each other and try to [unintelligible]
each other. And then there was a, down on Pennsylvania Street there used to be a TNT popcorn
place that shelled corn, and the cobs went out in a pile and it was probably bigger than this
house. That was my playground. We used to go out there and play king of the mountains on that.
The biggest guy would get up there, used to throw the other ones all off, and – you’re a little kid,
corn cobs are rough, by the time you get done, you’d be all scarred. [laughs] But you’d play
there for hours and hours and hours. Every day after school we’d go down there and play, then
they’d haul ‘em all off, and then we’d have to wait until they start building ‘em up again. And
then we had guys that were 17, 18 years old [murmurs]. They went up there, and we were like
little kids, like 11 or 12, they got up there, and they were always king of the mountain usually.
Every time you’d try to gang up on ‘em, one guy would grab on and –
RL: But everybody helped each other, especially, you know, the women having one child after
another, you know, another little one. Uh, Mom, they got together, well okay, so-and so had a
baby – didn’t have to worry because they, my mother knew that this – you baptize a baby you
become a…
IB: Godparent.
�RL: Yeah, but [murmurs] mom and dad. What they call comadre and compadre. You baptize my
baby, you would be my comadre, and she’d be my child’s daughter. And, you know, they were
there to help, Mother didn’t just – have the baby, didn’t have to worry, ‘cause they knew that
these other ladies would take care of those kids. Wash ‘em, feed ‘em. You know, that was fun
days.
IB: And back in those days, if you went to somebody’s house and you were acting up, they
would beat your butt just like you’re their kid, and that’s the way it was. Nobody ever said
anything about it. You go over and misbehave at somebody’s house and they’d take the paddle to
you or throw you out or whatever, smack you around. And you never said anything, ‘cause you
know you’re wrong and, you ain’t gonna go tell nobody nothing ‘cause then they’ll get after you
for being ornery at that place or something, but that’s the way it was. Everybody, if you were in
their house, you did what they told you to do.
RL: Also, the funerals – if they knew people were real poor, we’d collect, they’d collect among
the neighborhood, to have whatever, and, and that’s another thing they did. We was – I think
about it now that I’m older, and I said: “Those were the good old days to me.” [laughs] Even
though we were poor, we appreciated. Appreciated, you know, what we got. I think our kids –
our grandkids – I didn’t do that with my kids. Barbie doll, [Delores’s?] Barbie dolls, and she
didn’t have no more dolls. And I didn’t have – like I said, I wanted her to have a little bit, but I
don’t want her to be – now, my grandkids, it’s a different story. My grandkids. I have a son and
daughter. It’s just a completely different –
IB: When you grew up poor, you appreciate things.
RL: Mm-hmm, I think so.
IB: ‘Cause I grew up on beans and tortillas and…
RL: Oatmeal.
IB: The only meat I knew was hamburgers and hot dogs and chicken. I went into the service, and
you know, you get these trays, you go through, they’re slopping all this food, and God – I’d taste
the meat and I’d say: “What is this?” Those guys would look at us – brisket or whatever it was,
pork chops – I said, “Man this is really good,” you know. I’d make a big deal out of it, they’re
looking at me like –
RL: Well, during the week –
IB: Where you been, in a cave or something?
RL: During the week it was wieners. Mother would get the wiener and cut it up, fry potatoes and
put the wiener in there. Or wieners with hamburger. But Sunday was special, we knew we were
gonna have a good – you know, like a chicken. Also marriages. Somebody got married, these
women had these pans, they were white. And they had a navy blue line, just a quarter of an inch
trim, or navy blue. And my – it was always chicken molé. It’s like a barbecue sauce, you know.
�They just boil the chicken and then they make this molé. And then they’d put the chicken in, and
there was rice, with two kinds, a vermicelli, it was like a little spaghetti, and sometimes they had
salad. Well, when there was a marriage the lady would ask my mom: “Could you help me with
the rice?” Sure, yeah. There was never a no. She would bring the rice. And then when they’re
real close, they’ll, don’t – don’t bring it. And tomato, and onion and the garlic. It takes rice, but a
lot of times they would just bring the rice, “Can you make 5 pounds of rice?” And they’d
distribute. Then we would take it to the, wherever they were gonna have their wedding. And
that’s how the food was made. It wasn’t catered in. [laughs]
HK: Yeah.
RL: And it was strictly, that was a typical molé. The broth, made it more tasty with that
vermicelli, and rice was using the broth of when you boil the chicken. That’s what makes
everything good now. But no, you could go – on Sundays the boys would go to church and
they’d come back and they’d have two or three friends and it was a day they get to come and
[sit?] and drinking coffee. And the other time they’d go to this other person’s house, you know,
that’s the way – every Saturday I remember these boys had a car, Saturday afternoon ‘cause they
were gonna date, I guess, in the evening, wash their car, I mean, they had ‘em clean. Washed
their cars inside and out.
IB: That was my brothers. I didn’t get a car till I was 22.
RL: You had a yellow Chevy I remember –
IB: 22 years old. I’d been in the Marines and got out, and bought me a car.
RL: And then when the boys went into the service we had four brothers – well, five of my, four
of my brothers went into the service – and they’d come, in, like leave, was it leave? And they’d
come in like 2:00 in the morning, I mean, knocking and just knocking at the door.
IB: We never told ‘em we was coming.
RL: And they wouldn’t tell us when they was coming. Oh, and then everybody got up, and
Mama was ready to make the pot of coffee was in a percolator, wasn’t it?
IB: And then they’d call everybody that –
RL: Yeah, it was –
IB: You got these people staring at you, this room and that room, you know, they’re looking at
you like –
RL: The best coffee I’ve ever had, you know, was from the older ladies. Ms. Ramirez was my
godmother, if you talked to [one of the Ramirezes?], it was a pan with two handles. The water
boiling, the coffee, I’d watch it.
�IB: Well they, back in those days they didn’t use coffeepots. Just got a big pot and filled it up
with grounds, coffee. And then they’d let it boil, put a lid on and let it boil, and I’m [sitting
there?] and stuff would settle on the bottom –
RL: And you could go down –
IB: Everybody had one, they were that big –
RL: You could go down to this person’s house and for sure they were gonna offer you to eat. No
problem, it was just everybody was together. The men all, they were compadres, ‘cause you
know, every family had a large family [unintelligible] godfather, everybody was godparents and
comadres and compadres. But that’s the way they – once in a while my dad would go to
[unintelligible] and my godfather, he liked a beer or two now and then, couple beers, and my
mother, the – they went to something. We’d look forward to the evenings and looked forward to
that steak. But that’s the way that we were raised, and, you know, hand-me-downs. And we had
clothes – my brothers I’m sure handed, you know, the bigger one down, down. And I was the
youngest one.
IB: I was the youngest, I never got – by the time I got it, “What is this?” [laughs] “What’s this
supposed to be?” [all laugh] I was the youngest boy, so anytime anything came to me, it was –
what is it?
RL: I tell my granddaughters, they got a drawer of socks. Oh, God! You know, how they sell
those socks like six in there. I had two pair. I had one with the hole in the heel, and one without a
hole. So this thing with – I was learning how to darn and this thing was about this thick and you
know, I’d be all – and I’d always make sure the night before, especially in the wintertime, that I
was gonna end up with the best on Sunday. We’d wash ‘em in the night, put ‘em on top of the
stove to be dry and now my grandkids have all these pairs of socks. They got so many.
IB: The boys were – you took care of your own socks.
HK: Oh, gosh.
IB: The boys growing up, you know, you had your own socks and your own underwear,
everything, so you more or less washed them and took care of them. And I remember a lot of
times you just had what you call the tops, they were just the top of the socks [laughs]. The holes
were in the [laughs]. And my brother, he was always trying to figure out, [someone coughs]. One
time when he was in junior high, he was talking to this girl and put his foot up, he forgot he had
his tops on. And the sock [laughs], turn around, he said “God!” But we just got all the tops, and
they were just the [unintelligible], so –
RL: Was you – are you a Lawrence person?
HK: Yes, I am. I went to St. John’s School.
RL: Oh, okay.
�HK: And, uh –
IB: Your last name’s what?
RL: Krische.
IB: The Marlboro person, the guy that owned the Marlboro factory, what was his name…?
HK: George. Bob.
IB: Bob. Yeah, Bob Krische.
HK: Mm-hmm. Yeah, he’s my uncle.
IB: Oh.
HK: Yeah.
IB: He hired a lot of them Mexicans. A lot of ‘em used to work for him. They’d say, “Go out to
Krische’s, he’ll hire you.”
HK: Yeah…well, it looks like our tape ran out. Um, I think –
IB: I was just getting wound up, too.
HK: Yeah, I know.
IB: I was on a roll.
RL: Um, do you need anything like this for the flood? Are you interested in this, and like – ?
HK: Oh, sure.
RL: I kinda, I found these two, ‘cause like I said, my parents – my dad came to live with me for a
while and I got all the pictures.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RL: You can see there, I don’t know where that’s at, but I thought that was a depot but it’s a
depot, two floors?
IB: Uh, the Santa Fe depot used to be two or three stories.
RL: Oh really? And looks like maybe that’s after the water left.
�IB: Yeah, that was [unintelligible? deeper?]. ‘Cause that was in ‘51.
RL: ‘51.
IB: I was, uh, 16 I think. When I was a kid I went – I used to like this girl that lived down near
the Santa Fe houses, and the flood was coming and they was putting sandbags up in the doors.
To impress her parents, I went down there, get sandbags and we’d put ‘em in the doors. Course
the water went through ‘em [laughs]. About two years later –
HK: Val brought this picture and, if you know, let’s see, well I think we identified all these.
RL: Mm-hmm.
HK: There are some that aren’t identified.
IB: You got names [unintelligible]
HK: So yeah, there’s names, and here’s a pen, if there’s some that you know there, go ahead and
fill it in.
END OF TAPE 16B
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Description
An account of the resource
La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers in Lawrence, Kansas; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. In 2006, Helen Krische, archivist at the Watkins Community Museum, began an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. The project was resumed in 2019 by Nora Murphy and Emily Raymond. The interviews primarily feature the children of the railroad workers who migrated to Lawrence in the early 20th century; they describe daily life, social activities, and living conditions in the Mexican-American community in Lawrence from roughly the 1920s through the 1970s.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
2019
2021
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
These works are the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Bermudez, Israel
Lemus, Rachel
Original Format
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MP4
Duration
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01:13:36 (video)
00:31:49 (16a audio)
00:31:46 (16b audio)
Bit Rate/Frequency
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83 kbps (16a)
90 kbps (16b)
4376 kbps
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Israel Bermudez and Rachel Lemus La Yarda Interview
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bermudez, Israel
Lemus, Rachel
Description
An account of the resource
Siblings Israel Bermudez and Rachel (Bermudez) Lemus were interviewed by Helen Krische in 2006 as part of an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. The interview is split into two parts. Israel and Rachel grew up in East Lawrence; their family came to Lawrence in the late 1920s due to their father's work on the railroad. Israel and Rachel describe their family's journey from Mexico to Lawrence, their school experiences, and their experiences of discrimination and segregation as part of the Mexican-American community in Lawrence. Israel served in the military and shares some memories from that time. Rachel and Israel also describe daily life in their neighborhood, including work, childhood pasttimes, foodways, and funeral customs.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lawrence (Kan.)
1920s - 1970s
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
Format
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MP4 (video recording)
MP3 (audio recording)
PDF (transcription)
Identifier
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16-IBermudezRLemus-2006.mp4 (video)
16a-IBermudezRLemus-2006.mp3 (audio)/16a-IBermudezRLemus-2006.pdf (transcription)
16b-IBermudezRLemus-2006.mp3 (audio)/16b-IBermudezRLemus-2006.pdf (transcription)
Publisher
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Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Relation
A related resource
To access the video and audio recordings of this interview, go to <a href="https://archive.org/details/16-ibermudez-rlemus-2006">https://archive.org/details/16-ibermudez-rlemus-2006</a>.
The <a href="https://www.watkinsmuseum.org/">Watkins Museum of History</a> also holds items related to this collection.
<a href="https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/resources/5295">Additional research on the La Yarda community</a> is held at the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Published with the permission of Israel Bermudez and Rachel Lemus. This work is the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
-
https://history.lplks.org/files/original/7c4b9e7f3aa0065a3e2845a2852b9e5b.pdf
4ff883a63efa1193c746de88496c419e
PDF Text
Text
Tape 17: Interview with John Chavez and Helen (Chavez) Martinez
Interviewer: Helen Krische
Date of Interview: 2006
Length of Interview: 33:57
Location of Interview: St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church
Transcription Completion Date: October 20, 2020
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Helen Krische (Interviewer): We’re gonna talk a little bit about your parents and when they first
came into this area. Um, did they come directly from Mexico, or, um…were they already in the
U.S.?
John Chavez (Interviewee): [murmurs] into Texas. I know my father –
HCM: Actually, we do have a whole history written down here. A little bit of – let’s see here,
now actually, we had a, well, our reunion, family reunion several years ago.
HK: Uh-huh.
HCM: My sister put an album together and so she did write down, actually, did put down a little
history of when my dad –
[murmured sounds, difficult to distinguish from the static]
HCM: Because actually he…he was quite young, probably just a teenager when he did come to
the United States.
HK: Mm-hmm.
HCM: How…let’s see here. [murmured sounds] Okay, eventually, uh, after his parents, you
know had passed away, well then he eventually made his way on into Texas and was alone. Uh,
he worked in Pueblo, Colorado, and, uh, was working for the Union Pacific Railroad.
JC: I think when he was in Texas, though, he worked as a farmhand, not in Kansas, but maybe
two years. In Colorado. [murmurs] eventually comes through here, the Union Pacific comes
through Lawrence, uh, some way, he come into Lawrence.
HK: Right.
HCM: And then. Then lived in Williamstown.
JC: Well, he – he lived first in Lawrence –
HCM: In Lawrence.
�JC: Then he moved to, uh, Williamstown for a couple, few years and then came back, um, to
Lawrence.
HK: Do you know what year that was? Approximately?
JC: Uh, well, yeah, uh, I was born in 1936 and I was born in Williamstown. And my sister, she
was a couple years older than I was, so she was born there also. We were the only two, so it had
to be between ‘35 and ‘39.
HK: Okay.
HCM: When they moved to Lawrence?
JC: When they were, the time spent over there.
JC: Now when they came into Lawrence, I can’t be sure.
HCM: ’41, when I was born.
JC: Then came back [HCM interrupts] The first time they came –
HCM: Oh, okay, yeah.
JC: Let’s see…‘26, ‘27…My oldest brother was born in ‘28.
HK: Did he speak any English, or did he just speak Spanish?
JC: My father? No, he spoke English. I’m not sure how early he – he learned it, you know, but it
was in Texas. I remember when we were young, he spoke – he spoke very little just in English, I
guess he was ashamed of the way he spoke and he didn’t want to mess with that. And, uh –
HCM: But our parents conversed with each other in Spanish.
HK: Uh-huh.
JC: Yeah.
HCM: The older, brother and sisters learned Spanish because they would speak to them, but
when we younger ones came along, they would speak to us. My dad would speak to us in
Spanish and we’d answer him in English [laughs].
JC: Yeah, well, once we started in school, you know, you just learn the English and just forgot
about the Spanish.
HK: Uh-huh.
�JC: Just forgot all the Spanish. If we didn’t have to use it, we wouldn’t use it.
HK: Uh-huh.
JC: My mother could understand very good English and she spoke to us in English [murmurs].
HK: Do your children speak Spanish? No?
JC: No.
HCM: Now they want to.
HK: Now they want to. [laughs]
HCM: Everything back then, was, they discouraged, you know, society really discouraged the
Spanish.
HK: Yeah.
HCM: In fact, you know, when I started school, you know, my name is – is Elena. In
kindergarten they changed it over to Helen. So it just stuck, you know. But, which is the
translation into English. Everything was more or less encouraged to be English.
HK: Where did you live at, in Lawrence?
JC: When we first came to Lawrence, we lived um, 805 Pennsylvania.
HK: Okay.
JC: But, uh, earlier, I think my parents lived on New Jersey Street, maybe 801. And that may not
be the only place they lived, but that was before they went to Williamstown. When they came
back they bought a house on Pennsylvania there. And that’s where we stayed until they, until my
dad passed away. And then Mom got moved here. I remember that, uh, Haskell –
HCM: The Haskell –
JC: Happened in ‘74, [17?]74, you remember that?
HK: Uh-huh. Then what was it –
HCM: The city –
JC: The Haskell –
�HCM: Yeah, the city was gonna, uh, make a Haskell loop and they – they had all the people that
lived on the 800 block of Pennsylvania, they bought out the houses and they, and, uh, you know,
they tore them down, now it’s all gone.
HK: Uh huh.
HCM: And so –
JC: They were moving us to the 900 block too and I guess they got so many complaints that they
stopped.
HK: Really.
JC: [murmurs] They never went through with it and I think there was supposed to be some kind
of, uh, connection with Highway 10, not sure.
HK: Oh.
JC: Down, down by the depot in that area.
HK: Yeah. Was that in the ‘70s or was it in the early ‘80s?
JC and HCM: No. [conflicting voices]
HCM: ‘70s.
JC: ‘Cause Mom moved out in ‘74 in Topeka, so that had to be about –
HK: Yeah, I don’t remember that. I don’t know where I was [laughs].
JC: Yeah.
HK: Having fun, I suppose.
JC: Yeah, I’m sure there’s a record of that somewhere in the city.
HK: Yeah. Huh. So they just tore down those houses?
JC: Yeah.
HK: Huh.
HCM: The tree that my dad planted, when our youngest brother was born, is still there.
JC: Yeah.
�HK: Oh, that’s neat.
HCM: In fact, we have a –
JC: There’s a picture of it in there, of our brother’s tree. Uh, I think it might be in that section,
I’m not sure.
HCM: But he just sketched, he had a drawing that he sketched, with, the tree and our house.
[murmurs]
JC: Yeah, Pennsylvania and New Jersey was about the only streets that Mexican people lived on,
close to the Santa Fe yards. There’s a few, very few who lived away from there. I know some
lived in, uh, North Lawrence, that was the Garcias. And then there was, uh, some [murmurs].
New Jersey. [murmurs] I don’t remember anybody else. Mexicans [murmurs].
HK: I know that, um, in talking to some people, that their father worked for the Union Pacific
railroad, that they had lived in, like, converted cattle cars and stuff like that. Was that…?
JC: Yeah.
HCM: Yeah.
JC: Actually, that’s where I was [born?].
HK: Really?
HCM: Yeah, the boxcars.
JC: Yeah. In Williamstown Square, they had, uh, they had two boxcars set off to the side of the
tracks –
HK: Uh-huh.
JC: And there was two families that lived there. Ours and then the other one was Jimenez. I’m
not sure if you’re gonna [interview Fidel?] or not.
HCM: Yes, I have.
JC: Okay. His was the other family that lived there.
HK: Oh, okay.
JC: So that was kind of unusual.
HK: Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember anything about, did you, did they live in it very long, or…?
�JC: No, I’d say maybe three years [murmurs], I don’t remember a lot about it, except there was
no light [murmurs].
HCM: No electricity. Carmen – well, Carmen would tell about how Dad, uh, made a bed for our
oldest brother, you know, sort of uh, like a foldaway bed. And during the day it would fold up to
the wall. I mean, but, at times they would put it down and they would use it as a stage to
[laughs]. My sisters and John would – would use that as, you know, entertain a show to put on
plays or whatever.
HK: How funny.
HCM: So there was a lot of entertainment [for themselves?]
HK: Did your, uh, parents have a garden?
JC and HCM: Oh yeah.
JC: I think everybody –
HK: Everybody did.
JC: Yeah.
HCM: Three gardens that my dad had.
HK: Oh, my gosh.
HCM: He had one in North Lawrence, he had one over by the yards, (that would be La Yarda)
and then just a small one in our backyard.
JC: They weren’t so small, they was pretty big too. [laughs]
HCM: Go out and get the cilantro, the onions, yeah…so he worked all three of them at the same
time, and, uh, because when the harvest would come in, then you’d go take the car, help him, and
then, boy, was that a joy to see Dad bring the bushel baskets, you know, lift them over the porch,
that railing, put ‘em on the porch. Oranges – not oranges – but tomatoes…
HK: Did he sell any of the produce to other people?
HCM: No, just, I just recall Mary and I once just took, uh, it was a red wagon and Mom had us
just go around the neighborhood. As a rule, she canned – canned tomatoes, and we – we had
enough in our family that we, for the winter, you know, she made hot sauce out of it. You know,
just canned tomatoes, and [unintelligible] for family.
HK: How many children were in your family?
�HCM: Fourteen.
HK: Wow.
HCM: So.
HK: Yeah.
HCM: Yeah, fourteen.
HK: So I guess that she, um, she did a lot of sewing, too?
HCM: Oh. Oh, yes. We have some stories in here that’s, some – some of our, you know, brothers
and sisters had written. In fact, Lupe writes about a story here. My mom, you know, she drew a
picture of one of the dresses that Mom made. But we, uh, my mom did sewing and not with
patterns, it was just cutting out, you know, cutting out the pattern out of the newspaper and
measuring us, you know, stand right there and that old kettle, you know, sewing machine would
just be going and she’d can. Gosh.
TC: [murmurs]
HCM: No, I don’t think so.
TC: [murmurs]
HCM: Unless she did for Lupe and Carmen, because we came along…
TC: [murmurs]
HCM: So Coyo, like Coyo writes in one of her stories, she said: “Oh, the rickrack.” [laughs] She
said: “I didn’t like the rickrack but I didn’t wanna tell Mom.” ‘Cause that was, Mom would add
to, rickrack everywhere. [laughs]
HK: How did she do her laundry?
HCM: Oh, gosh. Yeah, that. At first she did it, you know, I remember that old washboard that
she used to have and then, uh, she would go to my grandma’s, which my grandma lived just right
across the alley from us, once a week she’d go there and she’d, you know, use Grandma’s
machine, come back and we’d hang clothes out on the line. And, uh…it was a while before Mom
got her own washing machine. And then when she did, my aunt bought that for her and my aunt
lived in Topeka and had a big family of her own, but she bought Mom a washing machine. But it
was always hanging clothes out on the line. Oh gosh…I remember one year we got a dryer.
[laughs] ‘Cause in the wintertime, I remember those clothes would be stiff. [laughs] You know,
when we’d go bring them in or, she’d just hang ‘em inside the house, you know, [unintelligible].
HK: Uh-huh, uh-huh. Sure.
�HCM: It was hard for her. ‘Cause when she had, when she did get it with the wringer, type, you
know, you have to put it through the…what was it, those rollers?
HK: The rollers, yeah.
HCM: Uh-huh.
HK: Yeah. Did she ever get her hand stuck in there? My mom used to get her hand stuck in
there.
HCM: No, but my, but Trini did, our oldest brother did, one time. I remember that. [laughs] Oh,
God…
HK: Well, what kind of, did your dad ever tell you any stories about, uh, his work on the
railroad, or…what was your impression of his work?
HCM: Oh, gosh. Other than…not really, other than I do recall, we didn’t have a telephone but
our neighbors behind us, maybe, you know, every now and then they would call Dad of – of an
evening or late at night. If there was a train derailment, or something, they would call him. But
through the neighbors, the neighbors, you know, would let Dad know and I just recall Dad, then,
would be, you know, a winter night having to dress warmly and we were all of course were
worried, Mom, she worried about him. Because back then, I’m sure there were coyotes and
things like this, you know, that were out, ‘cause he’d have to be out by himself, you know. And,
uh, there’s really no protection, you know. I know it was, it was a concern and a worry for Mom.
Dad didn’t ever [someone clears throat], I don’t think I ever heard any complaint.
JC: No.
HCM: Never.
JC: No, he was always happy to work all the time. [laughs]
HK: Little more money coming in.
JC: Yes, uh-huh. He did used to talk about his days in Mexico when he was a young boy, ‘cause
he used to be a sheep-herder.
HK: Oh, okay.
JC: For an uncle. The uncle didn’t treat him right, he didn’t even hardly pay him anything at all,
so he didn’t like that at all, but, he’d be out in the fields overnight with the sheep. And to keep
warm, he would, you know, sleep right in amongst them.
HK: Uh-huh.
�JC: And, uh, he said lots of time he would wake up in the morning all wet, and sheep, you know,
sweating.
HK: Oh, no.
JC: He had a, he had a hard life before he came up here.
HK: Did he talk about, uh, about having enough to eat, or…stuff like that, or…?
HCM: Actually, whatever, what little we do know is, we learned from mom, you know, by
asking her. Later in years we really didn’t take time to ask, you know, about our parents’ history.
And of course Dad was so busy all the time, working, you know, if he wasn’t working right after
he got off work he go straight to the garden, catch the bus, you know, home. And, uh, back to the
other garden he was, you know. Just a hard life.
HK: What did your family do during the holidays?
HCM: Oh, gosh. There, with so many of us, it was always a holiday, I think [laughs]. Yeah, we,
like, like Christmas, I remember…a Christmas tree, a lot of times maybe to school, when we
were in grade school, maybe the school would, uh, have a – where they would give the
Christmas tree away after, you know, the Christmas break and draw straws.
JC: I got – I got to bring it home one time.
HCM: I got to bring it home one year too, so I’m wondering if maybe it wasn’t, maybe on
purpose [laughs].
JC: Yeah.
HCM: But we’d bring, drive the Christmas tree home. And then I do recall sitting there in the
evenings, Carmen and Lupe would help us to cut out newspapers and we’d just cut ‘em into
strips, you know, and –
HK: Uh-huh.
HCM: They’d make paste out of water and flour, and we’d just make the chain things. And, you
know, Christmas decorations. Until later on of course, then, you know, as the girls got older they
worked and they were able to – to buy decorations. But you know, very early years [murmurs].
HK: Did you give gifts to each other, like homemade gifts, or…?
HCM: Um, let’s see, I – I remember always we’d just receive, like, two gifts, you know, just two
gifts. And always –
JC: We didn’t actually give it to each other, the gifts.
�HCM: No, we didn’t. No.
JC: Mom.
HCM: Mom and the girls, the older ones, would all purchase the gifts and it was always – one
item was always something to wear. Usually pajamas. And then a toy. But, um…
JC: One thing I remember. I’m not sure it was Christmastime, but I think it might have been.
There was, uh, somebody that would come ‘round in a truck and they would drop off, uh, large
bags of stuff.
HCM: You know, it was, I think it was –
JC: School, or –
HCM: No, I think it was probably, uh, whether it was Salvation Army or somebody would
donate the big bags.
JC: And they would go down Pennsylvania Street and I know they would stop at our house and
they’d go on down and stop somewhere else, or, I’m not sure if it was –
HCM: But most of it was clothes.
JC: I don’t remember what was inside ‘em much, but I remember seeing the bags.
HCM: Sometimes the clothes weren’t all –
HK: Wasn’t that great.
HCM: No [laughs].
HK: Well, what did you all do for entertainment?
HCM: Oh, with each other it just seemed like, oh –
JC: Played ball.
HCM: Marbles for you boys, and –
JC: Softball.
HCM: Softball. We girls [conflicting voices]
JC: We would go to the park there, by the school.
�HCM: We just had our own entertainment with each other, and well of course we had a brother,
my brother Ralph, he was what, two years younger than John? He was our entertainment. Oh.
JC: Yeah.
HCM: He was a clown. He was, I mean, he provided us this total entertainment like – say for
Halloween, well we really in younger years couldn’t afford to get costumes, so they’d line us all
up after school and we had our, that old wooden stove there, the soot and all that, you know, he’d
make us all hobos, you know. Or clowns or hobos and just get, you know, a big shirt, that’s what
we’d, you know, a pillow or whatever. But he, he took care of our costumes and, uh, he would
tell us stories or dress up, you know, and…always, always entertain us, but like I said, we got a
lot of stories of him in here.
JC: We’d play hide and seek. Baseball, out in the street, football, same thing, just all the
neighborhood kids get together and [murmurs]. And marbles, I think we played horseshoes I
don’t remember.
HCM: No, and then Dad would make a swing for us and [murmurs] for the tree that we had, we
had a tree like this and you just got the rope and a tire and…and then it seems like we all, in our
family had either a sibling that was close in age to us, you know, like we had Ralph. Together
they did things, I had sisters, two years, you know, difference in age and so we were always
together. So we all had somebody to, you know, to always share our time with and, you know.
JC: I remember when we were little too, we’d have a day where we got quite a bit of rain and the
water would be running down the street. Everybody would get little sticks and pretend they was
boats and race ‘em down to the, down to the sewer, and we’d pick ‘em up before they went
down. Then we’d go back and do it again. That was our entertainment too, part of the time.
HCM: And always helping Mom, you know, always have the little ones to help out with. And
back then, too, in our younger years we didn’t have running water either so, went and go get
water, you know, water was down a couple of houses away. There was access to, to water –
JC: It was in between two houses –
HK: City pipe? Was it city water that came through a pipe, is that…?
JC: Hmm…
HK: Or was it a regular pump?
JC: No, um…
HCM: Spigot.
JC: …no, I think, you just turned it and –
�HK: Spigot. Yeah.
JC: But it wasn’t in anybody’s yard, I don’t think. It was in between two houses, and there was
little fences there, so I couldn’t tell one house or another. It was three – you know, two houses
away from where we were. I’m not sure, but down the street [murmurs].
HK: Anybody get into trouble, with 13 kids in the family? [laughs] There must have been
something going on all the time. [laughs]
HCM: Actually…actually, you know, no, we really didn’t.
JC: No, I remember one time Izzy and Ralph had got into some kind of problem – I don’t know
if I should say anything – [laughs] – it didn’t involve the police or nothing but they had done
something ornery in the neighborhood there, caused a big smell, a big stink and all. You’ve
talked to Izzy, haven’t you?
HK: Uh, yes.
JC: Bermudez, with Rachel? If he didn’t say anything about it, then I probably won’t either
[laughs].
HCM: Oh, gosh.
...[Passage from 23:26 to 24:21 redacted]…
HCM: I don’t recall, you know, and then we had that popcorn, what was it, that was next to it,
TNT –
JC: TNT? Or no, [Bartel’s?], uh…I think it was [Bartel’s feeder?].
HCM: But I do remember we’d always go get pop – the boys were Ralph and you probably did
too – we’d get the kernels of corn that were to the side.
JC: Oh, yeah.
HCM: And, uh, and bring those, and of course we just, you know, get the kernels off, make our
own popcorn, so it was –
JC: They had big wire bins, and they would have all the corn in there. And of course, you know,
they’d rub against each other, and against the wire, and just fall to the outside –
HCM: So what fell, yeah, so what fell out, we’d, we’d bring home and that was –
JC: They weren’t gonna scoop it up. They were just gonna use the kernels on the cob, take them
off, so we got what was scraped off of them. Fell outside the bin and used that.
�HCM: And then what about, the story about Ralph, do you remember? The time we thought he
was lost?
JC: [laughs] Oh. How did that go, anyway?
HCM: When…when we were all younger, [Ralph playing?], and of course it was getting
evening, dusk, and Mom called us all to come in. And, uh, everybody came in but Ralph. We
didn’t know where he was, we thought: “Oh no, where is he?” We all went out looking for him,
couldn’t find him. So she asked one of the neighbor boys, that was, you know, always hanging
out with him, and he went looking for him, you know, Ralph. So back then I recall Mom got
really worried. We have uh, we, my dad had built an [altar?] so Mom went back and back and
went in front of the altar to pray. She was just really beside herself. So all of us just followed her,
you know, right behind her, same thing, you know, everybody’s quiet, but we knew what she
was praying for, so we did too. The next thing we know, we heard it start thundering. And, oh…
then Mom got really worried, ‘cause then we could hear the rain. So there she goes from the
[back?] room into the dining room into the kitchen to go out the door to see where Ralph was,
and here he comes running in the back door, soaking wet. What he did, there was a ladder behind
our house, and as you can see the roof isn’t that big, so he had climbed up there and he fell
asleep on top of the roof of the house, and of course the rain woke him up. [laughs.] So I said:
“Boy, I think God does hear Mom’s prayers, because here he comes, you know.” She was always
into all kinds of…
HK: What did you – what the family do for healthcare? Did you call the doctor when somebody
got sick, or did your mom have a lot of home remedies, or – ?
HCM: Well, home remedies for one thing, but yes, uh, but also the doctors, when we were real
sick the doctors would come, and uh, just to give you an idea, this is just a cartoon caricature of
what Ralph drew when one of my sisters was sick, the doctor came to the house. And of course,
you know, all of us in the back room, want to go peek and see what’s going on. This is an idea of
what…this is a sick person in the living room.
HK: All that noise and commotion.
HCM: Yes, commotion because, you know, only when you were really sick would Mom call the
doctor, and other than that they would, uh, they would try to use home remedies.
HK: Funny.
HCM: Oh, I know.
HK: Whack him over the head. [laughs]
JC: Some of the remedies, cut, slice a potato in little thin slices and get ‘em on –
HCM: Put vinegar, I think Dad would put vinegar on them? Whenever he had a fever real bad, I
do recall once being real sick and Dad used a handkerchief or some cloth. I know he came home
�from work and our fever hadn’t left us, so I know he sliced potatoes, what he dipped them in, it
had to have been strong for us to – but then he would wrap it up in this, you know, in some cloth
and –
JC: Put it around your forehead.
HCM: Put it around your forehead. ‘Course we’re lying down. And we’d fall asleep. When we
woke up, we were feeling a lot better, so whatever it was, the aroma or what, I don’t know. But
they did, you know, try. [someone clears throat] expense for doctors…
HK: Well, what was it like growing up in Lawrence, in general? Do you remember much about
the downtown area…?
JC: Only going to the movies to see Cowboy shows at the Varsity. It was mostly the theater we
went to, and, uh, that’s about the only time we went downtown. Other than having a ball game at
the South Park. Walk home and maybe stop and get some ice cream.
HCM: At the Velvet Freeze.
JC: Well, there, and there was another place closer to the park, and I –
HCM: You’re right, I think –
JC: On the west side of the street between – I think 10th Street.
HCM: I think, [ten, hundred block?] I don’t remember. I remember the, the store but I don’t
remember the name of it. But I do recall –
JC: Stopping there.
HCM: Mm-hmm.
HK: Do you remember experiencing any prejudice, you know, in the schools or downtown,
or…?
HCM: I think, for my part there was some, but not as much as the older brothers and sisters
experienced, because yes, they could tell you, I know, they were not allowed, you know, in some
of the restaurants, you know, so…
JC: ‘Course we didn’t really go to restaurants much; we couldn’t afford to. And, uh…
HCM: Or just to get a Coke or something. Carmen, my sister Carmen could probably tell you,
‘cause she did it. She used to work for, um, I don’t know what [murmurs] shop, the Eldridge gift
shop, that she recalled. And my aunt Marge worked at [Gamell’s?] and she said, you know,
[murmurs] worked there. When she wanted to go in for maybe a Coke somewhere [murmurs,
unintelligible]. And actually, my brother Carlos, and he was quite younger. Quite, he’s quite
�younger than I am. There was a swimming pool, the one right there. They didn’t allow him to go
in –
HK: Was that the Jayhawk [Plunge?] or whatever it was called?
HCM: Where the, yes, yes, that was back then, right. Uh-huh. I remember he went with friends
and, uh, he wasn’t allowed to go in there. Then when I came along, by then things were a [little
fair?], so yeah we were able to, you know [murmurs] restaurant. Or the drugstores where they’d
have soda.
HK: Where –
JC: I don’t remember that much myself, but I remember my brother, when he went to rent a
house – yeah rent a house or rent a room, can’t remember which it was. He’d just got married,
um, he was fairly light skinned, so when they, he went, they accepted him, you know and
everything, but then when he took his wife – she was quite a bit darker – they wouldn’t allow
them to rent. It was some –
HCM: Honestly, that’s happened to Andy and I too, when we got married, rent our first
apartment. They didn’t want to rent to us, either, come to think about it.
HK: What kind of – um, when did you get your first job?
JC: I got my first job at 14, working for the school district. An uncle of mine, somehow he heard
about it I guess, talking about it I went up and got hired as a janitor –
HK: Oh, okay.
JC: At 14 and, I been working ever since. I never had a break in between where I didn’t have a
job. And before that, we worked at potato – picking potatoes for a, for a couple of farmers here
in town, the [Hechts?]. And that was, uh, it was work, but it was a lot of fun too. You could be
with all your friends, ride in the truck, up in the back, while you were there. The work was kind
of, well, it was dirty. Kinda dirty and kinda hard on your fingernails, and fingers. But, I don’t
know, it was fun too. So that’s we did, I can’t remember what year we did that, but, I started
working at 14, maybe two or three years before that.
END OF TAPE 17a
�
https://history.lplks.org/files/original/99a82e355fcf4ba4ef78ccc254a0bd1e.pdf
5e27a8be872c747a0855de20ad9c94cd
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Text
Tape 17b: Interview with John Chavez and Helen (Chavez) Martinez
Interviewer: Helen Krische
Date of Interview: 2006
Length of Interview: 8:43
Location of Interview: St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church
Transcription Completion Date: October 27, 2020
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Helen Krische (Interviewer): Um, when did you meet your – your wife, or your husband? Were
they from around here originally, or…”
John Chavez (Interviewee): Uh, my wife was from Kansas City. Argentine District. And, uh, I
guess a lot of times we’d meet people through dances or weddings, maybe baptisms, or
whatever, just get together, you get to see people you didn’t know. So the first time I saw her,
first time I met her, was at a wedding dance. Teresa and Leo Schwartz. They got married here in
the church. They had a dance in the community building and, uh, she happened to come down
with, uh, people that were involved, I’m not sure if it was sponsoring something or what they
were, but they came down from Kansas City. And she may have brought her – she was
babysitting for – they brought her down, so that’s how I met her.
Helen Chavez Martinez (Interviewee): Same experience. Mutual, through a wedding. [murmurs]
HK: Was he from Lawrence, or…?
HCM: No, from Ottawa.
HK: Ottawa.
HCM: But, uh, his sister, uh, married a neighbor of ours that [JC clears throat] a few houses from
us, the Bermudezes. And, uh, we were up close with his sister [murmurs]. They asked him to be
in the wedding, and he was in the wedding because of his sister and –
HK: Okay.
HCM: Like John says, it’s just about, that’s how we all –
[laughter]
JC: There wasn’t too many people here to choose from, or I guess you know, as I said, the same,
you know, that were your same age. So whenever you saw somebody from out of town, I guess,
it was more attraction; I don’t know what it was [laughs].
HK: Well, you have, most of the people were your relatives. [laughs]
JC: Yeah, seemed like they were, yeah.
�HK: And how do you think, uh, how do you think it’s been different for your children growing
up? Uh, you know, growing up in Lawrence. Do you think that it’s been a lot different for them,
or…?
HCM: [murmurs] More opportunities for them [murmurs]. And of course Lawrence has really
grown. Back then, Lawrence was very, just, small and there was not much, other than the
movies, for us. Now there’s activities for them, they can go see arts center, they can get involved
in different programs. Swimming, we didn’t really grow up learning to swim, because we
didn’t… The only place that I recall, uh, Mexican people, if they wanted to swim, they would go
to the river. Because I recall going with our, my oldest brothers and sisters would watch, swim at
the river. There was a sand pile. We stood up at the sand pile and watched. But, you know, it was
very dangerous.
HK: Yeah. Definitely.
JC: That was another activity we had, sand piles.
HCM: The sand piles, yeah.
JC: I can’t remember how often but it was pretty often. ‘Course everybody told us, you know,
not to be there ‘cause it was dangerous, but we didn’t think it was at that age, I guess. There was
a lot of family –
HCM: And it was very close to where we lived, just right down the road.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
HK: There’s a lot of sand bars along that area.
JC: Yeah, mm-hmm.
HCM: So no, our – our children and grandchildren have so much more opportunities. And they,
now, you know, they pursue the school, the education.
JC: Mm-hmm.
HCM: Back then, it was, it was a little bit of a [struggle?] to go to school, if you wanted to, [JC
clears throat, obscuring HCM’s voice].
HK: How far did you go in school?
HCM: From high school –
JC: High school.
HCM: Yeah, high school.
�HK: High school.
HCM: Mm-hmm.
JC: I think the kids now are [clears throat] the Mexican –
HCM: Our younger brothers and sisters did go on to college.
JC: Yeah. Yeah, they’re more comfortable in school, with their classmates. Uh, I think maybe
they, maybe that we weren’t that comfortable in school.
HCM: That’s true.
JC: Cause there were very few Mexicans and…hadn’t been around that much, you know. Next
generation gets more used to seeing people at a younger age. And they had more time to go to
school, so it makes everything else a little easier. [murmurs] Integrated into the system, the
school system and, uh, and their friends. They have a better, easier time making friends.
HK: What do you think about all of the, um, immigrants? [JC laughs] All going on now?
JC: I think, well, so far, they – they’ve been doing [unintelligible] I think is good, they need to
control borders somehow. But, uh, they also should give people who are very poor opportunities
to support their families, so…You know, when you don’t see a person, don’t know a person, you
kind of, you know, stay away, but once you know a person, you want to help them. I think that’s
the main thing, you know. Once you see a person, get to know ‘em a little better, you want to do
something for them and they are much less fortunate than you are, money-wise.
HCM: You know, they wanted a better life for themselves, for their families, because that’s how
our parents came. You know, we know what it was. For them, they want them to have lives. By
the same token, yes, they should, you know, they should have – have a, you know, legally
become citizens.
HK: Do you remember your parents helping any of, uh, if there were new families that moved
into town?
HCM: We had [JC clears throat] remember them visiting, you know, we had several new
families that would stop and visit Mom sometimes, but, uh…
JC: I remember some person helping Dad around the house and he would pay him, but I’m not
sure if it was just ‘cause he had the ability that maybe Dad didn’t have or he was just trying to
help him somehow, but I don’t know. I’m sure they did help each other.
HK: Do you remember anything about the Depression years? If it was extra hard for your family,
or…?
�HCM: Our – Carmen and Lupe probably would tell you about that, but I – I can’t recall talking
about [murmurs].
JC: Mm-hmm.
HK: Well, can you think of anything else that you want to mention?
JC: I just know that in this, in this area, in this, uh, time, in our history that there was a person
who, I didn’t know the person but I was told that, uh…Mexican lady was working the Santa Fe
yards and [he would] gather all the children together and would teach them, uh, Catholic
religion.
HK: Huh.
JC: And, like I say, I wasn’t involved with that, but maybe this gentleman over here might have
been. [Laughs] And, uh, well, it was just something unusual for somebody to – to gather all of,
all the young kids, and, uh, have class for ‘em [unintelligible].
HK: And that person, that person was also Mexican?
JC: Yeah. Yeah. There was a lot of people who come, uh, for short periods of time, then go back
to stuff they do now, and I think that’s probably one of them. Also, some came and they – they
died here, and they never made it, you know, never went back to Mexico. They were out in the
cemetery for bottom?] markers.
HK: Oh.
JC: And, uh, whether their families ever did go back to [murmurs].
HK: Well, I thank you very much. It’s been a pleasure. And, uh, we’ll get you copies of the
consent forms. And – [tape cuts off for final 15 seconds]
END OF TAPE 17B
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Description
An account of the resource
La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers in Lawrence, Kansas; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. In 2006, Helen Krische, archivist at the Watkins Community Museum, began an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. The project was resumed in 2019 by Nora Murphy and Emily Raymond. The interviews primarily feature the children of the railroad workers who migrated to Lawrence in the early 20th century; they describe daily life, social activities, and living conditions in the Mexican-American community in Lawrence from roughly the 1920s through the 1970s.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
2019
2021
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
These works are the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Chavez, John
Martinez, Helen (Chavez)
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
MP4
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:48:08 (video)
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
8220 kbps
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
John Chavez and Helen (Chavez) Martinez La Yarda Interview
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chavez, John
Martinez, Helen (Chavez)
Description
An account of the resource
John Chavez and Helen (Chavez) Martinez were interviewed by Helen Krische in 2006 as part of an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. The interview is split into two parts. John and Helen grew up in East Lawrence; they discuss their family's migration from Mexico to Lawrence, their father's work for the railroads and his extensive gardens, and their mother's strategies for managing a large family. They share memories of holiday traditions, childhood pasttimes, and social activities. John and Helen also describe their experiences of discrimination and segregation as part of the Mexican-American community in Lawrence.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lawrence (Kan.)
1920s - 1970s
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
Format
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MP4 (video recording)
MP3 (audio recording)
PDF (transcription)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
17-JChavezHMartinez-2006E.mp4 (video)
17a-JChavezHMartinez-2006E.mp3 (audio)/17a-JChavezHMartinez-2006E.pdf (transcription)
17b-JChavezHMartinez-2006.mp3 (audio)/17b-JChavezHMartinez-2006.pdf (transcription)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Relation
A related resource
To access the video and audio recordings of this interview, go to <a href="https://archive.org/details/17-jchavez-hmartinez-2006-e">https://archive.org/details/17-jchavez-hmartinez-2006-e</a>.
The <a href="https://www.watkinsmuseum.org/">Watkins Museum of History</a> also holds items related to this collection.
<a href="https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/resources/5295">Additional research on the La Yarda community</a> is held at the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Published with the permission of John M. Chavez and Helen Martinez. This work is the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
-
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917dd0719362c69d1bffcdb0a18af802
PDF Text
Text
Tape 18: Interview with Mary Nunez
Interviewer: Helen Krische
Date of Interview: 2006
Length of Interview: 38:20
Location of Interview: St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church
Transcription Completion Date: November 6, 2020
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Helen Krische (Interviewer): The, uh, Kansas State Historical Society, and there – it’ll be
available for researchers to come in and do research with it and stuff, so…and, uh…and if you
don’t, you know, if you start feeling uncomfortable and you don’t want to continue –
Mary Nunez (Interviewee): Oh, I mean, I can just, I just want to answer your questions; I really
don’t want to –
HK: Okay. See, you can print – you can print your name up there. And then down at the bottom
is information, because we’ll give you a copy of the tape that we’re making and, so I’ll contact
you when it’s ready. And this part right here just – if you have any restrictions on what we’re
doing with the tapes, or…any of the information, you can…okay?
MN: What’s this for?
HK: Oh, that was just if you had restrictions that you, if there was something that you didn’t –
and then fill in your address and stuff and your name down there, sign it. [Long silence until
1:41] And we’ll give you a copy of this before you leave today, so…And, um, I’m Helen
Krische, and this is Heather [Bollier?], my assistant here. She’s the camera operator.
MN: Are you related to Father Krische?
HK: Yes, I am. He’s a cousin. Uh-huh. Yeah. So I’ve been in St. John’s for a long time and went
to school at, uh, at St. John’s School, pretty much grew up here.
MN: Really?
HK: So, yeah.
MN: You been around here.
HK: Yep, been around here a long time, so, yeah. So I was really thrilled that he asked me to do
this. I thought it was a great thing. Great thing I can do for the community.
MN: What is it that you want to know?
HK: Okay, well, um, Sonny was here and we talked a little bit, oh yeah. Oh yeah. Some people
have been bringing in pictures, so I’ve been scanning them, and, um…so, do you know any of
�those people’s names? Like on this one, I don’t have any of the names of these guys here. And
there’s another picture with a bunch of young girls on it.
MN: [Unintelligible] Denise, Robert, Denise??
HK: I think most of them we have identified except for the little, little girls up front there.
MN: [murmurs] Ramirez…Yeah, yeah. Not all of them.
HK: So, you’re Sonny’s aunt?
MN: Sonny? No, we’re not related.
HK: Reyes?
MN: Oh, Sonny Reyes. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah.
HK: You’re his aunt?
MN: I thought you were talking about Sonny Garcia.
HK: No. You’re Sonny’s aunt?
MN: Uh-huh. My sister’s son.
HK: Okay. And do you know a lot of information about, um…your mother?
MN: Not much, like I said. Except I know she came when she was very young.
HK: Uh-huh.
MN: Uh, my dad was, uh, coming over here before he brought her over.
HK: Uh-huh.
MN: Came over about three or four years beforehand. You know, like they’re doing now.
HK: Uh-huh.
MN: And then he liked it, so he went back and got her.
HK: Did he, what did he work? What was his job?
MN: Uh, Santa Fe.
HK: Santa Fe.
�MN: Railroad.
HK: Uh-huh. Did you live at the, uh, railroad, uh – ?
MN: Santa Fe Apartments.
HK: Apartments, uh-huh.
MN: Uh, here in Lawrence, uh-huh, and, uh, we lived in Lecompton for a while, until I was
about thirteen.
HK: How old were you when you lived in the Santa Fe apartments?
MN: Um, I was about seventeen or eighteen.
HK: Uh-huh. So you were pretty much almost an adult when you lived there.
MN: Mm-hmm. But we weren’t there very long, though.
HK: Mm-hmm. What do you remember about the time that you did live there?
MN: Um, we were just there about – about a year and my dad bought a home in, um, in South
Lawrence. And, um, not much, except we had to draw water from the pump. And, uh, we didn’t
have a telephone. We had outhouses [unintelligible] That’s about it. Went to school – oh, let’s
see, when we moved there I was only, I was finishing school. Sixth grade. That was about it.
And we moved out of there, I think I was about fifteen when we moved out of there.
HK: Mm-hmm. Did your – did your dad come directly from Mexico, then?
MN: To Lawrence?
HK: Your parents? Your parents?
MN: No. No, they came through Nebraska. My brother was born in Nebraska. [unintelligible] It
was in Dodge City, Kansas.
HK: Uh-huh.
MN: And, uh, when they came over they had one daughter, three years old. And, uh…um, that
was the only one they had when they came over and then the rest of us were born here in
Lecompton.
HK: Oh, okay. So you – you actually lived in Lecompton rather than Lawrence when you were
growing up?
�MN: Right. They moved into Lawrence when I was, uh, thirteen or fourteen. Around that age
[’42?].
HK: How was it, what was it like growing up in Lecompton?
MN: It was very nice. Quiet. Um…
HK: Did you live in the town or did you live in the –
MN: No, we lived at a, the um, east side of Lecompton. Close to railroad track they built some
homes there.
HK: Oh, okay.
MN: For us. And I didn’t like it there because we didn’t have nothing to do except, you know,
we – we, uh, were home most of the time, at home or school. We had a lot of fun though. Out in
the country.
HK: Yeah. What kind of, um, what kind of housing did they build there? Were they similar to
the Santa Fe apartments, or…were they different?
MN: Well, when we first got moved there it was just, like, shacks. One-room house, I guess you
may say, and they’d only converted some, from what I understand, cattle cars into a four-room
house. [unintelligible] They made ‘em real nice, and um, I think they finally tore ‘em down, I
think they have a home there now. [murmurs]
HK: So how were the houses arranged? Did they have different rooms, or – ?
MN: No, their walls, like the length of the car.
HK: Mm-hmm.
MN: And they were all one after the other and they had, uh, they made two of ‘em.
[unintelligible] Cattle cars. And we lived in one, on one side. It was pretty crowded. We stayed
there until I was fourteen.
HK: Did they have, like, curtains that separated the rooms, or – ?
MN: Oh, no. We had doors, we had doors. It was pretty well, pretty modern. And, uh, my dad
bought furniture and curtains and stuff like that. We had a living room, we had a kitchen, we had
two bedrooms, which we all piled into –
HK: Uh-huh.
MN: And, um, they were real nice.
�HK: What kind of – what did you use for heating there?
MN: Pot-belly stove. And I remember there was a wood-stove in the kitchen.
HK: Did you have electricity there?
MN: Nope.
HK: No electricity, what about running water?
MN: Nope. We had well water.
HK: So you just had a pump outside, which you used for water?
MN: Mm-hmm.
HK: Did you ever come into Lawrence when you were a child?
MN: Oh, yeah. We used to visit – we used to visit Lawrence all the time.
HK: Okay.
MN: Yeah. And Topeka.
HK: Mm-hmm. Did you meet your – where did you meet your husband, was he from Lawrence
or Topeka?
MN: Uh, he was from Lawrence, uh-huh, and he used to go to Lecompton and work there, with
Dad. They lived in the other side. The other addition. For a while they were just, uh, just the
young men helping dad I guess.
HK: Mm-hmm. Did your dad, um, did he do anything else besides work for the railroad? Did he
have any other kind of jobs?
MN: No. He had hobbies, he had, uh, he liked to go fishing. And he liked to garden. He, uh,
pretty much that’s all he did, and support us.
HK: What was your dad’s name?
MN: Thomas.
HK: Thomas…?
MN: Garcia.
HK: Garcia. And your mother?
�MN: Tijuana Garcia, well, she went by her maiden name. She, they didn’t use her – she didn’t
use her, her, um, married name because they don’t do that in Mexico. They pretty much keep
their maiden name, so she kept her maiden name.
HK: What was her maiden name?
MN: It was [Carrillo?].
HK: And what part of Mexico was she from?
MN: Oh, gosh. I don’t know what part of Mexico or what, but I can tell you the name of the
town.
HK: Okay.
MN: Uh, where she was from was San Juan de Los Lagos.
HK: Okay.
MN: And my dad I’m not so sure, but he lived real close by, like Eudora.
HK: Mm-hmm. Okay. Do you know what year they came from Mexico? Or approximately?
MN: Yes, around 19…[long pause] before 1920 [long pause]. Around, uh, 1919 or 1920, about
that area. They were both very young. My mother probably about, she was born in 1895. She had
to be about…about twenty-five years old.
HK: Mm-hmm. What do you remember about your mother, growing up?
MN: She was always working. Washing [laughs], cooking. She liked to work out in the garden,
she had a flowerbed. She had flowerbeds all over. And she’d help Dad harvest the garden.
HK: Uh-huh. And how many children were there?
MN: Uh, there was eleven of us altogether, but, uh, they soon, you know, began to get – leave
the house and so, uh. My oldest brothers and sisters, they left. Pretty much in the 40’s.[murmurs]
they started getting married, and then my brother went into the service. And we used to go north
to work.
HK: Hmm.
MN: Worked, um, crops.
HK: In the summertime?
�MN: Mm-hmm. For extra money.
HK: How far north did they go?
MN: Um, Minnesota. Minnesota [murmurs] that I can remember. I was still young.
HK: Was that picking strawberries, or…?
MN: Oh no, um, we’d do, uh…harvest the, like, onion crops
HK: Uh-huh.
MN: Carrots, I think, and I – I don’t know…we used to harvest corn, beets. But I didn’t, I didn’t
do the beets because I was [murmurs] Big machetes or some kind of a…
HK: Those knives.
MN: So I didn’t do that. Just went along for the ride.
HK: So the whole family –
MN: We’d get back to go to school, in time for school.
HK: Yeah. And how did your mom, um, what did she do for you kids and your clothes and stuff
like that?
MN: She used to make a lot of our clothes out of flour sacks. They were printeds, she used to
sew our dresses. She was very good at it.
HK: And did she do any kind of, uh, canning, [unintelligible]?
MN: You know, I don’t think she did. I don’t remember if she did. I don’t think we even had
time.
HK: Yeah. A lot of people have memories of, um, their parents or their mother or – or whoever
going to the corner grocery stores in the neighborhood.
MN: Well, we had, we had, in Lecompton we only had one store, one – one, um, service station
and one post office and one bank and isn’t there anymore. They don’t have a bank there
anymore.
HK: Yeah.
MN: And, um, I remember going to the store, to get the mail and…
�HK: Mm-hmm. Did you, um, did you go to high school in Lawrence, then, or…did you go to
high school?
MN: No, I didn’t go to high school. I just, uh, went to, uh…uh, elementary school in Lecompton
up to sixth grade and then we moved to Lawrence my last semester of sixth grade. And finished
it there.
HK: Okay.
MN: In Lawrence. I didn’t go to [unintelligible] school because I was petrified. I was so used to
having such a small classroom at – when we came to Lawrence there was too many kids around.
A table like this and all the kids were [unintelligible] table. It was too much for me.
HK: Yeah. Yeah, I could imagine, coming from a really small town like that. That would be
quite a shock [laughs].
MN: It was, for me anyway [laughs]. I didn’t like it.
HK: What did you do for, um, like when you were a – a small child and you got sick, um, were
there…?
MN: We had a doctor. We had a nice doctor. He took care of all of us. We were all born at home.
And he took care of all of us. It was Dr. Moss. That’s [murmurs] Dr. Moss. I don’t remember his
face or anything, but I know he was, uh, a little bit on the chubby side, but I can’t remember,
maybe not. [laughs] Hard to remember. But he was a really good doctor. He delivered all of us at
home.
HK: So there was an actual doctor at the delivery.
MN: He used to come to see us at the house.
HK: House calls. Boy, that’s a rarity today.
MN: I know. But today we have more money [murmurs] anybody wants to do that any more.
HK: Yeah. So they didn’t use midwives or anything like that?
MN: Um, my mother probably did, but…you know, I don’t remember. I remember her having
one child with my last sister. But I don’t remember who helped her. But she did have somebody
there. Besides a doctor.
HK: So you didn’t have any, like, extended family that lived close by, or…?
MN: No.
HK: Anyone like that to help her out.
�MN: We were the only ones.
HK: When you were growing – when you were going to school, did you experience any kind of
prejudice?
MN: Lecompton was very prejudiced. Very prejudiced. But we still had friends there. We had
several friends.
HK: Do you remember any of the things that happened, that…?
MN: Well…not really. But…I don’t, don’t remember doing too much outside of certain friends
that we had, you know. Uh, we didn’t have a whole lot of friends, you know, I mean, just certain
country folks I guess. But Lecompton was very prejudiced. And I don’t know about today
because I don’t…I have friends in Lecompton yet, but they’re not prejudiced. I suppose it’s a lot
of prejudice there.
HK: What about when you went to Lawrence?
MN: In Lawrence I never experienced it, anything like that. I never did.
HK: So, it was better here than in Lecompton…or a different…?
MN: I never experienced anything like that, maybe somebody else. I hear a lot of stories, but I
don’t remember experiencing anything like that.
HK: Did you, um, raise your children here in Lawrence?
MN: Yes, uh-huh.
HK: How did they go? Did they have a good time in school?
MN: Oh, yes. They got along real well [murmurs]
HK: Did you grow up speaking Spanish or – ?
MN: Yes, we did. I – I did not speak English when I went to school, and they held me back one
year.
HK: Okay.
MN: And, uh, all of us were that way. But it didn’t take very long to pick it up.
HK: Did you teach your children Spanish?
MN: Nope. [HK laughs] I didn’t.
�HK: What do you think about that? Do you think you should have?
MN: I didn’t think – I didn’t think I could speak it well enough to teach it to ‘em, because I
didn’t want ‘em to learn the slang way. And, uh…actually I should have went on ahead and
spoken it anyway. I can – I can speak it, and I can understand it real well, but I really can’t do
it…I feel like I can’t do it very well, you know. But I’m glad I – I learned it.
HK: Yeah.
MN: Yeah.
HK: It sure is helpful, I think. Because, um, from my understanding, um…that the Spanish
population is, it was really growing and there was a great demand for people who can – who can
speak Spanish, and so…yeah.
MN: I’m really sorry my kids didn’t learn it, because I feel like they were left out. And they
missed out on a lot of nice, you know, um, understanding of our music and, you know, and
converse with other people, different people that know Spanish.
HK: Mm-hmm.
MN: And, um…really I – I regret not [murmurs] teaching, you know, taking the time to teach
‘em. And I hope these kids today – well, I don’t know about today, because a lot of kids don’t
know Spanish anymore. I mean, my – my grandchildren, they don’t know Spanish. That I know
of.
HK: Mm-hmm.
MN: My children, some of my children understand…they say they understand somewhat, you
know, some words.
HK: Mm-hmm. Did you keep any, um…um, traditions alive and, uh, passing on to your
children? What your parents did – did they have any special traditions that – that you passed on
to your children?
MN: No, I think we pretty much made our own traditions. There’s only one tradition that I know
that I probably picked up. It’s, uh, on Christmas Eve my mother made tamales. Uh, that’s
something we do for Christmas. I guess some people make ‘em year-round, but that’s the only
time I make ‘em. And, uh, and have my family come over. But I really didn’t start doing that till
they were growing up. It’s been almost 30 years now that I’ve been having –
HK: Are any of your daughters doing…?
MN: No, but they want to learn. They have – they all help me. The grandchildren help me. They
all, they all want to learn.
�HK: That’s good.
MN: Whether they carry the tradition or not, I don’t know, but, uh, they want – they like them,
so they wanna learn how to make ‘em.
HK: Mm-hmm. Your daughters, um, how many daughters do you have?
MN: Two.
HK: Two.
MN: And four boys.
HK: Four boys. My goodness. That must have been a rowdy household. [laughs]
MN: But you know what? It – it probably was, but in those days we just…had the kids and you
know, whatever came along, we had to live with it.
HK: Mm-hmm. So they all went through the Lawrence school district schools? Yeah? Did they
all graduate from high school, or…?
MN: Yes.
HK: Mm-hmm. Any of them go on to college?
MN: My daughter did. She finished college. And I have one grandson that – that, uh, he
graduated from Free State and he, uh…he had, uh…valedictorian?
HK: Mm-hmm.
MN: Graduate [murmurs] and he’s still going to school. He’s continuing education.
HK: Very good. What does he plan to be?
MN: I don’t know. Uh, he’s in Chicago right now.
HK: Oh. Long ways away then.
MN: Uh-huh. He’s going to school there. He’s, uh, I don’t remember what the name of his
college is, but he wanted to go to college.
HK: Where was your husband from? Is he from –
MN: Lawrence.
�HK: From Lawrence.
MN: Mm-hmm.
HK: And did his family grow up in Lawrence, was he
MN: Mm-hmm.
HK: Did you know many of the, um, Mexican-Americans in the community?
MN: I knew, I knew ‘em all, pretty much. I – I pretty much knew all of ‘em, and still associate
with them. It’s not a very large community anymore because of…uh, the, uh, the older ones, all
[murmurs] older are pretty much gone.
HK: Yeah, it’s too bad that I couldn’t have interviewed some of the – the older ones before they
passed, because that would have been really, really a nice thing to do.
MN: I, uh, had pictures and things, but during the flood I lost quite a few.
HK: Oh. no.
MN: Pictures. The 1952 flood in Lawrence.
HK: Uh-huh. I think that’s what happened to a lot of people. There’s, um, just not many pictures
left around anymore. What do you think of the new, uh, immigrants that are coming in today?
MN: What do I think of ‘em? I think they’re, uh…I think they’re, uh…[murmurs] I’m not
against it because they’re trying to make a better life. Trying to improve their lives, and I think
that, um, they should let ‘em come over because this – this country was made of people who
came from other countries. We’re all immigrants, actually. Don’t you agree?
HK: I agree. Wholeheartedly.
MN: Now, why [unintelligible] there – Well, there is quite a few, uh, immigrants that have come
from Mexico coming over, I guess. I’m not sure whether there’s more of those than any other
kind of, uh, nationality. But I think, it’s not gonna hurt any, because we got plenty of space here
in the United States. And they – they want to work. And people here don’t, they – they don’t
want to work. [murmurs] some people don’t want to work So why not let ‘em work, why not let
em’ improve their lives and bring their children up in a better environment? And I – I just, I’m
not, I don’t know much about politics but I think the president in Mexico ought to be doing
something about this. Or somebody over there making changes in their country so they wouldn’t
be coming over here if they don’t want to, you know. I thought, you know, I think they should be
able to get a chance at living or in their country if they want to, but they’re being forced out
because they have to go and earn money somewhere, you know. And I understand that – that
President [Fox?] is here in the United States right now. So, I don’t really care for him much.
�HK: Hopefully he’ll discuss something about the issue. [laughs]
MN: Well, I hope they learn. Get better for the immigrants here because – especially the ones
that are already here.
HK: So, do you see a big difference in, uh, when you were growing up, and the way that your
grandchildren are growing up today?
MN: Oh, a vast difference. It’s so much nicer and easier for them, I mean, we had it a bit harder
than they have it, you know, I mean, that’s what we worked hard for, so they can, you know,
have a better life. I mean, not the best, but it wasn’t the worst either. [laughs]
HK: Yeah, yeah. Certainly better than when how you grew up, right?
MN: Yeah. But you know what? That’s the way we were raised, that way. I don’t remember
being [unintelligible] or anything like that. It was a harder life, you know?
HK: Mm-hmm. Definitely.
MN: I don’t – I can’t say I hated it because we had to do this or do that, or – it’s just something
we had to do, all of us, we all went through it, and not just us.
HK: Do you remember what a, um, I know that you said that your – your dad had vegetable
gardens and stuff. Um, what would be a typical meal in your house?
MN: I…I know Mom made tortillas. We didn’t buy them.
HK: Yeah [laughs]. No Dillons.
MN: Make them – we don’t make them anymore, we buy them. But, uh, the beans were good,
and we had a lot of meat that Dad used to raise, uh…pigs. And he had a – well, of course we had
milk, ‘cause we had cows, we had goats, we had chickens, you know, chickens, and, um…and
the boys learned how to cook American, the American way, so we used to do a lot of cooking
too. Make our meals on holidays. You know, the – the turkey and the baked pies and all that.
They, the boys did that.
HK: Oh, so they were quite the cooks, huh?
MN: All my sisters. One sister was an excellent cook. She learned how to cook, she used to cook
a lot for us, when she was home.
HK: Is that the one that, um, that ran the – those restaurants?
MN: Yeah, uh-huh. She used to cook for us when she, when she was home.
�HK: Mm-hmm. So what would you eat, um, what would your mom fix for, like, supper every
day?
MN: You know what, I don’t remember. I really don’t, ‘cause for one thing I didn’t, I didn’t like
to eat.
HK: Oh.
MN: I don’t know how I survived. I didn’t like to eat.
HK: Uh-huh.
MN: Uh, you know, I had, I didn’t – I don’t know what kept me alive but I must have ate
something [both laugh]. I remember she used to make vegetable soup and I wanted to just drink
the broth. I didn’t want to eat stuff that was in it.
HK: Uh-huh.
MN: Oatmeal used to make me sick. But, you know, I don’t remember even having any favorite
foods.
HK: Would you have, did they fix meat every day, or…?
MN: Oh, I’m sure we had meat every day, ‘cause, you know, we had chickens and we had pork
and I’m sure that we…I didn’t eat, so I don’t know. Really don’t remember much about that. It’s
strange, but I don’t. [laughs]
HK: What did, uh, what did you do for entertainment?
MN: Let’s see, what did we do for entertainment? During the wintertime we had this, we had
this, one of those box sleds that we – us kids used to go out and go up and down this little road
we had there by our home. And in the evening, while the moon was out, we’d be out there sleigh
riding, you know? And, uh, pretty much just play out in the yard, like, you know, whatever.
HK: Did your parents ever have any other, um, adults over for –
MN: Oh, yes. We had a lot of friends. They had friends, they’d come over on weekends, or we’d,
maybe we’d go to Lawrence or go to Topeka. Oh, yes.
HK: Did you, did you have a radio, or –
MN: We had a radio. And it had a battery, one of those big old car batteries.
HK: Mm-hmm.
�MN: We had, uh, we used to listen to the radio with that battery in the radio and, uh, sometimes
it would go, it would run down, I guess, and I remember at one time, we was watching –
listening to, uh, one of those series, and the battery went out and “Oh my gosh”. [HK laughs]
What was it, were they soap operas then?
HK: Uh-huh. You didn’t know how it ended.
MN: Yeah, there we’d go, we’d take the battery out and then the kids take it out to the, get it
charged, you know.
HK: Uh-huh. [laughs] That’s funny.
MN: Yeah. We did have a radio.
HK: Um, what did your parents do during the Depression years? Was it extra tough during those
years, or…?
MN: You know, I don’t know, but we always had food on the table. I don’t remember anything
like that, suffering or maybe starvation or anything like that, you know, we…Dad took care of us
pretty well.
HK: Mm-hmm. How did your dad get around? Did he have, um, did he just walk, or…?
MN: He used to drive, uh, guess it’s what they used to call a Ford. He used to have a car.
HK: So he had a car.
MN: We’ve always had a car.
HK: Okay. Do you know how much he made working for the railroad?
MN: Oh, I think I did see his check one time. I’m thinking, like, $3,000 a year. [murmurs] His
income tax, or whatever it was, it was supposed to be around $3,000 a year, I believe.
HK: That’s pretty good, for those days.
MN: I’m just thinking, that’s what he might have made later on in years, but, uh, when I was
little, I’m not sure they made that much. But, you know, [murmurs] today. I have no idea what it
cost then, but I’m not sure, it wasn’t very much.
HK: What did you all do, like, um, for holidays, like Christmastime and…other than make
tamales. I know you said your mother made tamales.
MN: I don’t remember very much.
HK: Anything else? Did you exchange gifts, or…?
�MN: No, we didn’t exchange gifts. We didn’t even have a Christmas tree because we didn’t have
electricity. My mother’s washing machine, she did have a washing machine. It was a gas
washing machine.
HK: Oh. How did that work?
MN: Gas.
HK: Did they, did they have to have a gas tank on it, or…?
MN: It had to be gas, ‘cause I don’t think it was battery-run. And because – because my dad
converted later to electric.
HK: Oh, okay. Hmm.
MN: But I think it was gas. Gasoline.
HK: Oh, so they’d just pour the gasoline in –
MN: I don’t, I have no idea about the [unintelligible]. I don’t, I have no idea what was done, but
she had a machine. Before she still had to do a lot of washing for us, washing.
HK: Which she probably had to carry, you didn’t have indoor plumbing.
MN: No, we had to carry water from the well, and like, it was about, like…I say, like, I say like
from here to the school.
HK: Mm-hmm. So wash day was really a big thing to have to fill the tub –
MN: Oh, yeah. We had to hang all the clothes outside, and, you know, hang them out. And I
remember in those days I used to, I guess I used to see my mother go out there and hang, and I
probably [unintelligible, jeans?]. And I used to see her out there picking up all the vegetables out
of the garden out in the hot sun, you know, and she had her hat on, and she’d be out there
working.
HK: Would she put in long, long days?
MN: Oh, yes. Uh-huh. She worked pretty hard. She did. We have it easy today. We need to take
the dishes out of the dishwasher.
HK: Yeah, isn’t that the truth. [laughs]
MN: The truth [laughs]. We’re really lazy.
�HK: Yeah, yeah. So…we don’t have – we have a lot of free time compared to – to the hours that
they put in, for work.
MN: They were, they didn’t have time to do a whole lot, because, you know, it took time to wash
and do all that. I – I really don’t see how they did it, because I don’t have time for a whole lot,
you know, to do a whole lot. But we have so many of the things we do that we didn’t then. We
have a television. That sometimes gets in the way.
HK: That wastes a lot of time, I think.
MN: Personally, I don’t watch a lot of TV myself. Um…I like to work outside in the yard and
just do different things.
HK: Well, is there anything else that you would like to add, that – that may have crossed your
memory?
MN: No. I’m surprised I said this much. [both laugh]
HK: Well, we appreciate you coming and sharing with us, and like I said, we’ll be giving you a
copy of the tape later on. I’ll call you –
MN: I probably will hate to look at it.
HK: Oh. [laughs] Well, I’m sure that your – your children and your grandchildren will appreciate
it.
MN: Oh, my gosh. I probably won’t show it to them.
HK: No? [both laugh] Oh, but you should. I’m sure that they would like to have it.
MN: They’ll probably say: “Mom, why couldn’t we just – ” [tape cuts off at 37:18]
END OF TAPE 18
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Description
An account of the resource
La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers in Lawrence, Kansas; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. In 2006, Helen Krische, archivist at the Watkins Community Museum, began an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. The project was resumed in 2019 by Nora Murphy and Emily Raymond. The interviews primarily feature the children of the railroad workers who migrated to Lawrence in the early 20th century; they describe daily life, social activities, and living conditions in the Mexican-American community in Lawrence from roughly the 1920s through the 1970s.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
2019
2021
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
These works are the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Nunez, Mary
Original Format
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MP4
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:38:20 (video)
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
3323 kbps
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mary Nunez La Yarda Interview
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Nunez, Mary
Description
An account of the resource
Mary Nunez was interviewed by Helen Krische in 2006 as part of an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. Mary grew up in Lecompton and then moved to Lawrence with her parents when she was a teenager. Mary's family lived in housing provided by the railroad in both Lecompton and Lawrence, and describes the living conditions in those communities. She describes her family's migration from Mexico to Kansa, and her parents' strategies, such as gardening and handsewing clothing, for providing for a large family. Mary shares her memories of her school and healthcare experiences in childhood. She discusses family foodways and childhood pasttimes. She describes her experiences of cultural assimilation, especially regarding speaking Spanish and holiday traditions. Mary also describes her experiences of discrimination and segregation as part of the Mexican-American community in Lawrence, and shares her views on immigration.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lawrence (Kan.)
1920s - 1970s
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
Format
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18-MNunez-2006.mp4 (video)
18-MNunez-2006.mp3 (audio)
18-MNunez-2006.pdf (transcription)
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Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
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To access the video and audio recordings of this interview, go to <a href="https://archive.org/details/18-mnunez-2006">https://archive.org/details/18-mnunez-2006</a>.
The <a href="https://www.watkinsmuseum.org/">Watkins Museum of History</a> also holds items related to this collection.
<a href="https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/resources/5295">Additional research on the La Yarda community</a> is held at the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.
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Published with the permission of Dionne Chavez, on behalf of Mary Nunez. This work is the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
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La Yarda Oral History Project
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La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
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Oral History
-
https://history.lplks.org/files/original/843593e046c53ef49eab48048026f89d.pdf
ab500b903c7363c0b6014aff774e425d
PDF Text
Text
Tape 19: Interview with Frank Romero
Interviewer: Helen Krische
Date of Interview: 2006
Length of Interview: 47:20
Location of Interview: St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church
Transcription Completion Date:
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Proofreader: Ellie Rumback
Helen Krische (Interviewer): And this is basically a consent form. And um, sign right there.
And I’m Helen Krische and this is Heather Bolyer.
Heather Bolyer: Hi.
HK: I don’t know if you know any of the Krisches.
Frank Romero (Interviewee): [Murmurs.] Yes, how is he doing?
HK: Well, you know I haven’t really talked to him.
FR: You haven’t?
HK: [laughs] I haven’t had a chance to –
FR: You sound like my family.
HK: Really keeping me busy.
FR: Yeah, there is twelve of us living [murmurs].
HK. Okay. Now, first thing I need you to do is write your name here. And this basically gives
the museum permission to use the tape in both the video and the audio tape. And we have to do
some other things. Right here, it says if you want, this one is if you don’t have any restrictions
on the use of the information and down here is if you do have restrictions and what those
restrictions are. You can X, put an X by either one of those. Down here is your contact
information. Sign, sign once again there and then your address. [long pause] A copy of this will
also probably go to the Kansas State Historical Society. Um, because we will eventually ask
them for a grant to transcribe the tape. And usually when we do something like that they want
you know copies of, so…that, but for the most part it will be used for research purposes either
that or else or used as exhibits for publications perhaps. There has not been anything written in
Lawrence Mexican-American when they do a publication, and you know, like during the
interview if there is any time that you want to stop and take a break or, you know you want to
stop it completely and don’t want to talk any more to me that’s fine too, if you don’t want to
answer any of my questions, that’s fine too. You know, just say I don’t want to answer that.
That is cool with me. So, all right?
�FR: All right.
HK: Okay, and we will give you a copy of the consent form too before you leave. I’ll give this
to Heather. Heather is a witness on this too. [HK laughs] All right. First of all, the questions that
I usually ask are about your parents, and where they came from in Mexico. If you know their
names and when they first came to the United States.
FR: Well my dad’s brother, my dad’s name was Gonzolo [unintelligible] and my mother was
named [unintelligible] Ramirez, and my dad’s uh, mother, and her last name was Rivas. I don’t
know that we kept…this is when they celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary.
HK: 75th?
FR: Yeah.
HK: Wow.
FR: Like I said, my dad was born in Veracruz, Mexico in 1904. He moved to the United States at
age seven. And my mother was born in Mexico City in 1908, and she came to the United States
at age fourteen. They were married April the 2nd, 1924 in Topeka. And the couple moved to
Humboldt in 1939, and they have lived in Lawrence since 1943.
HK: Wow.
FR: And these, they are the parents of Jimmy Hernandez, Frank Romero, Tony Romero, Peter
Romero, Gonzalo Jr. Romero, Becky Stevens, Rick Romero - all of Lawrence. Then they had
Tina Guerrero, Alberta Gutierrez, Teresa Martinez, and Laurie Aguilar (sp?) - all of Topeka.
Their son Joe Romero is deceased. They have 39 grandchildren, 49 great-grandchildren, and 7
great-[great?] grandchildren. And Gonzalo Romero retired in 1969 from the Santa Fe Railroad
after 46 years of service. And then my mother Melina used to homemake.
HK: Oh.
FR: Kinda tells you their story.
HK: Yeah, it sure does. How many children were there altogether?
FR: Uh, thirteen.
HK: Thirteen.
FR: And Joe, he – he died.
HK: Mm-hmm. And where are you in the birth order?
FR: I’m second.
�HK: You’re second?
FR: Yeah. Jimmy is first. I’m second.
HK: Okay.
FR: [Murmurs] And out of the, out of – out of the six sons that they had, four of them served in
the United States Service. The Army.
HK: Oh. Is that WWII?
FR: Frank, during the Korean War - that’s me. And Peter, and then Joe, and Gonzalo Jr. served
in Vietnam. That’s about, uh – and they crossed the border, and I think my dad said they paid
either 10 cents or 25 cents.
HK: To cross the border?
FR: To cross the border from Laredo.
HK: Oh, okay.
FR: Back in 1910 it was. And, uh, then they say, he told me that, uh, they lived in, kind of,
barracks there till they were assigned what to [unintelligible] – where to come to.
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: They came to, uh, Lawrence, Kansas.
HK: So he joined the Santa Fe Railroad right away?
FR: Yeah.
HK: Yeah. Did they recruit him while he still lived in Mexico, or…?
FR: I think so, or they were looking for workers and laborers and they’d cross the border.
[Murmurs] from there they would ship ‘em, ship ‘em [murmurs].
HK: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
FR: He worked for [murmurs].
HK: So did he, did he live in, uh, the Santa Fe apartments?
FR: Right, here in Lawrence.
�HK: And you all did, did you…?
FR: Well, till we grew up and went our own way, where we grew up. A good playhouse there.
[HK laughs] A good playground.
HK: You always had lots of –
FR: We had a lot of company there. All kids of all ages.
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: And, the, the good part about it – it was only about a block away from, uh, [laughs] from the
dump. And whenever we needed a toy or anything else, we’d go over there and find toys or – or
find wood to make toys with. Like I say, we had a lot of, uh, lot of children there, our age. And,
uh, we had hills, we’d make caves in the hills. We had trees, climb trees and make slings – cut,
cut, you know, slingshots there. Yeah, we had a – had a good time. And I, um, went to school.
When I first started kindergarten, I didn’t even know how to speak English. [Murmurs] I
remember very clearly, I remember asking my cousin to tell the teacher when I wanted to go to
the bathroom [both laugh]. So, that’s uh, that’s [murmurs]. We had good times. There, the, uh
Chavez boys [murmurs] the picture of section houses. Pretty similar to what it used to be.
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: I don’t know if anybody’s ever brought the pictures up here.
HK: Yeah. Huh-uh. I haven’t seen it.
FR: Well, I’ll tell you what, when I, when I leave here, I’ll think about it. It’s – it’s quite large.
HK: Oh, okay.
FR: It’s, uh, it’s, uh…that’s where we all came from.
HK: Yeah. Well, maybe we can take a picture of it with the camera. And that’ll be –
FR: Kind of [murmurs].
HK: Okay. That would be fantastic.
FR: I think this is, uh, Frankie Chavez.
HK: Oh, okay. What do you remember about the apartments? How were they –
FR: Well –
HK: Laid out, or – ?
�FR: Well, they was laid out in a row. Two rows. And, um, everybody that lived there, they had,
um, two or three rooms. So, and, uh…it was big enough, long enough to raise quite a few
families in there.
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: So, they’d put families in there, got – they had two rooms or three rooms. There was a lot of
families in there.
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: And, uh, like I said…it had outdoor toilets. And then, uh, before the dump filled everything
up there in the back, we had a lake up there.
HK: Oh.
FR: It wasn’t a very, very big lake, but it was a good-sized pond. And, uh, in the wintertime it
would freeze up, and we’d, uh, we’d go out there and play ice hockey.
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: We’d try to fish, there was some fish, [murmurs]. Awful [both laugh]. [Murmurs]
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: Like I say, in 1951 the flood come through there. I was in the service at the time. But the
city, they had filled it up twice... Third time.
HK: How did they heat, heat the apartments in the winter time?
FR: Uh, wood stoves.
HK: Wood stoves.
FR: Yeah. The, uh, the guys that worked on the railroad, they’d, uh, bring the old ties. They had
big stacks of ‘em. And at certain times of the year they’d, uh, they…they’d get, they had some
kind of uh, a saw that they hooked up to a back tire of a Model T with. And it had a big blade on
it. And, uh, they’d cut these, the ties. And, uh…to, uh, it was big enough for the, for your stoves.
We’d put ‘em on [unintelligible]. During the day, when they were leavin’ we’d chop these
blocks [murmurs] size sticks. That was our heating for a long time. I remember we had coal, we
used coal quite a bit. I remember laying in bed and laying on the sofa when my bed was
[unintelligible]. I’d wait till early in the mornings. Mother would get up and I’d lay in bed and
just kind of laid back till she’d get a fire burning, burning. [both laugh] It was something else.
HK: What did she cook on? What did your mom –
�FR: She had a wood stove. The old-time wood stoves. She was always cooking, [murmurs] every
Monday, every Monday was washing day. Well, not only her but all the people - all the women
that lived in the yards there would only wash on Monday. [Murmurs] wood stove and big tubs,
put ‘em up there and heat the water and, uh, get to washing clothes. The clothesline poles in the
back. Those clothesline poles were dangerous.
HK: Yeah. Yeah.
FR: Because [laughs] as kids we used to play hide and seek, and at night time, at night time we’d
run down through there and if somebody would forget to put one of the sticks up that hold the
wire up –
HK: Clothesline you?
FR: Choke.
HK: So, when the women did the laundry, it was all, it was like a cooperative effort, they all
came together?
FR: No, no, everybody was in front of their apartments.
HK: Oh, okay.
FR: Little, a little, in front of the [unintelligible] yard there, there was a good-sized yard, most of
them. [Murmurs] going through the yards and [scratching sounds, murmuring]. It seemed like
everybody wanted to wash on Mondays.
HK: Okay. So, did they, um, did they have one huge pot of boiling water, or did they each have
their own?
FR: No, they – everybody had their own.
HK: Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. How did they get their water?
FR: They had a – an old pump. Crank it, and water would come out.
HK: Mm-hmm. Was that City water, or, do you know?
FR: I hope so. [both laugh]
HK: Do you know?
FR: I think so. It was pretty clear. Nobody, no one ever died from it. [HK laughs]
HK: I guess that’s a good sign.
�FR: It must’ve been city water.
HK: Did your parents raise a garden during the summertime?
FR: Oh, yeah. Everybody raised a garden. Everybody raised a garden. Alongside the railroad
tracks. [Murmurs] We always [had/hired?] some guy, come through with a horse and plow, plow
all that up, everybody had to [murmurs]? My dad [murmurs].
HK: Someone mentioned that they used to have guards around the garden so that people
wouldn’t steal.
FR: Mmmm…No.
HK: No?
FR: No, I think somebody was thinking about, uh, back there in the war years, they had a
prisoner of war camp across the railroad tracks.
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: And they had guards there. They had German prisoners there.
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: But, uh, that was something else too. [murmurs].
HK: Did you ever interact with the prisoners?
FR: No, but you could see ‘em out there playing basketball. They would go out during the day
and work.
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: [Murmurs] I never heard.
HK: So did – did the kids do anything, uh, for entertainment other than ice hockey and…and
dumpster diving? [laughs]
FR: Well, like I say, we had those hills there, and, uh, [murmurs] birds [murmurs]. We’d dig
holes in the – in the hillsides and make caves, and every once in a while we’d get a cave – cave
in on us.
HK: [laughs] Did you swim at all?
FR: Uh, the only time we’d swim was in the river.
�HK: Okay. On the sandbars?
FR: Uh…yeah, yeah.
HK: That’s pretty dangerous.
FR: Oh, tell me about it. There was about three – about four of us out there, and we started
diving off the sandbars [murmurs] to the middle of the river [murmurs]. And I dived off. And I
hit the bottom.
HK: Oh.
FR: Yeah. The sand [murmurs] the current got hold of me. I thought I was gone. One of the guys
was, seeing that I was in trouble down there, he grabbed me and pulled me out. I never went
back in.
HK: That was enough for you, huh? [laughs]
FR: That was it.
HK: Did anyone ever drown there, or…?
FR: Uh, there was a little boy. I think he was, uh, one of the Mendoza boys. [Murmurs].
HK: Got caught up in the current.
FR: Well, he – he kinda, it kind of, the river was up and [unintelligible].
HK: Uh-huh
FR: He went swimming back there in the back [murmurs].
HK: Well, what would happen if anyone became ill? Was, uh, did they go get the doctor, or did
your mom do home remedies?
FR: Uh, Dad, Mom would, uh, wake up Dad, and Dad would do up…uh…sometimes he’d go
somewhere to some house where they had a telephone. [murmurs, back there in the yards?] Any
time of night he would come. [Murmurs] Seemed like had a satchel had all kinds of pills in it
[murmurs] give you a pill and [murmurs] got well.
HK: Yeah. Was, do you know if he was, like, contracted by the railroad to be the primary
doctor?
FR: No, I don’t think so.
�HK: Or – or was it just who the people chose?
FR: Yeah, yeah. [Murmurs] He had his, uh, I think he had his office behind, on the corner
[murmurs].
HK: Did you as children get to go to town very much, or…?
FR: Uh [clears throat] we went to, uh, [murmurs]. See the [murmurs]. I don’t even remember
how much it cost. [Murmurs] I mean, today’s standard.
HK: Yeah. Yeah.
FR: But every Saturday [murmurs].
HK: Did you experience any prejudice when you went into town, or…?
FR: Oh, I kind of [murmurs] Mexican family. Place up at North, North Third street [murmurs] I
think it’s called [murmurs]. To top it off, now it’s owned by uh, a Mexican family now. [both
laugh] We stood –
HK: Kind of ironic.
FR: We went, we went in there, stood in line [murmurs] and finally got to where, you know, they
give you a chair, or a table, to sit, and then they said “No, we can’t serve you, can’t serve
Mexicans.” So, we came out [unintelligible].
HK: Sure.
FR: So it happened that the guy that owned the, uh, the manager at that time, his mother used to
work at the post office, that’s where I was working. But she never mentioned it and I never
[murmurs].
HK: Huh.
FR: [Murmurs, pretend?]
HK: Yeah. Where did you go to school at?
FR: Uh, New York.
HK: New York School. And did you, um, what was that like?
FR: Uh, I went to school till the, uh, fourth grade.
HK: Okay.
�FR: Then, uh, my dad, uh, transferred into [murmurs], they had a reduction [murmur] section. So
we had to transfer into Humboldt. We stayed in Humboldt for almost three years.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FR: And when I came back, when we came back, I was in ninth grade at that time.
HK: Did you go to the high school here, or…?
FR: Yeah, I went to...
HK: Liberty Memorial?
FR: Liberty Memorial, yeah. After [murmurs, granddaughter].
HK: Oh.
FR: She went to [murmurs] high school.
HK: Uh-huh, uh-huh, so did everything look familiar to you?
FR: It’s all, it’s all [murmurs].
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: [Murmurs] Yeah, I used to live in the yard, what they called section housing.
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: When I was going to Central, I used to, they’d give you an hour at twelve o’ clock,
[murmurs] run back and we used to run from Central back to the yard, and eat, and run back to
Central. I used to make [murmurs]. Every once in a while, I’d [murmurs]. Jump on his bike
[murmurs]. The hard time was when the weather [murmurs].
HK: Yeah. Did, um, did your mom do a lot of sewing when you were little, and making your
clothes, or…?
FR: Oh, yeah, she, uh, well, I had to uh…I had to, uh, I had a – two pair of pants and, uh, two
shirts and one I wore one day and then I’d wash, especially when I was got to where I was
admiring girls.
HK: Yeah [laughs].
FR: I had to wash – I had to wash that fast, that shirt at night. You know, and have the - have the
other one ready.
�HK: Uh-huh. Did she make, uh, dresses, the dresses for the girls in the family?
FR: Uh, I – I guess she did. I guess she did. I remember when I was going to – I started working
over at, uh, at, uh, Woolworth. I was about, uh, tenth grade. I got enough money – during the war
years, we had to have, you had to have stamps to buy, to be able to buy a bike. Anyway, I
bought, I saved enough money to get me a bike, and, uh, that’s what [murmurs], if I was going to
finish high school, that’s what I would need. [Murmurs].
HK: So, you’re pretty industrious.
FR: Well… [Helen laughs] I, uh, it seemed like I always wanted to make something of myself.
HK: Yeah.
FR: When I got out of school, I, uh, I went to work for the railroad.
HK: The Santa Fe also?
FR: Yeah, no, I went to, it was Union Pacific. And…uh, I met uh [murmurs] Bertha Bermudez?
Her dad worked on the railroad. We had, let’s see, a section going, going towards the [murmurs].
He stopped and talked to me. Her dad said: “Do you go to school?” I says: “Yeah,” I says, “I
graduated.” He said: “What are you doing here?” He said: “You go to school [murmurs] more
[something beeping in background] the more I got to thinking about what he said [murmurs].
And it so happened that, uh, they had in the – the paper about [murmurs] letter carriers for the
post office, they had a test [murmurs].
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: Well, I took the test and I passed it, but my Army service took [murmurs]. And, uh, like six
months later [murmurs]. I said yeah. [Murmurs]. Retired from the post office.
HK: Oh. How many years did you work for them?
FR: Uh, I think there’s 34 altogether when I retired [murmurs].
HK: Uh-huh. Did you enjoy it? Were you, were you one that walked and carried the mail, or did
you…?
FR: Well, I started out walking. And I had a couple, two or three different routes that I’d walk,
and then I finally got the one where, where I was at home.
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: Well, I started, uh, I served the mail [murmurs]. So from then on, I – I drove, put the mail in,
opened the box [murmurs].
�HK: Uh-huh. What section of Lawrence did you work in?
FR: North Lawrence.
HK: North Lawrence.
FR: [Murmurs]
HK: Oh, okay. Well, that’s being developed, isn’t it?
FR: Pardon?
HK: That’s being developed now.
FR: Yeah. Lot of new kids out there. [Murmurs], ball park open there.
HK: Do you still keep a garden? Do you have a garden over there?
FR: No.
HK: No? Not a gardener. [Laughs]
FR: No, it’s cheaper, it’s cheaper – it’s cheaper to buy what you need than it is to try to raise a
garden. Buy all the plants and all the fertilizer and gotta keep the bugs off of ‘em. It’s cheaper
just to buy…my wife, my wife likes to [murmurs].
HK: How did you meet your wife?
FR: Uh…she, uh, she was born in Lecompton. And then, uh, her father and mother decided they
was gonna go back to Mexico. So, she went, they - they went back. So, uh, she must [murmurs].
Anyway, and, uh, when she was about, uh, about fifteen or sixteen, her grandfather said, “Well,”
[murmurs] Her father decided that she was getting old and old enough to get married so they had
to bring her back. [HK laughs] So her grandfather went back and got her and two brothers
[murmurs] when she was, when she was eighteen, that’s when. Then when I went into the
service, she couldn’t – she couldn’t write any Spa- she couldn’t write English. And I didn’t know
enough to write Spanish. So I got me a dictionary. English to Spanish.
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: So I started picking out the words that I wanted to, wanted to – to say, and that’s the way I
learned to write [murmurs] read and write in Spanish. I can read and write it, but not, you know,
real good. Just enough to get by.
HK: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
�FR: [Murmurs] Anyway, all the time I was in service we wrote letters. The first letter took me
about an hour, an hour and a half. And after that, [murmurs]
HK: Yeah. Does she – she apparently speaks English now.
FR: Oh, yeah. Too much. [both laugh]
HK: Too much? [laughs]
HK: What do you think of, uh, the new immigrants that are…coming here today?
FR: You know, these, a lot of ‘em are educated. It’s either the, when they, my parents and the
other [murmurs] they were all laborers. And, uh they [beeping noise] didn’t have much
education.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FR: And some of the guys that are coming over, they already got their education [murmurs]
themselves. But, uh, I don’t know, there’s a lot of... Myself, I think that the only thing that has to
be done [murmurs] the guys that are hired. I see a lot of ‘em working up there roofing and stuff
like that. Those jobs are hard. But, uh they [murmurs].
HK: Yeah.
FR: I don’t know, they…it’s hard to, hard to answer because they’re – they’re taking jobs, jobs
away from, from, uh, the kids, but our kids don’t want those kind of jobs.
HK: Yeah. Yeah.
FR: They don’t, they don’t want those kind of jobs. So [murmurs] I know my grandkids
[murmurs]. Kids they have [murmurs].
HK: Yeah. Do you remember, um, well let’s see…when were you born?
FR: In ’29.
HK: ‘29. So you were right at the start of the Depression, so do you – do you remember
anything?
FR: The only – only thing I remember is my mother hated – hates rabbits. [HK laughs] She hates
rabbits. I guess that’s, uh, Dad, and…I guess, what they ate most of the time. Rabbit.
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: Must’ve been a good rabbit season. I remember when we was in Humboldt, they would, uh,
[murmurs] my dad and this other gentleman would go out in the fields and they wouldn’t even
�take a rifle or anything… just a stick. It snowed enough that the rabbits had a hard time. Kept
jumping and running.
HK: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
FR: And they’d just club ‘em. Put ‘em in the sack. [Murmurs] That’s why Mom would
[murmurs]. She was a – she was a good mother.
HK: Yeah.
FR: And, uh, I remember, uh, [murmurs] during the Depression. These guys, they’d call ‘em
hobos, and, guys on trains [murmurs]. They’d stop [murmurs] get something to eat, and
[murmurs]. Good thing they liked frijoles [laughs] And tortillas. But, you know, these guys
would always, they’d eat, and then they’d head to the wood pile and chop wood.
HK: Oh.
FR: Never turned anybody out [murmurs]. Always had, always had plenty to eat, seemed like.
HK: Uh-huh. What would be, um, like at your, uh…what would be a typical meal that your
mother would fix for you all?
FR: Well, uh, beans was always there.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FR: And rice. And, uh, spare ribs, pork chops [murmurs] everything together, kids started
growing up and…[murmurs]. Tamales at Christmastime. Everybody would get together and
make tamales. Just, uh, something [murmurs] tamales at Christmastime.
HK: Did you exchange gifts during Christmas?
FR: Uh, yeah. Well, you know, not too big. But I do- what I remember most of all is when we
lived at the yard, um…every Christmas, uh, the Salvation Army would come and drive down
there [murmurs]. And they would have a bag and they would have a toy. And, uh, an apple or
something [murmurs] one of the kids that lived there. I don’t remember they ever missed
anybody that was going to school. [Murmurs] I remember that. [Murmurs]. Who turned our
names in, I have no idea, but I do know that, uh, that was a welcome sight.
HK: Yeah. And did your family belong to St. John’s?
FR: Uh, yeah. They went, – they came to church here.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FR: Uh, we all [murmurs].
�HK: Did you always walk to church?
FR: Uh, you know, on, that’s another thing that, uh, Christmas [murmurs]. Go to midnight Mass.
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: Uh, from the yard, you walked, you walked to church. And it’d wind up at about, like, one
o’clock, and we were all walking back. That’s, uh…oh, you know [murmurs] where Dillons is?
HK: Mm-hmm.
FR: Well, back then it was across the railroad tracks…it was about a quarter of a mile.
HK: I heard that, uh –
FR: You wanna, you wanna take the shortcut, you just, uh, go under the railroad tracks. The –
the railroad cars. Instead of coming out on, uh, on, 8th Street, we’d come out on 9th Street.
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: Every once in a while you’d go under there, and, uh, a train [murmurs], and, uh, it’s kind of
a chance.
HK: Yeah, some of the other people talked about going underneath the cars to take the shortcut,
and…
FR: It was awful dark down there.
HK: Yeah.
FR: It was awful dark.
HK: Did anyone ever get hurt doing that?
FR: No. I was, I remember one night I was going home, like I say, there was a dump back there
and, uh, during the day, trucks would come by. And every once in a while, something would fall
off. Anyways, there was this one night I was coming back from the movies, must have been
about 11 o’clock. And, uh, [unintelligible] I got as far as the Poehler building. And over there,
there was something on the – there was, it was just waving like this. [murmurs] “My God, what
do I do now?” ‘Cause I had to go by.
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: I got my courage up and I went up there, and what it was – was a piece of big paper had fell
off of the truck and wrapped itself around one of the switches.
�HK: Oh. [laughs]
FR: And that’s – the wind, it had it going like this. [HK laughs].
HK: Thought you were seeing ghosts or something.
FR: Oh, I tell you. Talk about ghosts. One night, uh, I was coming back down that same street,
[ten?] people used to [murmurs] beer joint at that time. I got to the, the alley between, I think it
was on Pennsylvania, the corner of 8th and Pennsylvania.
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: I was, uh, when I got to the alley I turned there, and, uh…I was coming home and a woman
come out of that alley with a big old black dog. So, I kinda slowed down, and, uh…I hollered to
her, I said: “[Murmurs].” To the corner and she must have been, oh I’d say, from here to the
wall, and, uh, like I say, I was slowing down. This woman turned the corner, went, uh, south on
Pennsylvania. And all the dogs on – on the end of that block started howling. And, uh, when I
got to the corner I looked up to see if she was there, but she was gone.
HK: Hmm. I’ll be darned.
FR: But the dogs on the other end of the block, they were cryin’ I suppose. I don’t know what it
was, but I still had about a half mile to go. And I was, it’s funny to think about. Funny things
happened to me out there.
HK: Yeah, yeah. So, were there very many people living, still living in the Santa Fe apartments
when they, when uh, the ‘51 flood destroyed them, or…?
FR: Uh, my dad and mother was there. And, uh, I’m not sure if the grocery store was still there.
Like I say, I was in the service at that time.
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: [Murmurs] Anyway, after the ‘51 flood [murmurs, rebuilding?] everybody went up, come
up, come up town and [murmurs].
HK: So your parents moved to, uh, where did they move?
FR: They moved over there to, uh, 920 New Jersey Street. They moved up [there?]. Mom loved
[murmurs].
HK: When your dad was working for the railroad, did he have any kind of, um, supplemental
jobs that he did?
FR: Um…no, well, after he retired he kind of mowed yards [murmurs].
�HK: Mm-hmm.
FR: Sometimes I would [murmurs, having kids?]. And having gardens.
HK: Yeah. Did he ever sell his produce to other people, or…?
FR: Uh…
HK: It was just for the family?
FR: Yeah, yeah.
HK: You have any, um, memories of your dad, um, you know like, did he talk about his railroad
work, or…?
FR: Uh, no, he – he, uh, he kind of drove a truck over there for a while. And, uh, we had a,
[murmurs]. He loved to fish, loved to fish. It was [murmurs] go over there, it was always behind
[murmurs] started biting in about 20 minutes [murmurs]. Used to go over there and they stay
there four or five hours. But, uh, he constantly fished. Uh, [murmurs], catfish probably weighed
sixty pounds.
HK: Wow.
FR: I don’t know how he got it on there. He’d put it up on [murmurs, top to bottom?] pushing
[murmurs]. Yeah. I remember, I remember, he never showed, I would say, showed too – too
much affection. Uh, the only time he showed me affection was, uh, sick or something [murmurs].
[To himself?]
HK: Well, he did really good for providing for his big family.
FR: He did, he did. He did.
HK: Especially in difficult times.
FR: He must have did a good job. [laughs] ‘Cause all the boys he had, and all the girls he had,
they never got in trouble.
HK: How many did you say there were altogether?
FR: Thirteen.
HK: Thirteen. How many boys and how many girls?
FR: Uh, I think it’s, uh, seven boys and uh, six boys and seven girls.
�HK: Seven girls.
FR: Yeah, yeah. All of ‘em done well, so [murmurs].
HK: Yeah. Definitely.
FR: [Murmurs, both laugh] But, uh, other than that [murmurs].
HK: Well –
FR: And, uh, if we did something wrong, Mother would say: “Just wait till your dad gets home
and I tell him.” [HK laughs] And, you know, sometimes she would and sometimes she wouldn’t,
and sometimes when she did, we’d already forgotten about it. [Both laugh] And we still got it.
HK: Do you remember your parents helping any other people that, um, like other railroad
workers that were just getting started?
FR: Well, the only time that, uh, that I remember them helping was uh, when these, uh, like I
said, it was, uh, workers from Mexico would come, and they went [murmurs] it was on a kind of
contract. Then, uh, they’d get there about November. They’d wear just, like, shirts or something.
[Murmurs] Guys that lived there would get old coats [murmurs].
HK: Did they stay at your house at all?
FR: No, they had their own room. Uh, like I said, there were these things, these, uh, yards, they
had sometimes, they rented rooms [murmurs].
HK: Oh, okay.
FR: That’s where they lived.
HK: Okay. Did they fix their own food and all that?
FR: Yeah, yeah. A lot of good men [murmurs].
HK: Well, I guess with the outline of the yard is still there, I mean, the concrete slabs –
FR: The concrete slabs are still there.
HK: Yeah. I need to go down and take pictures of it, so…kind of see where, how the layout is.
FR: Like I say, that picture [murmurs, Charlie?] Like I say, they were, very, very close to –
HK: Well, if you bring it, we’ll take a picture –
FR: Okay.
�HK: So that way we can…
FR: Are you gonna be here this afternoon?
HK: Yes, I’m gonna be here. Are you gonna come back for the get-together thing at 1:30?
Around 1:30 they’re supposed to have a bunch of the people that I’ve already interviewed, are
gonna come back and just kind of sit around and talk, so…
FR: Around 1:30?
HK: Uh-huh.
FR: Uh, I’ll come back at 1:30.
HK: Okay. Well, pretty close. [Laughs]
FR: I’ll bring, I’ll bring – I’ll bring it up.
HK: Okay. That sounds good.
FR: Everybody I know [murmurs].
HK: Okay. Alrighty.
FR: Like I say, we’re pretty close. [Murmurs] Chavezes, like John [tape cuts off at 47:06]
END OF TAPE 19
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Description
An account of the resource
La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers in Lawrence, Kansas; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. In 2006, Helen Krische, archivist at the Watkins Community Museum, began an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. The project was resumed in 2019 by Nora Murphy and Emily Raymond. The interviews primarily feature the children of the railroad workers who migrated to Lawrence in the early 20th century; they describe daily life, social activities, and living conditions in the Mexican-American community in Lawrence from roughly the 1920s through the 1970s.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
2019
2021
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
These works are the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Rumback, Ellie
Bolyer, Heather
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Romero, Frank
Original Format
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MP4
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:51:28 (video)
00:47:20 (audio)
Bit Rate/Frequency
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89 kbps
3356 kbps
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Frank Romero La Yarda Interview
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Romero, Frank
Description
An account of the resource
Frank Romero was interviewed by Helen Krische in 2006 as part of an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. Frank lived with his parents and siblings in Lawrence's La Yarda neighborhood. Frank describes his family's migration from Mexico to Lawrence, and the living conditions in La Yarda. He describes childhood pasttimes, and experiences with school and healthcare. He discusses his family's affiliation with the St. John's Church congregation. He talks about how he met his wife, and the role the Spanish language had in their courtship. Frank also describes his work as a mail carrier in North Lawrence.
Contributor
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Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Rumback, Ellie
Bolyer, Heather
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lawrence (Kan.)
1920s - 1970s
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
Format
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MP4 (video recording)
MP3 (audio recording)
PDF (transcription)
Identifier
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19-FRomero-2006.mp4 (video)
19-FRomero-2006.mp3 (audio)
19-FRomero-2006.pdf (transcription)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Relation
A related resource
To access the video and audio recordings of this interview, go to <a href="https://archive.org/details/19-fromero-2006">https://archive.org/details/19-fromero-2006</a>.
The <a href="https://www.watkinsmuseum.org/">Watkins Museum of History</a> also holds items related to this collection.
<a href="https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/resources/5295">Additional research on the La Yarda community</a> is held at the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Published with the permission of Amy Chavez, on behalf of Frank Romero. This work is the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
-
https://history.lplks.org/files/original/cf6a6cbac15082dfb4132f7a0eea3e6e.pdf
efbc219b89f51bc27f31480ab7f69ed3
PDF Text
Text
Tape 20a: Interview with Valentin Romero
Interviewer: Helen Krische
Date of Interview: 2006
Length of Interview: 31:45
Location of Interview: St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church
Transcription Completion Date: November 20, 2020
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Helen Krische (Interviewer): Okay.
Valentin Romero (Interviewee): You probably have a number of questions.
HK: Yeah, well, um –
VR: Pre – Pre-made? Alright.
HK [laughs]: I do, but first we’ve got some paperwork to take care of. And, um, I’m gonna
introduce myself first on the tape, and – and I’m Helen Krische, the interviewer. And, um, this is
Val Romero. And, um, he’s going to do an interview with us today. And first of all, I’m going to
have – uh, this is our consent form. This, um, basically tells what we are doing; we’re doing the,
um, the oral history for, uh, Mexican-Americans here in Lawrence. And the tapes are going to be
held at the Watkins Community Museum, and also possibly go to the Kansas State Historical
Society. Um, and it’s basically asking for you to grant, um, both of these entities all the rights for
recordings, including the intellectual property rights. And, um, this may be, uh…all or parts of
the interviews might be, uh, either in written form; they may be transcribed. Um, we have our
audiotape, videotape, and they may eventually be put on compact discs. Um, they might be put
on the website, um, all of these things, and this is asking for your permission to do this. And I
also want to state that if at any time you want to discontinue the interview, um…if you don’t
want to answer a question that I ask, that’s perfectly fine. Um, if you want to stop briefly for a
rest break, that’s fine, too. So, just let me know, you know, how you’re feeling, what you want to
do, and we can accommodate you.
VR: Well, I – I think my information is about as public as it can be [HK laughs]. I may, uh, say
something that, uh, may not be quite right, but…um, as far as accuracy, just…from my
experience [murmurs].
HK: Sure, sure. And if you could sign that for me, please?
VR: Where would you want the signature?
HK: First of all, I need your name up here: “I the undersigned.”
VR: Alright. [Pause] I’ll give you my real name.
HK [laughs]: Oh, okay. [Pause] What is your real name?
�VR: Valentin.
HK: Oh, okay.
[Pause]
VR: Okay, that’s – that’s the way I spell it there. It’s – it’s just a good Russian name.
HK [laughs]: Okay, down at the bottom, there are two little things, it says, um: “I make the
foregoing gift and grants of right with no restrictions.” And then the next one says that there are
some restrictions, so whichever one of those you want to…um, just put an “X” by it if you want
to, or…
VR: Far as I know, the first one is applicable.
HK: Okay. And then below that, um, we have – there you can print your name and the date. And
then your other information, um, we’re gonna make copies of these tapes so that we can, uh,
contact you and give you a copy, um, as soon as possible. And then today we’ll also give you a
copy of the consent form that you’re signing.
VR: And you want my date on here?
HK: Yeah, what – what is today’s date?
VR: 22nd.
HK: 22nd.
[Pause]
VR: My fingers are stiff nowadays. [HK laughs] Alright. You want the rest of it filled out?
HK: Yeah, the address and your phone number. So that way we can contact you when we have
the tapes ready to give to you.
[Long pause]
VR: I don’t write as fast as I used to.
HK: That’s fine, just take your time.
[Long pause]
VR: I see in today’s paper they have, uh…uh, where they want ‘em to learn how to write again.
HK: Yeah. [Laughs] With some people, you can’t really read their writing anymore, so…
�VR: That’s very true.
HK: Yeah. Alright –
VR: That’s the way I was to begin with [laughs].
HK: Alrighty. So, um, Val, what part of Mexico did your family originally come from?
VR: My, uh, dad came from Leon, Mexico, state of Guanajuato (sic). And my mother also from,
um, the state of Guanajuato (sic). A little town, oh, I’d say, maybe fifteen miles away. [Via?] Del
Plato. Uh…Leon at that time was, uh…a village that the last time I visited, and that’s been over
twenty years ago. It was over 400,000 people.
HK: Yeah.
VR: And, um [clears throat], anyway, uh…my dad, at the young age of – I would say seventeen,
eighteen – when the revolution was there of 1910, uh, was one of the compelling reasons that he
might want to come to the United States. ‘Cause everything was chaos around that part of the
country.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: [Clears throat]: Um…they had, at that time, what they call a [unintelligible?] mass which is
kind of a gathering or fiesta-type thing, and they’d invite the young people to come into the city
square and they had music and what have you. Now this is being told, uh, this is repeating.
HK: Uh-huh.
VR: This is – I think that I – and from there they would keep the young men who were eligible
for conscription into the forces. Uh, now, I don’t know whether it was for the federal forces or
the revolutionary forces. This, I never understood. However, [clears throat], my dad supposedly
was, uh, caught in one of those. And, uh, he was in the military of some sort, for a while. And,
uh, the day that they found out that the railroad went north, which was quite a ways to go, they
says, uh, we’ll just drop our arms and go on. And, uh, he came into the United States by way of
El Paso. Uh, permanent residents under the railroad. Uh…at that time, there was not just one
railroad, but, uh, different people on the railroad were connecting. Uh…the rail systems. To
make a rail system. So, uh, my sister Gladys was born in Wichita. She’s – my brother Raymond
is the older, he was born here in Lawrence. And I was born here in Lawrence. So there’s a time
there that, uh, they went from one railroad company into another company until they got to,
uh…uh connect it with Santa Fe. And one of his first stations Santa Fe was Lecompton, Kansas.
And from Lecompton, Kansas, this would be about 1910. Up when ex-president Teddy
Roosevelt came to Lawrence to dedicate the water fountain. My dad got to shake hands with, uh,
Teddy Roosevelt. And, uh, maybe I’m saying this wrong, but he – he said, “Hey, there’s no other
president [unintelligible] that’s the one I met, Teddy Roosevelt.” Uh, this was one of his things
that he kept until age 92 [clears throat]. Uh, coming in…the, uh, railroad would, uh, bring the
�people in and they would drop them at, uh, different, uh, sections. Uh, well, they’d come through
Emporia, they’d come through, uh…actually, I don’t remember the next town there. Then Osage
City, um, Carbondale, Pauline, Topeka, Kansas. Topeka, Kansas, they’d come to Spencer. From
Spencer they’d come to Lecompton. Uh, Lecompton to Lawrence. So my dad chose Lawrence
for the last stop during his stop.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: Uh, however, he spent time in Lecompton, working on that particular section. Uh…and, um,
of course they came without any transportation. So, uh, when the railroads would have, uh,
derailment or some need for one section to help another section, to help another section, uh, they
would bring ‘em together. In this way the men, the workers, laborers, would interact to find out
where they came from, what year they may have came – came in, how old are you, how many
chicos do you have, how many niños? Family. Uh…and that’s the way they started to get, uh,
acquainted with one another.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: And the Santa Fe at that time, after you worked so long, you were eligible for a pass, which
would let you board the train and you could go to Kansas City, Chicago, or wherever you wanted
to, long as the Santa Fe was running there. Uh…that’s the way my dad knew a few people in
Topeka and – and he never did stay much in Kansas City, because he – he said that was just not,
uh…it just wasn’t his kind of town.
HK: Mm-hmm. So he worked for the Santa Fe railroad?
VR: Yes, he worked for the Santa Fe over 30 years. Mm-hmm. And, uh [laughs] then they had
the lay off just before Social Security, so he didn’t get in on – on that.
HK: Oh.
VR: But he later found a job, of course, and he did get Social Security. But, uh, during those, uh,
earlier years, they had a union or – or an organization and they had medical hospital in Topeka,
uh, for the workers, that is. ‘Cause, uh, I was born at what would be, at the, before the 9th Street.
That’s where the original Santa Fe bunkhouses that were made out of ties, railroad ties, in
Lawrence
HK: Oh.
VR: And, um, that was the housing for the workers. And then, however in ‘27, when I was born,
they made the new houses across the tracks, east, but you had to get in by way of 8th Street to get
to the real nice cement floors, brick, good windows, good doors, good roofs, just a real good
place to be.
HK: This was in Lawrence?
�VR: Yes, this was Lawrence. This was all Lawrence, east Lawrence. Uh, the yards, the Santa Fe
yards were larger than what they are today. And Poehler Company was a wholesaler company
that brought in wholesale groceries for the – for the area. And then they, redistributed it again,
what I understand. I never worked there or [worked?] for there, Mr…let’s see, Mr. Henshaw?
That sound right? Kerchaw. Mr. Kerchaw ran the business at that time. Everybody knew one
another, or knew of one another. So, uh, I went to New York School for, uh, all of us, you might
say, all of us went to school except for a couple of ‘em that went to Pinckney. And then some of
the older boys went to the old Quincey High School, or maybe I’m wrong, high school. No, uh –
Quincey School, uh, where the US Armory used to be on 11th Street. They’re pretty near right
across from, uh, Capitol Federal today.
HK: Oh.
VR: Uh…the Central Junior High, and – and the old high building which was the high school.
And, um, [Manuel?], the other school, there’s one on each corner. Uh, where the schools I went
to for junior high. And then from there, uh, graduated or came to Lawrence High School at 1400
block Massachusetts.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: And my brother was the first Mexican boy to graduate from – from the high school. I guess
I was the second one [laughs]. Uh…it was Mr. [Weir?] was my, uh, principal. And, um, I got
drafted, uh, let’s see, I got out of school in – for graduation and then June the 4th, 1945, I entered
the armed forces. Which happened to be Army for me.
HK: Uh-huh.
VR: And I went to the European theater, everybody says: “Why do you call it the European
theater?” [“Hey,” addressing someone who entered the room.] That’s just what it was –
Unknown Person: Excuse me, I’m gonna bring some stuff in, just in case y’all get thirsty, okay?
HK: Okay.
Unknown Person: Some ice…
VR: And then, after serving just a short two years in the Army, I came home at, um, I worked for
Skelly Oil Company.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: And a Chrysler Plymouth Agency. And I worked there maybe 20 years, and then after that I
went into the post office. Um, but in the meantime I’d taken a couple of years at the University
of Kansas. And I don’t know if it’s fair to say this or not, but I had a lady counselor that when I
went up to the University of Kansas: “You don’t belong here!” That isn’t what I was there for. I
�– I said: “Young lady, I’m here to learn. I – why do you tell me – tell me that I don’t belong
here?” And, um, I just let it go at that.
HK: Uh-huh.
VR: But she still continued the counseling, but it wasn’t any – any counseling that I would give
to someone else. Uh…I never looked into the lady’s background or anything, but I’d see her
running around campus and she had the hair braided around her head like that. And nobody
spoke to her, so I suppose she was somewhat of a “I’m over here and you guys are over here”…
HK: Yeah. She wasn’t very encouraging.
VR: Not – not very encouraging, no. And, uh…those are the only few jobs I ever had with, uh,
working for Chrysler. And working for Skelly Oil Company.
HK: You did get married?
VR: Oh, yes, yes, I – we would go to, uh, dances like, uh, Ottawa, Chanute. Uh, Kansas City
occasionally, Topeka, and – and, uh, we – some of ‘em were weddings, you know, where
couples married and you know one another and we actually, the old folks knew just about
everybody around. And, uh, they’d say, come get together. Yes, I married in 1957.
HK: Okay.
VR: Mm-hmm. Um, my wife, Elizabeth, is from Osawatomie, Kansas. I met her in Chanute at,
uh, what they call the Sixteenth of September Celebration, ‘cause, uh, Chanute had a big
Mexican population working in the Santa Fe shops. And, the people from Oklahoma,
Independence, Fredonia, Howard, Kansas, uh, Coffeyville, Newton, Wichita, El Dorado, they
would all come in and take over the town for two days.
HK: Oh.
VR: It was quite a celebration, quite a get-together.
HK: Uh-huh.
VR: That’s where I met her. [HK laughs] And, uh, the funny part about it was, the next time I
met her was at Ottawa, and, uh, I was sitting right next to her and I really didn’t pay much
attention to her. And, uh, I went out and danced and when I came back to sit down on the chair –
when I sat down on the chair, the chair collapsed.
HK: Uh-oh.
VR: And I said, that’s when I really saw her. [HK laughs] And from there on, we became friends
and later – then got married…and everybody says: “Hey, somebody just wanted you to see who
was next to you.” [HK laughs] But the chair did break. [HK laughs]. Yeah…
�HK: How many children do you have?
VR: Four.
HK: Four.
VR: Two boys and two girls.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: Yes, and all the children went to high school. The oldest girl, she finished college. Of course
you plan for the first one, and you don’t really plan for the – the full commitment –
HK: Yeah.
VR: Of the rest, because, uh, well, to hear the prices of college now as to the prices of college
then, um, I even kind of wonder how I got my first daughter through college.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: Um, I wasn’t making that much, and although I was very fortunate, I averaged about $305
dollars a month, and, uh, that – that was a pretty good salary at that time.
HK: Mm-hmm. Could you describe – did you live in La Yarda?
VR: Yes.
HK: Could you describe a little bit about, um, what it was like living there and what it looked
like, and…?
VR: Oh, okay, uh…the yard, if you take this container here, it was kind of an E-shape without
the center. And then this other side was, say, facing the center. We had a community pump on
the south side. And [clears throat] the toilets were on the opposite side. Uh, two sets, one for
each side.
HK: Those were like outhouses?
VR: Yes, outhouses.
HK: Like the – mm-hmm.
VR: There were – there was an apartment here on this corner, apartment here, apartment here,
and an apartment at this corner. And the – the ladies would plant flowers in front of their houses
to equal the outer shape of the – of the “L,” you might say.
�HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: And, uh, then where the pump house – now this is City water – not City water, it was Santa
Fe well water, which was made for the old steam engines to refill.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: I don’t think the City was connected to that, but we had piped water –
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: Not, uh, lever pump. Uh [clears throat] from there, uh…there was a big walnut tree. I would
say that that walnut tree was half as big as this table.
HK: Wow.
VR: And under that tree on the hot summer days, lunch was under that tree. Picnic style, you
might say.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: And, uh, ‘course each family brought enough for their, each family. That was one of the
things there. And back here, towards, behind the outhouses, we made, a – leveled off some
ground and we’d play, uh, something like tennis, only we had paddles instead of tennis rackets.
And we’d build our own playhouse, uh…out of logs and what have you, kind of a little stage
there, but it was on the ground.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: And we would, uh, uh…dramatize, uh…we had the – uh, an older boy that was a little bit
hard of hearing. But he had ideas. He says: “Let’s do this and let’s do that,” and we’d, uh, we
were actors. [HK laughs] We were actors. And I don’t remember exact scenes or – they were
strictly what little we knew there, and, uh, one of the scenes was: “Ahhh! I am a great hunter, I
shall go out and hunt a rabbit.” And that was the end of it. [HK laughs] And the next scene was,
uh…what was it…oh: “I am a musician. I have a guitar but I don’t know how to play it.”
[Laughs] Well – I mean, this is – is really true, what we were doing, we…uh, and then we’d say:
“Well, up at school, we sit down and we write and we read and Mrs. Wood and Miss Overly,
they tell us, they’ll read a story to us.” So one of the girls would – we didn’t have books, like you
might say, and she put her hands up like this and kind of read a – a makeup story, you know.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: I – I forget what the subjects were, but really, for not having material readings, we, uh, we
were still competent at reading. And, uh, this particular family, the Romeros, were transferred to
Humboldt, Kansas, which is south, pretty near to Chanute. So, us – my brother and mom and
another family – decided to go visit them. Uh, one Sunday afternoon – one Sunday, whole day,
�we left early and came back late. The thing was, we said: “Okay, what’s the name of your
town?” “Oh…is it Hamburger?” [Both laugh]. So we…we said: “Well, write it out for us.” And
– and, uh, that – that was one of the descriptions of the town Humboldt, Kansas. I remember that
real well, and I said: “Hamburger? That doesn’t quite…” Well, however. Uh…then that
particular family was moved back to Lawrence. Uh [clears throat], and my – now, if I go back to
Lecompton, and my dad, like I said, worked on the railroad. But in the cold weather, they would,
uh, uh, not give ‘em vacation, but they’d, uh, there was just time that they really couldn’t work.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: So he worked for a pipe company that was building a pipeline through one side of
Lecompton.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: I don’t know whether it was gas or gasoline or what it was, but they…they said my dad was
a smaller man, [murmurs] very muscular, very short person, very agile. He could have been a
good gymnasium – you know, a gymnast. And they’d send him down at the bottom of the pipe,
the pipe was to align it, cause they’d say: “Hey, Johnny! John, John! Go down there and check
that pipe.” And I – I kept thinking back, I said: “You know, Dad, you used to take a lot of
chances going down in those ditches, ‘cause they could cave in or something.” He says: “Yeah,”
he says, “You know, I didn’t think anything about it; it just was a day’s work.” I said: “But, Dad,
how come, uh…you did that?” And he said: “Well, I had to work. We had to earn money,” he
says, “the farmer down the road wanted to sell me some land for two dollars an acre, and I was
trying to make money.” But we never did buy that land, so…two dollars an acre is – compared to
what it is today, that’s quite a…well, anyway. Then I look back and our Sunflower Ordinance
work came out, some of the young ladies that were left here applied to work out there, and they
were on that powder line, the mixing, that were highly explosive just like any [murmurs]. I said:
“Did you guys work there?” I said, and they said: “Yes, even your sister was there.” I said: “How
long was my sister working there?” She worked two weeks and that was all. [HK laughs]. She
said the, uh, the explosion rate was too high.
HK: Yeah.
VR: Uh, for the flash, and I should – not explosion, but flash –
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: That place. But, uh…far as Lawrence, we would come to the concerts at South Park. We
would go to the University, they had a summer school, uh, dances up there. We’d attend those.
‘Course we’d go to the museum, and we’d see Comanche Indians [HK laughs, tape cuts off].
END OF TAPE 20A
�
https://history.lplks.org/files/original/f994c560ea90f53872dbc329976a0678.pdf
6ec6fa089a438872e3a81e0777bccac4
PDF Text
Text
Tape 20b: Interview with Valentin Romero
Interviewer: Helen Krische
Date of Interview: 2006
Length of Interview: 32:56
Location of Interview: St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church
Transcription Completion Date: November 20, 2020
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Valentin Romero (Interviewee): Our other trip was to go the University and we’d have a picnic
up there, at [unintelligible].
Helen Krische (Interviewer): Uh-huh.
VR: But this was on a streetcar, not a – not a bus or –
HK: Was Woodland Parks still in operation at that time?
VR: Uh, Woodland Park was there; it was operated by [Game?] Price.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: Uh, related to – let’s see, his sister – his wife was part – one of [unintelligible] family. And,
um, Woodland Park, the way I remember it, they had a baseball diamond, they had a horse track,
and that’s all I can remember. And it was, if you go down 11th Street and could have gone
straight through the woods, uh, that’s where it was.
HK: Okay. So it was – was it right next to the cemetery, is that right?
VR: Uh, before you get to St. John’s or Mount Calvary Cemetery. Uh, it was towards the
railroad tracks. Mm-hmm.
HK: Now, the – the houses in the La Yarda, were they constructed of brick?
VR: Yes. The ones that were constructed on the east side of the railroad, uh, by way of entrance
of 8th Street, they were very, they were cement slabs, brick house, double brick. And, uh, like I
said, good windows and good doors, air-tight. And a chimney, they had, for your wood stove, of
course, at that time. Uh, wood stove was for making food and, uh, for heat in the wintertime.
HK: How did those compare with, like, Union Pacific houses?
VR: Now, Union Pacific housing at that time, what little I remember, were boxcars.
HK: Okay.
VR: They were modified boxcars. Very, very neat, but of course an 80-foot boxcar is quite a bit
of space.
�HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: Like today home trailers.
HK: Okay.
VR: They’re about 80 foot.
HK: Yeah. Did they have the boxcars, like, divided up into rooms, or…? How did –
VR: Uh, most generally one family per boxcar.
HK: Uh-huh.
VR: Uh, yes, they, uh, if they didn’t have walls, uh, they strung a curtain or – or…whatever it
was for privacy.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: And, uh, now those people had a – a pump. They had a hand pump. Uh, they didn’t have…
well, Union Pacific had their own water systems for their steam engines. But, uh, they didn’t
have it for all the different sections.
HK: So the water that you got that was piped in, was that sanitary water, that you know of?
VR: Yes, it, uh, ‘cause it was the same water that the Santa Fe depot used for their own use
within the depot.
HK: Mm-hmm. What – what did you all do for healthcare? Like if you had to see the doctor,
or…?
VR: Well, uh, under healthcare…the quickest doctor I can think of is Dr. Orchard (sic). He was a
family practitioner, and he brought a lot of the babies into the world.
HK: Mm-hmm. Did – did he make house calls there, at, uh…?
VR: Oh, yes, they made house calls. And I was gonna say Dr. Cabell? But that isn’t the right
name. Um…he was, uh, right down the street from 9th Street and Kentucky. Upstairs [clears
throat], uh, he was another – another doctor. And then the surgeon, Dr. Zimmerman, uh, well,
they were the three basic – there was other doctors, and Dr. Jones, but they were the three basic
doctors that, uh, our people went to.
HK: Mm-hmm. And did– did the Santa Fe Railroad help to pay for your healthcare, or was
there…?
�VR: Uh, the healthcare that the Santa Fe had was for, uh, the worker only.
HK: Oh, okay.
VR: I don’t recall that it was for family. See, like I said, my dad came out of the railroad system
just when Social Security kicked in. And at that time, they may have had other provisions within
their, uh, medical health.
HK: Okay. And dental care, was there any dental care at that time?
VR: Uh, yes, Dr. McFarland [spelling?]. Dr. McFarland was a good doctor, but he – he was an
older dentist, and all I can remember is this one person said: “I have a bad tooth, and I have a bad
tooth, I’ll go to see Dr. McFarland.” Dr. McFarland said: “Alright, climb up here. And we’ll take
that tooth out.” And he said: “That poor doctor did as much as he could, and couldn’t come out,
and he says: “I’m gonna have to get on top of you to – to get – get that tooth out.” And he said,
he practically climbed on him to remove the tooth, but other than that, that’s just one of the
stories.
HK: Yeah. [Both laugh]
VR: But, uh, I don’t recall us as a family having tooth problems. I mean, we may have had ‘em,
we may have had ‘em, or…because I didn’t start seeing the dentist until I went to school and
they would examine your teeth and kind of give you a little checkup.
HK: Now, did you – did you grow up speaking Spanish, or were you –
VR: Yeah.
HK: Bilingual, or…?
VR: Uh, I was…my sister and my brother had gone to school earlier.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: So they – they were already ahead of me. But being I stayed home, I spoke to my mom and
dad in Spanish.
HK: Uh-huh.
VR: And, uh, my – I say that my mom and dad knew good Spanish. I don’t know if you
understand…like people have street Spanish out here, or street English, and over here they have,
uh, uh, broken English.
HK: Uh-huh.
�VR: My – my mom and dad spoke good Spanish. What I call good Spanish. Uh…in fact, the
whole community spoke the better Spanish, in my opinion.
HK: Did you teach your children any Spanish? Did they grow up speaking any Spanish?
VR: What was that, now?
HK: Did your children grow up speaking Spanish?
VR: Yes, up till the – the time my grandfather – their grandfather died.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: Mm-hmm. Now, my last two children, Grandfather was already gone, so, uh…sure, they
know enchilada, comadres, uh, things like that, and Carlos O’Kelly, and…[HK laughs] uh, but,
uh, they can understand a lot of it.
HK: Uh-huh.
VR: But their words are stumbling sometimes. And we do use Spanish, and if we come up to a
word, they’ll throw English in there, and keep on going.
HK: Sure, sure.
VR: Now, on my wife’s side, out of their little town of Osawatomie, they had to learn English
because, uh, there were just so few of them, even if it was a – a roundhouse, uh…community,
there wasn’t that many Spanish-speaking people. They were mostly Italian.
HK: Oh.
VR: Mm-hmm. And, uh, she, the mother, her mother knew good English, I mean, very well, in
English. Her mother and – and my – Liz’s uncle – he lived in Stanley, which was…oh, I don’t
know how far, maybe 40 miles away from there. And, uh, they were just one family. One family,
so they – they just fell in to the community.
HK: Mm-hmm. Did you have any other extended family living with you? I know that you had
your dad and mom were there of course, but did you have any aunts and uncles that – ?
VR: No. No, I did not. However, this lady, Matiana from Eudora, uh, I’d hear all the children:
“We’re gonna go to Grandmother’s house, or Grandmother’s coming over!” And I asked my
mom, I said: “Mama, I don’t have a grandmother.” She said: “No, you don’t, you – you have
yours in Mexico.” So this lady Matiana said: “I’ll be your grandmother.” And…well, what do
you think, I mean, sure! So, now I was in grade school when this happened. So I would get on
the train, Santa Fe train, the workman’s, uh, the work train. And I’d ride the caboose to Eudora.
And, uh, then – this would be on a Friday, maybe, or a Saturday, I’d go – and then I’d spend the
night with them at Eudora, at her house. And, well, hey, I did chores, I did what little I did,
�‘cause – and then I’d come back in the big train from Kansas City to Lawrence, and it would stop
at Eudora and pick you up and bring you in. Yes, that was quite a deal. I did that until the lady
passed away, and I guess I would have been, uh, I was still in junior high. And I was one of the
pallbearers. And they lived away from the main road and…and, uh, when she passed away, it
rained so much that they couldn’t get through that road.
HK: Oh.
VR: So we carried the casket, well, maybe today you might say a quarter of a mile.
HK: Wow.
VR: And, uh, we just walked it all the way through. And, you know, we never did rest. We just
walked it and I was one of the carriers.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: One of the pallbearers. But that lady, I – I don’t know if she ever had a husband or not, but,
uh, she had a son by the name of John. And, uh, they were just good people. Good people to me,
uh…well, she – she says: “What would you like to eat?” or, you know…just like a, you might
say, a grandmother spoils a kid.
HK: Sure.
VR: And I think that, like she said, uh…uh, in Spanish: “Tu eres la luz de la casa,” in other
words, saying: “You are the light of home, the…You bring light into our home.”
HK: How sweet.
VR: Uh-huh. And I…kind of remember that.
HK: Did you, uh, were you aware of any prejudice in Lawrence growing up, or, um…?
VR: Well, I really didn’t know what prejudice was.
HK: Uh-huh.
VR: Uh, I ate at the restaurants, at Mr. Reed’s. I, uh…I went to the show. Let’s see, what else did
I do…I went to the barbershop. Well, I did just about everything.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: ‘Course, uh…you might say I was kind of a loner there for a while, ‘cause all the other boys
were already working and they were, uh, doing what they’re doing.
HK: Mm-hmm.
�VR: And, uh, they had brothers and sisters: “Oh, I’m gonna go with my brother or I’m gonna go
with my sister. Or the three of us are gonna go,” And see, I was – I was the only one left in our
family and I kind of had to go, well, kind of alone.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: Yes. Uh…no, but, uh, the only thing that bothered me – well, not – not bothered me – but I
saw here at St. John’s that, um, they wanted us, when we came to Mass, to sit on the back pews.
HK: Mm.
VR: But I didn’t take that as, uh, as being discriminating. I mean, I didn’t feel it at that time.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: Maybe it – it was, maybe – maybe…but we did occupy the last, um, pews. Mm-hmm.
HK: Did your family join St. John’s when they first came here to Lawrence?
VR: Yes, yes.
HK: Yeah, so…that is a long –
VR: In fact, in 1927 when I was born, Dad said: “Hey, they built a church for you.” [HK laughs]
See, if you look at our cornerstone, it says 1927.
HK: Uh-huh.
VR: Yeah, yeah. Marie Ice, and Ice [murmurs] under, we were baptized under Father Fitzgerald.
I can’t think of his first name. Yeah…uh, yes I would attend the summer relish – uh, religion
school with the nuns from Leavenworth. No, I – I don’t feel, ‘cause the boys I ran around in high
school, we would go to the Meadow Acres in Topeka to see the big bands. And, uh…then the
university occasionally would get a big band and we’d go to that.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: Although I never did go to the, uh, the high school prom, I – I guess I just didn’t go.
[laughs]. But as far as going in the – we’d get over to the Dynamite, which was over past 23rd
Street. And then Mr. Wiedeman’s, he would serve us ice cream though he had other stuff he
could sell, but, uh…we usually got a dish of ice cream. Then, the Velvet Freeze, we’d sit down
in there and we’d be served. I don’t recall any – I mean, to me, now, now this is just me. Maybe
somebody else had a different experience. But, no… But I noticed that Ottawa and Topeka and
some of those towns were really bad about that. I don’t know what the reason was, but, uh…I
suppose they had ugly moments or something.
�HK: Yeah. So how do you think, um, the lives of Mexican-Americans today differ? I mean, do
you think it’s a lot better for them now? Um, what advantages do you see that they have?
VR: Well, uh, when we lived down there at the section houses, everybody was the same. Nobody
had money.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: I mean, you could come down Massachusetts Street and you’d know all the – all the shop
owners, and they were a little better off, of course. [Clears throat] But far as the children that
went to school at New York School, uh…uh, we were all on the same level. ‘Cause I remember
one kid by the name of Charles, he says: “What is money?” You know? “Uh, I don’t know any
math.” But hey, I – I had a quarter my mom…on Saturdays would give me a quarter and I’d
come to the [Pathe?] Theatre. And I’d buy popcorn, and then after that I had enough to buy a
hamburger at Mr. Reed’s hamburger stand. And when I spent my quarter, that was the end of the
day. [HK laughs]
HK: Well, can you think of anything else that…?
VR: Well, at our house we never had a lock.
HK: Oh.
VR: We – we never locked our door.
HK: Uh-huh.
VR: If, uh…my dad had some tools, like a saw or hammer, couple of hammers, a – a big
sledgehammer, uh…different-sized saws, and things that people’d say: “John, I need a – I need a
heavy hammer!” “Well you know where it’s at, it’s over in the tool house there at home!” And
they’d have wedges for splitting wood, you know.
HK: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
VR: Uh…well…and then, of course, when my brother learned how to drive, we bought us a
Model A Ford truck and we did a little hauling, you know, people, they – they, sometimes they’d
move and they’d say: “Can you haul this over to the other house?” We did things like that. And
then in the ‘40s, ‘39s and ‘40s, before the ‘51 flood, uh…in the summertime the whole town, not
– not only us – would go out and pick potatoes with, uh…hauled out potatoes on the other side of
the river.
HK: Oh.
VR: I – I worked for Mr. Nicholson, a – a gentleman, an older gentleman that had a greenhouse
on East 11th. And I’d help him plant tomatoes, I’d help him cut asparagus, uh…in the fall, we,
�uh, picked turnips. Uh, what else did we do…well, anyways, he didn’t have no – he had
livestock, but we didn’t move bales or anything like that.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: That came later on. I…I learned quite a bit from him. He, uh, him and Annie, uh, ran this,
well, 80-acre farm. Well, that’s what, uh…people used to be able to live off of an 80-acre farm
that they’d raise corn, they’d raise, uh…oh, what else would they raise…? And then he had him
an apple orchard there, to one side, by an apple orchard, I think he had eighteen trees and, uh, he
did a lot of spraying work and a lot of taking care of the orchard.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: And then there was a vinegar cider plant on, uh, the 800 block of, uh, Pennsylvania. And
when the, uh, apple season was on, and – and I didn’t go out to Mr. Nicholson, I’d bring me a
bag, take it to school, and then on the way back I’d stop at Mr. Krum’s, uh, vinegar place. I’d
say: “Mr. Krum, do you have any good apples?” He said: “Well, you know all the apples I use
for vinegar, why don’t you go back there and fill up your own sack?” Well, a little sack was a
little bit bigger than a little sack. [HK laughs] And he said: “Oh, do you have a dime?” I said:
“Sure, I have a dime,” that’s about what I…he’d charge me. And every once in a while I
wouldn’t have my dime, he says: “Go back there, go back there.” [HK laughs] He was real good
to – to me, anyhow. I – I don’t know…
HK: Did you, um, where – do you remember the – the POW camp being over on that side? How
– how far was it from, um, the…La Yarda there?
VR: Uh, just across the tracks.
HK: Okay.
VR: Across the main line and two spur tracks. The two spur tracks I’m talking about are where
we had the bulk stations of gasoline, bulk stations. Uh…they would bring in carloads of…uh,
train carloads of gasoline and it’d be siphoned out of the tank car into storage cars. There was,
uh, Skelly Oil Company, City Service, [RV?], and then two other companies that had a – a line
up there. And then immediately to the east was, uh, POW camp, mm-hmm.
HK: Was there – ?
VR: But, uh, they didn’t give us any trouble, they…they, a couple of ‘em spoke English.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: Let’s see, what was the only phrase I knew at that time? This was pre-, pre-Army time. [HK
laughs]. Uh… ‘Course, I’d hear the other older people downtown said: “Wie sprechen Sie
Deutsch?” and uh, uh…well, I said [unintelligible] and…Well, that, you know. And, uh, yeah,
�they had their compound, wired compound there. Far as trouble, they were no trouble, they –
they were farmed out to people with farms.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: You know…
HK: So when the ‘51 flood came, did that destroy the compound there, or…?
VR: The water was above the chimney.
HK: Oh, gosh.
VR: Of the place, there. And, uh [clears throat] Joe Ramirez and myself, we went down there
when the water was coming across the 8th Street road. And we told the folks: “The water is
coming, and they say it’s gonna be above your houses. Move.” And, um, well, us young kids,
you might say, we were – we would still be…we would still be about, uh, under eighteen, trying
to tell older folks what to do, or –
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: Or what we recommended that somebody else told us to do. Yes, they moved, but they left
their – some of their furniture stuff, uh, propped up –
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: Uh, and then of course you – when you come back, everything’s in disarray.
HK: Mm-hmm. So did the – did the people move out at that time from the compound?
VR: Yes, they all moved into town. A few of them stayed in town afterwards. Uh…it, they
reclaimed it, just as good as it was before…
HK: Mm-hmm. Well, I think we’re about to run out of tape.
VR: Oh, my goodness. Time, huh? Yeah, that’s the one thing you don’t want to run out of.
HK: That’s right, that’s right. Well, I thank you very much for coming and telling – telling us
about your experiences.
VR: Well, uh…there’s probably a lot of other things to say, but, uh…you’ll – you’ll get it from
the rest of the people.
HK: Uh-huh, uh-huh. Fantastic.
VR: But, uh, sometimes, if you get two or three – at least two of them together –
�HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: They’ll, uh, they’ll bring up ideas, families. See, now, like I said, I was just Mom and Dad
and my sister there for a while.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: My brother was in the Navy for four years. In fact, he enlisted, uh, one day before the 1941,
when the…December the 7th. He enlisted in the – when they made the announcement over the
radio, he took off to Kansas City and they sent him up to Great Lakes and then from there they
turned around and sent him to San Diego.
HK: Yeah.
VR: Uh, I just went to Leavenworth a couple of times [HK laughs]. Then they – then they sent
me to Camp Hood, Texas, for, uh…I took my training.
HK: Mm-hmm.
VR: But, uh, my brother and I, uh…noticed that some of the boys that had been in the army, like
Mr.…um, well anyways, he was sheriff here at one time. Uh, Saunders. Uh…Sanders, Sanders.
He was already in the Army in Hawaii and he would write – I think his folks moved, were
renting and they had to move from one house to another. And, uh…they miscommunicated, and,
uh, that’s when my brother and I, and my sisters said: “We’re gonna buy a house so Dad and
Mom will have an address that we can write to while we were in the service.”
HK: Oh, that’s…okay. Well, um…I think what I’m gonna do is, let me get you a copy of this.
[Long pause] This consent form. [Tape cuts off at 28:54]
END OF TAPE 20B
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Description
An account of the resource
La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers in Lawrence, Kansas; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. In 2006, Helen Krische, archivist at the Watkins Community Museum, began an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. The project was resumed in 2019 by Nora Murphy and Emily Raymond. The interviews primarily feature the children of the railroad workers who migrated to Lawrence in the early 20th century; they describe daily life, social activities, and living conditions in the Mexican-American community in Lawrence from roughly the 1920s through the 1970s.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
2019
2021
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
These works are the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Romero, Valentin
Original Format
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MP4
Duration
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01:01:31 (video)
00:31:45 (20a audio)
00:32:56 (20b audio)
Bit Rate/Frequency
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97 kbps
3712 kbps
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Valentin Romero La Yarda Interview
Creator
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Romero, Valentin
Description
An account of the resource
Valentin Romero was interviewed by Helen Krische in 2006 as part of an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. Valentin lived with his parents and siblings in Lawrence's La Yarda neighborhood, and then in East Lawrence. Valentin describes his family's migration from Mexico to Lawrence, his father's work for the railroad, and his school experiences. Valentin discusses his work history, and describes how he met his wife. He describes the living conditions in the La Yarda neighborhood, childhood pasttimes, and social activities of the Mexican-American community in Lawrence and other Kansas towns. Valentin discusses experiences of discrimination and segregation encountered by Mexican-American community members. Valentin also describes the impact of the 1951 flood on the La Yarda neighborhood.
Contributor
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Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Coverage
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Lawrence (Kan.)
1920s - 1970s
Date
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2006
Format
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MP4 (video recording)
MP3 (audio recording)
PDF (transcription)
Identifier
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20-VRomero-2006.mp4 (video)
20a-VRomero-2006.mp3 (audio) and 20a-VRomero-2006.pdf (transcription)
20b-VRomero-2006.mp3 (audio) and 20b-VRomero-2006.pdf (transcription)
Publisher
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Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Relation
A related resource
To access the video and audio recordings of this interview, go to <a href="https://archive.org/details/20-vromero-2006">https://archive.org/details/20-vromero-2006</a>.
The <a href="https://www.watkinsmuseum.org/">Watkins Museum of History</a> also holds items related to this collection.
<a href="https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/resources/5295">Additional research on the La Yarda community</a> is held at the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.
Rights
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Published with the permission of Elizabeth Romero, on behalf of Valentin Romero. This work is the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
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https://history.lplks.org/files/original/5b8cab3d4b2c097e9d821af9f401388c.pdf
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Text
Tape 21a: Interview with Ramon (Raymond) Romero
Interviewer: Helen Krische
Date of Interview: 2006
Length of Interview: 48:08
Location of Interview: St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church
Transcription Completion Date: December 13, 2020
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Interviewee’s daughter Lupe states on March 1, 2021: “He let people call him Raymond and other
Mexican Americans who knew him called him by his real name Ramon. So his full name is Ramon
Enrique Romero Sr.”
NOTE: Garbled sounds and static until about 16:00. Some words intelligible from 16:00-20:00.
Tape clears up slightly after 20:00 but does not become mostly intelligible until about 21:50. I
began transcribing what words I could manage to decipher at 15:48. I have left blanks (___)
where the speech is distorted or otherwise unintelligible.
Raymond Romero (Interviewee): We’d get chicken and strawberries, corn…I remember, about
twice…Next.
Helen Krische (Interviewer): Next? Just run down the question list, huh? Um, so you spoke
Spanish.
RR: Well, yes. Oh, you want to know about that?
HK: Oh, yeah.
RR: Back in 1945 when I started kindergarten, the worst __ that I ever got was Susan __, the
assistant __ superintendent here. __ E. Birch was the __ , and he’d go over to schools __, show
us what penmanship was. Write your name __. Well, __ he must have gotten out of the wrong
side of the bed that day __ there was about four or five of us. __ I was the closest one ___.
Grabbed me. “__ you little devil!” What can I do __? I was scared. What you gonna do? __ little
kid. That was about the worst treatment I’ve gotten. __ I’ll let it go at that.
HK: So you just learned English?
RR: __ Starting in the kindergarten, first grade I knew a little more. Second grade, a couple __
finally graduated.
HK: Did you graduate from, um, Lawrence?
RR: From Liberty __ Most of – most of these kids, uh __. What was the other __? Some of those
– some of those kids __ got to, uh, third grade. One or two families moved out of here. They
moved to __. Might as well stay here during the Depression.
HK: Yeah.
�RR: Then, let’s see. The only ones who – me and Marty were the only ones that were left __ who
came through junior high. I don’t know what happened __ in junior high. I couldn’t quit because
I wanted to get moving. I kept on going, got out of Liberty. But as far as I know, I was the first
Mexican that graduated. What tickled me, you know, there was a library, had a picture of
different people there. Who are these people? I seen their picture there __. “Who’s that guy?”
Said: “We want to know.” “Well, you’re talking to him.” [Laughter] __ she put it down or what
she done. That was the last time __.
HK: ___.
RR: __ question, where did you get those pictures? I said: “Well at that time if I remember __
they were charging us 25 cents a picture. And that was in ‘41. ‘40 or ‘41. Times were hard, and,
then, see, the war didn’t start until December the 7th, 1941. Then everything started going up __
Roosevelt, yeah, Roosevelt __ everybody, not just the __. Now, what’s next?
HK: Yeah. Well, when did you – where did you meet your wife?
RR: My wife –
HK: Was she from around here?
RR: Oh, you shouldn’t have asked me [HK laughs]. I was getting off – I was getting off the train
after my first discharge. Ah…my old girlfriend, she had, uh, moved to California. I didn’t know
it ‘til I got home that, uh, she had moved to California. __ Oh, well, God be with you. This, when
I got off the train there in the Union Pacific __, I got down and had my little seat back. And there
she was with her mother and, uh, her brother, they were getting on the train. __ I winked at her
and she, well…that’s how the relationship started. Every time I’d get a chance to see her, __ they
moved, they lived at, uh, little town by the name of Williamstown. You know where that’s at?
HK: Billtown?
RR: Billtown.
HK: Yeah.
RR: Well, how come you call it Billtown?
HK: I just had heard it called Billtown. There’s a Billtown, Billtown Café there, yeah.
RR: Yeah, on the highway now.
HK: Uh-huh.
RR: Sharon’s Café.
�HK: Uh-huh.
RR: Before that, there was, uh, I remember there was a store, a post office…and the
superintendent of schools for Jefferson County lived there in Billtown.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: And the – the foreman of the railroad, he lived there. And, let’s see, who else? There was
only one black family that I can remember there. Wait a minute, I take it back; there was another
__ the older black folks there, and the other one was the Lewises. Maybe you might have heard
of them. The old man Lewis, the one that had, he had, uh, __ big old horse thing __ and he’d
give it some milk: “Come on, honey! Come on, honey!” [laughs] __ Come on! Drinking milk.
HK: I’ll be darned.
RR: So there you are.
HK: So, she was from Billtown?
RR: Yeah __ that time. Now I guess all the kids that can save a little money they bought a ticket
and got out of there which I don’t blame ‘em. Used to go to the grocery store, they go to the
grocery store. __ I’ve got a daughter who used to teach there, in fact, she was a librarian, well,
she is a librarian, she told me, uh, yesterday? Yesterday was Sunday.
HK: Yeah.
RR: She said they were gonna move all the books out of the library there and build and move to
Perry.
HK: Really.
RR: She’s a – a librarian down in Perry. Yeah. By the way, my wife is a graduate of that little
dinky school. __ I think she said there was four kids in her grade.
HK: Four? [Laughs] That is small.
RR: And there were just three families that lived there, Mexican families that lived there. The
Chavez, the Jiminez…no, I guess there was just two. [Eudora?], I think he was in Topeka. I don’t
know why he got there to work, or when he worked.
HK: So the Chavez family moved from Billtown to Lawrence?
RR: Oh, do you know them?
HK: Mm-hmm. I think I went to school with, uh, I think Victoria was in my grade.
�RR: Which Victoria?
HK: Victoria Chavez. Vicky.
RR: When I went to __ it was just Trini, Lupe…Trini, Lupe… When I got back, we had to line
‘em up. [HK laughs, murmuring] children. Chavez and the Jimenez. Jimenez was, uh, __ Luis __
Chavez. Salvador. He was there, but he – he moved, I think he was by himself. [Murmuring]
Well, what’s next?
HK: Well, I want to know a little bit about what kind of jobs did you work at?
RR: When?
HK: I – well, you probably worked a lot of jobs when you were young, growing up, I can
imagine.
RR: I worked for [tree?], I worked for Alfred Heck, and Charlie Shockey…then joined the Navy
and forgot about the world.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: I visited the world. And then when I got back, getting off the train I was offered a job.
HK: Really?
RR: See, I had worked in the summertime, I had worked there, um…during the flood __ John
Kennedy. He said: “Hey,” he said, “you want a job? I could use you in the morning.”
I said: “Listen, I’m just getting here.”
He said: “I’m gonna put you down.”
So I worked one day and I asked the clerk there, I said: “Hey, John Kennedy put me
down.”
He said: “Oh, yes,” he said, “you’re the sailor.”
I said “Yeah.”
He said: “Yeah, he told me about you.” [murmurs] I went to work for him…and I quit in
19…80. July of 1980.
HK: So that – that was Kennedy Glass? Or…?
RR: Kennedy Glass Children. The older are John Kennedy’s children.
HK: Okay.
RR: There was a bunch of…well, one just died here not too long ago. I think it’s [Name] but I’m
not sure. It was John, let’s see, that was John. That was by old John Kennedy’s first wife and by
his second wife, he had Max, Bernard, [murmurs].
�HK: Uh… [long pause] Never even heard of…
RR: Well anyways, he had four or five boys. Two wives. He retired, can’t even remember when
he retired. [Long pause] In between __ various moments __. Until I got transferred, I got
transferred to Topeka once, I worked there for seven years and I worked on the east, uh, side of
Lawrence. Oh, about five years. All the way, all the time, I was given credit for 36 years.
[Murmurs]
HK: What kind of work was it?
RR: General. Anything, really. Anything they [begins laughing]
HK: Anything they wanted you to do, huh? [HK laughs]
RR: Yeah.
HK: Well, what were some of your experiences when you were growing up in Lawrence? Did
you, um, were there – was there a lot of prejudice in Lawrence?
RR: Oh, yes. I’ll never forget the – the other, the other Mexican kids, say: “You going into the
__?”
Said: “Oh, I might, I might not.”
Said: “You know what? They made us go up there on top and – and sit with the black
ones.”
I said: “They did? Well,” [laughs] “I’m not going to no __.” I used to go to the [Pattee?]
theater. Maybe you heard about that.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: It was just an alleyway and, uh, I’ll never forget, on Saturdays they’d have a matinee there.
All of the kids would come in and __ your tickets will be, uh, five bottles. And, uh, I needed to
get Cokes now and then, I finally, uh, somebody had discarded an old whiskey bottle. I threw
that in the collection. [Murmurs, laughs] That were rough times.
HK: Yeah.
RR: But the whiskey was here. [HK laughs] Yeah. Yeah…
HK: What – what about the restaurants and, um, other places in town? Did they discriminate
against Mexican men?
RR: Oh, yeah, and the ones that discriminated were mostly the ones in North Lawrence.
HK: Hm.
�RR: There was, uh, kind of a drive-in, in there. And we went in the old jalopy, and we sat there
and we sat there and we sat there and we sat there. Finally I went to the kitchen window, said:
“Hey, you gonna wait on us?”
“Hell no. Get out of here.”
And we got out of there before they beat us up. We – we didn’t have no ball bats, or else
we’d have probably had a little showdown.
HK: Yeah [laughs].
RR: And [murmurs] the varsity __ Mexicans __.
HK: Mm.
RR: What? The film?
Interview Assistant: I’m checking the tape.
HK: Checking the tape. What did, um, what are your earliest memories of your mother?
RR: My earliest memories?
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: Well, hard-working. Tried to keep us clean with what…uh, she had to work with.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: Cause at that time I think they were just paying…two dollars a day, five cents a week on the
railroad. And that’s what we had to subsist on. Eat and everything. Of course I remember, she
went to the, uh, store and she’d buy a pound of bacon, a loaf of bread…uh, wieners or lunch
meat. You can’t do that now.
HK: No.
RR: If you get any lunch meat, well, that will be over a dollar. Wieners, that’s gonna be, I see
where Checkers got ‘em for 89 cents. And then, uh, bacon, that’s going out of sight.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: I think it costs close to three dollars for bacon. You couldn’t do that in those days. Get two
dollars and 80 cen – 85 cents, 89 cents for a week’s work and __. You had to live high on the
hog __ on his feet.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: Yeah.
�HK: Did she have a lot of, um, special recipes that she would cook?
RR: Soup
HK: Chicken soup? [Laughs]
RR: Yeah, you know, folks raised, oh, about 15, 20 chickens.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: Then when the hens had the chicks, we’d…raise ‘em up and butcher ‘em. That’s what we
had to eat. And now and then, uh, there was a stockyard there that, uh, they’d…gave us, gave my
dad a pig for 50 cents. And that’s why he raised pigs, on table scraps, weeds, water and
everything. Get good size and then butcher ‘em. It was good old hard days.
HK: Yeah. What about a garden?
RR: Oh, yeah, they put out a garden. One thing he always, my dad always __ corn.
HK: Hmm.
RR: And then tomatoes, tomatoes… specially what do you call them, string beans, string beans –
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: String beans, tomatoes, hot peppers. He’d give somebody a __ or two down the road, he’d
plant. I know he’d keep the seeds __, that’s how he got __. And they’d pickle, pickled the
peppers __. They’d have to cut ‘em open [laughs]. __ I’ll never forget, my mother’s, uh, the
peppers, she’d slice ‘em up, then take a __ out of them. They’d pick ‘em, take a piece out at a
time. __ Tortillas. They made their own tortillas. They made their own corn tortillas and flour
tortillas. You don’t see the young ones doing anything like that.
HK: No…I’ll bet those peppers – those peppers were probably – the seeds were originally
brought up from Mexico, huh?
RR: I’ll bet they were. ‘Course [murmurs].
HK: Just kept the seeds every year and replanted them.
RR: Yeah. Only thing was, is I remember my dad – he’d plant peppers right here, right, this year,
next year he’d plant a little ways from there. The same thing with tomatoes…corn, same thing.
There’s something in there that he couldn’t explain, it would, uh [murmurs], farming, you know,
they get their seeds from the seedhouse. That’s it.
HK: Mm-hmm.
�RR: Wheat, the same way. Corn, the same way. Uh, soy beans, same way. Uh, what else? Milo
the same way. Here we are, the greatest nation in the world.
HK: Yeah.
RR: By knowing what to do –
HK: How did things change when the Depression came? Did that, um…did you eat a lot less,
then?
RR: When the Depression came?
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: Back in, uh, 1927, ‘28, ‘29, there was less food and less work, and a lot of things less. And,
uh, people made [murmurs], did, the, uh, lamb’s quarters [an annual plant, also known as white
goosefoot], think you ought to know what they are. Lamb’s quarters?
HK: The plants, or the –
RR: The – the plants.
HK: Yeah.
RR: Well, they’d take the leaves and cook them greens, and, uh…those old folks would spice
‘em up, would make a nice little dish. And I remember some black folks that had, uh, nettles for
greens. Hot. I draw the line right there. [HK laughs] Stinkin’ things.
HK: Didn’t want any of those. How did they, um, manage to clothe all of you kids and keep you
in shoes and…?
RR: Lot of ‘em was hand-me-downs, and, uh, I remember the, uh, the JC Penney. Montgomery
Ward is another term. They’d have sales, folks would buy what clothes they could afford to.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: [Murmurs] And then there wasn’t no, like here, at that time, like all these places where they
have, uh…secondhand clothing. There wasn’t –
HK: Mm-hmm. Did your mother sew at all?
RR: Oh, yeah. I remember my dad was – think he said he was 70 or 71 when he wore his first
piece of – first glasses, to be able to see a little better.
HK: Oh.
�RR: I know I was 60 when I first started wearing glasses.
HK: Uh-huh.
RR: And, uh, I’m 86 now. [Murmurs]
HK: Yeah.
RR: 1980s-something. [Murmurs]
HK: What happened if – if one of you kids got sick or something? How –
RR: Our kids, now?
HK: No, when you were growing up. You as a child, what happened?
RR: If we went to school, they’d send ‘em to – to the school, what do you call it? At that time
there was a nurse, Etta Kettlesburger, Kettlesburger. She was from Salina. And that’s one woman
I’ll always give credit. She’d try to help the Mexicans and the blacks. And, uh, she would,
uh…more or less try to take care of us.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: ‘Course, she said, those are the people that didn’t have the opportunity for a lot of things
[murmurs]. She just died not too long ago. She was a little over 100 years old.
HK: Wow.
RR: She was in a rest home there in Salina, she was from Salina.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: I remember when she was young and started being the nurse here in Lawrence.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: Who else…
HK: Well, did you, um, did you ever get to go to the dentist, or…?
RR: At that time, you know what? We didn’t know what a dentist was. All we knew was in
school, they’d take the whole class. They’d have a little box, uh, about that. They put, um,
instruments in. And: “Okay, you can come in and sit down. Open your mouth.” There was a
dentist…and whoever was taking care of [murmurs].
�HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: That’s how they knew, we knew that. That, you know, you had bad teeth. When you get the
chance, see if your parents can afford to take you to the dentist.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: I remember the first time I went to the dentist, Dr. Kennedy. This Dr. Kennedy who is living
now, it was his father. [Murmurs].
HK: Wow.
RR: I don’t remember [murmurs] upstairs, in, uh, 900 block of New Jersey – uh, Massachusetts.
On the east – the west side of the street.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: And he was, uh, he was a pretty good dentist. I think he charged us 50 cents for fixing our
teeth. They don’t charge no 50 cents now.
HK: Nope, nope.
RR: And then this – his son, well, he took over the dental practice. He just retired here
about…wanna say fifteen years ago, maybe a little longer [murmurs]. He’s still living. I seen him
at the store, we speak to each other. He – he’s no kid, I’m 86 and he’s a lot older than I am.
HK: Really? Hmm.
RR: But you – you can’t tell his age.
HK: What do you think are some of the biggest differences between, um…when you were
growing up and how things are now?
RR: Just like day and night. [HK laughs] Now, well, [murmurs] money is more plentiful and the
wages are a lot higher. And, um…I remember back in the old days, when the canning factory
was open. We were in high school, and we went sometime to work over there and we would get
15 cents an hour. And by the end of the week, we thought we had a lot of money, oh yeah. At
least I remember buying my first pair of white shoes [murmurs]. And, uh, clothing that I’d
needed ‘em for school. Socks. And of course our parents got the rest of it, at JC Penney’s and
Montgomery Ward. Then there was [Name?], a clothing store there. They had – they were
fancier, we couldn’t afford those. We’d just bypass it.
HK: Yeah. So, did your dad, um…or did your family, where did they move to after – I know
when the ‘51 flood happened, um, did that wipe out pretty much the living area?
RR: We were living in town then.
�HK: Were you?
RR: Yeah. Uh, [murmurs], my present wife she was there. And we would see the water. See, we
lived on the 900 block of Pennsylvania. Kind of on a hill there.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: You could see the water, down where there was an old junkyard and the, uh, Santa Fe
freight house. Freight house. And the offices down there, and [unintelligible] house. And, uh,
the, uh, tracks. But since then, they have raised the tracks and they, uh, and they built the new,
uh, the freight house [murmurs] freight. They put in a McDonald’s, put, uh, what do you call it,
beer establishment?
HK: Mm. Um…Abe and Jake’s? Abe and Jake’s?
RR: Oh, no. Abe and Jake’s –
HK: No?
RR: Was up here.
HK: Yeah.
RR: That’s some [murmurs].
HK: This was, this was…where was it located at?
RR: Eight – no, ninth – Eighth and ninth [tape cuts off at 47:25]
END OF TAPE 21A
�
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Tape 21b: Interview with Raymond Romero
Interviewer: Helen Krische
Date of Interview: 2006
Length of Interview: 8:49
Location of Interview: St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church
Transcription Completion Date: December 15, 2020
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Interviewee’s daughter Lupe states on March 1, 2021: “He let people call him Raymond and other
Mexican Americans who knew him called him by his real name Ramon. So his full name is Ramon
Enrique Romero Sr.”
Raymond Romero (Interviewee): [Murmurs]…grocery store that I knew of. That, uh, we done
business with.
Helen Krische (Interviewer): Mm-hmm.
RR: They’d have something on sale and we’d go over there and get it. [murmurs]
HK: Did your family, um, do – did they put their stuff on credit and then pay once a month,
or…?
RR: Yeah, when Johnson’s, when Johnson’s was open, I’ll never forget it. They, uh, they’d give
credit to working men. And…they would let us – let them run up so much. We didn’t have no
trouble then ‘cause my wife was working, and, uh, we made it with five children.
HK: Mm-hmm. Do any of your children speak Spanish?
RR: Let’s see – one, two, three of ‘em speak Spanish fluently.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: And the other two: “I don’t want to learn it.” [Laughter] That’s the end of that.
HK: Do you think it’s helpful –
RR: Oh, yes.
HK: For them to know how to speak Spanish?
RR: Especially – especially the one that’s a librarian.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: When she…when she graduated out of KU, she didn’t know much Spanish, so she – her
first job was down in, uh, Peace Corps.
�HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: And she went to, uh…Ecuador. Quito, Ecuador. [Murmurs] The young lady might have
heard of it. Close to the Panama Canal. And she was in Peace – her and her husband were there
in the Peace Corps. And then, uh, they went to, um…Costa Rica, San Jose. They were there for a
while. She – she got to teach there. And, uh, then they came to, uh, McAllen, Texas. Abilene,
Texas. Um…there was another town that they – three towns in Texas. She taught school there.
Her husband was, uh, had something to do with the court system. Probation officer.
HK: Oh.
RR: That’s how she – they moved around. And she’s, what, 59?
HK: What do you think of the situation today, with Mexican Americans?
RR: Well…I don’t know how much you know about history, but when Spain was at war in 1936,
‘34, ‘35, ‘36, [Name_____ Franco] said: “We now have the first colony of all the Spanish.”
Alright, then he put up the second [colony?]. That bunch didn’t believe in a lot of Francisco
______ theory A lot of ‘em ended up in North Africa, Casabianca, [Place name], and Algiers
[Place name]. There was a few of ‘em in Egypt. And then [murmurs] throughout Ivory Coast.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: Just like the Mexicans are doing now, from Mexico. Yeah, the Mexican situation here is
now, that these people are coming here simply because there is nothing in Mexico can offer.
Because the politicians – you’re a politician, you’re a rich man, you know everything, and you
gonna get hoard up all the money. Well, these poor guys…you heard of the expression in
English? Crumbpickers. These guys were crumbpickers. And they said: “We’re not gonna be
crumbpickers. [Murmurs] since we know how to read and write. We’re gonna go to the United
States,” and got up here.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: Some of ‘em are well-educated, some of ‘em are not. They’re gonna have to change their
way of their customs. I notice here in church, you’ve got –
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: Okay. To have the Spanish Mass, that’s the worst thing they can do to try to teach our
Mexican people how to learn the, uh…the, um, English language. By segregating ‘em that way.
HK: Mm-hmm.
RR: They should just throw ‘em in there, that’s what they done in – to our – us, and our folks.
When they came to church, they went right into the – to the, uh…English Mass, and stayed there
�and learned what they did. If they died, well, [murmurs], funeral, last rites [murmurs]. Uh, let’s
see, what else? Um…oh yeah, that – five minutes?
HK: Five minutes. [Laughs]
RR: Is that all I got left, or did I run over?
HK: That’s all you got left.
Interview Assistant: That’s all you got left.
HK: So you better talk fast. [Laughs]
RR: Well, stop talking [murmurs]. Well, anyways, the only problem that you have with these
modern Mexicans now, they’re better off than their first [murmurs] father and mother
[murmurs]. Because these guys know how to read and write. When my parents came over, they
did not have those schools in Mexico. And, uh, most of them, their writing was just an “X.” And
that was it. I’ll never forget one of ‘em. one of ‘em was working there on Santa Fe: “Juan! You
signed – you forged that!” He says: “You signed my name! You supposed to write.” He says:
“Look, that’s my name!” An “X.” [HK laughs] Well, there you are. Now, what else?
HK: That’s it. Well, thank you very much, Raymond. It’s been really enjoyable, and I think that
we learned a lot about history here.
RR: Did you meet the other kids yet? [Murmurs]
HK: Well, they did, but they don’t go back as far as you do. So –
RR: I started in 1925.
HK: Yeah.
RR: Brought it up to the present time.
HK: So, yeah.
RR: That was only –
HK: It’s been a pleasure.
RR: That’s only eighty-six…eighty…eighty-one years.
HK: Well, that’s a long time. That’s a lot of history. So…
�RR: There’s some Mexicans older than I am here, but they were born and raised in, uh, one of
‘em in Argentine, the other was in Emporia…I don’t know…Ottawa. One of [murmurs] was, uh
[murmurs]. That’s the best I can give you. I don’t know whether it’ll help you any or not.
HK: Well, we appreciate it. And it certainly has helped us. So…yeah.
RR: Okay. The only thing that you left out is what did I go through in the war time.
HK: Oh. Well, see, we’re gonna save that, because you’re gonna do a – a World War II oral
history with us, right?
RR: Okay. Okay.
HK: So, and we’ll learn all about that then. So…yep. We’ll be –
RR: Just – just don’t ask me about French Indochina.
HK: Oh. [Laughs]
RR: I didn’t know that they had cut all those [murmurs] countries.
HK: Uh-huh.
RR: [Murmurs] faster than I can [murmurs]. Well, am I the last one?
HK: You’re the last one for today.
RR: Well, I hope I can help if you –
HK: Yeah – [tape cuts off at 8:24]
END OF TAPE 21B
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Description
An account of the resource
La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers in Lawrence, Kansas; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. In 2006, Helen Krische, archivist at the Watkins Community Museum, began an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. The project was resumed in 2019 by Nora Murphy and Emily Raymond. The interviews primarily feature the children of the railroad workers who migrated to Lawrence in the early 20th century; they describe daily life, social activities, and living conditions in the Mexican-American community in Lawrence from roughly the 1920s through the 1970s.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
2019
2021
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
These works are the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Romero, Ramon (Raymond) Enrique, Sr.
Original Format
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MP3
Duration
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00:48:08 (21a audio)
00:08:49 (21b audio)
Bit Rate/Frequency
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115 kbps (21a)
95 kbps (21b)
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Ramon (Raymond) Enrique Romero, Sr., La Yarda Interview
Creator
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Romero, Ramon (Raymond) Enrique, Sr.
Description
An account of the resource
Ramon (Raymond) Romero was interviewed by Helen Krische in 2006 as part of an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. Ramon discusses his school experiences in Lawrence, how he met his wife, and his work experiences including his military service. He discusses his parents' strategies for providing for their family, including gardening and sewing clothes. He describes his experiences with healthcare in his youth. He also discusses his experiences with cultural assimiliation, especially regarding speaking Spanish.
Contributor
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Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lawrence (Kan.)
1920s - 1970s
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
Format
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MP3 (audio recording)
PDF (transcription)
Identifier
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21a-RRomeroSr-2006.mp3 (audio) and 21a-RRomeroSr-2006.pdf (transcription)
21b-RRomeroSr-2006.mp3 (audio) and 21b-RRomeroSr-2006.pdf (transcription)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Relation
A related resource
To access the audio recording of this interview, go to <a href="https://archive.org/details/21a-rromero-sr-2006">https://archive.org/details/21a-rromero-sr-2006</a>.
The <a href="https://www.watkinsmuseum.org/">Watkins Museum of History</a> also holds items related to this collection.
<a href="https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/resources/5295">Additional research on the La Yarda community</a> is held at the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.
Ramon Romero was also interviewed as part of an oral history project to record memories of World War II. A transcription of that interview can be accessed at <a href="https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/211750">https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/211750</a>.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Published with the permission of Virginia Romero, on behalf of Ramon (Raymond) Romero. This work is the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
-
https://history.lplks.org/files/original/d3e75fc7f0e8388aeb46fa02a42c0ed3.pdf
e83a7402aa94673b25a49d4d9ac18687
PDF Text
Text
Tape 22: Interview with Clara Bucia and Thomas Ramirez
Interviewer: Helen Krische
Date of Interview: 2006
Length of Interview: 47:16
Location of Interview: St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church
Transcription Completion Date: September 18, 2020
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Proofreader: Ellie Rumback
Helen Krische (Interviewer): Alrighty. Um, usually the first question that I ask people is about
your parents. Um, where your parents were from, did they come from Mexico?
Thomas Ramirez (Interviewee): Yes. Yes.
HK: And what were their names?
TR: Uh – Jesus and Mary Ramirez.
HK: Okay. And what part of – do you know what part of Mexico?
TR: Yeah. My father came from Mexico City and my mother come from a town named
[Torreal?] Mexico, not very far from there.
HK: Okay. So it was pretty close to Mexico City.
TR: That’s where they came from. Yes, uh-huh.
HK: And they were Spanish-speaking?
TR: Yes. Uh-huh.
HK: And, um, when did they come up to the United States, do you know?
TR: Well, my father came down here in uh, well he was born in 1904.
HK: Uh-huh.
Clara Bucia (Interviewee): He was nine – he was, uh, eighteen when he came up here.
TR: Yeah, something like that, yeah.
HK: And did he work on the railroads?
CB: Yes, he did. Many years.
�TR: Yeah - that’s what, many years, I think close to 50.
HK: Uh-huh. What railroad did he –
TR: Santa Fe.
HK: Santa Fe railroad, okay. Did he work in any of the other small towns or did he come directly
to Lawrence, or how did that happen?
TR: Well, let’s see. I know he – they used to live in Chicago at one time.
CB: I know he met my mother in Wichita.
TR: Yeah, in Wichita maybe. I don’t know if he worked in the railroad there too - or maybe it
was all combined.
CB: No, he did. No, he did, it was all combined.
TR: It’s all combined. Must be.
HK: Oh okay. But they eventually ended up in Lawrence, here.
TR: Lawrence. Yes.
HK: Were both of you born here in Lawrence?
TR: Yes. Yes ma’am.
CB: There was thirteen of us born here.
HK: Ooh, wow! A big family.
TR: There’s thirteen of us. There’s still twelve of us yet.
HK: Huh. What year were you born?
TR: I was born in 1927.
CB: ‘31.
HK: ‘31. So where are you in the birth order, are you –
CB: I’m third. He’s the first.
TR: I’m the godfather. I’m the oldest.
�HK: The oldest of all thirteen?
TR: All thirteen, I’m the oldest. Yeah, I’m 78.
HK: Wow.
CB: You always hear that. [laughs]
TR: I’m proud of it.
HK: Give your age away. [laughs]
TR: Sorry.
CB: That’s okay.
TR: That’s alright.
HK: So, um, where did you live at when you lived here in Lawrence, or as you were growing up,
where did you live?
TR: As I was growing up? Lived, uh, well, we lived along the railroad tracks ‘cause my father
you know worked on a railroad. The Santa Fe section used to be way on the east side down there,
they used to have Santa Fe houses. Across the tracks.
CB: It’s across the tracks - it’s across the tracks way on the other side. Way down.
HK: What was it like living there?
TR: It was, it was nice. The good old days.
CB: It was the best life.
TR: Best life I think we ever had. Everything was so peaceful, you didn’t have to worry about
nothing.
CB: Nothing.
TR: Nothing, man, everybody just friendly, we all helped each other, in every way.
CB: There was about eight, there was about eight families who lived there. And, uh, there were
nothing but bunk houses, like, like made out of brick, and everybody got along, we’d all make
dinner and go outside and everybody shared what they had. All of us kids played together and
made up things and games and…I’ll never forget that. Just, never.
TR: For Christmas, you know, we used to all get together, and we all made hot tamales and
everything else and we used to decorate our trees and all, you know, which were real simple
at that time, you know. Any cloth, any piece of paper, anything else with coloring, that was
�our decoration, a lot of it, and if you had a set of lights, man, you really had something. And
we used to walk all the way from way up there on the east side and we used to walk all the
way to St. John to go to midnight Mass and all this and that, you know.
CB: The parents, all the families, they all used to plant peppers and tomatoes and all that, and
then they all shared them among all of us.
HK: So you had a big community garden?
TR/CB: Oh yeah. The majority – my father and all those ones that lived over there, they all had
big gardens and everything. Yeah, they grew tomatoes, corn, everything, they had everything.
HK: Was there any livestock over there?
CB: Chickens. Lot of chickens.
TR: Chickens, yeah.
HK: So you had plenty of meat.
TR: I remember when I used to go get some milk, one of the men, Candelario? I used to go get
him his milk for him in the morning before I went to school when I was just a kid growing up.
He used to give me five dollars and I thought he gave me a lot of money at that time. That was
back in, uh, shoot - ‘37, early ‘40, in the ‘40s.
HK: So that was kind of after the Depression years, or…
TR: Yeah. Yeah, tough years.
HK: Did anything change for the families during the Depression, was it any harder for them
during that time?
CB: It was, it was hard for us as children because we were Mexicans and it made a big
difference. That’s why we were happy over there, away from people over here. Because the fact
that we were not wanted, you know, and they didn’t wanna have nothing to do with us and so
that’s the way it was. Now, we come up to the restaurant, which was the restaurant right by the
railroad tracks, right by the depot. We’d go in there and get hamburgers, but we had to have
them in a bag and eat them outside. We had water, drinking fountains, it was for the whites and
for the blacks, so they wouldn’t let us drink from the whites. We had to drink over there with the
blacks. And, oh, I mean, I went to school and they wouldn’t play with me because I was a
Mexican. Kids were so cruel, you know. And it took me…before I even would forgive white
people, I had to go into the mil – well, my husband - I met my husband and we went into the
military. That’s where I met a lot of different people. I’m talking about Mexicans and Indians
and whites and I mean, from all over. You know. That’s where I felt, at least I felt welcome,
because there’s no race in military life. We were in the military for 26 years.
�TR: You know, it’s kind of crazy. I went into the service in 1946, January of ’46. I was in the Air
Corps and I was in the Air Force for two years and uh, when I went in, I was classified as white.
When I come out, I was classified as a Mexican-American when I come out. And I think the
thing that hurt me too was that, uh, the Salvation Army, uh, we had to pay for everything when I
was in the service, uh…no, wait a minute, Red Cross. When the trains used to take us you know
in military, we had to pay for everything at the Red Cross we had to pay them and the Salvation
Army would give it to us. Yeah. Those were hard years and it felt awful because you know a lot
of times you’d go eat at a restaurant or something like that and they would tell you: “I’m sorry,
we can’t serve you.”
CB: We used to get maybe, with the people, maybe we’d just rub up against them and they
would look at you and go like this, you know.
HK: Oh, my God.
CB: Yeah, you know. Things like that.
TR: You know, it was a real prejudiced time. Oh, excuse me, sis. Go ahead.
CB: That’s why I, I said, it took me a long time to forgive white people. Until we went, I met my
husband and we went to the military and I found out there was a lot of good people. White
people, and any race you wanted in there. So we were in there 26 years and I come back
thinking, okay, you know, and when I got here I was so surprised, it’s still going on. I mean, not
as much, but still goes on.
TR: But you, you know, it –
CB: It goes on in our church yet.
HK: Oh…
CB: St. John’s. It still goes on. I moved from, um, well, the father there, made us sit in the back.
The last four seats were for Mexicans.
HK: What years?
TR: We had to sit in the back.
CB: Way back.
HK: What years?
CB: Oh, God. Still little.
TR: We were young then.
CB: But, I can tell you which father it was.
�TR: I know my, uh, my mother used to tell me….We had to sit way at the back.
CB: We, uh, yeah, and if, for some reason like if we came in late, the father would stop the Mass
till we found a place to sit.
TR: It was Father [name?].
CB: Well, I wasn’t gonna say the name.
TR: Monsignor [name?].
CB: Well, I wasn’t gonna say the name.
TR: You remember him?
CB: Yes. Yes, I do.
TR: He was strict. And I guess he got irritated lot of times because people would just come into
church late, I guess. And you know, that kind of made sense in a way, because people – you
don’t come into church late. But, uh, he was tough anyway.
CB: Just about –
TR: He was a good – he was good, maybe he just overworked himself or something, you know.
CB: Just about a year ago, that I stopped sitting in the back all that time, all those years. Because
we…I wasn’t used to sitting up at the front. But I was sitting with some people that would never
shake my hand. I mean, couples. They would never, you know, I would be there waiting for them
to turn around and shake my hand and they wouldn’t ever do it. So I thought, “Okay, you know,
I’m not gonna be here,” you know, so I went to the front. I’m very happy now in the front. I am. I
am very happy.
TR: I know, my mother was the same way. Excuse me. My mother was the same way. You
know, it hurt her feelings because a lot of times she would stick her hand out, you know, for the
sign of peace –
CB: And they wouldn’t do it.
TR: And they wouldn’t do it. And it used to hurt my mother. See, my mother’s been gone about
20 years or so, and it used to hurt my mother because she’d stick her hand out there and you
know, nobody would receive it.
CB: And it’s still going on in the church here. Still. I mean, you look at –
TR: I mean, you can see it and you can sense it.
�CB: You know, I mean, no matter where you go, like, even the rummage house here. I work
here. And I can see some. There’s not that many, but there’s some that still, they just kind of give
you that, you know, so, you just kind of stay away from…it just brings back memories.
TR: We still live with that.
CB: Bring back memories.
TR: A little. Not as bad as it used to be, but it still happens.
CB: It’s still here.
TR: Still here.
CB: Still here.
HK: Where did you go to school at?
CB: New York.
TR: New York. New York School is where we went to school.
HK: Did you go to New York School too?
CB: Yes I did.
TR: And then I went to Central Junior High.
HK: What kind of prejudice was there in those schools?
CB: I know in New York School they wouldn’t play with me because I was a Mexican. Central
they wouldn’t do - they were the same thing. You know, just better than I was. And we lived
across the track. And that made a big difference.
TR: I tell you what - I even tell my kids, my kids about actually the way it used to be a long time
ago, they can’t believe it actually happened. Because they never went through it.
HK: Can you think of some specific incidences? Like…I don’t know, would they call you
names? Would they…
TR: Yeah, sure.
CB: Oh, yeah. Yeah, they did. You know, Mexicans and she’s just a Mexican and all this kind of
stuff, and she doesn’t – well, we didn’t have any money to buy clothes. You know, my parents
were poor. But, I mean, we never missed really anything because we weren’t, you know, used to
anything, so what we didn’t have we didn’t miss. I didn’t have a bicycle, I didn’t have any, all
�these things that they have nowadays. I mean, my doll was from the dump. We had a dump there
near our – my first doll was there. We used to play, um - store, and all the canned stuff that we’d
find at the dumps, put them together like a grocery store, just to play, you know. But that was,
we’d walk to school, as cold as it was. Walk to church, you know.
TR: Yeah.
CB: We didn’t have cars.
TR: We didn’t have no cars, no nothing. Like I said it was real bad, I say I was only about 10
years old. And you know, Mexicans and blacks and [unintelligible] we used to go to like,
Ottawa, and they wouldn’t serve us there either. And I was just young, you know? And then
Emporia was real prejudiced real bad too. And then we went to a tournament and at that time I
was kinda playing a little basketball. Kind of a Mexican ball team we had together. And we went
to Chanute down there and this Mexican girl served us, and when they serve – she – they served
her, well, they fired her. Because had she served us and she wasn’t supposed to. But she did it
anyway, and you know, those things that we had to live through, you know?
HK: What about Topeka or Kansas City? Did you go there at all, did you experience…?
CB: Back when we were young I don’t think we used to go to Topeka. You know, later on we
did but it was with the Mexican people, which was okay, but…it wasn’t with the Mexican people
we had problems with, you know. But you still see, you still find it –
TR: But you know, it’s an awful feeling. It’s an awful feeling, you know.
CB: Worst feeling in the world.
TR: We used to go to a restaurant, go eat and I tell ‘em: “Sorry, we can’t serve you.” Man, that’s
an awful feeling.
CB: I mean, how sorry can you be, you know?
TR: I said, Yeah, man, it’s an awful feeling, man, that people don’t realize the feeling, you know,
that you have.
CB: Yeah, like I said, it takes – it took me – and I still, if I meet somebody I have to feel them
first, you know, to see how they’re gonna act with me, you know, in order for me to…
TR: You know, I worked for the high school for 20 years and when I worked at Central too, I
worked 20 years in schools, and I never had any, any problem except the last year one of the
kids, one of the white kids spit on me. And I could never understand why, you know? And
then
now, you know, I’ve been working at KU now for the last 14 years, but I just work part time.
And there’s a lot of good kids, I mean, beautiful personalities, they kind of make me feel like I’m
one of them. But there’s some of ‘em there, there’s some young ladies, what’s-her-name like that,
I tell you what, they look at you like you’re, you’re nothing. That’s a feeling, you know, that’s
�just a feeling you have, you know. And maybe it’s my fault too because you know, I don’t know,
I… She says I talk quite a bit, so. [laughs]
CB: He does.
TR: And I just –
CB: Can you raise your hand? [laughs]
TR: I enjoy, enjoy being around people and you know, the people that I know, you know. I like
to pass the time, talk to them and all, this and that, but... It was tough in those years.
CB: It was.
TR: 10 years old and I was even picking potatoes at the age of 10 years old. I even worked for
the railroad at the age of 15. I worked with my father on the extra gang here, on the railroad. He
didn’t want me to work on the railroad. [pause] That was hard work. Those rails up there, all
that sun hitting you, you know, all that rails, and those railroad ties, all that creosote, and we
used to carry those things by hand. Now they got, you know, machines and everything to do it
with now, and that was…hard times.
CB: That’s why I think when I look, I work up at the rummage sale I see a lot of the Mexican
people come in and they don’t speak Spanish. So I’m there, really, you know, to help them and
all that.
TR: She does, she interprets quite a bit.
CB: And uh, I know their feelings, you know, how they feel, you know, ‘cause they come in here
and because they don’t know how to speak it they look at them like, [Come here?] I need your
help. But I – I know how they feel, you know.
TR: That’s the same way I am too.
CB: Yeah, I know the feeling. And I feel sorry for them. And you know, old Bush trying to get
them out of here. Well, hey they want to work. They’re poor. They want, you know, they’re
trying to make a living, they’re not bothering anybody. You know, they’re not hurting anybody. I
agree that they should speak English, they should learn, but I don’t think that they should get ‘em
out of here. I mean, they’re getting money over here, over there, they’re not. They got families.
TR: Yep, and they’re making only fifty cents an hour.
CB: Yeah, so they’ll take any job anybody doesn’t want, you know. So –
TR: And they’re willing to do it, you know, just to, just to make a little money. And then I hear
on TV, you know, that some people say it’s not fair that they’re sending some of their money
that they make here over there to their family. I don’t know what difference, if they’re making –
it’s their money, why in the devil can’t they send it over there?
�CB: Yeah. Yeah.
TR: And like I tell you, this place we go down there… [Villa de San Juan?] down there, down
there by, in Texas down by Brownsville, McAllen, Texas, they…damn, I forgot what I was
gonna tell you.
CB: Goods. [laughs]
TR: Anyway, one of the ladies told us there that they only make 50 cents an hour.
HK: Oh, gosh.
TR: Can you picture that? 50 cents an hour? Eight-hour day, four dollars a day. Here what’s four
dollars isn’t hardly nothing at all. And those people just coming over here because, you know,
their families’d probably starve. Here at least, here in the United States, you know, they got the
Salvation Army, they got Link, they got all these other places that will help you, you’re not
gonna starve to death. But over there, over there if you don’t have your own garden, and you
don’t want to work, your family’s gonna starve to death. That’s probably why a lot of them are
coming over here. And all they want is a job. That’s all they’re looking for. I don’t think they’re
trying to take jobs. But you know what? But my – my first opinion is, is that we spoil a lot of our
kids because we’ve given them everything that they want. And normally sometimes –
CB: Everything we didn’t have.
TR: Sometimes they both are working, they both are working and we’ve bought them everything
they want, whatever they want. So you know, a lot of them are going right through high school,
and probably some of them in college, lot of them probably never done a day’s work in their
whole life, you know? So why should they work? Sometimes over at KU I see some of the, I
guess some of the well-to-do kids, driving brand new cars. [Hot damn?] they go to the ATM
machine, they pull out the money, I guess the parents are just putting the money in it. [laugh] But
yet, over there where I work, I see some of those kids out there struggling to work two or three
hours, two hours, to make it through school and I praise those kids. [Long pause] Yeah. Yeah.
CB: It was, it was rough, anyway.
TR: It was tough.
CB: It’s taken me a long time to forgive, and I still, like I still sit around and it just comes right
back to me, you know, still.
TR: This right now reminds me of uh, you know, a long time ago, pretty much all, the majority
of Mexican people that came down here, my father. They came from Mexico. They didn’t have
no railroad workers. So the majority of ‘em that came in from Mexico, they didn’t have any
work, so they, they all came to work for the railroad. And now you’re seeing the same darn thing,
it just seems like it’s going around again. They don’t have the help, anything like that, and now,
they gotta use it now.
�CB: My dad, my father, when he worked in the railroad, he’d come back to work maybe 2:00 or
3:00 in the morning, sore, and it would be snow, I mean inches of snow. He’d come back, his
whole hair was just nothing but ice –
TR: Frozen. Frozen.
CB: His beard frozen, [unintelligible] in here, his hands were frozen, and you know, just and
we’d come in and try to warm him up and hug him and just try to keep him, you know.
TR: It was all, all full of ice, and everything else, all full of ice –
CB: So he worked hard, you know, to raise us.
TR: It was a big family. But you know one thing about it, I never did ever hear my dad ever
complain.
CB: He never complained, never.
TR: For a big family of thirteen. Yeah, but those were, those were tough years.
CB: We didn’t need prejudice with it either. But we went through it.
HK: Did, did your parents often help people who were just coming up from Mexico that were
like, new employees?
CB: They weren’t coming then like they are now, at that time.
TR: At that time, you hardly ever seen any Mexican people out in the middle out here. They
were mostly just stayed north of you, know, outside, you know, Arizona, and Texas and all
those, you know, they stayed mostly [unintelligible]. That’s why I say, you know, today, you
know, I, you know, the way I look at it, I think that if they’d pay ‘em a decent wage along the
borders, a lot of them would probably not even come all the way up this way. But you know,
they know they can find a job here, and like I say, the other day I was watching TV the other day
and some kid, 15-16 years old, he said my father is already over there. He says, I’m gonna get
over there. He’s over in Mexico. [unintelligible] They’re desperate. That’s the reason why a lot
of them are coming over, because they know you can make a little money over here. So I mean, I
can understand that. I think if I was living over there I’d be coming over here too, you know, if I
could feel I could better myself or better my family over there. And the thing about it is a lot of
these kids today, they don’t want to work. You can see it up there where I work. Those kids,
some of ‘em, they come to work one day and next day they don’t come, and that’s the way it is
all the time. That’s why you can’t hardly find workers. Especially over at Memorial over there,
at Memorial, over here, [business name?], they can’t keep employees. Nobody wants to work.
CB: Well, what –
TR: And then you can’t blame these ki- oh, excuse me. You can’t blame these kids. Uh, you
�know, they can better themselves, you know, on the computer and all this and that like that, you
know, you can’t blame them. That’s why a lot of them just don’t do none of that, you know.
CB: That’s why military helped me out a lot. You know, to try to get out of it, to get out of all
that. ‘Cause like I said, we were in 26 years in every country you can think of, in towns and all
that, so I learned that, you know, there’s a lot of good people, a lot of them, all colors, but they
were good people. And then I come here thinking I was gonna find out, come back and find…it
wasn’t as bad, but still the same thing. Yeah. Yeah, so…And I’m still leery sometimes, you
know, meeting people, and, you know. Sometimes I go to the stores and I, I will open the door
for, you know, an older lady, maybe a lady with a child, and I open it but it’s like, “No thank
you”.
HK: No thank you.
CB: I’m the one that turns around: “Thank you.” [TR laughs] You know? Because, you know, I
mean, I learned a lot too, to be that way from being treated the way I was, you know, so I
learned that. You had to –
TR: You know, that’s what I see in church too. Go ahead.
CB: No, go ahead.
TR: You know, even in church here a lot of times you know, you get up there, you get in there,
well sometimes you go to a different Mass or something like that, and you go “What’s the
name?” and you stick your hand out like this you know, for the deal, the peace. And normally
any other time you go [unintelligible] somebody’ll grab your hand, you know.
CB: Sometimes they don’t.
TR: But, get your hand out there and they just stay there ‘cause nobody’ll want to do it. So you
don’t even –
CB: I don’t even wanna turn around. And you know, because, I don’t know whether they’re
gonna accept my hand or not. You know?
TR: Well see, that’s the same way I feel.
CB: I just don’t know and it feels good when you hold somebody’s hand, it feels good, you
know. I’m afraid to do it. Even in the front, I’d sit there and wait, see who’s going to hold out
their hand, you know, so. It’s still, it’s still here. Not like it was, but still here.
TR: Yeah. And not like it used to be, but yeah.
HK: So, um, when you were growing up, um, what kind of…I know that your mom probably did
all the cooking.
�CB: Yes, she did.
HK: And she probably did the sewing. Did she make all of your dresses?
CB: Out of, out of bags of flour.
TR: Flour sacks.
CB: They were printed at that time, at the printers. We’d get our- our skirts made out of those,
yeah.
HK: And what kind, okay, what would be like a typical meal for you and your family?
CB: Beans, tortillas...
TR: Beans and tortillas.
CB: Chili, rice.
TR: Chile, rice.
CB: We never starved.
TR: We never starved.
CB: We never starved.
TR: [Unintelligible] every meal.
CB: Never starved.
TR: My mother used to have a big old pan about that big and –
CB: Not that big.
TR: I mean, for breakfast.
CB: Not that big.
TR: Just for breakfast! [laughs] This was just for breakfast!
CB: It was not like that. [laughs] We had potatoes, and let’s see, fried potatoes and all that.
�TR: Yeah, yeah.
HK: Did she have any special desserts that she would make for you?
CB: Um, I don’t think we really could afford desserts. My, my – she used to shop for, well, go
grocery shopping for my dad to make his lunch. She used to put an apple or orange, banana,
whatever in there. Well, my dad used to bring it back so that we could eat it.
TR: All the kids.
HK: Aww.
CB: Yeah. The kids. Because he, I don’t know, maybe he felt, you know, we weren’t getting it.
So he would bring it back, and just, we’d all run for that lunch meal, you know, cause we knew.
And then we’d, uh, go to the store shopping and there was little pies like that and I used to say
“Dad can I get a pie, a little pie from there?” He says “Yeah go ahead,” you know, so I went
ahead and I’d eat it all the way home so I wouldn’t have to share it with – because I mean, I
never got to have pie except that one time. [laughs] But you know, he did, he used to tell me
“Yeah, go ahead and get, you know, a little pie.” It was always too much money, you know,
spending as far as I was concerned and he was concerned but he would let me do that because I
went to the store.
HK When you went grocery shopping, was it to like the little corner store, or - ?
TR: Yeah, uh-huh.
CB: It was called Carter’s grocery store.
TR: And we had Mildred too.
CB: Well, yeah, but we went to Carter’s more than we did to Mildred.
TR: Yeah.
HK: Did your parents have, like, a line of credit there or…?
TR: Uh…
CB: At the store.
TR: Yes. Yes
HK: I know before some of the others said that their, their dad would get paid once a month
TR: Once a month.
HK: And then they would just, you know, pay it.
�[voices all together]
CB: But we never went hungry.
TR: We never went hungry.
CB: Never did.
TR: You never, you never heard about diabetes either.
CB: No, you never heard anything like that either.
HK: [laughs]
TR: Everybody ate good.
HK: Speaking, speaking of diabetes, did, um…when somebody would get sick in the family,
what would they do, I mean, would - ?
CB: Help each other.
TR: Yeah, we helped each other.
CB: Help each other.
HK: Did they, did they, like, call the doctor or did they do like, a home remedy type of thing?
CB: Lot of home remedies.
TR: Lot of home remedies. Yeah.
HK: Was there anything specific that you can remember? As being a home remedy? Like for an
earache or toothache or anything like that?
CB: Oh dear, there was a lot of them. Gosh. Colds. God, there is, there is, I can’t even remember
the names of the things that we used to – Oh, I do know, though, that they used to – we’d see the
doctor come in and they chase all of us out, okay? Pretty soon they come back. “So your mama
just had a baby,” he had a little black bag. Like where did the baby come from? [laughs]
TR: He’d come to the house.
CB: It was in his little black bag. He brought it in the bag. We believed that! [laughs] We
believed it. Because [unintelligible] the doctor would come with his little, little black bag, you
know.
HK: That’s funny.
�CB: It was funny. It was funny. [laughs] We used, I know we used a lot of Vaseline and Vicks.
TR: Vicks. Lot of Vicks.
CB: Vicks. Bayer aspirin.
TR: Bayer aspirins.
CB: I know they used to put, for a headache, I think slices of onions right here on the sides of
your head.
HK: Wow.
CB: God, so many things…
HK: What about earaches? Did they…?
CB: Oh, dear, I couldn’t –
TR: Oil, some kind of oil they’d put in there.
CB: Some kind of oil or something like that. I don’t remember.
TR: I don’t remember.
HK: I know my mom used to use, I think it was mineral oil or something like that.
TR: Yeah, uh-huh, yeah, it just kinda –
HK: Heat it up –
TR: Heat it up and put it in, yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah.
HK: So that was something
TR: Yeah, oh yeah.
CB: Like I said, thirteen –
TR: But you know, those were quiet years too. I mean, I tell you what, even when my, when we
were all small, you could leave, you didn’t have to worry about night, I mean, you could leave
your door wide open, sleep out on the porch and everything, you didn’t have to worry about
nothing. Everything’s so quiet and everything now, compared to what it is today. You know, one
time I heard a priest say one time he said that we used to lock our animals. Now we’re locking
ourselves up and the animals are out running loose, just the opposite of each other.
�HK: Mmm. That’s true.
TR: I remember a priest saying that one time.
CB: Yeah.
TR: And they, you know, all the houses, everybody’s putting fences all around them like that.
Fencing ourselves all in! And the animals are out running loose! No, but those, but those were
hard, hard years. Yeah, I was picking potatoes at the age of 10.
CB: We all did.
TR: We were picking potatoes at the age of 10 out in that hot sun.
HK: Was that for the Heck farm?
TR: Yeah, Heck farm. Uh…
CB: Used to take a truckload of us, uh, Mexicans, Mexican families.
TR: All Mexicans, yeah.
CB: 50 cents a bag of, um, potatoes. You know, that’s all they paid us, 50 cents.
HK: Was that those great big huge gunny –
CB: Great big huge gunny sacks.
TR: Yeah, yeah, we had gunny sacks.
CB: Pick ‘em up, pick ‘em up, yeah. I mean, we would, our backs were –
TR: I mean, we were out in that hot sun I mean all day, man, at the station, probably, long, way
on the other side of the church. Could barely get one in, the tractor gonna come around and
you’re picking up on the other side. All damn day long. Bending over in that hot sun all day.
CB: That was the only way we could make money.
HK: Some of the other people said that there were, like, older people out there doing it too, just
all ages –
CB: Oh, it was all ages.
TR: Oh, yeah.
�CB: Even people from Topeka came to –
TR: Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah. And then we used to get, uh, hauled, you know, when the fiesta was
going on in Topeka?
HK: Uh-huh.
TR: You know, we used to haul in, to get in that same truck, same truck, get all dressed up and
man, we went to those fiestas down there. [laughs] But we had a lot of fun. We always looked
forward to it too.
HK: Uh-huh. Yeah.
TR: But it was hot. We had a good time.
CB: It was the only time we had fun.
TR: About the only time. I remember the years that I used to, uh, go down the alleys, down the
alleys, pick up cardboard, just to make a little spending money. I remember when I used to cut
wood, the big saw and the railroad ties, you know, for the winter months. I had to sit there and…
just a young kid, just to get about 50 cents or a quarter or something like that to go to the show,
get a candy bar and get a Coke.
HK: Uh-huh.
TR: Boy, that was hard work too.
HK: So these were the old distorted ties from when they did the, when they changed out the
ties?
TR: Yeah, well, they had all that creosote and everything on them too. Yeah, see, they used to,
this is what they used to heat the houses up with. I used to see the stoves, you know. That they
used to have inside the house. That thing just red as ever on the inside.
HK: That’s over at the Santa Fe apartments?
TR: Yeah. Uh-huh.
CB: My dad used to, um, uh…we had one of those potbelly stovesTR: Yeah.
CB: And, uh, he used to get up first thing in the morning to put our shoes next to it so when we
all got up, all of us kids would get up, we would get our feet in warm shoes, you know. I thought
that was great.
�TR: But you know at that time, we all only had so much. Nobody hardly had any more than
anybody else.
CB: Same thing.
TR: But those were the –
CB: Nobody was richer than anybody else. We just weren’t, none of us were rich.
TR: Nobody had no money.
CB: Nobody had – everybody was the same. That’s why we got along. That’s why we got along
up there. Like I said –
TR: No, you know, in those days you know, you were able to, uh, to just come up and visit
somebody. Now you got to make reservations every time you want to see them. [laughs] Now
you gotta call ‘em and says, “Are you out of bed? Can I see you?”
HK: Yeah.
TR: But I don’t know, that’s the way it is today. But it’s still some of it, still there, yeah.
CB: It’ll probably always be there. I don’t think it’ll ever really change. It hasn’t changed this
long, you know. But I think these, the kids nowadays, like my, my kids, they now are accepted
anywhere. I mean they can do anything, go anywhere, they get married with white people. I got
a, I got a brother and a sister, got a daughter who are married to white people now. And, you
know, when I tell them what went on in my life then, you know, they don’t believe it, they say:
“Oh, come on.” I say “No, it’s true,” you know. So, no, they’re, you know, they’re accepted –
and I’m so glad that they are now accepted in – probably the ones that are the most trouble are
the ones still from my age, from way back. Yeah. But there’s a lot of things now that are –
TR: I’m the same way, you know, the majority, all my son-in-laws are all white. And you know,
they go right along with us today. Yeah. My daughter-in-law’s the same way, she’s white too.
And uh, she – we get along as good as ever and they back us up and everything.
CB: Like I said, they – they don’t believe though, they don’t believe what we went through.
TR: They, yeah. I tell you, I about got my neck cut off one time coming in from the Santa Fe
yards coming over to, over to St. John one time to church one time. I stuck my head underneath
the rails, what’s the name like that, I didn’t know the train was pulling, I had just got my head
through there, when the doggone train went by.
HK: Oh, my gosh.
TR: That was an incident. I says, Oh, God, I…After I thought about that, man, I had a cold
sweat.
�HK: So, were you crawling underneath the boxcars?
TR: Yeah. Well, they – the wheels, you know, I didn’t know, it seemed it was sitting still, and I
just went and stuck my head and I just went right underneath it, you know. I had just got on the
other side and it doggone starts moving.
HK: Ooooh.
TR: But we used to walk all the way from the Sante Fe yards over there all the way to St. John at
church and also go to the high school at that time.
HK: Did anyone ever get hurt on the tracks?
TR: No, not that I know of.
HK: Well, except for you. Almost. [laughs]
TR: Almost. Close.
CB: But it was nice, so, now when I hear the trains, it reminds me because, you know, like, we
used to –
TR: See, we used to ride the trains all the time. My father had a pass since he had 50 years
working for the railroad. Well, we used to ride the train all the time. And I haven’t rode the train
for a long, long time. And I’ve had people tell me now that, ride, that Amtrak, they say it’s
beautiful to get on those tracks. I’d – I’d like to go on a trip on one of those trains one of these
days.
CB: I’d like to take my grandchildren –
TR: She likes to fly.
CB: Oh, I’d rather fly. [laughs] But my grandchildren, I would like to have them, you know, in a
train, you know, like we used to, yeah, so…
TR: Yeah.
HK: Well, where – how did you meet your husband?
CB: In the Air Force, he was in Topeka. At a dance, we went to Topeka. And that’s where I met
him, so he’s Filipino. But he passed away six years ago, so I’m by myself now. So I have my
children and they’re all, they were all born in the Air Force, so.
HK: How many children do you have?
CB: I have six.
�HK: Six. And do they all live around this area, or – ?
CB: No, I have one in Germany. He just retired after 20 years but his wife is still in the Air
Force, and she’s over there. And then I’ve got a daughter in California and then I’ve got a son in
Kansas City and then I’ve got a son here and two daughters. So I got three here, and three gone.
HK: So how many kids is that altogether?
CB: Six. Six. Three boys and three girls. And they were girl, boy, girl, boy, girl, and they went
like that. [laughs]
TR: And I –
HK: You had it planned all out, didn’t you?
CB: Yeah, my son – my young son said, “How’d you do that, Mom?” I says, “I’m not gonna tell
you!” [laughs]
HK: And, and, where did you meet your wife?
TR: I met her in Topeka. Yeah. Well, the way I met her was when I told you I was working on
the railroad, well we were working that extra gang after I worked on the sector with my dad.
Well her brother was working there on the extra gang and he kept after me week after week
saying, uh, “Tom why don’t you come on down to, uh, down to my house?” And he kept after
me and after me and he says, he finally, it finally got to me and I said: “Well, have you got any
sisters?” He said, “Yeah I got one named Josefina” and then another one. So I went down there,
and when I went down there I guess I fell for her right away. So,
CB: My husband was from Washington, D.C.
TR: And, so we’ve, we’ve been married 56 years. I got, I had four kids. I got a daughter, 53, that
I’m gonna go – I gotta go watch her graduate in Kansas City, Kansas at 5:30 this evening. She’s
been a teacher at the 205 Michigan. Up there, she’s a lead teacher there. Been 32 years now and
she got her own office and now she’s just graduated from KCK she been taking classes, and
she’s gonna go to St. Mary’s. She wants to work at the, uh, Children’s Mercy Hospital –
HK: Oh, yes.
TR: With the cancer kids and all that, things like that. But my, my son – uh, well, like I said,
she’s 53 and then I have a daughter named, uh, Cindy, she works for the city water department,
and then I have a daughter named Rose and a son named Tom Jr. and he works in, he’s in
Facility Operations at KU. In charge of 17 people up there at the university, in charge of all the
air conditioning units and all. I have seven grandkids and five great grandkids.
HK: Boy. Very neat.
�TR: So, see, I’m telling my age, you know. [laughs]
HK: How long did you work for the railroad?
TR: Me?
HK: Uh-huh.
TR: Uh, probably, uh, probably altogether probably maybe four or five years, probably. Cause I
think I only worked a year or so with my father, I think. But on the other ones I, I worked about
four years on those, stay on those trains. We used to, we used to go in there and used to go down
through Garnett, you know, out that way, you know, Ottawa, and all down the line that way.
That’s where…used to be there.
HK: And then you worked for, you said you worked for KU after that, or?
TR: No, well I worked – I worked at the – well, you mean the jobs that I had?
HK: Yeah.
TR: Well, I – I worked in the laundry. I worked in the laundry and then I went to working out
there where your dad, where, Bob - Bob Krische.
HK: Was that when he had the marble business?
TR: The marble business?
HK: Yeah.
TR: I worked for nearly 20 there.
HK: Oh, really?
TR: Yeah, pretty near. And then from there they closed up and then this friend of mine had just
left there and he says: “Tom why don’t you come down and work for the schools?” And, which
I did, and, man, I took a big cut in pay. I thought that first payment I got from the schools, I
said, “Man, I can’t make a living, I’m leaving.” And I ended up staying there 20 years. I retired
in ‘92, I retired for one week. I retired for one week and then I, for four – I been at KU for 14,
uh, part-time. I go in at 6:00 in the morning, get off at 10:00. I always keep saying, “I don’t
know what I’m doing up here.”
HK: So you just keep working.
TR: But to be honest with you, I enjoy the people that I work with, I think that’s one reason, one
of the reasons I stay on it. And second, no question, the money helps. And besides that, I’m kind
of gabby anyway, so…
�HK: That keeps you young.
TR: Well, that’s what they all tell me. [laughs] What they all tell me.
CB: I’m not gonna answer that one. You know, the radio you can kind of turn off and on.
TR: She, she says I talk a lot.
CB: Yeah, he does. We just talk –
TR: Yeah, we’ve always been a close family. When one hurts, we all hurt.
CB: We all travel together… We go on vacations together.
HK: Oh neat.
TR: We all travel together on trips. Sometimes there’s two, two vans full. Every place we go.
CB: We get together for birthdays, we get together and we each put in ten dollars, seventy
dollars for the person’s birthday, you know, and we go out to eat.
TR: We’ll go out to eat, and get together, yeah.
CB: It was sort of – my mother, my mother wanted us to stay together.
TR: My mother always kept us together.
CB: We stayed together. We used to go to her house every Sunday, she would have dinner for
us, you know, lunch, and that was, if you didn’t go there she’d be mad. She, I mean by early
morning she had it done.
TR: She had it already done.
CB: All we had to do was go over there in the afternoon. But she always wanted us to be
together, so we did. We’ve stuck together all these 20 years now.
TR: I remember we got her a microwave to cook stuff in, she wouldn’t cook in that microwave.
She used her stove. She, she wanted to cook everything on the stove. I mean, that microwave
didn’t mean a thing to her at all. We had good parents.
HK: What kind of a cookstove did she have in the Santa Fe apartments? Did she…?
CB: It was a regular, uh…
�HK: Was it a wood –
CB: It was a woodstove, like…what am I trying to say…oh, uh, she used to put coals in there,
stuff like. Can’t remember…the metal type.
TR: It was metal.
CB: Yeah.
HK: The big, heavy metal –
CB: The big, heavy.
HK: The iron and the –
TR: Yeah.
HK: Like on one side, it had a water tank or whatever, did it have one of those?
CB: No.
HK: And, oh. But did it have an oven?
CB: Yeah.
TR: Yeah, it had an oven and all. She used her oven like that. She wouldn’t use that microwave.
CB: Yeah, our refrigerator was one with the ice blocks. We used to put, you know –
TR: We used to put blocks of ice in there.
CB: We’d buy the ice.
TR: Yeah. But like I said, those were the good old years.
CB: It was.
TR: They were tough, but they were good old years. Good years. Like I said, everybody was just
happy. They didn’t have the heck of a lot, but for us –
CB: As long as you stayed over there –
TR: For us, it was good.
CB: As long as you stayed over there.
�TR: Yeah.
CB: We come over here and just kinda.
HK: Had to maybe pay more attention to, uh, relationships because, I mean, that’s all you had,
and, you know, since you didn’t have much money.
CB: No we didn’t. We had nothing.
HK: You had to depend upon your relationship with other people.
TR: Yeah.
CB: Well, everybody was the same. You know, like I said, nobody had more money than the
other person, so, you know. I’d say, six to eight people, tight little community, you know. We
were really happy there.
HK: What did you do for entertainment?
CB: Oh, played games. Oh yeah, there was a lot of games you could play, you know. Out there,
there was no cars, nothing you had to watch for, traffic or anything. Played ball and you know,
they had that dump, like I said, you go to look for the things, you know, just… people’d throw
away stuff and we go up and get it. You know, it just…we never had anything new, you know.
We used to get a dime for, uh, from my dad, each one of us. Then we’d go out and buy candy
with it, so…
TR: I remember when I worked in the laundry at – I was still young, well I had my, my twins
who are 55, I think - I used to get paid. At that time, I was making 75 cents an hour, can you
believe that? I had four kids, 75 cents an hour. The day I got paid, on a Friday, we used to go out
to that hamburger place, what’s the name of it, sis?
CB: Oh…
TR: Five hamburgers for a dollar?
CB: Yeah, I remember…
TR: That was a big day for my kids.
HK: Griffs?
TR: Griffs. That’s the place.
CB: You remember Griffs. They were good hamburgers, too.
�TR: Those were big days, those were big days for my, for my kids. They used to look forward to
it. Yeah.
CB: But like I said, it did take me a long time to forgive people, you know, just…I even got to
where I didn’t even want to be around them or nothing, you know, because of the way I was
treated. And so, like I said, when I met my husband and we went into the military, that’s where I
changed, because of all the people that were there. Like I said, there were so many different races
anyway.
TR: Yeah.
CB: So, in 26 years you meet a lot of people, you know. So it was kind of scary coming back, I
didn’t know what I was gonna – [laughs] I thought, “Oh, God going back up there,” you know.
But like I said, it’s changed.
TR: Yeah, it’s changed.
CB: It’s changed. Still there’s people, but still –
TR: Maybe some, maybe sometimes most of the older people –
CB: That’s what I’m saying, it’s the older people now –
TR: Most of the older people –
CB: Not the younger ones. Anymore, the younger ones accept anything.
TR: It’s like, we went to my brother’s in the hospital in St. Francis, and this older lady was up
there and we went to ask her, you know, where he was at, and man, she talked to us like, man,
she hated her job.
CB: And she hated us, probably, more than anything else.
TR: Like she hated her job, you know, like we forced her to talk to us. You know, all we asked
her, you know, where my brother was at, you know, for information. Man, I said to myself, “You
know, she don’t like her job. Why in the devil would she go up there in a back room back there?
Get somebody up here with a smile to the public.”
CB: So you still have ‘em.
TR: You still – but…I’m sure it’s there. I don’t think it’s ever forgotten, I don’t think. We’ve,
we’ve had to live with this. Yeah. And like I say, our kids can’t believe it actually happened.
CB: The old times. That’s the old times, you know.
HK: I think if they listen to this tape and they listen to some of the other tapes, they will find out
�that it was sort of, you know, universal, among the people during that time.
TR: Do the majority of the other ones, does this kind of, kind of, with the other ones, fit in pretty
well?
HK: Yeah, there were some that, some – [tape cuts off]
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Description
An account of the resource
La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers in Lawrence, Kansas; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. In 2006, Helen Krische, archivist at the Watkins Community Museum, began an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. The project was resumed in 2019 by Nora Murphy and Emily Raymond. The interviews primarily feature the children of the railroad workers who migrated to Lawrence in the early 20th century; they describe daily life, social activities, and living conditions in the Mexican-American community in Lawrence from roughly the 1920s through the 1970s.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
2019
2021
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
These works are the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Rumback, Ellie
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Bucia, Clara
Ramirez, Thomas
Original Format
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MP4
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01:13:51 (video)
00:47:16 (audio)
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86 kbps
2870 kbps
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Clara (Ramirez) Bucia and Thomas Ramirez La Yarda Interview
Creator
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Bucia, Clara
Ramirez, Thomas
Description
An account of the resource
Clara (Ramirez) Bucia and her brother Thomas Ramirez were interviewed by Helen Krische in 2006 as part of an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. Clara and Thomas lived with their parents and eleven siblings in the La Yarda neighborhood. They describe their family's migration from Mexico to Lawrence, and the living conditions and social activities in La Yarda. They discuss family foodways and healthcare, as well as their work experiences growing up. Clara and Thomas discuss their experiences attending Lawrence schools and as part of the congregation of St. John's Church, as well as their experiences of discrimination and segregation in Lawrence. Both Clara and Thomas served in the military, and share their thoughts about how their service shaped their understanding of their experiences with discrimination in Lawrence.
Contributor
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Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Rumback, Ellie
Coverage
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Lawrence (Kan.)
1920s - 1970s
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
Format
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MP4 (video recording)
MP3 (audio recording)
PDF (transcription)
Identifier
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22-CBuciaTRamirez-2006.mp4 (video)
22-CBuciaTRamirez-2006.mp3 (audio)
22-CBuciaTRamirez-2006.pdf (transcription)
Publisher
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Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Relation
A related resource
To access the video and audio recordings of this interview, go to <a href="https://archive.org/details/22-cbucia-tramirez-2006">https://archive.org/details/22-cbucia-tramirez-2006</a>.
The <a href="https://www.watkinsmuseum.org/">Watkins Museum of History</a> also holds items related to this collection.
<a href="https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/resources/5295">Additional research on the La Yarda community</a> is held at the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Published with the permission of Sharon Villegas on behalf of Clara Bucia, and Josephine Ramirez on behalf of Thomas Ramirez. This work is the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
-
https://history.lplks.org/files/original/7b7e71fd67d055d334cdfde255ae2d0d.pdf
c9b6198043a5ba1f30b6b6451dbd65b5
PDF Text
Text
Tape 23: Interview with Fidel Jimenez, Sr.
Interviewer: Helen Krische
Date of Interview: 2006
Length of Interview: 43:32
Location of Interview: St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church
Transcription Completion Date: November 16, 2020
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Helen Krische (Interviewer): …Introduce ourselves, just for the tape purposes. And I’m Helen
Krische, and this is Heather Bollier, she’s the technical assistant. And would you like to
introduce yourself?
Fidel Jimenez (Interviewee): Uh, my name is Fidel Jimenez.
HK: Uh-huh. Okay.
FJ: Senior.
HK: Alrighty. And the – the first question I’m gonna ask you is about your parents. And, um,
what their names were, and where they were from.
FJ: Well, both of ‘em, they was from Mexico.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: And, uh, my dad’s name, his name was Louis – Luis, another word – and my mother’s name
was Maria.
HK: Mm-hmm. And do you know what region of Mexico they were from, or what towns?
FJ: Well, my dad, he was from Guanahuato, and I never did know where my mother was from.
She never did – and I never did hear her say, I mean…
HK: Do you know what time, um, what time period they came to the United States?
FJ: Gosh, no. I have no idea. [HK laughs]
HK: Do you know, um…what brought them to the United States?
FJ: Never did say, I mean, that I know of. Just come on across.
HK: Did he get a job with the railroad or anything, or…?
FJ: Yeah, he worked, started, he worked at the…for the railroad for a lot of years.
HK: Mm-hmm. And how did he end up in Lawrence?
�FJ: Uh, well, he was working there in Billtown (nickname for Williamstown) and then there was
an opening here, so they gave him a transfer to work here.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: But I guess, first time that he started working for the railroad was in McFarland, Kansas, for
the Rock Island.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: And then he, I don’t know, wound up there at Billtown on the Union Pacific, and – and that’s
where he retired, on the Union Pacific.
HK: Okay. Okay. And what, where did you, where did your family live during the time that he
was working for the Union Pacific?
FJ: There at Billtown, and then we moved to Lawrence.
HK: Did the Union Pacific have any kind of special housing that they had for their employees?
FJ: Yeah, they used to.
HK: What – what type of housing was that?
FJ: It was uh, like, uh, these outfit cars that they have now.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: That, uh, they made into so many rooms and that’s – that’s what you lived in.
HK: Okay.
FJ: ‘Cause like, you’re Santa Fe, they got, of course they have apartments here, you know. They
always had a better living arrangement for their workers and…No, and then we went and moved
to Lawrence and, they passed away and I’m still here.
HK: And that’s a good thing.
FJ: Wait for my turn. [HK laughs]
HK: Did your, did your parents speak any English when they came to the United States, or…?
FJ: No, I don’t think so. And my dad, he talked pretty good English, you know, that I can
remember, and then, uh, my mother, she never did learn too much of it.
�HK: Did – did your dad have any other jobs other than working for the railroad, did he have any
kind of side jobs that he did, or…?
FJ: No, no.
HK: No. Did he raise a vegetable garden?
FJ: Oh, we used to raise a big garden all the time.
HK: Did you?
FJ: Oh, yes.
HK: Yeah. Did, was that exclusively for the family, or – ?
FJ: Yeah.
HK: Or did they sell some of that produce to other people?
FJ: No, it was just for – for the family.
K: Did you have any, uh, livestock, that was, that your dad raised, too? Like chickens and
things? Stuff like that?
FJ: Chickens. Chickens, turkeys and, uh, goats. [laughs]
HK: Oh. Goats. Did you have goat cheese?
FJ: No –
HK: Did you make any goat cheese? No?
FJ: But I sure loved that goat milk.
HK: Was it good?
FJ: Yeah. Oh, yeah. [HK laughs]
HK: Yeah. And, um, so your mom did all the cooking, right?
FJ: Mm-hmm.
HK: And how many kids were in your family? How many children?
FJ: One, two…three…let’s see…four.
�HK: There were four children altogether? Which, um, were you the youngest, or were you the
oldest, or…?
FJ: No, I was, uh…well, the second one, I guess.
HK: Second.
FJ: Yeah.
HK: Did you grow up speaking Spanish, or…?
FJ: Both.
HK: Both.
FJ: Yeah.
HK: What schools did you attend?
FJ: Pardon?
HK: What schools did you attend?
FJ: Well, when I did, when I did go, I went to, uh, when I was in Billtown I worked, went there
to their grade school, then when I come to Lawrence, I went to junior high.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: Went in the front door, and walked out the back door. And that was it.
HK: You didn’t like it, huh?
FJ: Well, I, had my mind on working, I mean…
HK: Oh. So you started at a young age, working?
FJ: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was, had little odd jobs and, then uh, I started on the railroad I think when I
was about fourteen.
HK: Hmm. And was that the Union Pacific also?
FJ: Yes.
HK: What – what kind of jobs did you do on the Un – when you worked there?
�FJ: Well, I done regular section work, and I…went into, uh, they had a foreman job for eight
years, and then track patrolman. And truck driver, and…and I worked at that crossing in North
Lawrence watching the kids there for ten years, and…oh, just about everything, I mean…
HK: Mm-hmm. What were some of your job duties as a section worker?
FJ: Oh, laborer?
HK: Uh-huh. When you worked on the tracks?
FJ: Oh, putting in ties, and – and, uh…raising, uh, raising track and stuff like that, you know,
whatever was low, you’d jack it up, push a little rock under it, and…
HK: How many men usually worked on the tracks?
FJ: On the section?
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: Well, it used to be sometimes that, uh, there’d be as many as ten or twelve. That was back in
the good days.
HK: Hmm.
FJ: And then, one time I had that, uh, Billtown section of road, the roadmaster come by and he
says: “Hire some guys,” and we – I think we had eight then.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: And hired eight more, we had sixteen, you know.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: They used to have big gangs then…each gang had so many miles to take care of, double
track. And, uh…I, we double work it up there pretty good, too. I mean…check – you had to
check every day. No, that was the good days.
HK: How many, how many hours a day did you work?
FJ: When I first started, I was, uh, I was working, uh, ten hours a day, seven days a week.
HK: Wow. And that’s hard labor, too.
FJ: Yeah. I [seen?] many a day, I could just, I could have walked off, you know. And I’d say,
‘cause if I walk off, these old fellas, they’re gonna say: “He couldn’t take it.” So I’d stay right
there. [Both laugh] But you know, 70 hours a week, that’s a lot of hours.
�HK: That is, yeah, especially with that type of work. Yeah. How much – was the pay very good?
FJ: Uh, we was getting a great big old…73 cents an hour.
HK: So, let’s see, for 10 hours of work, that was what…seven dollars and thirty cents a day.
FJ: It wasn’t very much.
HK: Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. That’d be pretty hard to raise a family on that kind of wages.
FJ: Oh, yeah.
HK: And, uh, let’s see, you said you were a foreman?
FJ: Foreman, yeah.
HK: And what were your job duties then?
FJ: Just, like, uh, watching the guys, you know, telling ‘em what to do and where to put in ties
and mark the ties for ‘em, and…and, uh, put ‘em to gauge track, or, you know. Just made sure
you didn’t pull too much track loose, ahead of, in case of a train come up, and you know you had
to spike it back down.
HK: Mm-hmm. How much warning did you have ahead of time that a train was coming?
FJ: Well, that all depends on where you was at, yeah, how many miles you could see in one
direction.
HK: Oh. ‘Course they didn’t have any walkie-talkies or anything like that.
FJ: Oh, no, no. No, ma’am.
HK: So it was just what you could see.
FJ: You just, you just had to, uh, listen for a whistle, you know.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: ‘Course then they went, uh, they – and they put these, uh, indicators up. [Coughs] Excuse
me. They’d go back so many miles, and if you was doing something that you need to, needed to,
some time to, you know, to repair the track before a train showed up, you could put a man on the
indicator and whenever that thing would mark some – something was coming, well, he’d wave at
you or holler at you if you was close enough, and then just straighten things up till it went by,
and then watch it again.
�HK: Yeah. Did you see any train wrecks during your time, working?
FJ: Did I what?
HK: Did you see any train wrecks?
FJ: I seen a lot of ‘em.
HK: Yeah. What were those like?
FJ: [Coughs] Well, it was terrible. Well, the worst one, well, I don’t know. I seen one…it was,
uh, what was it, this side of Manhattan somewhere. I don’t remember what town it was, but,
whether it was, between towns, I mean, uh…a freight train hit a passenger train and –
HK: Oooh.
FJ: Head-on.
HK: Oh, my gosh.
FJ: And, uh…then, I seen a lot of ‘em, but another bad one was up here this side of Lawrence.
This side of Edwardsville, when a train hit that, uh…they had a dump truck, loaded with sand.
HK: Hmm.
FJ: The couple had just…just hadn’t been married very long, each one of ‘em I think had, I
forgot, five or…six kids. And, uh, that was their first trip across the tracks with a load of sand.
And they pulled out right in front of a train. And it was, it was bad, I mean…It, uh, and they
couldn’t find them.
HK: Hmm.
FJ: But the first unit, when – when they jumped the track, the first unit went in the ground, it was
about…half, half-buried. Then the second unit. Uh, the…unit number two was about, oh, third, I
guess. And then the third unit wasn’t buried quite as much, uh, you know. Then, uh, when they
started clearing up all of the cars and everything…they finally found the – the couple that was
underneath one of them cars and…it was, it was bad. I think that’s about the worst one that I was
ever around, you know, people, where they got…well, got killed.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: But no, I seen a lot of ‘em. Yeah, I seen a lot of ‘em.
HK: Did you ever, um, was there any time when there was, like, a flood or something like that,
that happened, and…?
�FJ: Oh, yeah, in ‘51.
HK: Yeah. You were, you were working on the railroad when the ‘51 flood hit?
FJ: Oh, yeah.
HK: What happened to the – the railroad, I mean, the tracks then? What kind of a mess was that?
FJ: We…it was me and four other guys, we was going out to Lawrence working, and we was
working the Billtown. And, uh…the, uh…water was real high. We was going to, about, Tee Pee
Junction and…water was pretty near, coming – pretty near ready to come in the automobile
‘cause it was my turn to, you know, my turn to drive.
HK: Uh-huh.
FJ: So…and it was really high. I mean, we got through there, and we got up to Billtown and it
was, it had been raining real hard and the highway was flooded this side of Billtown between
Billtown and [Bow?] Creek.
HK: Uh-huh.
FJ: And we finally got into Billtown, and, uh…they, uh, when we got up by the tracks, they said
that the levee had busted the [road?] over here at Tee Pee Junction.
HK: Oh.
FJ: And, it, the way I kinda figured out, it must have been just – just shortly after we went
through there, I mean. And then we couldn’t get home. We was up – we had to stay up there and,
and the last, that last day that we was up there, I think I made their day with a can of pineapple,
‘cause the farmers all come in there and had that one little old grocery store, and they just
stocked up on canned goods and whatever was in the store, you know, and the old man, they sent
us into Oskaloosa, and there’s some nice folks up there in Oskaloosa, they gave us all a place to
live.
HK: Uh-huh.
FJ: Next morning, when we got up…uh, we were, all five of us got back together, uh, till we
figured out we was gonna have to try to get back to Lawrence. So we left, uh, we come back into
Billtown and told that foreman we was working for, I said: “Well, we’re gonna try to get home.”
He said: “Okay.” So, we went, we went to, uh, Oskaloosa again. And then we went to
McClellan, we hit Tonganoxie, and then turned into Kansas City. And, uh, it took us, uh, well, it
took us all day to get to Lawrence. ‘Cause then when we hit Kansas City we got caught on that
Interstate, inner city Viaduct, that’s about the time the, all the high water was just barely getting
into Kansas City. And there was, we stood on that [bypass?], we look down and all them boxcars
just, all the things, see ‘em just come up, turn over and all that water was gettin’ in there,
and…And, no, finally we got through Kansas City and we come in, wound up at Baldwin
�Junction. And then from Baldwin Junction we had to go on, I, what…56, I think, end at Topeka
and then come in on Highway 40 and we finally made it home that evening. Took us all day to
get home.
HK: Geez.
FJ: Yeah, that was a pretty good flood. But after that, we could, uh, walk…in, uh, down the
railroad tracks and, and uh, well, we could…lot of the, some of the fellas would just straddle the
rails, you know, kind of pulling themselves across the deep holes and I’d – we’d all – a couple of
us, we’d walk down to the bottom, you know. And meet the rest of the guys over there and work.
And then the same thing we do in the evening, come back through there, you know. Walk back
into town. And they fixed it so we could just work out of Lawrence here, you know.
HK: Uh-huh.
FJ: Yeah, they cleared the roads up. So we just stayed in Lawrence for, I don’t know, a couple of
weeks before they cleared the roads and worked on one of these gangs here in Lawrence.
HK: How long did it take the railroad to fix the tracks?
FJ: Oh, gosh.
HK: From that?
FJ: It – well, to me it didn’t – didn’t seem like it took too long, ‘cause they, uh, they had, oh, they
had gangs, oh, my. They had men working. Yeah, and they had a lot of men working up here too.
Just, uh, east of Lawrence the place we call the Shoo-Fly that, where the river washed out that
great big hole underneath the tracks.
HK: Hmm.
FJ: And they had to, uh, drill the railroad around the, the, the farmers’ fields, uh, you know, to –
once it started trains running. And they had, uh, work train there that, uh…they uh, had, uh, well
I don’t know how many cars it was, quite a few cars, of ballast and big rock riff raff they call it,
and great big boulders and…and they had an en – they got an engine in there and they went out
so far, and then, and, uh…took the rails apart and headed right into that hole. And the engine got
wound up and took and pushed all them cars, and then cut loose, and all them cars, they’re –
they’re probably still down there in that big hole there, you know. [HK laughs] Then they had a
big, uh, sand pump that they’d pump sand out of the river and fill the rest of it up with sand.
Yeah, it’s, uh, it was quite a deal.
HK: Did they start using any kind of, um, other machinery to lay tracks while you were still
working for the railroad, or was it just basically manual labor?
FJ: Oh, yeah, they had a lot of machines, yeah. Yeah, they, uh…it used to be that we – we’d have
gangs, but, uh, they do every – all the surfaces by hand. And then they got, well, they got
�machinery and they had these, uh, trackers. They worked pretty good, but they’d only raise the
track where, you know, high enough. [Blasters? Glasses?] they’d call ‘em, they do the tamping
and…one of ‘em’s got, they use – they used one as a jack and he’s the one that, he’d lead the
pack and all the rest of ‘em followed behind and pick up the track a little more and they’d tamp
it, and, you know, and they got machines to do the lining anymore.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: Oh, yeah, it’s…it’s really, it’s…they’ve come a long way out there, them guys. ‘Course they
don’t hardly have nobody working, but…
HK: Yeah. So…what was, um, going back to – I’m gonna shut this door. Lot of noise, traffic
noise coming in. [Door shuts] Um…what was it like for you growing up, um…did you…I don’t
know, did you…did you feel any prejudice growing up? From other people?
FJ: Well, not really. I mean, there was only one place in North Lawrence that, uh, that, uh, I’d
drive over there in my car and they wouldn’t sell me no root beer.
HK: Oh. [Both laugh] That would have been a tragedy.
FJ: Yeah. Well, they – they, they wouldn’t serve a Mexican over there.
HK: Huh.
FJ: No way. And I don’t know why, I mean…
HK: Huh.
FJ: That’s what I tell everybody, you know, now they’re eating our tortillas and tostadas,
enchiladas, and…
HK: Yeah.
FJ: That’s what’s funny, I think, you know. Back in them years you couldn’t even get a root beer
over there and now they’re eating all the tacos and…
HK: Yeah.
FJ: Tortillas and…refried beans.
HK: Yeah. What kind of meals did your mother used to fix for the family?
FJ: Food?
HK: Mm-hmm.
�FJ: Oh.
HK: What would be a typical meal?
FJ: Every day?
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: Oh, you could have, uh, fried potatoes with eggs and, uh, and then, uh, you have, uh, refried
beans and, uh…and other times if you wanted some, you could just eat the beans right out of the,
the skillet.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: And, uh, then you chop up onion, chop up a hot pepper. And then go out and pick a bunch of
that, uh, cilantro.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: Put it in there, oh, get a couple hot tortillas, just roll them like that, like a cigar, you know,
and eat away. Oh yeah.
HK: That sounds good. Yeah.
FJ: Chicken. Fried chicken.
HK: Yeah.
FJ: It’s – it’s pretty good.
HK: Did you have meat every single day?
FJ: Pardon?
HK: Did you have meat every day, you know…
FJ: Oh no, uh-uh. No.
HK: About how many times a week did you have meat?
FJ: Oh, couple of times.
HK: Couple of times. Yeah.
FJ: Sunday was always for sure.
�HK: Mm-hmm. Was that chicken day?
FJ: Mm-hmm.
HK: Fried chicken?
FJ: Oh. [HK laughs] I like the chicken breast, chicken legs, chicken thighs. Uh…nibble on a
wing or so…I’d rather have the ones that got more meat on them. [Both laugh]
HK: Good stuff. Yeah. Did she make any kind of special desserts?
FJ: No, just always had pies, cakes, all the time. No, that was the good old days.
HK: Yeah. Yeah. What kind of, uh, did you have any healthcare growing up?
FJ: Any what?
HK: Healthcare? The doctors? Did you –
FJ: Doctors?
HK: Did you go see the doctors regularly, or – ?
FJ: Oh, not very often.
HK: Like today, they have health checkups for kids and stuff like that.
FJ: Oh, no, not very often. Back in them days, you ate pretty healthy. Ate good and stayed
healthy.
HK: Well, what would happen if someone became ill?
FJ: Oh, you’d take ‘em to the doctor.
HK: Okay.
FJ: But, uh…I never remember being sick.
HK: Yeah? Did your mom have any special home remedies, like if you had an earache or
something like that?
FJ: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. The older people had all these, they had some kind of stuff
that’d cure you.
HK: Uh-huh. Do you remember any, any that she did for you, or any of your brothers or sisters
when you were growing up?
�FJ: Uh-uh.
HK: Like if you had an earache, what would she do for that?
FJ: Well…I don’t think I ever had an earache. [HK laughs]
HK: You were just too healthy.
FJ: No, I don’t believe I ever had an earache.
HK: What about a cold? If somebody had a cold, was there anything special that she gave you
for that?
FJ: Well, I think that…if I remember right, all that we used to take was the 4-way cold tablets.
HK: Oh, okay.
FJ: Either that or it just wore off, you know…
HK: Um –
FJ: People didn’t get sick back in them days like they do anymore, you know.
HK: Yeah. Yeah. What year were you born?
FJ: Pardon?
HK: What year were you born?
FJ: Well, let’s see, I could tell you, say, like, what, uh, ‘57? [HK laughs] Oh, no, ‘29.
HK: 1929.
FJ: Yeah.
HK: Okay. When did you, uh, get married?
FJ: When?
HK: Uh-huh.
FJ: Forty-sev…let’s see…forty-eight.
HK: ‘48?
�FJ: Yeah, I think it was in ‘48.
HK: Where did you meet your wife?
FJ: Where?
HK: Uh-huh.
FJ: Uh, here in Lawrence.
HK: In Lawrence?
FJ: Yeah.
HK: Yeah. So you didn’t have to go outside of Lawrence to find –
FJ: No, no.
HK: To find a wife.
FJ: No.
HK: I know there were a – a lot of people that I talked to, that they had to go to Topeka or
Kansas City because they were re – they were related to all of the other [HK laughs] people.
FJ: Well, maybe that’s the reason I was lucky, ‘cause I didn’t have no relations.
HK: Yeah. Since you were from Billtown, you were… [Laughs] Did you serve in the, in the, uh,
were you – did you enlist in the service? At any time, did you serve in the Army, or…?
FJ: No, ‘cause second war I’d been married too long, so…
HK: Oh, okay.
FJ: But I was what you call right at the mouth of the gun and all that. Kept being called but, uh,
never did, so…
HK: Did any of your relatives serve in the armed forces?
FJ: Well, wife’s brothers, they did, yeah.
HK: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, you, um, I guess you were a child during the Depression, right?
FJ: Yeah.
�HK: You were a child. Did your family have, um, did they have it any harder during the
Depression than at other times?
FJ: Well…I don’t really remember. I mean, I know that [clears throat] I can remember that, uh,
there used to be a lot of people walking, you know, down the track and stuff. And a lot of ‘em
would ride the, uh, boxcars on the railroad, you know.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: Lot of ‘em would stop by and they, uh, always want, you know, ask for a handout.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: ‘Course, my mother, she’d always fix ‘em up a plate of whatever she had. Stack of tortillas,
and…and, they were just tickled to death, you know. She’d feed ‘em till they got full. And then,
most of them fellas, they, you know, they showed their appreciation. They’d get out there and
chop up big old piles of wood, you know, and…
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: And sometimes she’d tell me to go out there and tell ‘em, you know: “That’s enough!” So,
you know, they’d…some of ‘em would quit and then some of ‘em would just chop some more,
you know?
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: So I mean, they just picked up their little jacket or whatever they had and little towel or just
whatever and take off up the track. So no, I don’t – I don’t know, we didn’t have a lot of, lot of
different things either, but we did have enough to eat, you know. Always, uh, had plenty, I mean,
and like I say, you know, they used to share quite a bit with the people that used to come by.
HK: Mm-hmm. Well, after you – after you married your wife, where did you live here in
Lawrence?
FJ: Uh…on New Jersey Street.
HK: New Jersey?
FJ: Yeah.
HK: Have you – do you still live there or do you live somewhere else?
FJ: No, I, uh…when we went there we went on, uh…what’s the name, Garfield Street and
then…and then over, sold that house, and she wanted to move across the street to the little house
that was there. Boy, I told her, you know, those houses, you had to put a lot of money in it, and a
�lot of work, which we did, and she wanted that darn little house, you know? We finally got it all
fixed up and moved in, and…
HK: Yeah. That was in North Lawrence?
FJ: No, on Garfield. It’s over here, East Lawrence.
HK: Hmm.
FJ: It’s off of 13th Street.
HK: Okay. So did you live around that area during, um, during all of the – the stuff going on,
during the early ‘70s? When they had all those, those, um, problems with shootings and stuff?
FJ: Yeah.
HK: Did you live over in that area?
FJ: Yeah.
HK: What was it like at that time?
FJ: I don’t…I didn’t see nothing ever going on around there.
HK: Nothing going on.
FJ: [If there was?] something going on, I never did see nothin’. [HK laughs]
HK: Yeah, there were some – some people that I talked to who lived around, uh, New Jersey and
Pennsylvania Streets, said that they, you know, there were people who were shooting guns and
stuff like that. And, uh, I just didn’t know if you had experienced anything like that. ‘Course,
maybe you were a little bit further, um, south of where that was going on.
FJ: No…
HK: How many children did you and your wife have?
FJ: One. One son.
HK: One? Okay. Does he still live here in Lawrence?
FJ: Yeah, he lives, uh, well, you can say he lives out in the country, but the city’s pretty right
across the street from him now.
HK: Ah.
�FJ: He lives just that side of the bypass, and most of the town is right next to the bypass over
there. Right off Highway 40.
HK: Uh-huh. Yeah. Does he speak Spanish? At all?
FJ: Well…he was learning pretty good when, uh, he was home, but then he forgot everything he
– he knew. Well, he can…you can kind of understand what he says sometimes, you know, and,
but he can speak a little bit, but not – not like he used to when he was younger.
HK: Does he understand it, though, when somebody else speaks it?
FJ: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
HK: He can understand it really good? Okay. How do you think that, um, times have changed
from when you were a kid to today? Do you think that there, there’s a lot more opportunities for
kids today, or…?
FJ: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Nowadays there is, uh-huh…
HK: What do you think about the, uh, immigration thing going on right now? All of the
controversy?
FJ: Well, I just think about what – what, uh, if we send all them people back, in two or three
weeks we wouldn’t have any strawberries, we wouldn’t have no onions and…wouldn’t have
none of them vegetables to eat.
HK: Mm-hmm.
FJ: ‘Cause people, I don’t know. In this country I don’t think they go for that kind of work, you
know? ‘Cause I used to see that on the railroad, that, uh, we’d always send our truck driver into
Kansas City when they was short on help on them gangs. They’d come back with a bunch of
guys, they’d unload ‘em. By next morning, half of ‘em would be gone back to Kansas City. They
didn’t wanna work. Lot of ‘em would work one day, and then draw their pay and gone. They
didn’t care about working on the railroad.
HK: So you’re talking about the Anglo workers?
FJ: Yeah. So I don’t, I don’t know, it’s…them people, all they’re doing is coming over here
wanting to work, you know, make – trying to make a living, and…what I can’t understand is that
they bring these people from other countries over here and set ‘em up homes and jobs and…I
mean divorce, you get in-laws and outlaws and everybody you know, whatever.
HK: Yeah.
FJ: And…but uh, no, I don’t know. I – I don’t think them people doing any harm. Just trying to
make a living.
�HK: Mm-hmm. Going back to when your dad worked on the railroad, did he, um, did your
parents help, um, any of the new people that were coming up from Mexico to get established
here in the United States?
FJ: Did they what?
HK: If there were, um, new people coming in from Mexico to work for the railroads or whatever,
did, did your parents help them get established here?
FJ: Oh, there never was nobody would – stop there in Billtown, it was – it was just this little bitty
town, I mean. But most of them people that come over, they’d go to, like, Topeka or Kansas
City, some bigger towns, you know. No, this was just what you call a wide gap in the road.
HK: Okay.
FJ: There wasn’t really much there that would interest anybody.
HK: Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, can you think of anything else that you want to talk about, or…?
FJ: No.
HK: No? Okay. Well, I guess, I can’t think of anything else either. So, um, hopefully you’ll be
able to come when everybody else gets together and…because they’re, they’re gonna kind of
talk about, um, earlier days and…
FJ: The good old days.
HK: The good old days, yeah. [FJ laughs] Yeah. Well, okay. Well, thank you very much for –
FJ: Oh, you’re welcome.
HK: And, let me stop – [tape cuts off at 35:33]
END OF TAPE 23
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Description
An account of the resource
La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers in Lawrence, Kansas; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. In 2006, Helen Krische, archivist at the Watkins Community Museum, began an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. The project was resumed in 2019 by Nora Murphy and Emily Raymond. The interviews primarily feature the children of the railroad workers who migrated to Lawrence in the early 20th century; they describe daily life, social activities, and living conditions in the Mexican-American community in Lawrence from roughly the 1920s through the 1970s.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
2019
2021
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
These works are the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Bollier, Heather
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Jimenez, Fidel, Sr.
Original Format
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MP4
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:54:58 (video)
00:43:32 (audio)
Bit Rate/Frequency
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86 kbps
5042 kbps
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Fidel Jimenez, Sr., La Yarda Interview
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jimenez, Fidel, Sr.
Description
An account of the resource
Fidel Jimenez, Sr., was interviewed by Helen Krische in 2006 as part of an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. Fidel grew up in Williamstown (in Jefferson County, Kansas) and Lawrence. Fidel describes his family's migration from Mexico to Lawrence. His father was a railroad worker; Fidel also worked on the railroad, and describes the impact of the 1951 flood on the railroad. Fidel shares memories of his family's foodways, and his childhood experiences with healthcare. He also discusses his thoughts about immigration, and his experiences of discrimination in Lawrence.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Bollier, Heather
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lawrence (Kan.)
1920s - 1970s
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
Format
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MP4 (video recording)
MP3 (audio recording)
PDF (transcription)
Identifier
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23-FJimenezSr-2006.mp4 (video)
23-FJimenezSr-2006.mp3 (audio)
23-FJimenezSr-2006.pdf (transcription)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Relation
A related resource
To access the video and audio recordings of this interview, go to <a href="https://archive.org/details/23-fjimenez-sr-2006">https://archive.org/details/23-fjimenez-sr-2006</a>.
The <a href="https://www.watkinsmuseum.org/">Watkins Museum of History</a> also holds items related to this collection.
<a href="https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/resources/5295">Additional research on the La Yarda community</a> is held at the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Published with the permission of Fidel Jimenez, Jr., on behalf of Fidel Jimenez, Sr. This work is the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
-
https://history.lplks.org/files/original/f3cb9cbe33eb52e9e84062b3a2786cc7.pdf
c2aa2579d2f6ddfb8a0ab07456618928
PDF Text
Text
Tape 24: Interview with Garcia and Garcia
Interviewer: Helen Krische
Date of Interview: 2006
Length of Interview: 47:45
Location of Interview: St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church
Transcription Completion Date: 2021
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
NOTE: The conversation seems to indicate that a second female in room is also part of the
interview, likely another family member; she is never addressed by name and is labeled in the
transcript as F (female). Identity might be “Irene.”
Andrew Garcia (Interviewee): Raymond and Gladys and Val and them. And we had somebody
else, I can’t remember who else was there. They wanted two of them. So we had a whole gang.
And then every payday we got together, and then, they paid us every payday, and then, uh,
Raymond sure loved to cheat people. [HK laughs]
Bob Garcia (Interviewee): He was always tight with his money. Yeah, Raymond was real – real
thrifty. Yeah.
AG: Every time you picked a sack of potatoes, they’d give you a token, you know, a chip, and,
uh…when it came time, Raymond wouldn’t count it. They’d pay Raymond, see, and then
Raymond paid us.
BG: Oh, my gosh.
AG: So, everybody, after we payday, uh, everybody’d say:
“Andy, come check my stuff.”
“What do you mean check it?” he says, “I don’t think he paid me right.”
I said: “How many did you have? So I says, “Well, let me count ‘em before you do it.”
And they had Joe, and they had – another one was there too, you know, and they couldn’t
do nothing: “What’s the matter with these guys?” I had to go through – after they paid us – well,
I had to go through the – go through all their chips and see how many they had and then I’d tell
Raymond:
“Hey. Hey, mi hermano,” I’d say, “You cheated people.”
He said: “No, I didn’t!”
“Yes, you did.”I said: “You owe this lady so much money, and you owe this other lady so
much money too.” I couldn’t [murmurs] do that Raymond, my God.
Well, he says: “Look, I furnished the truck.” [Laughter]
“I know you did, you furnished the truck.” Oh, I tell you. We had an awful time. And
then I don’t know what he paid me, ‘cause Dad made the deal with him, so I never did see no
money–
F: Didn’t see the money.
�AG: He was supposed to pay Dad, so I don’t know, I don’t know how they worked it out.
[Laughter] But, uh, I was interpreter for him and then I was in accounting too, so I got over there
and, uh, there was a whole bunch of girls from Texas. [Laughter] So – so this girl comes over,
said:
Helen Krische (Interviewer): [Unintelligible] girls.
AG: This girl comes over and says: “Are you the mechanic?” I says: “No, I’m not.”
BG: At that age, you know, what else is there? [Laughter] Make the world go ‘round.
AG: And my sister wants to go with your boy – with your friend. It was Joey. He was the oldest
one. He was the only one old enough to date. And my sister wanted to go with your friend.
I says: “I can fix that up for you. [Name?] I’ve got to have the prettiest girls around too.”
He says: “We’re a team!”
And he said: “You are?”
He said: “Well, which one do you want?”
I said: “Well, I have to look around first. I’ll let you know.” So the next day I says, uh: “I
found one.”
He says: “You did?”
“Who,” I says, “I have to take you, you’re the prettiest one around. We’re gonna go
Friday to –” They had a free movie outside in the park, you know; we all went every Friday
[murmurs].
I said: “You girls go to the lake and take a bath and brush your teeth and use Scope if you
can get some –” [Laughter] “And make sure you borrow some perfume from your mother so you
smell good.”
And she says: “What’s wrong with you guys? You guys don’t go around with Mexican
girls, do you?”
I says: “No, hon, where we come from, there’s no Mexican girls. They’re all white and
they have showers and they have toothbrushes.” [Laughter]
Says: “Are you sure you don’t want us to go to Mexico and get a clean bill of health?”
I says: “Well, that would help.” But then, when we went to the movies [murmurs].
She said: “Well, can you borrow the truck?”
I says: “No, the truck is not mine. The truck, it belongs to that guy.” I said: Tell your
sister to borrow the car.”
So she got the car from her folks and went to the movies and then we went uptown. We
bought some beer, and we had – we had a real good time. Brought some beer back home,
and…everywhere I went we had fun. Anyway, we did – we did pretty good. After we got [man
interrupts]. Everybody, we all bought a 100-pound pack of beans.
HK: Uh-huh.
AG: And a 100-pound bag of potatoes. So Mama was real happy when I got home. Yeah, 100
pounds of beans and 100 pounds of potatoes.
BG: And that’s quite a lot, yeah.
�AG: And we bought some onion, too – we bought, we were picking – we picked onions too. So
we brought back some onions and some sweet potatoes. Anyway, when we came back I didn’t
think the truck was gonna make it home, ‘cause we had it loaded so much – so heavy. I said:
“Oh, my.” It was a good thing it had dual wheels in the back, ‘cause if it hadn’t, we’d have – I’d
have ever made it home. We really had that poor truck loaded down. It was pulling hard coming
home, believe me, I’m glad it was downhill. It would have never made it uphill, I know that. But
we brought a lot of groceries home, and that – that sure helped a lot.
HK: How many kids were in the family, at that time?
AG: I didn’t have too many at that time. I mean, maybe I had five. Bob –
F: How many did Mom – how many did Mom [unintelligible] mother have? Together?
AG: We had, uh, Mercy and Tony. We had Mercy and Tony and Jenny.
BG: Jenny, yeah.
F: So it was about five?
AG: And Bob and – and Bob…
F: What about Sabina? Was she – ?
BG: I don’t, maybe – maybe, I don’t remember. I don’t know. I really don’t know. She –
AG: I don’t know what year she was born.
BG: She was probably born in thirty – ‘38, ‘36? Well, ‘36, ‘37 probably.
F: She’s about ten years older than I am.
BG: Yeah, her –
F: No, she’s not 70 yet. She’s 69, I think.
AG: Yeah.
F: It must have been five –
BG: In ‘37, yeah. She was born in ‘37. And what year was that in?
AG: I don’t know, but – ‘cause it was just me and, uh, my sister Mercy, and Tony, and Bob –
F: And Jenny.
�BG: And Jenny. Yeah. Jenny was little.
HK: Mm-hmm.
AG: Yeah, because Jenny used to play jacks – jacks with Jenny, ‘cause when we played ball, I –
I had to take care of Jenny, that was the one I took care of. And Mom says: “Don’t let her get
dirty,” so…everybody wore skirts and – and little dresses, you know, you couldn’t – so I always
tried to put her somewhere where it was clean. [Laughter] I’d tell the guys: “Don’t nobody run
over my little sister!” [Laughter] “‘Cause I have to take care of her.” Everywhere I went, I’d take
my little sister with me. Later on, I took Bob; after a while I took Bob?.
BG: I got dirty. [Laughter]
AG: Yeah, I let him go in the dirt.
HK: Didn’t care about you. [Laughter]
AG: He had a lot of fun, though, ‘cause I [overlapping voices] take him to the – buy him a bag of
popcorn and a Coke, and he’d be happy. Be riding around all over –
BG: She’d send me to school clean, I’d come back dirty every day, she says… [Laughter]
AG: Don’t you guys ever say anything about that.
F: That’s why he doesn’t want you to –
[Overlapping voices, laughter]
F: Interesting, isn’t it?
HK: He’s full of stories.
F: Uh-huh. Yeah.
BG: Get, like, pretty good interviews so far?
HK: Yeah, so far.
BG: Got all the information?
HK: It’s been – been really interesting.
BG: Yeah.
HK: Yeah. So, what do you all think about the, uh, uh, immigration issue today?
�AG: Everybody asks me about that, and I don’t know. I really have no way of looking
[overlapping voices].
BG: I think it’s kind of late, if they could put a stop to it now, then people would [unintelligible].
AG: My wife says: “Make ‘em stay in Mexico.”
BG: Years, how you gonna stop ‘em?
HK: Yeah.
BG: Tell Mexico to get their country built up and people get jobs and [murmurs]
AG: Yeah.
BG: There’s no way to stop ‘em.
AG: Well, you can’t blame the people. They’re making six dollars a week over there and they
can come over here and make six dollars in two or three hours. I’m – I’m over there catching the
bus on – on 31st Street, by Iowa Street there. There’s two guys, and they’re picking up trash
around all the…shopping centers.
HK: Mm-hmm.
AG: And, uh, they’re walking by where I was standing there, and the guy says: “I’m never gonna
go back to Mexico.” He said: “They pay us eight dollars and fifty cents an hour just for picking
up trash. Can you beat that?” he says. “We can’t make that in two weeks in Mexico.” So they –
they were picking up trash. Every day they’d go pick up trash. This guy takes ‘em in a pickup
truck and he – they load the pickup truck of trash –
HK: Uh-huh.
AG: And they’d go to another shopping center. That’s all they’d do. [Overlapping voices]
Shopping center.
BG: They pay ‘em eight and a half dollars an hour for doing that. You know, you can’t beat that
in Mexico.
AG: No wonder They’re not gonna stop, unless they do something different, a lot different.
[Unintelligible]
BG: This morning, stop the van somewhere, it was in Kansas – it was in Kansas here
somewhere, and there was, they, uh, sixteen people and the driver, another passenger. And they,
uh, give two of them a ticket for something or other and then let ‘em all go on their way. That’s
�what they tell you. You can come if you want to, you know. Government won’t send you back.
So they, you know, it’s the government’s fault. Let ‘em come over and don’t do anything about
F: Yeah, they never did anything about it.
BG: Kind of late now.
F: Now they want to do something, and…
AG: Mexicans –
F: [Unintelligible] I feel sorry for them.
AG: I know, you – you can’t blame them for coming over –
F: I know, you can’t.
AG: You can’t blame –
BG: Half a million people here, they’d cost you a thousand dollars to send each one back, that’s
a lot of money to send ‘em all back.
AG: You’re right.
HK: Mm-hmm.
BG: It is. It’s a lot of money.
HK: Yeah.
AG: It is. But yeah, I – I don’t know. I don’t think they’re ever gonna stop. I told the guys how to
do it, I says: “Let ‘em all come over here, we could send them to war.” [Laughter]. “Send ‘em all
to Iraq.” Yeah, yeah. [Laughter continues] Send ‘em all to Iraq. They – they’d – they’d pay
cheaper. [Laughter]
BG: Yeah, [unintelligible], something like that. [Laughter]. They laugh. Yeah, but when I think
about it, I says, that’s what I’d do. [Overlapping voices] The other day I was watching TV
[unintelligible?], and they were showing these, uh, people that, what do you call it, a minute
[man?]
AG and F: Minute [men?]
BG: They were, they had [got together?] fence across the Texas border there.
HK: Uh-huh.
�BG: And they got their poles and their wire and all that, and they had a barbecue and all that kind
of stuff, and they got done [unintelligible] fence. Lousiest fence in the world. Wire sagging, they
could have hired illegals [murmurs] to work and done a better job. [Laughter] Terrible!
AG: Saw that, yeah.
BG: Wire sagging? You don’t build a fence that way, my gosh.
F: They should have got those [unintelligible] hired those illegals to do it – [overlapping voices]
BG: Half the price.
AG: That’s the way the train is, Bob. [Overlapping voices]
BG: Lousy fence.
HK: Yeah, they could have stayed on the Mexico side and built it. [Voices in agreement]
BG: Right, yeah, my gosh. Guys –
F: It wouldn’t have been illegal then, you know. Right there in their –
AG: That guy says: “If we have war with Mexico, which side are you gonna fight on?” I said:
“I’m gonna fight on this side, one side, the other side, the next day.” [Laughter] Oh, I got
something funny to tell you. My grandson Cruz…
Interview Assistant: Just a second. Let me get a new tape.
HK: Okay. We have to stop for a while. [tape skips briefly]
AG: Yeah, Monday.
AG: Jobs? Now this boy, Cruz, he’s not a little boy anymore, but he’s older. He’s working for,
uh, Ace Hardware over in Mesquite, Nevada. And, uh, his boss says, uh: “Cruz, you’re not
gonna walk out on me, are you?” He says: “Well, tell you what,” he says, “I’m only half – halfMexican,” he says, “so I’m gonna walk out for half a day.” [Laughter] “Do you want me to walk
out in the morning or the afternoon?
F: Funny.
AG: And his boss says, uh: “Why don’t you just walk out in the morning, ‘cause we’re busy in
the afternoon.” He said: “Okay.” [Laughter] And my other, my oldest grandson, my older
grandson in Mesquite, Nevada, he – he, uh, he manages four restaurants in two different casinos.
So he says: “Grandpa,” he says, that day he says: “I had all my managers, cooks, and all
my secretaries are waitresses. Because everybody walked out, we couldn’t handle it. The
waitress – the secretary were all mad, but I said, ‘You have to do it. We don’t have no other way
�to do it.’” And he said when he got home, he told his dad, he says: “Boy, Dad,” he says, “just
about shut the whole – the whole works down.”
He says: “Well,” he said, “You’re supposed to walk out too.”
He said: “If I had walked out, this whole town – town would have shut down.” [Laughter]
“There’d have been nobody to run the place.” Yeah. He’s 24 years old and he runs the four
restaurants, manages four restaurants.
HK: Wow.
AG: But he says, “I have a good manager and a good crew [murmurs].”
HK: Uh-huh.
AG: “And one day a week, I go to this place, watch how they operate the, the next day I go over
here,” he says, “I go around and around. I have my own – my own office and my own secretary.
We run – run the place good.”
HK: Could you tell me a little bit about what it was like to live at the Santa Fe yards, the
apartments there?
BG: I was pretty young at the time, but, uh, we had a lot of fun. Families just, uh,
[unintelligible], how many rooms was it? How big was it? Eight on each side and different
families [overlapping voices], it was always full. Kids, young kids and basketball and
[unintelligible]. Ain’t gonna play basketball or football or whatever he’s – he broadcast at the
time.
AG: You know, we had our baseball court, we had our baseball court – basketball court.
[Overlapping voices] Only we didn’t have enough boys, so they had to get one of them girls to
play. [Laughter] Basketball was alright [murmurs].
HK: Uh-huh.
AG: And we also had a tennis court. We had a tennis court, too. We played tennis. It was nothing
but dirt [murmurs]. And we didn’t have racquets. We made some sticks out of wood. But we did
play pretty good. And we played the – we played the black boys from town.
HK: Uh-huh.
AG: We played the white boys from town, too. They came down to play. And we always beat
‘em, we played baseball and softball. We had a fence way out [murmurs] the fence was the home
run. They had, uh, Chino and Joe were pretty good baseball players.
F: Ball players.
AG: Yeah, they – they set the diamond out and everything, you know. And, uh, but we had
togetherness.
�F: Yeah.
AG: At noon, all the families get together and we’d all eat, like a picnic, you know.
HK: Mm-hmm.
AG: Everybody – some people would bring tortillas, and other people would bring a pot of
beans, and everybody would make different things. So we all got under the shade tree there and
we all ate.
AG: When we ate, the people going by on the train, you know. [Laughter, murmurs]
F: And a lot of you were related, that lived there in the –
AG: Yeah. Our cousins, yeah. The Romeros, yeah. Yeah, the Romeros.
BG: They had one, uh, one cold water faucet right outside in the, uh, in the premade house they
had one faucet where everybody used water from there.
HK: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
BG: Go out, get a bucketful and take it back home.
AG: It was City water. too, believe it or not. It was City water, we had City water.
BG: Did it [murmurs] have electricity.
AG: We had a shooting, uh, we had a shootout one time, one night. Two men got out together
and got drunk and tried to blow each other away, but they were so drunk they couldn’t shoot
straight. [Laughter] One of them finally hit another one’s leg, you know. Had to get the cops
down there and arrest ‘em and all that. The next day they come and they’re looking down, we’re
looking out for, come the cops, come down. They had a, they had kind of a fence around it. Cops
came over, they wouldn’t come in, they were scared to come in, so they stayed over by the gate
and Mom said: “Go see what they want.”
So I went over there and I says: “Policias, what you guys looking for?”
Says: “Pistola .45.”
And, “Oh, we don’t have no pistola, no. My uncle, he has a .22. He shoots rabbits and
squirrels. No pistola.”
I said: “What does a pistola look like? Like this?” He showed me his big gun.
“No, we don’t have no pistola. What happened?”
He said: “Somebody shot somebody.”
“Oh, they did? Shoot the head off?”
“No,” he says, “shoot ‘em in the leg.”
I says: “Oh, my people blow head off, they don’t shoot people in the leg.” [Laughter] So
– so first, they shot a black man – they – we had gardens out – out by the railroad track
�[murmurs]. And the black guys come down and steal our – steal our stuff whenever we had, uh,
whenever we had [murmurs].
F: Vegetables.
BG: Ripe and ready for harvest, you know.
AG: We had watermelons and cantaloupes and we had corn, and we had tomatoes and peppers.
And they were too lazy to – to plant anything, so they’d come down and steal it. We had to have
guards out there, guarding it all the time. So I guess some black guy come down at night, and
somebody shot him in the leg. Knocked a hole in his leg. Anyway, they took him, he went, he
limped away from there, and his friends took him to a hospital in Ottawa. And the cops came
looking for him the next day, and I told ‘em, we didn’t have no, no .45. I said: “We just have a
.22.”
And he says: “Well, somebody has a .45.”
So I said: “Well, you guys wanna come see it? Come on, I’ll go with you and nobody’ll
shoot you.” But they wouldn’t go. [Laughter] So…so they went uptown and forgot about who
shot who. But these Mexican guys,
BG: Well, uh, Romeros…Mathew Romero, Raymond Romero’s father shot – shot that guy.
HK: Oh.
BG: Yeah. He shot Felix Bermudez.
F: He did? Oh, my goodness, you better not put that in there. [HK laughs] Don’t put that in there.
BG: Yeah, well, can’t do anything about it now, it’s too late. They’re both gone. [HK laughs]
Shot him in the leg.
BG: Did they mention the city dump was next to the, uh, section houses? Somebody mention
that? The city dump at the time was next to the section houses.
HK: No, uh-uh.
BG: You could – it was just right across the, uh, across the small field there.
HK: Uh-huh.
BG: Where everybody took – city trash went down there, you know, everyday.
HK: Uh-huh.
BG: After – we’d get in there, see if we could find bicycle pieces and pieces of this and pieces of
that. That was kind of fun. [Laughter] Kind of smelled.
�HK: Kind of like dumpster diving.
BG: Yeah, good stuff, you know, nowadays they, all good stuff. We’d go down every night and
dig through whatever –
AG: That’s what we did the last time.
BG: You could still smell that smoke, when they burn it, they burn it that time, they burned the
trash one time, too.
HK: Uh-huh.
BG: And they’d set it on fire and we’d [murmurs] over there. Didn’t smell very good, but, uh…
AG: We took home the bottles, and we used to get a nickel for – for, pick up a milk bottle.
Nickel for a milk bottle. We used to pick up all the copper wire –
BG: Wire, iron –
AG: And then we’d take [unintelligible] to the junk yard. Iron and…yeah. [Overlapping voices]
We’d pick up all that stuff.
F: How many rooms do you guys have?
BG: I think we had two or three; most of ‘em had two or three.
AG: Two bedrooms and one kitchen.
F: Oh, is that right?
AG: What we had. Yeah, the way they made it, the – [unintelligible] in the side they had two
rooms together, and then we – they divided, they didn’t make ‘em right. They divided the other,
it was made in twos.
BG: You had to go out of one door, you had to go out your bedroom door to get into the kitchen.
[Laughter]
BG: Outside, yeah. We had to go outside and – yeah.
AG: They should have made two bedrooms and a kitchen, but they didn’t. They made two rooms
here and two rooms
BG: They had to go outside, in twos.
AG: So everybody has two bedrooms and then they shared the – the other one, shared one room
for a kitchen.
�HK: Huh.
BG: They were concrete and they’d – every once in a while you’d take a hose and wash ‘em out
and, yeah. They [unintelligible] pretty regular.
AG: Well, they did have the walk in front of them,
BG: They had a cement walk. And they had a porch over the front of it.
HK: Uh-huh.
AG: And they had a roof over it. If you had a dog or a cat, you could put his house right under
the – the roof and wouldn’t get wet or something.
BG: But there was a lot of – at one time there was a lot of, we only had two rooms apiece at one
time. It was pretty crowded at one time. ‘
AG: ‘Cause we had, uh, Ramirez on one side and uncles on the other side and then we were in –
in between there. [Overlapping voices]
BG: Who else was – who was next to us? We had [unintelligible].
BG: Hernandez on the corner, [murmurs]. I remember that.
AG: Hernandez was, yeah, they were on the corner.
AG: And then, uh, Josephine and, uh, Rosa, they had the other one. [Unintelligible] They had
‘em together.
AG: Yeah, they had the other corner [murmurs]. Mm-hmm.
BG: And [Amado?] Contreras and his wife, they had [one or two?] Yeah, they went back to
Mexico. They were there about three years.
BG: Mm-hmm.
HK: How did they do the laundry?
BG: Washed up with one of them boards that we call a corrugated –
HK: Uh-huh.
BG: What was it called? Washboard, yes. Yeah, lye soap and water. Hot water. They’d cook the
water outside. Boil the water outside.
�AG: Boil the water outside.
BG: Over a – over a fire.
AG: And they used that real strong soap that smelled –
BG: Yeah, lye soap, yeah.
AG: Oh, God, yeah.
HK: Oh.
AG: Yeah. And they boiled ‘em, and they had to stick ‘em, clothes out…took ‘em out of the darn
thing.
BG: Rinse ‘em off, hang ‘em underneath the – the line somewhere, we had some clotheslines out
there.
HK: Mm-hmm.
AG: Had a lot of clotheslines.
HK: Did you have any, um, livestock around there?
BG: They’d, yeah, they’d raise pigs most of all. Pigs and this and that.
HK: Uh-huh.
BG: Mostly pigs we raised.
AG: We had a lot of goats.
HK: Oh. So you had goat milk?
AG: Don’t taste good. [HK laughs] You don’t wanna try it.
BG: I remember when the men used to slaughter a pig once in a while, you know, you hear that
pig squeal. Man, that was hard for the kids, you know, watch that. We all gathered around when
they – when they did that, and…Now the Romeros – Valentin and Raymond – they were – they
were a well-to-do family here. They had, uh, lot of pigs, lot of animals. Lived on the corner of
Pennsylvania there.
HK: Oh.
BG: And they [murmurs].
�HK: So they were well –
BG: Yeah, they were well-to-do…
HK: Huh. So what happened, uh, were you still living there in the ‘51 flood, or was that…?
BG: We was living on Penn – on New Jersey Street by then.
HK: Oh, okay.
BG: New York, New Jersey. Some people still living there, they got flooded out then, you know.
[Overlapping voices]
F: The flood came a little ways…
[Overlapping voices]
BG: Yeah, you could see the water on the tracks.
F: I can remember, uh, I can remember being like that or something.
BG: Yeah, on the tracks, yeah.
AG: It was up – it was up pretty high, yeah.
HK: So did they, how long after the flood did they still use the Santa Fe apartments?
BG: Everybody then, I think that was probably – probably ended right there.
AG: Moved out.
BG: I think it was after that, everybody moved out.
AG: I think everybody moved out then.
BG: Yeah, [murmurs] right there.
AG: Yeah, I think everybody moved out. In ’51 ‘cause Jenny [unintelligible] and, what’s his
name, Ralph. They lived there for a while [murmurs] I think they moved out [murmurs].
BG: I don’t think they used them after the flood. [Murmurs] I think about the end of the year.
AG: By then, by that time everybody had already got better jobs –
BG: Got better jobs –
�AG: And they all had jobs.
BG: Start moving to different parts of town and all that.
AG: They were starting to…get spread out all over town…
BG: Assimilate into society.
HK: Yeah. Did you both go to, uh, um, New York School? Did you both go to New York
school?
BG: I did [murmurs]. I don’t know if any did or not
AG: They had an old school and I went there for two years, when I went they had an old school.
It wasn’t – it wasn’t the school they have now, they had a smaller building.
HK: But was it still called New York School?
AG: Yes. It was still called New York School.
HK: The old one –
AG: It was a small building. I think it was kind of a two-story deal, and…up toward the corner.
Closer to the church over there.
HK: Uh-huh.
AG: They knocked it down and built the other one.
HK: Did you both, um, speak Spanish when you were growing up, or – ?
BG: At home, yeah, we did.
AG: We did at home.
HK: At home?
AG: Yeah, later on, later on, uh…we did away with it because, uh, the kids were having too
much trouble switching over to English so after a while we quit. After Bob started getting, uh,
two or three years we all spoke…Well, Dad, you had to speak to Dad in Spanish, ‘cause he
couldn’t – he never did learn to speak English. My mom could though, she went to school in El
Paso, so…she – she was my first teacher. She knew the – she knew the words and she…she
knew [murmurs]. I remember when I first came here, the – it used to scare me, they had these
toilets, you know, and they had the tank up there on top. Did you ever see them?
�HK: Uh…
BG: Yeah, where you had a chain. Pull the chain.
HK: Pull the chain.
AG: You had to pull the chain.
HK: Yeah.
AG: I guess they thought that the water had to drop [unintelligible] before the flush, so, you
know, they had – they didn’t have like they do now, they had the tank up on top. The first time
that I went – I went to school one day and then I wouldn’t go to school anymore. I was scared of
school, so…I told Mama I couldn’t go to school no more. The girls come and drag me to school
every day, so, and they – they told me to go with the boys to the bathroom, you know, and
[murmurs] boys told me to pull the chain, I pulled the chain, water coming down and I thought I
was gonna go down the hole, so I ran out and [HK laughs]. And the girls stopped me. “Come
back here!” So…
BG: That saying, “Don’t pull my chain,” that’s what that’s from. [HK laughs]. Yeah, “Don’t pull
my chain,” that saying’s from.
AG: So they told the teachers I’m scared of that, so the teacher showed me she went to the
board, you know.
“Andrew, come here,” he says, “I’ll show you.” She’d make two lines, says, “Water, lots
of water.” I didn’t know what water was. She said, she was telling me, the river, you know, I
didn’t know what a river was. Finally she says, uh, I said [murmurs] lot of water.
I says: “Oh, rio.”
“Yes, of course, the Rio Grande. You know – you know that, Rio Grande.”
“Okay, rio.”
“Look, see, rio. Water.” [Murmurs] I didn’t know what a sewer was, you know.
Finally I says, “Canal.”
She says: “Yeah, that’s good, canal. Okay, canal. I got a pipe going up here, see, pull the
chain, it goes down the pipe, down the canal, down to the river.”
I said: “Okay.” I got over there, told mom, “Hey, mom.”
“What?”
“I found out how those things work.”
She says: “What things?”
“You know, where you pull the chain and the water goes down the hole and goes down,”
I says. “And on the way home the girls showed me, they showed me the sewer.”
“Andrew, listen, water goes down there and goes to, see, Santa Fe stations. That’s where
the river is. The water goes all the way there.”
I says: “Okay.”
So then, uh, Mom says, uh, “I could have told you that.”
I said: “Well, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, you didn’t ask.” [HK laughs]
�I said: “I thought I was gonna go down the hole, pull the chain, all the water coming
down!” [Laughter] You know, it’s funny when you don’t know what a thing is.
HK: Yeah. Yeah.
AG: But they did, they had the tank up on high.
HK: Uh-huh.
AG: The tank up on high –
BG: Gravity, yeah.
AG: I guess they thought that you had to [murmurs] be right down there. Works good. Had a lot
of water pressure, yeah.
BG: Yeah. That’s gravity.
HK: Yeah.
BG: All the way down.
Unknown Male, possibly Interview Assistant: Did you have to…fill the tank up on top, or how
did it…?
BG: Well, the – that’s the way they made ‘em.
BG: It was made that way.
BG: They had water with real low pressure. It took forever to fill up the whole tank, then drop it
all at once. Otherwise it never get flushed.
HK: Did they have a water pipe running into the tank part?
BG: Yeah.
AG: Yes, they did. They had to.
HK: Yeah.
AG: Where else would they get the water? Rain?
HK: Well, I don’t know. [Laughter] Should’ve taken a bucket, fill it up or something.
AG: That’d be funny, wouldn’t it?
�AG: Yeah, they had to have it. You know, they had to have it. You gotta have a pipe to get
water. Well, this guy did tell me, he said, he said the Aztecs had a way of making water run up
the hill. Whether it’s true or not, I – I have no idea. But, you know, they had gardens up the
mountain.
HK: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
AG: Terrace-like thing.
HK: Yeah.
AG: Okay, they had to irrigate those things some way.
HK: That’s right.
AG: Over here, we carried the water. We had, uh, a yoke you put around your shoulders, you had
a bucket on each side, you filled them with water and you run, take it down the railroad track
about a mile and half, two miles, water all those plants Yeah. That’s why I don’t garden.
[Laughter] . Bob does, Bob does.
F: Is that why you never had a garden, Andy?
AG: That’s why I never had a garden [laughter]. And Dad worked us to death. Hauling all that
water. You know how much water it takes to water [unintelligible].
F: And he had a big garden.
BG: Yeah. They all did, yeah.
AG: They didn’t have little gardens. They had, they had, uh, they had about a half-mile garden.
They had, one time we even planted peanuts.
HK: Did they grow?
BG: Yeah, they’ll grow here.
AG: Yeah, they did grow.
HK: They will? They’ll grow here?
AG: Well, it’s just like potatoes, you turn ‘em over, you know. And, uh, I told Mom, I says:
“Mom,” I says, “these peanuts, they’re real good, you can’t eat ‘em.” But, you know, you have to
put the darn things in the oven and cook ‘em and everything. You had to roast the darn things.
So…goes to a lot of work to make the darn things, Mom. To plant ‘em and water ‘em and all
that. I said: “We could just buy ‘em a lot cheaper than that.” Of course, we couldn’t buy anything
‘cause we didn’t have any money.
�HK: What kind of a cookstove did your mother have?
AG: What kind of a what?
HK: Cookstove. What did she cook on?
AG: Well, the first one we had was, uh, a woodstove.
BG: Yeah, a woodstove first. Wood – wood and coal. Then, uh, they went to kerosene and then
they went to, uh, gas.
AG: But the – the little woodstove didn’t have an oven though.
BG: Yeah.
AG: And Mama was good, she cooked bacon, made pies and cakes and everything.
HK: Yeah, those are hard to control.
AG: Yeah, but she could do it on those things.
F: Her mother would send her out, when she was little, to learn how to bake and make tortillas
and everything.
HK: Hmm.
AG: She could make candy out of watermelon rinds and – and pumpkins. She was, she was
really, I mean, she could – she could really –
AG: She could make and do a lot of things.
BG: Imagine cooking on a woodstove in the middle of August.
HK: Oooh, yeah.
BG: Oh, yeah. Good Lord, man.
AG: And those brick houses were hot.
BG: They – they, yeah.
AG: Yeah. Man, it was sweltering around there, they only had one window. Never had a – we
never had a fan or anything.
BG: Nuh-uh. We slept outside.
�HK: Uh-huh.
AG: ‘Cause it was so hot on the inside, those darn things. We slept outside, we’d take our
blankets. The mosquitoes would eat you up. And I sure was glad that Dad smoked all night long,
‘cause he’d sit up every five minutes, he was sitting up smoking a cigarette, I said, “Good,” get
close to Dad so the mosquitoes wouldn’t [murmurs]. [Laughter] I almost said: “Give me one of
those things, Dad!”
F: Let’s all light up.
AG: And he smoked Camels. He smoked strong cigarettes. He liked Camels.
BG: Camels, yeah.
AG: That kind of shooed the mosquitoes away. But I bet, I bet everybody remembers, ten
minutes, he lit another cigarette. [Pause] And you had to roll your own, too, that’s another thing.
HK: Yeah, yeah.
AG: You had to roll your own.
HK: Did your mom do any canning of the vegetables?
BG: Well, yeah. She canned all the time, yeah.
AG: First of all, we had such big gardens. [Overlapping voices] She would can mulberries. Made
mulberry jam out of those darn things. We used to go down to the railroad, pick ‘em up every
Sunday, put ‘em on the riverbank and pick mulberries. And there was wild grapes, too, we
picked them, too.
HK: Mm-hmm.
AG: She could make jam and jelly out of anything. Very resourceful person, Mom [murmurs].
And how she fed so many people that, every [Sunday?] I had no idea. She fed –
F: She always had a lot of food, so whenever anybody showed up, it was always in the oven.
HK: What about during the years of the Depression? Did you…
AG: I don’t know, I – I don’t remember too much about that. Seemed like we always – we
always had enough to eat.
BG: Yeah. [Murmurs]. I guess they used to [murmurs].
HK: Did you have very many of the…the homeless people come by?
�AG: Used to have the hobos.
BG: Yeah, Mom used to feed ‘em. And they come by all the time. [I’d hate it?] She’d give ‘em
something to eat all the time.
AG: We didn’t like that, ‘cause Mom fed every hobo that come by, Mom fed him. She – she had
a real soft heart, yeah.
AG: She’d put ‘em outside, put a chair outside for ‘em, and give a plate of beans and tortillas –
BG: And something to drink. And water, yeah.
AG: Uh-huh. And water, yeah.
HK: Uh-huh.
AG: Every one of ‘em come by. Well, we lived by – up by the railroad track.
HK: Yeah.
AG: So there was always somebody getting off the train. She’d feed everybody. Mom didn’t
care. She was, she was really good, she was.
[Pause, then overlapping voices]
F: Anything else? [Murmuring] Anything else, Helen?
HK: I think that’s about it. Um – well, have I asked you about healthcare? What kind of
healthcare?
AG: What was that? What – what was it? [Laughter]
F: When was this? [Laughter]
BG: We didn’t, in those days, uh-uh.
AG: We couldn’t afford a doctor.
HK: Yeah.
AG: Mom did everything.
BG: If you got sick, you called a doctor. But other than that, you [murmurs] real serious, yeah.
HK: Yeah.
�BG: If you couldn’t get out of bed, you know, then – then it was serious, you called a doctor.
They’d bring you a backpack and their black bag and come see what was wrong with you.
HK: Yeah.
BG: Give you some medication out of his bag and you got well.
F: Mother gave you the home remedies, right?
[Overlapping voices]
AG: She always had her home remedies. She had a lot of home –
BG: Herbs and stuff, this and that. Didn’t taste very good, but I guess it worked. We’re still here.
She even had –
[Overlapping voices]
AG: She even had a – a thing for, uh…prostate.
F: Is that right?
BG: Yeah, yeah. Lot of cures.
AG: She had, yeah, I remember she, lot of people – lot of men would come down and their wives
would tell Mom, you know, Mom would say: “Well you gotta take this for nine days, nine
mornings, before you eat breakfast.” I guess she cured ‘em, ‘cause they never – they were
always, somebody was always, somebody’s wife was always coming down and Mom would,
took some a pot of something, I don’t know what the heck it was. But I asked her one day, she
said: “[One?] that’s prostate trouble.” But at that time, I didn’t know what it was. Until later I
found out. I said: “Darn I wish I’d kept some of this stuff Mom made.” She had all kinds of little
things wrapped up in, like, had an eye of a deer, and – I don’t know, whatever she had. Oh,
yeah…
F: She, uh, was her mother a curandera?
BG: Yeah. [Murmurs]
AG: Yeah.
F: Which was a, um –
AG: Healer or something.
F: Healer.
�AG: Yeah, herb healer.
HK: Okay.
BG: But Daddy, when he was in Santa Fe, they did have, uh, they did have healthcare. ‘Cause he
– if he got sick he’d go to the hospital in Topeka.
HK: Uh-huh.
BG: The Santa Fe hospital. And – and, all the people from around the area come around down to
that hospital.
HK: Uh-huh.
BG: And they’d [get?] treatment there or whatever.
AG: That was only for the workers.
BG: Yeah, the workers, I –
AG: It was only for the workers.
HK: It wasn’t for the rest of the family.
AG: No. Only for the workers. If you worked for the railroad, you could go to that hospital.
BG: Yeah, yeah.
AG: ‘Cause I used to take Dad ‘cause I was an interpreter. Take him to the hospital in Topeka.
We’d get on the train and we’d go to Topeka. It took us all day.
BG: By the time you got there, got to see the doctor, you got back home again, yeah, it was an
all-day day.
AG: All day. All day.
BG: Dad liked it ‘cause he got paid, so…
AG: He was off.
BG: Yeah.
AG: Go see the doctor. Dad had a hearing problem, so he used to go, I’d take him about once a
month and they’d – they’d go through the routine of…They never did get him fixed up good, but
at least it got him by until he retired.
�HK: Mm-hmm. What about, um, like, eyeglasses and stuff like that, or…?
BG: I don’t remember.
AG: I don’t remember anything about eyes.
BG: They did have healthcare for Santa Fe, yeah.
HK: Mm-hmm. What about when, um, women had babies? Did they have the doctor come for
that, or – or were there midwives, or…
AG: Well, at first they had midwives. Later on, later on, went to hospital.
BG: Later on, I was born in hospital myself. Later, yeah.
HK: Okay.
BG: Later on, they went to the hospital.
AG: Yeah.
HK: Of course there wasn’t any dental care, either.
BG: No. We didn’t even have toothbrushes in those days.
AG: No, we didn’t. Couldn’t afford to buy a toothbrush or toothpaste. We used to use, um,
baking powder.
HK: Mm-hmm.
BG: Baking powder, salt
HK: Yeah.
AG: Yeah. Isn’t that awful, you can’t afford a toothbrush?
HK: Yeah.
AG: That’s how poor we were.
F: They had lot of fun, right?
BG: Had a lot of fun, oh yeah.
AG: We sure had a lot of fun.
�BG: Yeah, we didn’t know – we didn’t know we were poor.
AG: No, we didn’t know. [Overlapping voices]
HK: Yeah.
AG: Like Vincent said, when he was going to school, his, uh – they were talking about, uh, what
– what were they talking about?
F: Minorities?
AG: Yeah, minorities. And he says: “What – what’s a minority?”
And the teacher said: “Well, you’re a minority.”
He says: “I am not!” He got home and he asked his father, he says: “Am I a minority?”
He says: “No you’re not, tell him you’re a Mexican.” [Laughter] The next day he goes
over there, he says: “Teacher, I have something to tell you. I’m not a minority, I’m a Mexican.”
[Laughter] And this [unintelligible] That’s like, uh –
HK: How funny.
AG: That’s like my grandson, Cruz. He was…[murmurs, in Las Vegas?], but they moved to
Mesquite ‘cause he was getting in a lot of trouble at school. Well, he goes to school and they’re
talking about the Cinco de Mayo, you know. Have a celebration.
The teacher’s telling ‘em: “Does anybody else know anything about the Cinco de
Mayo?”
So, Cruz is in kindergarten. He stands up: “Yes teacher, I do.”
“What do you know about Cinco de Mayo?”
He says: “Well, my grandpa always says he fought with Pancho Villa Zapata. And he
helped win the war. That’s why we have a Cinco de Mayo.” [Laughter]. He gets home and he
tells his dad: “Dad, I’m famous at school. I’m the only one who has a grandpa who fought with
Pancho Villa Zapata.” [Laughter]
So my son says: “How old do you think your grandpa is?”
“Well,” he says, “he was 100 the last time he came to see us.”
HK: Oh! [Laughter]
AG: “He must be 200 years old.” [More laughter]
AG: He said: “He must be at least 200 years old by now.”
F: Still going.
AG: Oh, gosh, that kid’s something else.
HK: How funny.
�AG: But, uh, he was in kindergarten about, uh, a month when Larry said the teacher called him
and he says, uh, “Larry,” he says, “[murmurs] take Cruz over to…to, uh, college in Las Vegas.”
And he says “Why?” Run a bunch of tests on him. “Why?”
He said: “This kid’s a genius,” he said. [Laughter]
So Larry says: “Well, I’m, off – my days off are Monday and – are Sunday and Monday.”
He says: “If you can arrange it for Monday,” he says, “I can take him over ‘cause I have to go
[murmurs].” But he – he was already, he’d just started kindergarten. They took him over to the
school and he said they were there all day long, you know. They had lunch and then he says:
“What are you guys doing, Cruz?”
“Oh,” he says, “we’re playing a bunch of games. These people are not too good, Dad.”
[Laughter] “I beat ‘em at everything!”
F: Goodness!
AG: So when they got through with the day, they told him, he says: “Well, as I nearly can tell,
he can’t read or write…but, uh, “He’s about two points below being a genius.”
F: Oh, boy!
HK: Wow!
F: That’s good.
AG: So…but, uh…but if you see him in school now, [murmurs] he must have lost it all some –
[Laughter]. He did – he did –
F: He does well, though.
AG: He didn’t hardly go to school. He missed a lot of school. He – he was never there on time.
He won a scholarship.
F: Well, that’s good.
HK: Great.
AG: To some, to some trade school. So Larry says: “I don’t know, you must be doing something
right.”
HK: Mm-hmm.
AG: Because, he said, he missed a lot of school. I don’t know.
HK: He must take after his grandfather.
AG: Won an award.
�[Laughter]
F: Yep.
AG: Oh, and he has a lot of women too. He has a whole bunch of women. [Laughter]
F: Now there he’s probably thinking –
AG: Yeah, I tell you. He has [murmurs] Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken. Anywhere we
go. I was staying with him for a while, he says:
“Grandpa, when you get hungry, tell me where you wanna go eat. We can go eat steak or
Burger King or McDonalds, or…we can go anywhere you wanna go, just let me know, and we
can go.”
“Okay.”
We always go, some girl always comes over and waits on him, says: “What do you guys
want?” [Laughter]
I says: “Cruz, we gotta at least give her a tip.”
“Ah, give her a quarter, Grandpa.” [Laughter] And then if he wants steak, we go with
Christopher, he called Christopher: “Hey amigo, come on over.”
He says, “Okay, coming over.” He says: “How do you want your steak?” [Murmurs] You
live over there, you eat good. Go anywhere you want to go. That guy has a racket. My son ran a
casino – a hotel and casino.
HK: Oh, okay.
AG: [Murmurs]
HK: Yeah.
AG: So he’s happy, he gets a different woman about every six months. [Laughter] He gets tired
of that one, he kicks her out, gets another.
HK: Oo-kay.
[Laughter]
AG: Wonderful story, ain’t it? [Laughter] Yeah. I won’t tell you anything else. That’s good.
HK: Well, this has been delightful.
[Overlapping voices]
AG: We just hit a, we just hit a –
HK: Thank you so much.
�AG: Few high spots.
HK: And low spots. [Laughter]
AG: Oh, let me tell you one more thing.
HK: Uh-oh.
AG: [Murmurs] LA…over there, and some girl, you know, hit it off pretty good. She’s got an
apartment in LA.
Unknown: I bet she – [tape cuts off at 43:10]
END OF TAPE 24
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Description
An account of the resource
La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers in Lawrence, Kansas; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. In 2006, Helen Krische, archivist at the Watkins Community Museum, began an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. The project was resumed in 2019 by Nora Murphy and Emily Raymond. The interviews primarily feature the children of the railroad workers who migrated to Lawrence in the early 20th century; they describe daily life, social activities, and living conditions in the Mexican-American community in Lawrence from roughly the 1920s through the 1970s.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
2019
2021
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
These works are the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Garcia, Andrew
Garcia, Bob
Original Format
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MP3
Duration
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00:47:45 (audio)
Bit Rate/Frequency
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98 kbps
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Andrew Garcia and Bob Garcia La Yarda Interview
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Garcia, Andrew
Garcia, Bob
Description
An account of the resource
Brothers Andrew and Bob Garcia were interviewed by Helen Krische in 2006 as part of an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. Andrew and Bob lived in the La Yarda neighborhood, and then in East Lawrence, with their parents and siblings. They describe the living conditions in La Yarda, as well as childhood pasttimes, social activities, and community conflicts. They discuss their experiences attending school and receiving healthcare. They share their thoughts about immigration. Andrew and Bob also discuss the impact of the 1951 flood on the La Yarda neighborhood.
Contributor
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Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lawrence (Kan.)
1920s - 1970s
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
Format
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MP3 (audio recording)
PDF (transcription)
Identifier
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24-AGarciaBGarcia.mp3 (audio)
24-AGarciaBGarcia.pdf (transcription)
Publisher
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Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Relation
A related resource
To access the audio recording of this interview, go to <a href="https://archive.org/details/24-agarcia-bgarcia-2006">https://archive.org/details/24-agarcia-bgarcia-2006</a>.
The <a href="https://www.watkinsmuseum.org/">Watkins Museum of History</a> also holds items related to this collection.
<a href="https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/resources/5295">Additional research on the La Yarda community</a> is held at the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Published with the permission of A. Bob Garcia. This work is the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
-
https://history.lplks.org/files/original/b47027a8a963ed832999fb2fd218fad3.pdf
e83bf7d7ecb1cd4dc80b20a37664d7e1
PDF Text
Text
Tape 26: Interview with Erminia (Ermie) Gauna and Kitty Pacheco
Interviewer: Helen Krische
Date of Interview: 2006
Length of Interview: 52:01
Location of Interview: St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church
Transcription Completion Date: 2021
Transcriptionist: Emily Raymond
Helen Krische (Interviewer): I’m gonna ask you a little bit about, um, your parents and, um,
when they first came here, do you know a lot of information about that?
Kitty Pacheco (Interviewee): Did you get any of those dates? What dates did you come up with?
Erminia Gauna (Interviewee): Oh, just the dates of [murmurs] –
KP: Oh, when they were born –
EG: And died. Let’s see, well, Daddy was…let’s see, Daddy was, um, born in 1882.
HK: Okay.
EG: And he died in 1953. Then Mama came – was, uh, when she came, she was 18. In 1891.
HK: Oh, okay.
EG: And she died in ‘51. Those are the ones that I had in the Bible.
KP: But do you remember when they were – when they came here to the United States?
EG: Well, they came and – to the – uh, he worked on the railroad in Ottawa, ‘cause that’s where
Paulita was born.
KP: Okay.
EG: Our sister, Paulita.
KP: So, the one – the blind girl.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: So, she died in 1934, I think. Way back.
EG: She died in ‘41.
KP: Oh, ‘41? Okay.
�EG: ‘Cause I remember we were in grade school [murmurs]. She was older, so she would have
been, she was still living – well, she was born in Ottawa. So that’s when he was working, Dad
was working on the railroad.
KP: That’s when they first came.
EG: And then they – yeah, that’s when they first came into Ottawa. And, uh – no, I take it back,
‘cause – ‘cause he went to –
KP: They were in Michigan at one time.
EG: Michigan, where Harry was born.
KP: Okay.
EG: And then –
KP: Then came back to Lawrence.
EG: No – no, see, Paulita was first [murmurs] was the very first.
KP: No, Paulita was first and then Harry.
EG: And then, Harry, yeah.
KP: And then –
EG: Well, they must have been in Michigan after they went to Ottawa. And then they came to
Lawrence.
KP: That’s correct.
EG: ‘Cause they had this [unintelligible].
HK: Mm-hmm.
EG: They came from Mexico, and then Ottawa, as far as I knew. And then they went to work.
KP: In Michigan –
EG: For some reason, his job took him to Michigan. And, uh, then that’s when Harry was born.
And then they came back to Lawrence, and then we were born.
KP: We were born in North Lawrence.
EG: She just found out the other day that we were Sandgrass.
�KP: Sandgrass. I didn’t even know it [laughter]. Do you know about that organization?
HK: Yes.
KP: I would like to –
HK: Organization? I didn’t know there was an organization.
KP: Yeah, there’s an organization. A – a lady friend of mine, Vivian Commons, we work at the
church; we were working at a funeral dinner last week.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: And we were talking about it, and she says: “Are you gonna go to the – ” or, she said: “Did
you know about the Sand – uh, Sandgrass Reunion?”
And I said: “What’s the Sandgrass?”
And she says: “Oh, that’s for us people that were born in North Lawrence.”
I said: “Well, I was born in North Lawrence.”
And she says: “You were?” And we were born on the same block.
HK: Oh, my gosh.
KP: On Lyons.
EG: I can’t believe that.
KP: Vivian Commons.
EG: I can’t believe that.
KP: I always thought that was so funny, ‘cause we’ve known Vivian for years. Her – ah – her
daughter was married to her son.
HK: Oh.
KP: To Vivian’s son. So we, you know, we’ve just known her for many years. Well [laughs], and
then she was telling me that in June the 3rd, they have a reunion in North Lawrence at – at the,
um, what school? Lincoln?
EG: Lincoln.
KP: Lincoln.
EG: Well, it’s not Lincoln anymore.
�KP: The one that’s –
HK: Ballards?
EG: Ballards.
KP: The one that’s in Woodlawn, in North Lawrence. Woodlawn. And she said they have this
reunion every year, and it’ll be June the 3rd and she says people come from all over –
HK: I’ll be darned.
KP: And so, I planned to go, but, uh, she’s gonna give me some – some times and all that.
Because that’s the same day I’ve gotta be a hostess in Ottawa at the apartments [murmurs].
HK: So, do you have any idea, so when your parents first came to Lawrence, do you know what
year that was, or…?
KP: Well, it had to be before she was born. And you were born in ‘20…um…
EG: I was born in ‘27.
KP: You were born in ‘27. So they got here around ‘25 or ‘26 because Harry was born in ‘24.
EG: Yeah.
KP: And he was born in Michigan.
EG: Yeah.
KP: And you were born in, let’s see, in ‘27, so it had to be in the middle there.
HK: And Paulita was born…
KP: Well, she would have been born way before Harry, so…
EG: ‘Cause when she died she was 21 years old.
KP: Yeah. She had two children. She was – she was blind, and she married an older gentleman,
and he, um, had grown children. But she – they had two little children, a boy and a girl. And then
she died, and my mother took in the little girl and her – one of the older children of her husband.
Took the boy in Wichita, so they got separated, the two kids.
HK: Mm-hmm.
�KP: She was – when she died, she was very young. She died right after the little boy was born.
‘Cause Cecil was first and then Harry. So that would have been in – between ‘24 and ‘27. So I
would say about ‘25, ‘cause I know Harry always talked about coming as a baby, so…
HK: Okay.
KP: It had to be in between there and when they came back to Lawrence.
EG: I know we’ve been here all the time.
KP: And then we were, of course, born here, so we didn’t know of any other –
HK: Uh-huh. Do you know what region of Mexico they were from?
EG: Let’s see, Daddy was from [murmurs]. Daddy was from Durango.
HK: Okay.
EG: And Mama was from, uh, [Place Name].
KP: [Valles?]. Wasn’t she from Valles?
EG: No.
KP: ‘Cause I remember –
EG: That was her –
KP: I know that was her maiden name, but I thought that was a state or something.
EG: No. She was from [Place Name]. It’s in the Bible, I think.
KP: It’s in the Bible, okay, so…
EG: [Place Name].
KP: Alright.
EG: [Place Name].
KP: Okay. See, I don’t know if [murmurs] –
EG: And, uh, Daddy was from Durango, so…
HK: Okay.
�KP: When Daddy came here, he was a young man in the army in Mexico. And he actually was
upset with the Catholic Church. So, he just decided that he was gonna leave Mexico and leave
the church and came here and became a Baptist.
HK: Okay.
KP: So that’s all we know, is Baptist, because that’s what we were born.
EG: [Murmurs] the First Baptist Church of Lawrence. What was it?
KP: That one they destroyed. It’s gone now.
HK: Ah, okay.
KP: Was it on 9th and Kentucky, or…? I don’t remember.
EG: One-way street –
KP: There was a – there was an old Baptist Church and had the big white pillars.
EG: Well, let’s see, the Round Corner was up here, and – and…church was down the street.
KP: So that would be 10th.
EG: 10th? I always thought it was 9th. It was a Baptist church right on the corner.
HK: That would be 8th, I think.
KP: Was it 8th?
HK: 8th or 7th, probably 8th.
EG: It’s gotta be there.
HK: I think it’s 8th.
KP: Mm-hmm.
HK: Yeah.
KP: Maybe that parking lot. There’s a parking lot there.
EG: Yeah. Because I remember we used to walk from, we lived at 801 Pennsylvania. And we
used to walk to church all the time, so…It wasn’t very far. At least we didn’t think so; we were
young.
�KP: We didn’t – it wasn’t far for us.
HK: Did your dad speak, uh, any English at all when he came?
KP: No, not when he came. No. I don’t think. I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think so. Maybe
a few words, but –
HK: Uh-huh.
KP: He learned English, he more or less taught himself. [EG murmurs] Because he spoke pretty
well, with quite of an accent, but he spoke pretty well. Now Mother understood completely, she
understood well, because she couldn’t speak and say anything in English, not expect her to know
what you were saying, so…But she had a hard speaking the language.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: She would say a few words –
EG: I think she just didn’t want to.
KP: I don’t think she wanted to, right.
EG: ‘Cause I remember when we went to enroll in school, uh, Fanny Torres was one of the – the
young ladies in our neighborhood there. She was a young lady. And –
KP: Served as an interpreter.
EG: Served as an interpreter for all of the – all of the Mexican people.
HK: Hmm.
EG: And that’s when she enrolled us in school. She enrolled you as Elizabeth.
KP: She put my name down as Elizabeth – she translated my name to Elizabeth from Felicitas.
That’s quite a translation, but she did. And, uh, we – we got rid of that right away.
EG: And then she put mine as H-e-r-m-i-n-i-a. And my –
KP: Her-minia.
EG: Yeah, like Herminia. Or Mina or something like that. And, uh, of course it was wrong, and
Mom got home, see, she couldn’t – she could not speak, but she noticed that right now. She said:
“That is not right. That is not…” So she grabbed me by the hand and we go back to the school.
Change the name.
KP: You tell ‘em, that’s wrong. Change the names.
�EG: And then when she seen hers, Elizabeth’s [murmurs], for Kitty.
HK: Uh-huh.
EG: Felicitas [murmurs]. And she said: “Oh, no, no, no.” She was getting really angry ‘cause
that was wrong, see?
HK: Uh-huh.
EG: So she paid attention to stuff like that.
KP: And she, of course, could read and write. And she could read Spanish because she taught
Spanish when she was a young girl.
HK: Oh.
KP: She taught Spanish. In fact, she had little books and she tried to teach us. Well, I learned
something, but Ermie just refused. [HK laughs] She was rebellious.
EG: But I – I learned a lot.
KP: Yeah, later on. But she – but she had these little books like See Jane [EG murmurs], See
Jane Walk or See Jane Run and all those little books, well, they were in Spanish too.
HK: Oh.
KP: And she had some of those, I wish I had ‘em, those little books. But, um, I do have some of
Daddy’s, uh, Spanish hymnals, ‘cause we used to sing, you know, songs.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: Hymns.
EG: I’ve got some of them, of Daddy’s. But then when they stole the trunk, Daddy’s trunk –
KP: Oh, that’s when we lost those little books.
EG: Everything was in there.
KP: Somebody stole the – we went to Daddy’s funeral when he died.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: Uh, we lived on New York Street and Daddy was living with us after Mother died. And, uh,
we all went to the funeral, that’s when you didn’t lock the doors.
�HK: Yeah.
KP: And he had his room in the basement. He had a room fixed up with a shower. And we came
home and I didn’t even go down there, you know, when your daddy dies, we were so close to
him and – I didn’t even go down there, I don’t think, for days. And somehow, I went down there
and realized all his stuff was gone. So, somebody had come in while we were at the funeral.
EG: And why they would just target his things –
KP: Yeah.
EG: I don’t understand that.
KP: Just his things. So, we – we kind of had a suspicious of who it might have been, but you
can’t just go accuse anybody and I always thought maybe some day it would come up in a garage
sale, or, you know, ‘cause that trunk had – it had the little serapes, see Daddy was a – was a –
came from an Indian tribe. [Tribal name] Indian tribe in Mexico, up in the mountains. And when
he was born, they evidently couldn’t take care of him; they brought him down to this family and
their name was Garcia. That’s how we ended up with the name Garcia.
HK: Oh, okay.
EG: That’s why his middle name is Estrada.
KP: So his name, middle name is Estrada – Angel – and they just had Angel on there. Later on, I
guess they…
EG: Well, but…afterwards he always signed it Estrada.
KP: I know, but I wonder where that came from. I don’t know where that came from. But the
story was that he – they left him in this little serape. And that little serape was in that trunk. So
that would have been –
EG: And so was our grandpa’s, uh, Daddy’s – or Mom’s dad’s – little outfit that he wore.
[Murmurs] They were in there also.
KP: They were in that trunk and – and those things were gone. And I – I truly always had this
suspicion of Eddie.
EG: No, I thought it was Teresa.
KP: Teresa. So, see, you wonder where that would be – who that would be handed down to.
EG: Wasn’t even where it ended up at. And it had his Bibles.
�KP: And his Victrola.
HK: Hmm.
KP: He had this old big Victrola. See, when we were little we learned, um, the music that he
enjoyed was waltzes, Sousa, and – and, uh, classical music. He loved classical music. He had all
these records in this little – and all that was taken.
EG: That record, you know, the big fat one –
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: They were real, uh, Paul Whiteman orchestra. I remember some of those. And some of the
waltzes. Strauss. And –
EG: Very, very little Mexican music.
KP: I don’t even know if I remember him having any.
EG: He had this [unintelligible] Chihuahua that Mom used to dance to.
KP: Well, that was a musical.
EG: Yeah.
KP: None – none of these, uh, what you consider Mexican songs.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: He never had any of those. But it was just music and mostly – mostly classical. And, uh, a
lot of waltzes.
EG: Mom would get around in – in our little house and she’d dance, and Daddy would say:
“Mija loca.” You know –
KP: Crazy woman. [HK laughs]
EG: ‘Cause he never, I don’t think, I never even seen him tapping his foot at anything.
KP: No, no.
EG: He just sat and listened and listened. But he, I never seen him tap his foot or anything.
KP: But he made noises. I remember sitting on his lap, when he made the noises of different
instruments.
�HK: Uh-huh.
KP: And entertained me that way.
HK: Huh.
KP: All these different instruments, he’d name them and say: “This is what this sounds like,” and
then he’d make all these noises for me. He did that.
EG: I never seen him tap his foot or anything.
KP: No, no. Not – not act like he wanted to dance or anything. But Mother did. She danced with
those little cas –
HK: Castanets.
KP: Castanets, and she would dance.
EG: She had this full skirt, I remember, seeing her dance around in it.
KP: In fact, we went to a party, I remember, one time at the Nunez house. I remember going to a
party there at the Nunezes. With what’s his name? What was his name, Pablo?…Pablo’s parents.
I don’t remember.
EG: Oh, Soledad.
KP: Soledad. We went to their house, and I remember we had food, and then there was dancing
and Mama was out there dancing with those things.
EG: That’s the only time I ever seen her out in public.
KP: She was performing for everybody. Yeah, I remember that. And – and we were just in grade
school. So she had to be in her – she died when she was 60 and I was 23. So, let’s see, she was –
she was in her what, forties? She was –
EG: Actually, she was young, but to us she looked old all the time.
KP: Yeah, well, to us.
HK: Yeah.
KP: You know, the kids. In fact, kids at school thought she was our grandma.
HK: Oh, really?
KP: Well, see, we were –
�EG: She wore her hair real severe. Well, you know, a little back like that and a little knot back
there.
KP: But she was older than all the other mothers. The mothers took the kids that we went to
school with. She seemed older.
EG: Well, yeah. Well, to us she seemed. She probably wasn’t really, because –
KP: Well, she was what – 39, I think, when I was born.
EG: She was only 60 when she died.
KP: Yeah.
EG: She was only 60 when she passed, so she couldn’t have been –
KP: That’s true. Yeah, she was.
EG: The way she dressed, I guess, and the way she kept herself, she just –
KP: When she was little, real little.
HK: What – which of the railroads did your father work for? Was it the Santa Fe?
KP: Santa Fe.
EG: No.
KP: Wasn’t it Santa Fe?
EG: No, uh, Rock Island.
KP: Oh, I didn’t know that. I don’t remember him working on the railroad, but I guess he didn’t
after we were born.
EG: He did.
KP: He did?
EG: Uh-huh. When we lived in North Lawrence.
KP: In North Lawrence? I just remembered the – the big garden.
EG: Yeah.
�KP: He had a big garden, ‘cause we lived in North Lawrence with a big yard.
HK: Uh-huh.
KP: He had this huge garden and – and I’d go with him in his little wagon and we’d sell
cabbages and all that stuff. I remember that.
EG: I never went.
KP: She wouldn’t go, ‘cause I was [HK laughs]. I used to go with him. He carted me around in
his wagon. And he sold, um, vegetables. And he worked for the WPA.
HK: Oh, really?
KP: You know, the WPA that was here?
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: Well, I remember they’d come in a truck and pick him up early in the morning, there on 801
Pennsylvania, where we lived there, on the corner. And they would, ‘cause the men would gather
at that corner, and there was the Chavezes and, uh…Jimenez, I guess. Martinez. And – and
Daddy. And they all would come to the corner and – and they’d pick ‘em up there. And his mom
would fix him a lunch and he would keep on all day long and they went to Lone Star, and they
built all those, that dam and they built, um, those big tables and picnic tables type things.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: They worked there. At Lone Star. And for pay, he didn’t get paid, but he got this money
order type thing.
EG: One of those scrip – Script?
KP: They called them money orders at that time.
EG: I didn’t know that.
KP: ‘Cause that’s what he called them, money orders. And then we would take it to Lippman’s
Shoe Store, and we’d get our shoes, and this was in September.
HK: Uh-huh.
KP: But every month he’d get a – a money order that he could take to the grocery store, which
was Carter’s, right there by where we used to live, it was about three – what is that on 8th and
New Jersey?
EG: [Murmurs] New York.
�KP: 8th and New York, that used to be a Carter’s grocery store.
HK: Hmm.
KP: And we used to take that money order –
EG: They called them Mexican [murmurs].
KP: And then we would, and that money order lasted you for a month. You just left it there,
you’d order, you’d buy stuff and they’d just keep a mark of it somehow.
HK: Kind of like a debit card.
KP: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
HK: Just keep taking.
KP: Yeah, so that’s how he got paid for his working in the – at Lone Star.
HK: Oh.
KP: But they never saw money. No, that was the WPA. But besides that, of course he always had
a big garden. Always. Our backyard was just garden [laughs] I remember there was a little path
to go to the outhouse, out by the alley.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: But other than that, it was garden. Well, Mother had flowers, so she had a lot of flowers for
the front part.
EG: The front was her part.
KP: But all the back was – was, it was just a path to go through the garden.
EG: Over there on [murmurs], on Pennsylvania Street.
KP: On Pennsylvania. 801 Pennsylvania
HK: So – so he basically made a living, like, selling fruits and – or, vegetables in the summer?
KP: And –
HK: And working on the WPA.
KP: And working on the WPA.
�EG: And we picked potatoes.
KP: And then we picked potatoes when we were little.
HK: Was that for the Heck – Heck farms?
KP: For Heck and Shoskey. Shoskey, what was the other family? I wanna say Shoskey. [EG
murmurs] Yeah, we picked for them, too, but Heck was most of it – Heck and his son, ‘cause it
was father and son, they both had farms.
EG: And they used to come pick us up, too.
KP: And they’d come in a big truck and pick us up.
EG: The whole neighborhood would go pick potatoes [laughs]. So that was a summer job.
KP: Yeah.
HK: Yeah.
KP: Little later than that, I remember the – the troops going through there with the big trucks, all
those German soldiers –
HK: From the POW camp.
KP: When they were staying at the concentration camp here, POW camp, and they would come
by our house there in this big truck with the wooden sides, and they’d be standing up, and they’d
be singing German songs. And I used to think that was so neat. They were real, they seemed real
happy.
HK: Uh-huh.
KP: And I dated one of the soldiers that worked, that was in the Army, that was one of their
guards.
HK: Uh-huh.
KP: And he would bring me those big fat sandwiches of ham on this homemade-type bread.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: And he said [murmurs] “They eat awful good there.” And so they were eating good, ‘cause I
ate some of that ham and it was good [laughs]. He used to bring me a sandwich of it. But…those,
the – the soldiers, they lived good.
�HK: Did you grow up at home speaking both Spanish and English?
KP: And English, yes. Well, we spoke, of course, Spanish when we were born, from our parents.
But we went into school, kindergarten, and you’re just nothing but English.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: So, we considered that our first language because that’s what we learned, English at school,
and then the Spanish just kind of faded out, because, you know, we spoke with Daddy and of
course we spoke it with each other all the time.
HK: Yeah. Did you, were you punished at all at school if you spoke Spanish, or…?
KP: Oh, no. We didn’t speak Spanish at school.
EG: No, just English.
KP: It was just English.
EG: They put us in [murmurs] Fanny Estrada. She’s the one that, uh, took us, Mom, to the school
to enroll in kindergarten and put us in there. And there we were, sitting there and looking around
and everybody talking up a storm. Then we could just speak Spanish, ‘cause that’s all we talked
at home [murmurs].
HK: Mm-hmm.
EG: And then we…
KP: And we picked it up fast, you pick it up fast.
EG: Before you know it, you’re talking English.
KP: Yeah, I don’t even remember the transition, because it was just English. That’s all I
remember.
EG: That’s all I remember too. And then we didn’t associate too much with the Mexicans
because…
KP: Everybody was Catholic.
EG: Everybody was Catholic but us.
KP: See, so that kind of made us different.
HK: Uh-huh.
�KP: And – and my parents wouldn’t let us go to their house, and they wouldn’t let ‘em come to
our house. Of course, we played at school together.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: And…but, we were just, were not allowed. There’s nothing about going to spend the night
with some friends, you know, like they do now, kids. You didn’t do that then. I don’t know of
anybody ever doing that. [EG murmurs]. But, um, we got along at school –
EG: Chores to do when you got home. But it – it was – it was strange, the way that children pick
up the language.
KP: Oh, a child can pick up that language easy.
EG: [Murmurs] You don’t even know how you…
KP: I grew up to – when I went and moved to California when my husband joined – rejoined the
Marine Corps, he was in the Marine Corps and got out when we got married in ‘46, but then
went back to Korea and all that, so he went back in and we went to California. And I found out
that, um, they needed interpreters over there, so I ended up taking some college courses.
HK: Oh.
KP: And I worked as an interpreter for years for the courts. Spanish interpreter. But that Spanish
that I learned at home when I was little, it helped a lot because you learn a lot of the idioms, you
learn a lot of the little things that you just say –
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: And you know, that – that you just know. So that helps a lot, when you’re translating.
HK: Yeah. Um, your mom at home, did she make your clothes or did you purchase clothes,
or…?
EG: Made our clothes.
KP: Made our clothes.
EG: I remember the little flour sacks.
KP: She used to bleach ‘em. She had this big tub out in the yard, and Daddy fixed it for her out
there, and she would bleach these flour sacks, you know, that had – they were faded, but they
were on there, the letters were on there. [HK laughs] I remember I could see ‘em. But it didn’t
bother us, because everybody was poor.
HK: Mm-hmm.
�KP: At least it didn’t bother me. The only time it bothered me was afterwards, going to junior
high school, when the girls wore nicer clothes and, you know, and they were wearing, um, bobby
socks and, um…
EG: We had to wear those stockings, they’re made out of God knows what. I don’t know what
they were made of.
KP: Those brown stockings.
EG: Brown.
KP: Kind of brown stockings, and we had to wear those. And we would roll ‘em down, we’d get
to the corner and out of Mother’s sight, and we would roll ‘em down because we wore those
garters.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: And you could just roll ‘em down, down to around your ankles, and we had these donuts.
[Laughter]
EG: We probably looked worse than we would’ve if we would have just left the stockings up.
KP: We did that.
EG: Oh, boy. Had them big old donuts around our skinny legs.
KP: And I would have done anything for a pair of bobby socks. I thought, all, you know,
[murmurs], and Naomi.
EG: Yeah, all those girls –
KP: Those girls, they always wore these beautiful little white socks and – and little pompoms on
their shoestrings. I remember all of that, but I just envied it, you know, because I wished I could
have that. But we didn’t.
EG: Oh, well. We survived.
KP: We survived. And we didn’t get in trouble.
EG: Yeah, that was the main thing.
KP: You can’t get in trouble when you don’t get to go anywhere.
HK: Yeah. Yeah.
�EG: Mom was so strict.
KP: She was very strict. We couldn’t walk with the boys, coming home from school. We had to
cross the street and walk on the other side. And we’re coming home from junior high school,
going all the way down 9th Street to Pennsylvania to go home, and – and we’d have to walk
across the street, ‘cause she – she better not catch you, and you know, she would walk up and
meet us sometimes.
HK: Oh.
KP: So you never knew when she was gonna be there –
EG: No.
KP: At the corner, so we just always had to walk across.
EG: And those crazy boys, they’d throw smoke bombs at you.
KP: And they’d chase you.
EG: And what are you gonna do, you know, you know you’re gonna laugh, and –
KP: And you’re gonna have fun. We were having fun, but…
EG: Looking around to see where Mama was at.
KP: Yeah, we was always afraid Mama would see us.
EG: She was always, she was very strict with us.
KP: I always told everybody, there’s no way we could have gotten in trouble, ‘cause we didn’t
go anywhere, to get in trouble.
HK: Yeah.
KP: You went to school – we couldn’t even go to the ball games afterwards.
EG: No.
KP: You know, the parties you have after this, you go to the ball game and all that stuff. We
went to school, and you’d better be home a few minutes after. She allowed you so much time to
walk home.
HK: Huh.
�KP: And we even came home for lunch. From – from junior high school, which was over here on
Vermont and 9th.
EG: 9th.
KP: 9th and Vermont, you know, and – and –
EG: [Murmurs]
KP: Those three buildings, yeah. We walked from there to 801 Pennsylvania, so it was down…
HK: That’s quite a ways.
KP: Yeah. We went for lunch. We went home for lunch. That was – they didn’t serve lunch in
school, I don’t think.
EG: No. Some of ‘em would just bring sack lunch.
KP: Everybody brought lunches, but we never did. Don’t know how come. I don’t know. We
didn’t, we went home.
EG: I don’t know why we didn’t bring a sack lunch. Cause [murmurs], she stayed for lunch and
she was a well-to-do little girl. They had the cleaners here in Lawrence.
KP: [Name, murmurs] She was considered our rich little girl.
EG: Yeah.
KP: ‘Cause she had, like, I remember her – a snowsuit, she, you know, those one-piece
snowsuits you had. It was turquoise. Beautiful. And I remember she wore that with a bonnet to
match and everything, you know, in the winter.
EG: And she had a muff.
KP: And a little muff. Little white muff. And we thought she was just a princess. I wonder where
she is now.
EG: And then when we got older, uh, she used to invite us to her house. She had a playhouse her
dad built, a playhouse.
KP: Yeah. Her mom would fix Kool-Aid and cookies.
EG: And she invited us, I don’t know how come we got invited, ‘cause –
KP: Well, we were in the class. She invited the whole class.
�EG: Yeah, but they were, uh, the Mexican kids didn’t go.
KP: No, you’re right. I don’t know. We – we always got invited.
EG: We got invited.
HK: Hmm.
EG: Where we used to go. And, um, very nice, like I say, there was a playhouse, so cute.
KP: She had a little playhouse.
EG: And they served real food. [Laughter]
KP: Yeah, we got to eat all those good things, you know, that we didn’t get at home.
HK: Yeah. How did your family fare during the Depression years?
KP: Well, Daddy was buying a house in North Lawrence. And I think it was $900 or something
like that, but – the house. He got it down to $300, that’s all he owed on it.
EG: That’s all he owed on it.
KP: In ‘29 when I was born, and when the bank foreclosed on it. $300 and he lost his house. So
that was…
EG: That was a lot of hard work for him.
KP: It was a lot, and you know, $300, there’s no way you could find $300, you couldn’t beg,
borrow or steal it. There was just no place, and nobody that you knew that you could get $300
from. And so, he lost the house. So that’s what the Depression did to us, you know, and then of
course he went to [clears throat] come to – into Lawrence proper and, uh, rented the little house.
What was it, 801 Pennsylvania – $5 a month?
EG: Something like that.
KP: And 50 cents for the water bill, I remember that. Because we shared the faucet with two or
three other families.
EG: Other families.
KP: I think the Martinezes and the Chavezes, and I – and us. We shared that one water faucet.
HK: Oh, gosh.
KP: [Unintelligible] to have water.
�EG: Just the pipe would, you know, that little –
KP: Between our house and the Martinez house.
EG: Nothing fancy, just a…
KP: Did you ever hear of the El Tampico?
HK: Uh-uh.
KP: On 801 Pennsylvania Street, a little tavern? That was our house. Became a tavern and then
eventually they knocked it down and now there’s nothing there.
HK: Hmm. [Murmurs]
KP: They – they knocked down all those houses in there.
EG: [Murmurs] and the house was gone.
KP: Yeah, they knocked down several of those houses.
EG: Oh, and the Martinez’s house. Ours, Martinez and Chavezes were all knocked down.
KP: They’re still – it’s still vacant there now, I think, last time I drove by.
HK: Hmm. So, what – what did you do for, um, healthcare? Was there any health care available
at that time?
KP: The only thing we had, was at school, we had a school nurse.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: And I remember she’d look at our teeth and check our eyes or whatever, but nothing ever
came up, never saw a dentist. First time I saw a dentist, I was married and I was pregnant and I
had a – a…tooth that was giving me problems, and it created a – a bag, or cyst.
HK: Abscess.
KP: Abscess. And so I had to go in and have it, um, lanced. My doctor lanced it. Until after the
baby was born, which – my daughter – and then I went to the dentist, that was my first dentist
trip. So when we were little, we didn’t have, even though they did have these cards and I
remember they would mark –
[EG and KP overlapping voices]
�KP: Cavity or –
EG: Cavity or anything. Our teeth were pretty good though.
KP: I guess we were. You see, we didn’t have sweets.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: I mean, sweets were a treat. Maybe on your birthday you got a cake or a pie. Mother’s
favorite, uh, lemon –
EG: Meringue, raisin, lemon pie.
KP: Or lemon meringue.
EG: That was all she ever –
KP: But that was our treat, for maybe a birthday or a holiday.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: But, uh, we never had desserts. We never had salad dressings. We had this platter of
vegetables on the plate – on the table, and you just help yourself to radishes or green onions,
stuff that Daddy grew.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: And we ate a lot of – we ate very little red meat because if she got a pound of hamburger,
she made a stew out of it or something for all of us. We never had a hamburger. You never had a
steak. Well, steak, forget it. [Laughter] We never had an egg. We had, like, fried potatoes in a –
in a pot, and then she would break a couple eggs over it, and that’s what the whole family ate,
these potatoes with an egg on them.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: Or green beans, or…stuff with egg on them.
EG: [Murmurs] like they do nowadays.
KP: Yeah. That never happened at our house.
EG: We couldn’t afford ‘em.
KP: And never any desserts, so see, we grew up on all these good veggies and –
�EG: And then we had that whole milk from that – I don’t know – that man that used to come
around and sell Mom the milk [murmurs].
KP: Trying to think of his name. What was his name…?
EG: Mr. Cannon.
KP: Was that his last name? [Murmurs] He came around in a horse and buggy.
EG: Yeah. He dropped off milk. And he had that little tin container that Mom always had for the
milk. And –
KP: But at times, when we didn’t have that, we didn’t always have that. At times we had that
powdered st –
EG: Oh.
HK: Oh.
EG: We got – she got it from the commodities, that lady.
KP: The commodity. She used to give us things like –
EG: See, Daddy had the – the veggies all the time. So they would barter, I guess you’d call it.
And, so this lady next door, the Martinezes, and, uh, she always had cartons for some reason.
KP: She had cheese. She had cheese, and she had raisins.
EG: I forgot the raisins.
KP: Raisins.
EG: And, uh, those pies –
KP: That we’d trade.
EG: She would trade vegetables for – for what she needed, a little sugar. She’d trade –
KP: Remember during the Second World War when we had stamps?
EG: But they all [murmurs] like that.
KP: Remember that?
HK: The rations.
�KP: The rations?
HK: Uh-huh.
KP: The stamps? Well, we got our share of stamps, but we didn’t have the money to go buy the
meat or anything, so we’d give those – Teresa got a lot of those stamps, and the sugar, and, you
know, a lot of things that we didn’t really use a lot of. The only thing we used sugar, like Mama
would make, she made anything out of tomatoes. She made tomatoes, regular tomatoes, and
she’d jar, you know, she’d put everything up for the winter. And she would make tomato jam,
tomato ketchup, she made everything [laughs].
EG: She used ‘em all up.
KP: But she used everything up, ‘cause Daddy had all this excess stuff.
HK: Uh-huh.
EG: And we had piccalillis.
KP: And piccalillis, she made out of green tomatoes. She made a lot of stuff like that. They had,
Social Services, I think, had a kitchen.
EG: Yeah.
KP: And they had, I guess a place where she went there and – and they did –
EG: She taught you how to can.
HK: Hmm.
EG: And preserve stuff. She went. She was the only Mexican that ever went.
KP: That’s right, that’s right. ‘Cause she was –
EG: Mom was very…frugal.
KP: She was frugal.
EG: Frugal.
KP: Very frugal.
EG: And she would just make –
KP: If a blouse didn’t fit her any more, it was fixed for me [laughs]. I got, I was at the bottom. I
got all [laughs] all the leftovers. [HK laughs] Remember our winter coats? And she would – she
�would buy a winter coat, like at a – at a thrift shop, and she’d come home and redo it for us, you
know. Those were our coats. [Laughter] We – we must have been [laughs]…
EG: Looked like something [laughs].
KP: But she could sew. She was a good seamstress.
EG: I think I took after her. In fact, some of the ladies would ask her to sew.
KP: But she was –
EG: All they did was the embroidery stuff, and Mama didn’t. She just –
KP: She made everything from scratch.
EG: Made shirts, for Daddy and for my brother, and dresses for us and her aprons, her everloving aprons.
KP: She always had those aprons.
HK: She liked aprons, huh?
KP: She always wore an apron.
EG: She had one all the time.
KP: Out of those flour sacks.
EG: And, you know, we used to go – Daddy would go down here to the…[murmurs].
HK: Uh-huh?
EG: And that’s where they had [murmurs] the sacks. I remember when I used to go over to the
store, I call it the store, but it was to get our flour.
KP: It came in twenty-five-pound bags.
EG: Yeah, and you could see the sacks all packed up, and you could pick what color, and they
knew Mom, they knew she made dresses and stuff out of ‘em. So they let her pick out what she
wanted.
KP: She would have never bought anything that big a print. She always bought these little prints,
or little plaids.
EG: But mostly little prints, like rosebuds. Little flowers and things. I’m glad she didn’t like –
�KP: She didn’t like gaudy colors. She didn’t like bright colors. She liked – which is opposite,
because most of the Mexican population –
EG: Yeah, they all like –
KP: They like the big, bright colors. But she – not her, she – she wanted pastels, you know, pinks
and blues and greens.
EG: [Murmurs] looked like clowns.
KP: She would just, she was something else. She put rickrack around those aprons.
EG: Yeah.
KP: Remember the rickrack? I remember running away from her one time, she was after me for
something. And I came out – I came out of the house and she was chasing me, so I went around
the house. She was chasing me. Well, she chased me around once, and she was coming around,
and I kept on going. Well, she stopped and waited for me. [HK laughs] And all I remember was
all those flowers. When I hit her apron. When I hit her apron and she caught my head under –
under her legs here somehow, she beat me something terrible [laughter]. I never ran away from
her [laughter].
EG: [Murmurs] You big dummy, what did you stop for?
KP: I just kept running. My mistake. She says: “Are you gonna run from me again?” “No!” And
she – she would hit the – hit you in the back, you’d end up with wart – welts on your – on the
back of your legs.
HK: Uh-huh.
EG: She was the one that did all the discipline. Daddy never touched us.
KP: Daddy never touched us. He was so sweet. He was – he was just good. About the time he
came home, it was all over, you know.
EG: She wasn’t – she wasn’t one of these moms: “Wait till your dad comes home.” Uh-uh.
KP: She didn’t wait.
EG: She fixed it right, and then there.
KP: And if – and if we, the two of us a lot of times got it together, because if we didn’t tell on:
“She did it,” or she’d say I did it, well then we both got it. So it didn’t do any good.
EG: So, we both got it just in case.
�HK: Were you both born at home, or…?
KP: Mm-hmm.
EG: Uh…we had – she had a midwife.
KP: There was a midwife. She lived over on Pennsylvania Street, 800 block on Pennsylvania
about the middle of the block, her name was Petra. But I don’t remember the last name.
EG: No, that – that was for you. But for me, there was a…a white lady who lived a block from
where we lived.
KP: Oh, well, for me it was Petra.
EG: I know it was that lady.
KP: That Mexican lady. She was a real old lady. Well, I don’t know if she was or not, but
anyway, Daddy probably [EG murmurs] – but anyway, when I was born it was storming and real
bad rain in April.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: And Daddy walked all the way across the bridge down to Pennsylvania Street to pick her up,
to bring her back, so by the time they got there, I was born, but then she had to cut the cord and
all that. But, so that was a hard time for Mom. ‘Cause we couldn’t afford – couldn’t afford
doctors and stuff.
EG: And the only reason that they didn’t call this lady that – I forget, but I used to know her
name, but I don’t remember now. She passed away. When I tried to get my birth certificate, she
forgot – she forgot to record it.
KP: Record it.
EG: In Topeka and I had a [murmurs], and she’d already passed away when I was gonna go and
take a trip to Mexico. I was, uh, married, and of course had had [murmurs] no certificate. They
didn’t know I existed in Topeka. I said: “Oh, boy.” So I had to get Daddy’s Bible, and people
that she knew, and…
KP: It was just a mess.
EG: Finally, I got it. It took me about four or five years.
KP: My goodness, yeah…
EG: The people had already passed away.
�KP: Yeah, well, even Doña Petra had probably already died.
EG: She’d already passed away too.
KP: But – but they had mine. She had recorded mine, or somebody had recorded it.
EG: Had to be.
KP: Mine was in Topeka.
EG: But that lady in North Lawrence, she didn’t. And, uh…I tell you, I had a terrible time.
[Murmurs] but I finally got my birth certificate.
HK: Growing up in Lawrence, did you experience any prejudice?
KP: You know, I’ve heard that a lot, and we’ve discussed that. We’ve heard friends of ours, and
you know, even relatives now, that have – had experienced all of that. And we never did. I don’t
know why. Maybe somehow, I think maybe the fact that we were Baptists…we were kind of, we
were kind of away from the other Mexican families when it comes to, like, celebrations and all
this, all these church socials, fiestas and [murmurs] we didn’t belong to any of that. The only
thing I remember was that dance group. [EG murmurs] Some lady came and talked Mother into
letting us do it, and of course we were ecstatic, ‘cause it was – it was dance, you know, we loved
that. And so, but I – I like we’re not in the picture, so evidently she didn’t let us come [EG
murmurs] to get the picture taken.
EG: I remember we – she made skirts for us.
KP: And she made skirts and blouses, she made these beautiful blouses, embroidered all that
stuff on it. And, but, oh, I must have been five or six and you must have been six or seven. I
mean, we were little –
EG: Oh, yeah, Yeah, we were little. Well, it couldn’t have been too young, because I remember
that we –
KP: Who was there in our age group?
EG: ‘Cause I remember her making us the skirts, and –
KP: I remember the little – the little blouses.
EG: I said: “Oh” –
KP: And we went and – and we’d go to practice, she’d take us to practice. And, uh, and we
danced for a group. We either danced at KU or somewhere we danced. We went to dance.
EG: Well, someplace they took us to dance.
�KP: I think it was at KU. Like, for some reason…
EG: ‘Cause, see, there’s Theresa.
KP: Who was our age.
EG: Juanita. And…both Juanitas [murmurs].
KP: Well, I know we were in grade school.
EG: It was in grade school.
KP: Yeah, well, see, they’re grade school age.
EG: See, that’s about how old we were. About ten. There was Clara. [Murmurs] ‘Course, she’s
older than I am. She was older than – she was older than you, so she was older. But we were this
age, probably. Yeah, we were probably that age.
KP: But I remember those little skirts and that’s the only thing I can remember that we had
anything to do with the – with the other kids socially.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: ‘Cause we, of course, never had anything to do with them. But no – we, I didn’t feel any
prejudice. Uh, as I – when I grew up and got married, and I left home and went to Ottawa to live
with my husband for not even a year, ‘cause our daughter was born and then we came back to
Lawrence to live and Ermie was married and living here, and my brother. And we used to party
and go to different places and I – I don’t know if you knew of the Skipper Williams family.
HK: Yes, I’ve heard of them.
KP: Williams. Well, he was our best friend. And we went to the country club, you know, for
dinners and – and my husband and I were with him. And, uh, Jan, and we used to go to all these
– we’d get on the plane, he had a plane, and we’d fly to Oklahoma, or we’d fly to Nebraska,
we’d fly to Colorado. We’d go to these games, for the KU games.
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: And with him, and we never felt any prejudice anywhere.
EG: He’d come to my house, and I’d cook for ‘em, and we had parties.
KP: We had parties at our house, we were always at our house. Other friends, we had a lot of, at
that time, of course he was, uh, already an alumni from KU. And he had all these, uh, uh, friends
that were, like, he brought Wilt Chamberlain to KU. And so, we were all just friends, ‘cause we
�all [murmurs] football players and…yeah. And we had a lot of fun. And this was…what, in the
50s?
EG: And we had that big bus.
KP: In the 50s.
EG: Uh-huh, yeah, in the 50s. Had that big bus [murmurs] like a party bus.
HK: Mm-hmm.
EG: I guess football players and Skipper Williams had it. Man, I’m tell you, these guys. Come
knocking on your door [mimics knocking sound]: “We’re here to party!” [Laughter]
KP: We lived on Massachusetts Street then. And Skipper would come to the door, and we’d
already be in bed. And he’d come to the door and he’d just stick his hand in with his empty glass,
ready for another drink. [HK laughs] And we’d get up, next thing you know we got busy going,
and we’re having a good time. And he had a, uh, a cabin out at the Lone Star lake. And we’d go
out there what he called “roughing it.” We’d go out there and he’d take the maid, and take the
kids, ‘cause they were – his kids were little. Shawn and [clears throat] Todd. At that time his
name was Odd. Do you know Todd Williams?
HK: Mm-hmm.
KP: He runs – works at the athletic club or something. Well, his – his name was Odd, like his
uncle Odd. But when they found out that he was retarded –
HK: Oh.
KP: They changed it to Todd. So, he used to be Odd. But when he was little like that, you – you
couldn’t tell – [Tape cuts off at 47:28]
END OF TAPE 26
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Description
An account of the resource
La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers in Lawrence, Kansas; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. In 2006, Helen Krische, archivist at the Watkins Community Museum, began an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. The project was resumed in 2019 by Nora Murphy and Emily Raymond. The interviews primarily feature the children of the railroad workers who migrated to Lawrence in the early 20th century; they describe daily life, social activities, and living conditions in the Mexican-American community in Lawrence from roughly the 1920s through the 1970s.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
2019
2021
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
These works are the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Gauna, Erminia (Ermie)
Pacheco, Kitty
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
MP4
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:01:31 (video)
00:52:01 (audio)
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
83 kbps
3748 kbps
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Erminia (Ermie) Gauna and Kitty Pacheco La Yarda Interview
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Gauna, Erminia (Ermie)
Pacheco, Kitty
Description
An account of the resource
Sisters Erminia Gauna and Kitty Pacheco were interviewed by Helen Krische in 2006 as part of an oral history project to document the La Yarda and Mexican-American communities in Lawrence, Kansas. La Yarda was a neighborhood of worker housing provided by the Santa Fe Railroad for Mexican-American railroad workers; located near the Kansas (Kaw) River, the neighborhood was largely destroyed by a major flood in 1951. Erminia and Kitty grew up in North Lawrence and in East Lawrence, and attended the Baptist church. They describe their family's migration from Mexico to Lawrence, and share memories of their mother and father. Erminia and Kitty describe social activities in the Mexican-American community, living conditions in East Lawrence, their father's work for the Works Progress Administration (WPA), their parents' gardens, and their experiences picking potatoes. They share their memories of the Great Depression, and of the German POW camp in Lawrence during World War II. They describe speaking Spanish as children. Erminia and Kitty describe family foodways, and their experiences receiving healthcare. They also discuss their experiences with discrimination and segregation as part of the Mexican-American community in Lawrence.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Krische, Helen
Raymond, Emily
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lawrence (Kan.)
1920s - 1970s
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
MP4 (video recording)
MP3 (audio recording)
PDF (transcription)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
26-EGaunaKPacheco-2006.mp4 (video)
26-EGaunaKPacheco-2006.mp3 (audio)
26-EGaunaKPacheco-2006.pdf (transcription)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watkins Community Museum (Lawrence, Kan.)
Relation
A related resource
To access the video and audio recordings of this interview, go to <a href="https://archive.org/details/26-egauna-kpacheco-2006">https://archive.org/details/26-egauna-kpacheco-2006</a>.
The <a href="https://www.watkinsmuseum.org/">Watkins Museum of History</a> also holds items related to this collection.
<a href="https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/resources/5295">Additional research on the La Yarda community</a> is held at the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Published with the permission of Margaret Garcia on behalf of Erminia Gauna and Kitty Pacheco. This work is the intellectual property of the Watkins Museum of History, Lawrence, Kansas. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
La Yarda Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
La Yarda (Lawrence, Kan.)
Mexican Americans -- Housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- History -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Mexican Americans -- Social conditions -- Kansas -- Lawrence
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History