THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL
INTERVIEW WITH: Car .nen Perry
DATE: June 25 , 1988
PLACE: Perry's home
INTERVIEWER: Patrick McGuire
MCG: Today we're going to ask Carmen to give us a synopsis
of her early life; and other questions will be introduced as
we go along. At this time, Carmen, I'm going to give you
the microphone. Tell us your name.
P: Carmen Perry-Vilarnala, my mother's name.
MCG: Carmen , where were you born?
P: In Tor reo~n , Mex1. co . I was born 1. n Torreo/ n, Me x1. co .
.....
MCG: And tell me about your parents.
P : My father was German, his fath e r was British, his
mother German. He was born in Hamburg and as a young man he
went to Barcelona and worked at the Bank of London in
Barcelona. And one day at a restaurant he saw a family that
frequently came there and he was very much interested in
meeting o ne of the daughters . But in Spain at that time he
knew better than to try to go and say, "Look, I want to talk
t o your daughter."
So one day a friend of his came in and he stopped at
the table and greeted the family, so then my father went up
to him and said, "Look, I must meet that lady over there."
PERRY 2
P: and his friend said, "Well, you know, in Spain you just
have to go at it very diplomatically. I'll see how I can do
it." So one day he finally introduced father to mother.
After that when father would go to see mother, never once
were they ever alone. They always had either father,
grandfather, grandmother or aunt, so father got in the
custom of taking grandfather a lot o f newspapers,
grandmother novels, aunt big boxes of candy so that he and
mother could sit in the corner and chat. Finally they were
married and then father took mother to Germany to meet his
family and they went to Mexico.
MCG: Before we get to Mexico. What city in Germany did they
live in?
P: In Hamburg.
MCG: And give us your father's name and your mother's name.
P: Father ' s name was Charles William Perry and my mother 's
name was Dolores Vilamala.
MCG : Can you spell that?
P: V-i-1-a-m-a-la. And my aunt who g rew up with us
always, was always our closest companion, her name was
Eulal ia Vi lamala, who we always called her Lala. I never
once saw my Aunt Lala unhappy or fussing or she would settle
any argument for any problems with some funny tale; some
humorous story or something.
MCG: Carmen, can you tell us what your dad d id in Barcelona
for a job and why he chose to move to Mexico.
P : Father worked for the Bank of London and he had a
PERRY 3
P: rather important position there. He said when he
reported in the morning, they had to memorize all the rates
of exchange in the world, no machines in those days. Then a
friend of his had gotten involved in business in Mexico and
told father about this plant that made rubber out of the
guayule plant and exported it all to Germany. So father got
very much interested and became involved with this gentleman
and after he married mother, they moved to Torre~ where
father was involved with this factory making rubber from the
guayule plant.
But a few years later he had an opportunity to buy the
plant in Monclova as his own plant. So he moved us, the
family, to Monclova and we were there until the revolution.
MCG: Carmen, can you tell me, please, the year in which your
parents married in Barcelona?
P: I think it was 1896. Either 1896 or '98, I'm not
sure.
MCG: Did you ever know your grandparents on your mother's
side in Spain and your grandparents on your father's side
who lived in Germany, I assume?
P: My grandfathers and paternal grandmother had died.
After father had settled in Torreo~, he went to Spain, when
mother's father died. He brought back mother's mother and
sister, my Aunt Lala . They lived with us the rest of their
lives.
MCG: That's really nice. . I .
Now we're 1n Torreon, Mex1co, and
PERRY 4
MCG: you later moved up to Monclova. Now you're in the
earlier years of your life. This is what I'd like - for you
to reach back and think about - your home, your family life,
your economic well-being and describe it for us.
P: The rubber plant father had in Monclova was quite a
large establishment, including our home, and office, which
was part of the plant and the workmen lived in the far back
side of the plant. And father was always very close to us.
In the evenings my brothers and I would sit with him and he
would read to us German fairy tales, tell us stories. Or we
would sing to him some German hymns and of course, during
the day mother and aunt looked after us. My brothers at
that time were very active in Monclova, playing with some of
the other neighbors.
One of the big events in their lives there was one day
when the streetcars, run by mules in Monclova, my two
brothers and another friend put matches on the streetcar
tracks which blew up, scared the mules and they ran away
with the streetcar, all the way to where the term ended
there by the factory. And father, one time in his life,
when he really whipped those boys. Gave them a lecture.
Another event in Monclova I remember distinctly. One
day in the mail carne a package and my brothers were very
curious to know what was in that package. They opened it
and it happened to be a shaving - what do you call it - no,
shaving thing - razor. So they wanted to see how it worked
so they tried it on me and cut all my hair straight down
PERRY 5
P: the middle of my head. So when my mother and aunt saw
me they passed out. And for weeks I had to wear scarves and
hide my head. (laughter)
MCG: That's marvelous! Carmen, about how old where you then
and when did you start to school and what languages did you
know at the age you started to school?
P: I was then about 6 years old. During the Revolution,
the Mexican Revolution in 1913, one night some men came,
because father was very well liked by all the workmen at the
factory and in the town of Monclova and very much a part of
the community.
And one night they came and said, "Don Carlos, they're
going to have a fight here, the Revolution, and your family
will be in great danger. Take the first train out and take
them out of the city."
So the first train - that was about 2 o'clock in the
morning - was a freight train. So we packed as quickly as
we could what we could take, not much but whatever we could
pick up, got on the freight train. I remember sitting on
the floor of this train there looking out the window and all
of a sudden yelling and Mother siad, "What 's wrong, what's
wrong?" And I pointed to the window and there was a man
hanging on a tree .
So we landed in San Antonio. All we knew was Spanish.
Father, of course, spoke German, English and French. But
mother, aunt and I - and my 2 brothers spoke Spanish. So we
were in a strange city, living in a little hotel where the
PERRY
P: Hilton is now, the Jewell Hotel, without a word of
English.
6
A few months after we had arrived, World War I started.
And all of a sudden the government told father that every
penny he had would be embargoed because he was a German -
had been born in Germany, although father had never been
connected with Germany in all those years, living in Mexico.
So here we were in a strange city without a penny. We had
to live from the jewelry and objects that we had that we
could sell or get loans on . And my brothers were then at
St. Louis College, trying to learn English and stay in
school. And I was at St . Josephs's Academy where the
Jeske ' s parking lot was. We slowly learned English.
Both the nuns and the brothers at St . Louis were very,
very kind to us and very helpful. And gradually , since we
had had tutoring in Mexico, as soon as we learned enough
English we could be part of the class .
MCG: When you lived in Mexico, did your mother and father
have servants in the house to help them? And, you 've
mentioned your brothers , but you haven't told us their
names. And how old they were.
P: My oldest brother was named Charles, my youngest
brother was Henry . Henry was 4 years older then I and
Charles 6 years older.
MCG: Were you all born in Mexico and did you - when you were
a l i ttle girl, little I mean, did your mother have a servant
to take care of you and things like that?
PERRY 7
• I P: Yes. I was born 1n Torreon and, of course, we always
had many servants there. Always a maid, a cook, a yardman.
When we were in Monclova we had an excellent Chinese cook
who would not want any women in the kitchen. All he wanted
was orders to be told what we wanted for our meals and he
would take care from there on. And didn't like to have the
women around.
MCG: What happened to him?
P: Well, of course, when we had to leave, we had to leave
everything - the house, the possessions, the servants,
everybody, in the middle of the night. And we don't know
what happened to any of it.
The citizens in Monclova, the neighbors were very good
about trying to preserve things for us, but there was no
contact then because of the war. So father could not get
any of his possessions back.
MCG: You know a lot of people are interested in Pancho Villa
and other figures in the Mexican Revolution. Were you just
too small to remember those people, or did your father ever
know of them or talk about them?
P: Yes, I'm sure Father did. I didn't. I was too small to
be involved in politics in those days. But Father never got
involved with politics in Mexico. He knew what was going
on, he was - Father had the reputation of reading every
newspaper he could get his hands on, in any language. And
kept up with world news. Also, when he came to San Antonio,
the first thing he did was to get acquainted with the public
PERRY 8
P: library where he could read all the newspapers there.
MCG: Is this why you've always loved books all your life,
Carmen?
P: I guess so. I guess I just inherited that love because
as I say, at home my grandmother read all the time - read
novels, and my aunt. My father, of course, read all the
newspapers and books he could get his hand on. So my
brothers and I grew up with that background.
But I got into library work accidentally. I started as
a teacher after graduating from Our Lady of the Lake with a
Bachelor's Degree. And then World War II, all of a sudden
they called me and said that they had been told that I could
read a strange Spanish language and that there was a lot of
mail that no one could read here.
So I went down to the meeting and they showed me the
mail and I said, "Yes, that's in Catalan. II That's a
language my mother and grandmother spoke from Spain. In
Barcelona that is the native language there. It's not a
dialect, it's a language.
So I had to quit my job as a teacher and go into
censorship where I worked all during World War II. And I
got to be one of the top direcors of the censorship office
there.
MCG: Carmen, we're going to back up a little bit in your
life to around the first World War when you were a young
lady. Can you tell us what San Antonio was like in those
days-your first year or two here? What was society like? How
PERRY 9
MCG: were you treated as refugees from the Revolution?
P: Well, my recollections are a little vague about World
war I. I do remember that father had to be very careful -
where he went, what he did, what he said, what friends he
had, and so on. As far as mother, aunt and grandmother,
they never got involved in any phase of politics of any
kind. And as far as I was concerned , I was just devoted to
my school work. At St. Joseph's they were so wonderful, the
nuns, and they kept us busy. I was always very much
interested in music. I was taking piano and was very
devoted to my piano teacher, Sister Charles. And she was
very devoted to me, very kind and helpful, knowing what my
problems were - language problems at first.
But I don't remember learning English. I do remember
not speaking it. But it's something that's just - as a
child you grow into it and are not aware of it at all. And
the children at St. Joseph's, my co-students, because of
the, I guess, the instructions of the nuns, were very kind
to me. They never laughed or made fun of the fact that
sometimes I didn't understand what they were saying, or
misunderstood what they were saying.
MCG: When did you first go to work? Do you remember the
year, and you became a teacher? Was this immediately after
World War I?
P: I - as I said, I finished St. Joseph's school and they
gave me a scholarship to Our Lady of the Lake, so I went to
the Lady of the Lake with a scholarship the first year, the
PERRY 10
P: second 2 years I worked helping in the library and then
different departments with students that needed help. And
the third year, since I went the 3 summers I was able to get
my B.A. in 3 years.
And the director of the Lady of the Lake, at that time
was very, very kind to me and she got me my first job as a
teacher at Page Junior High School teaching Spanish. All
the jobs I ever had were offered to me, I never applied for
a job.
While I was teaching, as I said, they called me into
censorshhip.
MCG: Carmen, in those days - let's say back in the 1920s,
when you were getting out in the world as a young,
independent adult, how did the proper young lady in San
Antonio dress and behave?
P: Of course, I had a lot of problems because since Father
had not been allowed to work and they had taken every penny
the family had, as soon as my brothers graduated from high
school they had to go to work and help support the family.
As soon as I finished, I got the job to help support the
family too, because my brothers then had done it for several
years and they were beginning to be in love and wanting to
get married, and so on and so on.
So then I took over the family, more or less. My
recollection in those days - the girls took more pride in
the way they dressed. They were more particular about their
hair and their looks and their manners and their behavior.
PERRY 11
P: And most of the time we were chaperoned. We didn't
usually go on dates, and so on, without some supervision.
MCG: When you went out of the house in those days, did you
have to wear a hat and gloves and be properly dressed up?
P: More or less. Yes. It was a custom. I remember when I
was working at my first job there at the Alamo Library with
Catherine McDowell when she would go to lunch, even though
she was going across the street to Joske's she would put on
her gloves and her hat and I kept saying, "Catherine, you're
just going across the street." And she would say, "Carmen,
that's the way I was brought up. A lady never went out of
the house without her gloves and hat." (laughter)
MCG: In your early days in San Antonio, as a school child
and then as a young professional lady, what was it like in
San Antonio? What did the city look like? How did people
behave? Can you give us a picture of it?
P: We felt, the family I think, all of us, and I certainly
did, that San Antonio was a very pleasant city. We were
happy that this had been the place where we had ended. And
there were - the parks were so pretty. Brackenridge Park we
always went there for picnics and San Pedro was a lovely
park. And the - most of the things we did was, of course,
in school we played basketball and tennis and I went
horseback riding sometimes when I could afford to rent a
horse for recreation. But most of the time we would get
together and go on picnics out to Brackenridge Park and to
San Pedro or some pleasant place.
PERRY 12
MCG: When did you first vote in an election, Carmen?
P: I don't remember right now. But I'm sure the first
opportunity I had that, I took advantage of it. But I don't
remember the date.
MCG: What are your memories concerning working conditions for
a young professional woman in the 1920s? What was the pay
scale like? What was your purchasing power from you job?
P: As far as my working days, all of them were most
pleasant. When I started teaching at Page, though, I took it
very seriously because I had very big classes of Spanish and
the junior high school is a very difficult age. I had some
very difficult problems in discipline because at that age ,
the junior high school age, the girls mature a little quicker
than the boys. And it was a little difficult for me to keep
the necessary discipline.
When I would sometimes have 40-45 in a class trying to
teach them beginner's Spanish, I hardly could get one
sentence per student per day. So it was quite a struggle.
Sometimes I felt very frustrated. I felt that if I could
have that many students I could have really accomplished
more.
MCG: Obviously, Carmen, by this time you and your family had
decided not to return to Mexico and were going to be living
in San Antonio.
Carmen, when the second World War began, you were called
in to become a translator and for the Catalan language. Tell
us about those war years and your remembrances of them.
PERRY 13
P: One of my most interesting experiences, working
experiences, was in censorship when I was called in because
of my knowledge of Catalfn. At that time, Spain was having a
Civil War. So many of their intellectuals had left Spain or
had been sent out of Spain. And they were in different parts
of Latin America, Mexico, and so on, so there was quite a lot
of correspondence and it was fascinating correspondence
because they were highly intelligent people who were
discussing many of the problems at the time - world problems,
and especially what Franco was doing or had done or their
opinion of the Spanish Civil War, which certainly made
history.
And also in the short time after I was in censorship, I
was made supervisor for 90 translators. And we had many,
many, many languages being translated because we got mail
from all over the world.
And at that time it was very important, because of World
War II, to be sure what was going on with our navy and army,
and so on and not to give away war secrets that were
important. So we had to be very careful of what we read and
how we handled it.
We could not let any mail go through that was giving
important information that could be detrimental to our
country or to our service.
MCG: So you performed a very vital wartime function in the
censorship here in San Antonio. And at the same time you
learned a lot from the letters of the intellectuals who were
PERRY 14
MCG: scattered from Spain through Latin America. Did you
ever meet any of these people and could you tell us who they
were?
P: No , I didn't have - at that time - the pleasure of
meeting some o f them. Later, maybe, in Mexico I did. But
for example, the artist, I mean, Pijoan the father and the
nephew were then working on the f amous 5 volume art history
and their correspondence was very interesting. Some of the
peculiar things that happened in censorship sometimes, we
would keep the correspondence of 2 or 3 members of the
family who were lost trying to locate each other and we
could not tell them. We could not inform them because our
reading of the mail was very private - censored . And we
would think, "Oh, if we coul d only let them know that their
father is so-and-so , or their uncles are somewheres."
So in many areas of censorship were very , very
interesting . But, of course, we had to be very careful not
to let anyone know where we worked or what we read or what
we were doing . And the strange part of it was that I had
one of the most sensitive positions in censorship although
my father had been more or less kept a prisoner because of
having been born in Germany . But that was all forgotten
then .
MCG: That was in World War II?
P: Uh-huh .
MCG: ? when you were talking about your Dad , tell us a
little bit more about his expe riences in World War I.
PERRY 15
P: Besides having all of his income in the bank, and every
penny embargoed which was supposed to be returned at the end
of the war and never was. He never got back any of the
money. He also had to stay within a radius of 3 miles of the
center of San Antonio. And was carefully supervised as to
what his actions, so he had to be very careful; what he did;
who he talked to; what he got involved in. And could not
work. No one could employ him. So it was entirely up to my
brothers as soon as they got out of high school to get a job
and as soon as I got of of college, I had to get a job.
MCG: That must have been terribly hard on your mother and
yourself, especially, because you all had been used to
servants in Mexico.
P: Yes, my aunt and grandmother were still living with us,
also. And mother, aunt and grandmother, of course, had never
done anything in the kitchen, washed clothes or anything,
because we had always had plenty of servants wherever we were
except when we came here to San Antonio because of the war.
And later, when we were able to rent a house - when my
brothers graduated and I graduated and we got our jobs, we
got a house on Barrera Street and poor aunt and grandmother
and mothe r had to start learning t o wash clothes and how to
cook and go through a bunch of recipes and play it by ear.
But we managed. If you have to, you can do it.
And I walked to school every day, 13 blocks and thought
nothing of it. I was going to St. Joseph's Academy behind
PERRY 16
P: Jeske's and we had to go to church every morning. And I
would make it. But, as I said, the nuns were so wonderful
that I never felt any dependency or any problems, just made
it day to day.
MCG: Let's go back to World War II . Following the end of the
War, give us a summary of your activities, please.
P: Well, at the end of World War II my job at censorship
was over suddenly. And, of course, it was in the middle of
the year and I could not get a teaching job. All the schools
were then in mid-semester and there were no openings.
So I went to the public library and talked to the
director there, Julia Grothaus, and I had an idea that maybe
I could start a little research center here in San Antonio
for people, for example, from other cities or country places
where they had to make speeches or write letters or something
and had no access to material and I thought I could look it
up f or them and send it to them.
And my friend at the public library said, "Carmen, it's
a beautiful idea, but you're going to have a hard time
collecting money. They'll never pay you and you 1 ll never be
able to collect." She said, "Why don't you instead come here
and l et me put you into a position where you will spend 2
months in every department of the public library and learn
all about it because your knowledge of languages, you'll be a
big help? And we will train you." So I did. I hit the
public library - I worked 2 months in every department, then
PERRY 17
P: worked in the bookmobile and also in the branches. And
finally at the end of my training I was given a place at
Landa Library. And ended up as director of the Landa Library
which was a place I enjoyed very, very much.
MCG: How long did you stay with the public library system and
then what did you do?
P: I enjoyed working for the public library very, very
much. I also worked at the Main Library downtown for awhile.
But then a friend of mine who was starting the Library of the
Alamo for the Daughters of the Republic of Texas got in touch
with me and said, "We need very much to develop this library
here. Right now it's in complete chaos. Nobody knows where
anything is or what we have or what. And we need somebody to
come and catalog and organize this library and you're the one
that could do it because many of the things we have here are
in early Spanish and we can't read it."
So I hated to leave the job I had, but I thought that
was an interesting position so I went into the Daughters of
the Republic of Texas and organized the library. And at that
time, nothing was cataloged or filed. The newspaper files
were just in drawers - you had to guess where to start
looking for something. So we got that organized. Shortly
after that Catherine McDowell started working there and
between the two of us, we organized the library. I did most
of the Spanish documents, got them cataloged, and with the
books, we had a very fine historical library now.
MCG: How long did you stay with the library?
PERRY 18
P: I think I was there 10 years and while I was there
Brother Paul at St. Mary's University, called me one day and
said, "Look, we have these Laredo archives here in boxes. We
don't know what's in them. We can't read them. And they're
very important and we need somebody who can organize and read
them and do something with them."
So I left my job at the Alamo and went to St. Mary's
University and cataloged the Laredo archives. And while
cataloging those archives I discovered that in between pages
and pages of Laredo archives were the Palafox documents.
They had never even heard about them.
During that process, too, the family that had donated
the Laredo archives - the father who was a County Clerk in
Laredo and really didn't even have the right to own those
documents. They were County documents - public documents,
but anyway he had since died, so all of a sudden, the family
went to court and wanted to claim them. And said that they
had been only loaned to St. Mary's. So I had to go at least
3 different times to Austin to testify in the lawsuit and the
strange thing was that the family didn't even know, or had
heard of Palafox. But anyway, the County then decided that
St. Mary's could be custodian of the Laredo archives but for
some strange reason, they let the son take over the Palafox
documents which I had published in a book. And he then
started trying to sell them piece by piece which was quite a
tragedy.
MCG: Carmen, can you tell us then what happened after you
PERRY 19
MCG: cataloged the Laredo and the Palafox archives at St.
Mary's University?
P: One of my most interesting experiences came along. They
were establishing UTSA in San Antonio and I got to know Dr.
Kelly who was one of the most wonderful persons for whom I've
ever worked. He was the head of the library - still is, head
of the Library at UTSA. One day he and Dr. Daniel Saenz and
I had lunch and we were discussing conditions and documents
and so on. Dr. Kelly said, "We sure need somebody like you.
Would you be interested in helping us organize the library
there? We don't have the building yet but we do have some of
the collections in one of the warehouses."
And Mr. [John] Peace, millionaire, was one of the
regents that got the University established here in San
Antonio. I had worked in his home privately for a year
cataloging his private documents. He collected every document
he could buy on Texas history. And I had the most pleasant
time working in his home on al l these documents. So he was
the one who had told Dr. Kelly about me.
So I thought, "Well, that's quite interesting." So I
then left St. Mary's and went to UTSA and we were still
working in a big warehouse then. And I got through a lot of
documents then at the warehouse. And then Mr. Peace let me
go to Mexico and he and his wife also joined me and we went
to Mexico City. I was very familiar with the lady there
whose husband for years had been col lecting everything he
could get his hands on that was historical.
PERRY 20
P: What he did was when he would read about somebody's
funeral - somebody dying - he would go and visit the family
and see if there were anything that maybe they didn't want to
keep. Maybe the father, or whoever died, had left documents
and that way he was able to get some very, very valuable
documents. People didn't know their value or weren't
interested.
And so Mr. Peace said, "Anything you find that's
valuable, I'll pay for it - I'll buy it." And in that course
of going through documents and talking to this lady, he would
invite her to lunch and talk about things and so on, then she
would let us go to h~r house and go through what her husband
had left - documents - he had since died.
And that is how I came across the De la Pena diary. She
had it in one of the drawers in the bedroom and she didn't
know exactly what value it had but she said, "Look, my
husband was so excited when he found this bunch of letters
here - bunch of papers, would you like to see it?" And I
said, "Oh, yes." I told Mr. Peace, "Listen, first chance we
get, let's get hold of that. But we're going to have to go
easy how we buy it. That she would not want to get the idea
that it's so valuable she won't want to sell it, or will ask
too much." So Mr. Peace said, "Whatever it is, let's get
it." So we were able to buy it from her. And then the
problem was getting it across the border.
MCG: Carmen, I want you to go into greater detail on finding
and purchasing and bringing the De la Pe~a diary back to
Texas.
PERRY 21
P: Well, as soon as we were able to get hold of it, Mr.
Peace had to pay her. She did not want a big sum of money
all in one check or sums because of the duty and she would
have to pay Mexico taxes.
So Mr. Peace had to go to several banks in Mexico so he
could get a lot o f pesos - thousands of pesos - and he paid
her in groups of pesos, twenty thousand, ten thousand,
whatever pesos to please her and it took a few days to do
it.
So then the problem was, "How am I going to get it
across."
MCG: Across the border?
P: Across the border. I don't usually wear pants so I got
a pair of l ong pant s and a big loose blouse and ••• the diary
was, I forget how many- about 300 pages •••
MCG: About 5 inches?
P: About 5 inches of loose - big loose pages, kind of like
old-type paper, all hand written . The whole thing was hand
written. And so I stuck pages and pages around my waist,
under the pants with the loose blouse around me and up on my
chest. Mr. Peace and Dr. Kelly never got over laughing about
my crossing the border because I didn't dare bend over. And
I had to be very careful that I didn't make noise with the
papers, and so on t o give it away.
So I just got through the border - just walked through
and that was it.
MCG: Carmen , where did you cross the border?
PERRY 22
P: At Laredo.
MCG: Why did you have to bring it back that way?
P: Because I was afraid that - see, we had to go through
the U.S. Customs coming through and at that time, they had
all of a sudden gotten very much involved in foreign
c ocuments and foreign things being brought through borders,
and so on and they were very particular. And I was afraid
they would confiscate it. And it would be lost altogether.
MCG: Had the De la Pena diary never been published before?
P: Yes, it was published in Spanish but it was not too
complete and it also included other things not part of the
diary. And this, the way I handled it, I took the papers,
page by page, all the way through. Of course, it took me
quite a while to organize it because they had gotten all
mixed up. And they weren't actually in order, parts of it,
so I had to read it page by page and be sure that it followed
in the right order. And then transcribed it all in the
original Spanish and worked from the transcription - the
translation of it.
MCG: Did you have any idea at that time that you would become
internationally famous?
P: No, not at all . I was only interested in contributing
something very valuable because the De la Pena diary is the
only writing of a person who was actually the re during the
battle. All the versions we have of the Alamo battle are by
PERRY 23
P: people who heard tales or were told stories or had read
a letter or something many, many years later. And De la Pena
was there day by day describing in his diary which he kept
for his own use. He wasn't interested in publishing or
anything. He was just keeping a diary for himself. And he
was a very intelligent man, very cultured and intelligent,
and was very much interested and not only in the Mexican side
but the Anglo side of the battle and he was very objective.
He hated Santa Ana. And also he was interested, for example,
in describing the scenery here in the country - the kind of
education we had, the people, the customs a nd so on.
So it's a very complete version of the Alamo and Texas
at that particular time. Why they don't quote him instead of
the other writers who were not there, I've never been able to
understand. Because, as I say, he was not partial, he was
not trying to prove anything.
MCG: So it was through the generosity of Mr. John Peace -
P-E-A-C-E, who was a regent of the University of Texas, that
this important piece of s cholarship was accomplished. And
you were still working at UTSA Library at t hat time?
P: Yes. I worked there for 7 - 7 o r 8 years. And so I kept
on after the diary was published. And the ori ginal diary is
at UTSA Library, in the special collections; the rare books.
MCG: Carmen, I'd like for you to tell me about your trip to
Spain.
PERRY 24
P: That was another one of the wonderful things that Mr.
Peace did . Sister Mary Christine, from Our Lady of the Lake,
had done a lot of research on Spain for some time and she and
I together had done research. So on this occasion I happened
to mention to Mr. Peace about the wonderful things that were
in Spain that nobody had access, or bothered to have access,
to.
So he said, "All right, you and Sister Mary Christine go
and I will take care of the expenses." So we spent about 6
weeks in Spain. We went to every archive from, well, of
course, Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla. The Simancas archives are
in an old palace from which Columbus sailed at the time that
he came to America. And they have kept that in wonderful
condition, completely fireproof. There are no rugs, no wood
anywhere. When you come in, you have to leave all your
possessions. They furnish you the paper and the pencil. You
canno t take any - your coat or your bag, your purse or
anything . They have a guard there at the door that takes
care of all that.
And beautifully cataloged, everything. You go to the
desk and go through the files, the card fil es , or you can
consult with the librarian. And in a few minutes they'll
give it to you. Now they only bring you one bundle at a
time. You research that, you take your notes, whatever, then
you have to turn that in before you get the next group of
documents.
They keep very, very close touch with you and the
PERRY 25
P: documents. And then we also checked the archives in
Sevilla. One of the funny things, a man told me in Sevilla,
where, they have the original Columbus' letter in a file that
you can look at. And they said they only have it certain
hours, certain days a week because they don't want it to
fade.
They are very careful about lighting and all that. And
in the conversation he mentioned about the Americanos - the
tourists - he said, "They'll bring in their kids here and
they want to touch the letters, which we cannot let them
touch the document, and especially anything like the
Columbus' letter." "And," he said, "so as not to get them
upset because we can't let them handle it, we don't tell them
that, because t hey think we're backward anyway in Spain.
That we don't know how to document anything. So I learned
one thing. If you keep an American tourist waiting for more
than 10 minutes they get impatient and leave.
END OF TAPE I, SIDE l, 45 MINUTES .
SIDE 2.
P : He said , "The real researcher, the serious American
researcher will wait hours to get what he's looking for. But
the usual tourist can't spare 10 minutes. He has to be
someplace else right away. "
MCG: What was the result of your trip with the Sister to
Spain when Mr. Peace sent you?
P: We got a wonderful, marvelous collection of documents
that are at UTSA. And in a lot of those libraries, those
PERRY 26
P: research libraries, they were so helpful and of course,
we could not bring the original documents but we brought
copies. And what they would do, they would take very
detailed accounting of what we were trying to get, what
copies we wanted and they made slides of them. And then
mailed them to us. And at the time I was kind of leery about
not bringing them with me. But we had no problem. We
received every single one of them, very carefully packed.
And they're at UTSA.
Now in some cases I would go on Sunday to some of the
plazas in the villages and so on, like in Simancas. They
would have little markets there with all sorts of things you
could buy. And in between all this junk and stuff, they had
for sale, occasionally, I would come across this letter or
diary or something - important document that somebody was
selling without really being aware of the value of it.
And then also there were several stores in Madrid and in
Simancas and other cities, in Sevilla, where they would sell
documents - legitimately sell them, and give you an
accounting of them and so on. And we were able to buy there
quite a number of documents.
MCG: Did those documents refer to Texas?
P: Yes. Most of the material referred to Texas or Mexico at
that period. And, of course, the Spaniards, I know from my
own family, they love to write letters and keep diaries and
take notes, and so on. So in many cases we would find just
little loose pages from a diary or some notes or something
PERRY 27
P: that were important because of the date or event that
they were talking about and so on. But we really got a
fabulous collection.
MCG: That's wonderful. Thank you very much this afternoon
for taking your time and telling us this fascinating story of
your life and your experiences professionally in San Antonio
and your great triumphs with the De la Pena diary which is
most, most interesting.
This interview will be continued at a later date. Thank
you.
MCG: Good afternoon. Today is July 2, 1988. This is Patrick
McGuire continuing the interview with Carmen Perry of San
Antonio. Today Carmen wants to say something right away.
P: I would like to make a correction that I - a statement
that I made that the trip that Sister Mary Christine and I
took to Spain to bring back copies of all those documents
connected with Texas, were sponsored by the Sons of the
Republic of Texas. I incorrectly stated at the time that Mr.
Peace had paid for the trip, but it was the Sons of the
Republic of Texas.
MCG: Today Miss Perry is going to tell me about writing the
book on Theodore Gentilz - G-e-n-t-i-1-z, a pioneer artist in
Texas who came from France with the Castro Colony.
Carmen, what made you interested in Theodore Gentilz?
P: I suppose mostly because I was fascinated by his
paintings and fortunately I was able to acquire one of them
PERRY 28
P: When Gentilz died, a very close friend of his took over
his collection of paintings that he had at the time. And
thi s lady, a neighbor, was more or less taking care of him,
giving him food and so on. And I accidently got in touch
w ~ th her, or met her and helped her one summer to unload
boxes and boxes of things she wasn't aware what was in them.
It turned out to be many, many paintings of Gentilz.
Theodore Gentilz had been a professor of art at St.
Mary's College, which is now the building occupied by La
Mansion Hotel. But at that time it was part of St. Mary's
University which at that time was known as St. Louis
College.
Gentilz worked there for 30 years and when I became
interested in him, I was shocked not to be able to find any
material of his, any personal documents of his, letters or
statements of any kind, other than one statement saying they
owed him ten dollars.
After much r esearch it turned out that during the 1921
flood in San Antonio, the downtown St. Mary's lost many,
many of their records that were stored in one of the little
buildings that were completely destroyed when the river went
through there. So apparently all of Gentilz' records were
lost. I tried all over San Antonio to find somebody who may
have known him.
The only idea we had of how or what he was like, or
what he was interested in, were from his sketches because
PERRY 29
P: usually before painting a picture he would make many
sketches with notes and he would make a very complete study
of the customs, the people, what they wore, what materials,
what colors and so on. And he would make notes of it.
And then would go ahead and paint the picture. When I
was able to find that collection of paintings, I discovered,
also, that St. Mary's University had a few paintings. The
Witte Museum had some of Gentilz's paint i ng s and a few other
persons in San Antonio.
Dorothy Steinbomer Kendall was then in Hawaii but she
was very much interested in Gentilz also. So we agreed that
I would do all the research and she would do the writing of
it.
MCG: Miss Perry, do you remember seeing any of Theodore
Gentilz's paintings at the DRT Library and where did they
come from?
P: Yes, the DRT Library has quite a number of paintings of
Gentilz. Apparently, they were donated at some time.
Unfortunately, many people were not aware of what an
important painter he was. Since he was teaching, was then a
professor at the University - I mean, at the high school at
St. Mary's, teaching art, they connected him more as a
teacher than as a very fine artist.
MCG: What do you think the major significance of his art
work in San Antonio in the mid to late 19th century would
be?
P: He contributed a lot because he painted mostly scenes
PERRY 30
P: here in San Antonio or in surrounding countryside and
towns. And as I said before, before painting a picture, he
would do much research concerning the people, the customs,
the buildings. In fact, his picture of the Alamo is one of
the few really authentic pictures painted in 1900 which
shows the Alamo as it was after the battle, before it was
restored and before the roof was added by the military when
they were there.
One interesting thing about his paintings, he had a
little dog he adored and he tried in as many pictures as
possible, to include him in the picture. His dear little
friend, his little dog, was named Pauline, and you will
notice in the collection of the pictures of his how
frequently Pauline was part of the picture.
His pictures are very valuable from a historic point of
view as well as from a painter's point of view, because it
gives us much of the history of that period. The customs of
the Indians for example: the one "Camp of The Lipans." And
also he painted excellent pictures of all of the missions
here in San Antonio which gives an idea of exactly the
architecture a t that period, of the missions.
MCG: So you say that Theodore Gentilz was one of the first
artists to record the Alamo as it actually appeared before
it was renovated by the United States Army in the 1850s?
P: Yes, he did a very detailed picture of it at that time
because the pictures we see today of the Alamo is not the
Alamo at all. It is after it was restored several times.
PERRY
MCG: Do you think in researching the life of Theodore
Gentilz, that you came to know him as a person?
31
P: Yes, I think so. After you spent months and months and
months going through pictures and trying to identify and of
course, Dorothy Kendall was doing the writing of the
textbook, so I had to do all the research and send it to her
in Hawaii, so we had a lot of correspondence back and forth
and sometimes long distance calls, trying to update the
material. But she did an excellent job of it.
MCG: What do you think of Mr. Gentilz as a man?
P: Well, as I say, there are no records. The only thing I
can go by is by his paintings.
MCG: Did his correspondence survive? Did his letters and
correspondence survive?
P: No. There's nothing - no personal items of any kind
concerning him. That's why it was so difficult to know the
man other than from his paintings. I thought it was very
strange and very unfortunate that he could have taught 30
years at St. Mary's and to have absolutely no records.
Everything was lost.
MCG: I'm going to change the subject now and Carmen is going
to talk for a bit about the University of Mexico Foundation
in San Antonio and also perhaps about Florence Rosengren and
her bookshop. So here's goes Carmen.
P: One of the greatest things I think that happened to San
Antonio to the intellectuals here, was the arrangement that
was made with the University of Mexico. For about 20 years,
PERRY 32
P: every January, a group of *top professors, top
intellectuals from the University of Mexico, would come and
give a series of courses, and at the beginning they would
meet sometimes at the old Brackenridge High School or a few
times at Landa Library or different buildings or places that
were available for the public. They were free lectures.
the University of Mexico paid the expenses but here, a
group, a committee, Dr. Saenz was very active with that
committee. They would entertain them and have parties and
have meetings for them where they could meet.
The lectures would be on diversified subjects dealing
with history and literature and usually it was a wonderful
opportunity to get to personally meet some of the great
minds of Mexico of that period.
Dr. Daniel Saenz - S-a-e-n-z, his name - was one of the
great intellectuals in San Antonio. He was a surgeon and
also general practitioner and for many years he had a clinic
on Buena Vista Street. And during the depression when it
was hard to get help, I volunteered sometimes just because
* Some of the more distinguished Professors from Mexico -
Dr. Francisco Monterde
Dr. Arturo Arnaiz y Freg
Dr. Felipe Garcia Beraza
Dr. Francisco de la Maza
Dr. Justina Fernandez
Srta. Concha Caso
Srta. Mercedes Linares
PERRY 33
P: I thought it was such a worthy cause. And I realized
Dr. Saenz never sent a bill. He never refused to take care
of any patient no matter how poor they were. In many cases
he would go to the home of the poor, wherever they lived,
and deliver babies, sometimes, he said, on the kitchen
table. But never refused to help anybody. Later he worked
in the State Hospital and also later had other private
practices.
But his contributions, not only to the medical field
but to the culture field, as I say the professors from
Mexico and other great people like Jos~ Iturbe, the great
pianist. When he would come to San Antonio, he would love to
spend a weekend or a few days at Dr. Saenz' home, which was
then out in the country because he said it was the only
place where he could have perfect quiet without people
wanting his autograph or phoning or asking questions or
interviewing.
And Dr. Saenz would let him use his grand piano and .••
One of the interesting things about Jos~ Iturbe, he had a
beautiful dog called Karakuka - the interesting thing about
Jos~ Iturbe, by the way his name is I-t-u-r-b-e, Iturbe, the
dog would always sit and listen to him play. And at any
time if Mr. Iturbe would miss a note or something , the dog
would immediately l et him know. He was very aware. A trip
that he took to England where he was t o give a concert
there, the British had an order about animals and they would
not let the dog in, unless he was first kept in a special
clinic or something, for weeks. So Iturbe then cancelled
PERRY 34
P: his concert . His dog was more important to him than
the concert.
To get back to the professors from Mexico, the courses
were so brillant, all of them and varied. They covered so
many areas. We all enjoyed them so much and learned so much
from them and the more interesting part of it was that we
would get to actually meet the professors, to talk to them,
and have luncheon with them, or they would have little
groups in the evenings like in Dr. Saenz's home or we would
meet in other homes. And they contributed so much.
Unfortunately, later they were not able to continue for
some unknown reason. Now we do have the University of
Mexico which has a new building and they do give courses.
But they are more like the typical university courses. They
do not have that personal attitude that we had when the
professors came every year. And to think that we were able
to meet so closely with some of the great, great minds -
great writers and poets of that period.
MCG: Can you name who they were?
P: One of the very interesting intellectuals of San
Antonio who was here for many, many years was Dr. Aur eliano
Urrutia. U-r-r-u-t-i-a. Dr. Urrutia was a brillant man and
one of the finest surgeons here. Dr. Saenz happened to do
his intership with Dr. Urrutia and he said that when he
would operate, he felt like he was watching an artist doing
the operation. His hands were so - the way he handled them,
PERRY
P: so delicate and so artistic. He learned very, very
much from him.
35
And Dr. Urrutia built that beautiful home on Broadway,
on the corner of Hildebrand and Broadway, that estate which
is still there. And however, the beautiful home he had on
Broadway itself was later destroyed. It was quite an
artistic home. He copied rooms from some of the famous
buildings in Mexico. Dr. Urrutia was important because he
did some very unusual operations that had never been done
before then very successfully. And he was - not only here
but all over the world sometimes, some of his unusual
operations.
Dr. Urrutia was a very interesting person and very
unique in many ways. For example, people used to go to the
cathedral for mass on Sunday at 12:00 just to watch him
because he always would come in with a cape with a big red
lining and a top hat and sat in the front - the very front
seat of the church which was always held for him. And he
would walk in. It was quite a ceremony to see him walk down
the aisle and sit down and go through the church service on
Sunday.
Dr. Urrutia had been involved in politics in Mexico but
after he came to San Antonio he did not participate anymore
in politics.
END OF TAPE I, SIDE 2, ABOUT 22 MINUTES.
PERRY
The following added at the request of Carmen Perry on 7
September 1989 -
36
In 1978, Granaderos de Galvez and the Damas de Galvez were
invited to visit the King of Spain - because of their
historic contribution to Spanish history. Perry had the
privilege of presenting to King Juan Carlos copies of
original Spanish documents. He was very interested and
grateful.