Early Tejan.o Ran.ching
ill} Duval ~pun-ty
The f'an'lily History
of
Ranc..:h.os Sal'l,Jose al'ld £1 FreSl'lillo
_ by AI'ldres Sael'lZ
Early Tejano Ranching
in Duval County
The l-antily Hist:ory
of
Ranchos San Jose and El Fresl'lill0
by Andres Saenz
IT@i
Early T~jano Ranching in Duval County
The Family History of Ranchos San Jose and EI Fresnillo
by Andres Saenz
Edited by Andres Tijerina
Cover painting by Charles Shaw
Copyright © 1999
The University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio
801 South Bowie Street, San Antonio, Texas 78205-3296
Rex H. Ball, Executive Director
Sarah Massey, Project Director
Sandra Hodsdon Carr, Editor and Designer
Laura Howard, Photo Technician
ISBN 0-86701-075-4
The images herein and many other images of Texas subjects are in the Institute's Photograph
Collection; call (210) 458-2298 for information about obtaining copies.
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Editor's Comments
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
Genealogy Charts
Author Andres Saenz's Ancestor Chart
Pedro L6pez, Maternal Grandfather, Family Group
Jose Antonio L6pez, Maternal Great-Grandfather,
Family Group
Jose Miguel L6pez, Maternal Great-Great-Grandfather,
Family Group
Andres Saenz, Paternal Grandfather, Family Group
Eleuterio Saenz, Paternal Great-Grandfather, Family Group
Maps
Las Villas del Norte
Ranchos San Jose and El Fresnillo and Vicinity
Rancho San Jose
1 Travels North
:l Moving North
:l Homesteading on Rancho San Jose
4 Sheep shearing
5 The Children of Jose Antonio L6pez and
Maria de los Santos
(, Antonio's Last Days at San Jose
7 The Droughts of 1894 and 1897
H A Victim of Rabies
9 Pedro and Feliciana L6pez on Rancho San Jose
iii
vii
ix
xi
xiii
xvii
xviii
xix
xx
xxi
xxii
xxiii
xxv
xxvi
xxvii
3
7
10
13
15
18
20
23
24
-
( Don Josesito and Dona Chavela 27
II Jacales de Lena 28
l:l Ranch Houses of Sillar 31
13 Neighboring Ranches 34
4 Ferman L6pez, Trail Boss on Cattle Drives 36
IS Planting of Crops in the 1900s 38
The Schools around the Year 1900 39
1'1 Padre Pedro 41
H Constructing Wells on the Ranch 42
19 Raising Cotton 45
~o Tick Fever 46
~i Dog Protection at Night 47
2J Shopping Trips to Town 48
~3 Old Types of Beds and Bedding 51
24 Making Soap and Washing Clothing 53
25 Slaughtering a Hog 55
:lfl Food Preparation 57
'.).'1 Use of Corn 59
:It Wild Plants Used at San Jose 61
:l9 Horseback Racing and Music 63
3(. An Homage to Don Y rineo Salinas 65
J La Voz del Cielo 66
~J2 Young Boys Taken by the Indians 67
]l EI Guajillo Community 68
3d Continued Development at San Jose 69
:IS Curanderos and Doctors 73
36 Don Eufemio, the Veterinarian 77
Tl The Children of Pedro L6pez 78
38 Partition of Pedro and Feliciana's Land 80
~J9 The Catholic Church on Rancho San Jose 81
Rancho El Fresll}illo 1 The Founding of Rancho El Fresnillo 85
>. The Eleuterio and Andrea Saenz Family 87
:J Papa Andres and Mama Maria 89
4 Life without Papa Andres 92
5 The House Chores 95
6 Working the Land 97
'I Feeding the Family 101
8 Home Sewing 105
t} Ferias 106
10 En tertainmen t 108
11 Travel and Transportation 112
12 Religion 114
B The Unforgettable Posadas at Tia Josefa's 116 14 Tia Josefa, the Curandera 120
1.5 Incidents Related to the 1919 Storm 121
1(, Education 122
17 The Family of Mama Maria 126
18 The Children of Andres Saenz and
Maria Engracia Villarreal 129
Appendices 133
Who's Who in the Maternal Family Line 135
Who's Who in the Paternal Family Line 140
Bibliography 144
Photo Credits 146
Glossary 147
I I
I II
Editor's Contntents
by Andres Tijerbla
It has been my pleasure to serve as editor for this book about early
Tejano pioneers. I am proud to be associated with the writings of my tocayo
(namesake), Andres Saenz of Falfurrias, Texas, and I have truly enjoyed my
Dr. Andres Tijerina
work. In my writing career, I have been
asked many times for advice on publish­ing
a book, and my advice is always the
same, "First write it." Well, Don Andres
Saenz wrote it, and his work was a unique
. collection of rare information. I can only
imagine the obstacles this gentleman had
to overcome to write his manuscript, but
he completed it. He has written a book that
many others have proposed, tempering his
chronicle with objectivity, compassion,
and a rare insight.
Andres Saenz is a scion of the two pio­neering
Texas families whom he describes,
the Lopez and the Saenz. He was born on
August 9, 1927, at the Rancho de Santa
Cruz, in southern Duval County, Texas. His
parents were Praxedis Saenz and Ydolina
Lopez, both raised on early Texas ranches. Andres attended a ranch school
on Rancho Vera Cruz, graduating from San Diego High School in 1945. He
married Jovita Trevino of Alice, Texas, on February 3, 1953. During the
Korean conflict, Mr. Saenz served on the U.S.S. Iowa in Korea and in Eu­rope.
Upon his discharge from the Navy, he returned to South Texas and
worked twenty years for the Falfurrias auto dealership. This was followed
by another nineteen years as owner of Falfurrias Auto Supply, Inc. For
personal avocations, Andres taught Catholic Christian doctrine for twenty
years and is a member of the Spanish-American Genealogical Association
(S.A.G.A) in Corpus Christi, Texas.
vii
.1
In 1997 Andres Saenz responded to a public announcement about
staff from the Institute of Texan Cultures (ITC) coming to San Diego in
search of documents, photos, and stories of the pioneering Tejano families
of South Texas. Having developed a keen sense of history while a member
of the S.A.G.A., Don Andres responded to the ITC announcement. He pro­vided
the Institute with an impressive set of manuscripts, the manuscripts
that I have had the pleasure of editing. My goal has been to make the narra­tive
readable while preserving the original content, compassion, and liter­ary
integrity of Mr. Saenz.
Andres Saenz joins a small cadre of other writers who wrote Tejano
ranch history before him. They include Fermina Guerra, author of "Me xi­can
and Spanish Folklore and Incidents in Southwest Texas"; Jovita
Gonzalez, author of "Social Life in Cameron, Starr, and Zapata Counties";
Emilia Schunior Ramirez, author of Ranch Life ill Hidalgo County after 1850;
and Roberto M. Villarreal, who wrote "The Mexican-American Vaqueros
of the Kenedy Ranch: A Social History." Most of these other writers pro­duced
their works as master's theses at various Texas universities under the
tutelage of professors such as J. Frank Dobie. Andres Saenz did not have
the advantage of a college education. Nonetheless, he wrote with the same
meticulous care and research of the other authors. Most importantly, Mr.
Saenz and the other writers had a deep personal desire to preserve the his­tory
of their Tejano heritage-a heritage missing in the textbooks found in
public schools. All wrote with the intention of passing on the knowledge to
their families. And, amazingly, they wrote as if coordinated by some un­seen
hand to fit the pieces of a puzzle together for posterity. Indeed, each
wrote basically the same story about his or her respective region of the
South Texas Tejano ranching frontier. Guerra wrote about the ranchos in
Laredo, Ramirez about the ranchos in Hidalgo County, Gonzalez about the
ranchos in the deep Rio Grande Valley, and Villarreal about the vaqueros in
the Corpus Christi and Kenedy County area.
Saenz's work fits into the geographic center of the others. His story
is about the region in the counties of Jim Hogg, Brooks, and Duval. These
counties were carved out of Nueces County in the 19th century. Together,
these regional histories provide the modern reader with a story of the true
Texas pioneers. Although written in different decades by writers unknown
to each other, the various books present an amazingly cohesive story. With
the present work, Andres Saenz takes his place among the authors of Tejano
historiography.
viii
Ackno",ledgnlents
by Andres Saenz
An acknowledgment of appreciation is made to all members of the
L6pez family, listed below, who willingly shared their knowledge. Their recall
of events served in many instances not only to verify but also to elaborate
on important details that were missing from other sources. Amazingly,
details that were gathered from three sources completed some stories from
beginning to end. I wish to thank the following:
Mr. Francisco Lopez Jr. from Alice, Texas, for interviews from
1985 through 1991. He displayed a remarkable memory in
relating events from his childhood, detailed conversations with
his father, Francisco L6pez Sr., about his grandfather Jose Antonio
L6pez, and extensive information on Texas history· -including
facts about the Spanish Colonial era in Texas.
Mr. Hector Lopez, an attorney from Alice and the son of
Francisco L6pez Jr., for material from conversations with his
father and also for his words of encouragement for me to
continue with this history.
The grandchildren of Ferman Lopez: Mrs. Marina Lopez Lopez
from San Diego, Texas; and Ricardo Gonzalez Lopez from Corpus
Christi, Texas.
Leopoldo Lopez, a grandson of Pedro L6pez from Alice, Texas.
Tomas Juan Benavides Jr., a great-grandson of Pedro L6pez from
Houston, Texas.
The grandchildren of Jesus Lopez living at San Andres.
Rodolfo Lopez, a grandson of Margarito Lopez from San Jose.
Teresa Garda Valadez from San Jose.
Hortencia Moya from Livingston, Texas.
Alejo Lopez, a grandson of Francisco L6pez, from San Jose.
Mrs. Lydia Lopez Saenz from Rancho El Mesquite Bonito.
ix
I
I
!
And to the many other people whose conversations contributed in­formation
to this history, I express my appreciation.
I wish to give special recognition to F. Rene Gonzalez from San
Marcos, who married Amparo Valadez Lopez, a granddaughter of Pedro
Lopez. Rene devoted many hours to editing and copying the manuscript. My
thanks are also extended to my Primo for giving me the confidence to continue
this history. I also wish to give special recognition to Mrs. Mira Smithwick,
president of the Spanish American Genealogical Association (S.A.G.A.) of
Corpus Christi, for offering inspiration and courage, putting the final manu­script
on the computer, editing, and putting it into book format for presenta­tion
to the Institute of Texan Cultures. And, of course, I offer a very special
thanks to my wife, Jovita, for helping with English words for some household
items and for knowing the different materials used in the early years to make
clothing. I am grateful to her for accompanying me on the many trips to cem­eteries,
to libraries, and to Mier, Camargo, and other places of interest to get
the photographs. Finally, lowe a very special recognition to my mother, Ydolina,
who not only was a gracious loving presence in our home during the last six
and a half years of her life but who also shared the knowledge and experiences
of her legendary life. Rest in peace, Mama. Que en paz descanse, Mama.
Ydolina Lopez Saenz in 1981 next to a palm tree her parents planted
when they built their first home on San Jose
x
Preface
by Andres Saenz
I wanted to know where my ancestors came from, why they came, how
they came, how they obtained their land, how they made a living from the
land, and finally how they went about passing it on to their heirs. I hope these
recollections will help others become
aware of and appreciate the parcel ofland
that we have today through the sacrifices
of our great-great-grandfathers and
great-grandfathers, our tatarabuelos and
bisabuelos. In this text, I have made an
effort to obtain verifiable and docu­mented
information dating back to the
1860s.
The seed for this history grew
from conversations with my mother,
Ydolina Lopez Saenz, beginning in 1980
and continuing for six years. In evening
porch conversations, she described how
her family lived during her childhood and
what she had learned from her father,
Andres Saenz Pedro, who had shared with her his life
experiences and those of his father, An­tonio'
the original family settler. I wrote down many of these conversations as
they occurred. When she passed away in 1987, I had sixty-five pages of manu­script
that presented me with a challenge: my choice was either to write a book
to share with the Lopez family or to do nothing and let it be lost forever.
In appreciation of its value, I decided to pass on this history. I realized
that a book required additional interviews to verify information. It also re­quired
genealogical information, which I obtained from microfilm at the Lo­cal
History Department and through research facilitated by the S.A.G.A. at the
Corpus Christi Public Library. I consulted the census reports for 1860, 1870,
1880,1900,1910, and 1920 available at the Corpus Christi Public Library. Tax
xi
assessment rolls for Nueces County starting with the year 1860 verified the
first time the name Antonio L6pez appeared with property. These tax assess­ment
rolls listed abstract numbers with acreage for the land, the survey num­ber,
the number of acres, and a head count for horses, mules, cattle, sheep,
goats, and other personal property. Additional information came from cem­eteries
at San Jose, La Bandera, Lorna Alta, El Refugio, Las Latas, Calaveras, EI
GuajiIIo, and many others. I traveled to Ciudad Mier and Camargo in Mexico
to research documents and church archives. I then compiled the information
from my mother with pictures and documents. This account presents the legacy
of my great-grandparents Antonio L6pez and Maria de los Santos as a gift to
all their descendants.
xii
Int:roduct:ion
by Andres Tijerina
South Texas was settled in the mid-1700s by Spanish and Mexican fami­lies
who were brought to populate the region by the wealthy Spanish count
Jose de Escandon. South Texas was under the Spanish flag as part of the fron­tier
province of Nuevo Santander. Escandon founded his colony between the
Panuco River in present-day Mexico and the Guadalupe River in Texas. To
provide for the settlement, he brought ranching families who, indeed, estab­lished
the foundation of the American ranching industry.
Escandon founded five municipalities along the Rio Grande: Laredo,
Guerrero, Mier, Camargo, and Reynosa. To the Mexicans these were known
jointly as Las Villas del Norte, the Villages of the North. The families who came
north from the Rio Grande and settled the ranching frontier are the subjects of
this book. Indeed, the Tejanos, that is, the original founders of Texas, were not
immigrants as so many Americans see them. While many Texans today boast
that Texas was once a republic, these ranching Tejano families are Texans who
lived and served under all six of the Texas flags. Descendants of the early ranchers
founded the Texas ranch towns of Dolores, Zapata, Cuevitas, San Diego, San
Juan, Palito Blanco, Agua Dulce, El Sauz, Los Olmos, San Luis, Penascal, San
Ignacio, and Los Saenz. In fact, all of these present-day towns were founded
not as towns but as Tejano family ranches.
Many modern Americans are confused about the origins of Tejanos
because the borders of Texas moved, not the settlers. These early settlers now
called Tejanos came before the area was part of Texas or the United States.
Texas south of the Nueces River officially became part of the United States
when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the United States-Mexico War
on February 8, 1848. The treaty established the Rio Grande as the southern
boundary of Texas and the United States. By virtue of the treaty, Mexican citi­zens
north of the Rio Grande became American citizens. Although the Mexi­can
settlers became Texans and Americans by the treaty, they retained their
strong cultural and family links to their original settlements of Las Villas del
Norte located on the southern bank of the Rio Grande. At this time, the north-xiii
ern municipalities were incorporated into the State of Texas under United States
jurisdiction, specifically as Nueces County.
The area of Nueces County that later became Duval County was origi­nally
populated by Mexican settlers who came north from the village of Mier
on the Rio Grande. These settlers included ancestors of Mr. Saenz who would
establish Ranchos San Jose and El Fresnillo. Obtaining land grants from the
municipality ofMier in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, they crossed the Wild
Horse Desert, known as Desierto Muerto, into present -day Duval County. These
hardy settlers included Julian Flores, Encarnaci6n Garda Perez, Martiana Perez
de Garda, and other ranchers who established the Rancho San Diego on San
Diego Creek (about 50 miles west of Corpus Christi) about 1815. Following
them, Juan Bautista Gonzalez and other settlers founded the ranches of La
Rosita and El Palito Blanco and the Penitas Ranch. Rancho San Diego eventu­ally
became a town with the same name. The neighboring ranch towns were
Concepci6n, Realitos, and Piedras Pintas. In 1858 the Texas Legislature estab­lished
the county of Duval, formally separating it from Nueces County in 1876.
Duval County lay at the crossroads of trade between San Antonio and
Brownsville, Corpus Christi, and Laredo. Not surprisingly, the town of San
Diego attracted stagecoach lines along those two routes. The trade routes were
also used in moving stolen livestock, as well as contingents of the U.S. Army
and Texas Rangers in pursuit of cattle rustlers. The ranches in this area became
a production center for horses, cattle, and sheep. By the late 1850s, Duval County
included the large cattle and sheep ranches of Las Conchas, La Trinidad, Santa
Gertrudis, Petronilla, Mendieta, Veleno, and Lagarto. By 1880 the coun ty was a
major market, home to over a million sheep. Duval County ranches made
Corpus Christi the nation's leading wool port. The county also became the
point of origin of the famous cattle trails that took millions of Texas longhorn
cattle north to Kansas and Missouri. About 1880 the Texas-Mexico Railway
built a line from Corpus Christi, through San Diego, to Laredo, which expanded
the role of Duval County as the crossroads of political and economic activity.
Duval County attracted unwanted visitors. Mexican rustlers raided area
ranches in 1875. Hostile IndIans staged a final raid on the county in 1878,
killing several ranch workers. As a result of these raids, the State of Texas estab­lished
a ranger station in San Diego. In 1888 Catarino Garza, a Mexican intel­lectual,
recruited hundreds of local rancheros into an informal cavalry unit.
Garza had married into the Perez family of the Pal ito Blanco Ranch just north
of the San Jose Ranch in Duval County. Opposed to the government of Mexi­can
dictator Porfirio Diaz, Garza led his Ranchero Cavalry from Duval County
into Mexico, where he conducted an extended military campaign against the
Mexican army. He returned to the Palito Blanco Ranch, hotly pursued by the
Texas Rangers, who found themselves unable to capture him. He eventually
xiv
went to Cuba and other countries, where he continued to promote revolu-tions.
Meanwhile, the ranches of Duval County such as San Jose and
El Fresnillo continued to develop economically. In the 1890s, railroads eclipsed
cattle drives as a means of moving stock to market. The sheep industry
shifted to West Texas. Compelled by necessity, the ranchers began the transi­tion
to commercial farming. Wool bales were replaced with cotton bales being
transported to the cotton gins in San Diego and Corpus Christi. Cotton be­came
the cash crop as Mexican settlers continued to migrate into Texas. Some
came in search of work on the ranches, but others took advantage of the cheap
land and the Texas land grant programs to establish themselves in the area.
The most dramatic political transition in Duval County occurred
after the turn of the century. Anglo-American immigrants moved in, taking
up land grants and buying the cheap ranch land. These newcomers used their
political connections and their access to capital to take positions of power in
the county governments and in the city of San Diego. This brought them into
conflict with the Tejanos, the traditional Mexican-American leaders. In 1914 a
political feud resulted in the shooting of three Mexican-American leaders in
San Diego-an event that threatened to break out into outright warfare. The
turmoil was averted by County Commissioner Archer Parr, an Anglo who sided
with the Mexican Americans. By serving as intermediary, Parr effectively es­tablished
a political machine that ruled the county for years. His local political
control, however, was insufficient to prevent another regional movement. Hun­dreds
of Mexican Americans issued the Plan de San Diego, a political declara­tion
against the U.S. government calling for Mexican independence from Anglo
power in South Texas. The U.S. Army dispersed the leader, Aniceto Pizana, and
his followers. The movement dissolved in 1916, but a strong political under­current
of resistance continued among the area's Mexican-American citizenry.
Mexican-American citizens of Duval County continued to express dis­satisfaction
with their political status until the 1920s. By then the residents of
the surrounding ranches and towns joined sociopolitical organizations that
stood against Anglo power. In Duval County, the local newspaper, The Bee (EI
Avispa), promoted civil and political rights for Mexican Americans. Many of
the county's residents joined the League of Latin American Citizens, a His­panic
civil rights organization headquartered in Harlingen. Lawyer Alonso S.
Perales led the group. They eventually merged with groups from San Antonio
and Corpus Christi to form the League of United Latin American Citizens
(LULAC). Founded in Corpus Christi in 1929, LULAC became a force in the
Duval County area and grew to be the largest Hispanic civil rights organiza­tion
in the United States. Thus, the ranch families that had come north to
Duval County in the early 1800s provided leadership for the entire ranch coun-xv
try of South Texas. They developed the sheep and longhorn ranching industry
of the nation, and they played a pivotal role not only in the revolution against
the dictatorial government of Mexico but in the American civil rights move­ment
as well.
As one reads the modest family stories of San Jose and EI Fresnillo
ranches, it is difficult to imagine that these were the same families who played
so integral a role in the evolution of northern Mexico and southern Texas.
Their imperatives appeared mundane, as they worked their ranches to survive
the drought. But their struggles on the ranches should not blind the reader to
the larger role that these pioneers played in the making of Texas. These humble
pioneers, along with others, were the Texans who started the western cattle
kingdom of more than five million longhorn cattle. They produced the long­horn
herds that were driven on cattle trails to the northern railheads after the
Civil War ended. Ironically, most Americans can name the cattle towns in Kansas
and Missouri but know very little of the Tejano ranch families who founded
the longhorn cattle industry which fed the nation. The following stories may
sound like informal family legends, but they are deeply rooted in United States
history. Without these ranch families, the history of the state of Texas would
not be complete.
xvi
!I
~
Genealogy Charts
~
,,~.... .. ,...
Author Andres Saenz's
Ancestor Chart
Praxedis Saenz
b: Tuly 21,1892
m: Feb. 18, 1920
d: Feb. 10, 1976
Andres Saenz rl b: Sept. 19, 1868 }­m:
Fcb. 28,1891
d: Tuly4, 1913
Maria Engracia
'-I Villarreal
Eleuterio Saenz
b: c. 1840
m: Tan. 29, 1862
d: June 19, 1908
Jose Manuel Saenz Aldape
b: c. 1795
d: Mar. 18, 1855
Maria de San Juan
1..----11 Martl'l 1cz
Andrea Bravo
L...-..f b: 1846
d: Oct. 13,1917
Isidro Villarrcal Elizondo
b: May 1840
b: Apr. 16, 1871
d: July 22, 1961 Encarnacion Ramon
b: 1848
Andres Saenz
( b: Aug. 9, 1927 I­m:
Feb.3,1952
~
~.
Feliciana Adame
b: July 9,1863
d: May 9,1952
Marfa de los Santos
Gonzalez
bap: June 17, 1832
d:c.1878-1884
Reyes Adame
b: Jan. 6, 1825
d: Mar. 6, 1911
Juanita Lopez
Maria Marina Sanchez
'-----II
y Fuentes
Jose Juan GOI1Z,i1ez
Rosalia Hinojosa
Pedro Lopez
Maternal Grandfather
Juanita Lopez
;-- b: May 16, 1881
sp: Carlos Benavides
Santos Lopez
r-- b:Aug. 13,1879
sp: Encarnacion Peila
Braulia Lopez
r-- b: May 23 , 1883
sp: Daniel Valadez
r--
r--
r--
Victoria Lopez
b: Mar. 6, 1885
sp: Silverio Valadez
Pedro Lopez Jf.
b: May 5, 1887
sp: Jesusa Valadez
Teresita Lopez
b: Oct. 15, 1891
d: 1906
Jose Maria Lopez
r-- b: July 4, 1893
sp: Juanita Oliveira
I /ydolina Lopez
Pedro L6pez
b: Oct. 21, 1860
m: Aug. 31, 1878
d: June 1, 1929
and
I( !: Dec. 2,1895
I----H m: Feb. 18, 1920 1\ sp: Praxedis Saenz
sp: Feliciana Adame
b: July 9, 1863
d: May 9, 1952
xx
I ~Apr. 7,1987
Eduardo Lopez
r-- b:Feb. 10, 1898
sp: Maria Lopez
Florentino Lopez
~ b: Feb. 8, 1900
sp: Petra Garcia
Carlota Lopez
b: Feb. 10, 1903
sp: Mateo Valadez
Rafaela Lopez
d: infant
__________________________________ ~ __ ~
Jose Al'1tonio Lopez
Maternal
Great-Grandfather
Jose Antonio L6pez
bap: June 14,1830
m: Aug. 17, 1853
d: Dec. 24, 1903
and
Maria de los Santos
Gonzalez
bap: June 17, 1832
d: c. 1878-1884
Jose Moreno
Foster son
xxi
Jesus Lopez
(adopted)
m: 1873
sp: Gavina Garcia
Francisco Lopez
m: 1875
sp: Petra Vela Garcia
Ferman Lopez
m: Dec. IS, 1880
sp: Adelaida Gutierrez
Pedro L6pez
b: Oct. 21,1860
m: Aug. 31,1878
d: June 1, 1929
sp: Feliciana Adame
b: July 9,1863
d: May 9, 1952
Margarito Lopez
m: May 23, 1888
sp: Juana Garcia
Gregoria Lopez
m: May 6,1881
sp: Dionicio Saenz
Maria Lopez
m: Apr. 15, 1895
sp: Eusebio Garcia
Jose Miguel Lopez
Maternal
Great-Great-Grandfather
Jose Miguel L6pez
and
Maria Marina Sanchez
y Fuentes
xxii
I
\
Jose Antonio L6pez
bap: June 14,1830
m: Aug. 17, 1853
sp: Maria de los Santos
Gonzalez
bap: June 17,1832
d: Dec. 24, 1903
Maria Toribia L6pez
bap: Apr. 28,1833
sp: Clemente Garcia
Maria Barbara L6pez
b: Dec. 10, 1834
d: Dec. 11, 1834
Maria Magdalena L6pez
b: July 25, 1849
Maria Casimira L6pez
Jose Manuel L6pez
m: Dec. 9, 1868
sp: Maria Teresa Garcia
Andres Saenz
Paternal Grandfather
Andres Saenz
b: Sept. 19, 1868
m:Feb.28,1891
d: July 4, 1913
and
Maria Engracia Villarreal
b: Apr. 16, 1871
d: July 20, 1961
xxiii
Praxedis Saenz
b: July 21, 1892
m: Feb. 18, 1920
sp: Ydolina L6pez
d:Feb. 10, 1976
Eugenio Saenz
b: Nov. 1893
m: Feb. 11, 1921
sp: Mariana Gonzalez
Eleuterio Saenz
b: Sept. 1895
m: July 4, 1929
sp: Zulema Palacios
Guadalupe Saenz
b: Oct. 1897
m: 1936
sp: Hipolito Saenz
Anastacia Saenz
b: 1910
m: May 9,1937
sp: Abelino Saenz
Eustorgio Saenz
m: Feb. 18, 1933
sp: Rosaura Saenz
Florencia Saenz
Natalia Saenz
b: 1908
m: Aug. 27, 1927
sp: Daniel Lopez
Andres "Andrecito"
SaenzJr.
b: 1912
d: Mar. 14,1914
Flavia Saenz
Eleut:erio Saenz Andres Saenz
Paternal b: Sept. 19, 1868
Great-Grandfather m: Feb. 28,1891
sp: Maria Engracia Villarreal
d: July 4,1913
Benigna Saenz
sp: Vicente Gonzalez
Anacleto Saenz
sp: Maria Palacios
Benavides
Placida Saenz
Eleuterio Saenz sp: Zacarias Hinojosa b: 1840 and Leandro Martinez
m: Jan. 29,1862 Benigno Saenz
d: June 19, 1908 sp: Brigida Vera I--
and
Andrea Bravo Santos Saenz
b: 1846 sp: Victoriano Ramon
d: Oct. 13, 1917 Anastacio Saenz
b: Mar. 1877
sp: Petra Valadez
J osefa Saenz b: Mar. 1879
sp: Jose Barrera
d: Jul. 18, 1958
Amado Saenz
b:Sept.1882
sp: Juanita Valadez
xxiv
-
Maps
Laredo
~
Re °lla
LAS VILLAS DEL NORTE
r-Duvan~ountY 1 I I
i
i
San Diego. .1
I
i
I
i ~ ..
CoJ(lcepcion.
I...·---·1..[ .. t,
i
I
(Falfurrias)
Agua
• Dulce
• (Guerrero)
San Juan •
Location Map
xxvi
RANCHOS SAN JOSE,
EL FRESNILLO, AND VICINITY
l' de
r·.P.~~~-~9~!Y1
i Freer i
i. i I San Dieg~
~
i .El Guajillo
1JIenavide~. . San Jose
i \\ I. i El Fresnillo. i San Andres
Bruni 1 "--.. "" i
• I H~ Premont
'Concepcion . \ • "r.- .'
l L-._._._.I il'OlS1!0 sCe.~~<"'';ii:.'. .
..Roma
San Pedro·
(Ciudad Miguel Aleman)
;:~iV:::.
c.~<?\·\ LLO ;::_';~ ".>-'\ M >~ '1 '~<.;
xxvii
-
RANCHO ,
SAN JOSE
. "
. 1 : . '~.\.1 , t~~
Dvminga Pena and Jose Antonio Lopez, c. 1890
(No photograph is available of
Antonio's first wife, Maria de los Santos Gonzalez,
who died sometime between 1878 and 1884.)
Travels North
The founders of Rancho San Jose were Jose Antonio L6pez and his
wife, Maria de los Santos Gonzalez. I Antonio and Maria were married in
Mier on August 17, 1853, at the Church of the
Immaculate Conception (La Parroquia de la
Inmaculada Concepci6n). Antonio's parents were
Jose Miguel L6pez and Maria Marina Sanchez y
Fuentes. Maria de los Santos's parents were Jose
Juan Gonzalez and Rosalia Hinojosa. During the
1860s, Antonio and Maria lived in San Pedro,
which is now Ciudad Miguel Aleman in the state
of Tamaulipas, Mexico. Their home is described
as a stone house, a casa de piedra, or a house
constructed of sillares, large blocks oflimestone or
Jose Antonio Lopez sandstone from the surrounding region.
The people who lived in this type of house
at the time were rich landowners, hacendados, ranchers who owned a
considerable amount of land and raised cattle, sheep, goats, and horses.2
Old photographs of San Pedro taken across the bridge from Roma, Texas,
show a few of the sillar houses and many jacales, thatched-roof huts
constructed of tree logs in which the majority of the people lived.
1 Rancho San Jose was a family farm where many members of the family eventually had
homes. It never became a village or incorporated community.
2The word hacendado refers to Mexican ranchers who had received large land grants on
which they maintained big stock-raising operations. It has strong social connotations of
power and grandeur, as these men ruled over the families as well as the economics of their
large estates.
3
The main purpose of this history is to pursue certain questions I
had about my family background. When did the family move to Texas
and establish the Rancho San Jose? Where did Antonio get his wealth?
Was it an inheritance from his father? Documents in the History Ar­chives
of Mier, Archivo Hist6rico de Mier, in Tamaulipas, Mexico, an­swered
some of these questions.3
About the 1860s, when the L6pez family lived in Mexico, Chico
Reyna, a cousin of Antonio's, made trips hauling wool from Cadereyta,
Nuevo Le6n, through General Bravo, Nuevo Le6n, and on to Corpus
Christi, Texas. On his way through, he stopped to rest and visit with An­tonio
in San Pedro. Chico hauled his wool in a cart train, or tren de carretas,
consisting of three two-wheeled carts. A strong lead rope made of raw­hide
held the carts together as they traveled. Oxen pulled the carts, which
had bowed wooden arches covered with canvas. The oxen were fed, wa­tered,
and rested for the night at Antonio's ranch so they would be ready
to go the next morning.
On one of these trips, Francisco L6pez, Antonio's oldest son, joined
his uncle for the trip, little realizing the adventure that awaited him. The
experience proved unforgettable for Francisco because there were so many
new places to see. He later described the trip to his son, Francisco Jr. He
found the speed of travel very slow and boring but steady. The oxen would
keep on going and going. Francisco would walk for a while and then ride
on the carts for a while.
Occasionally, Chico
prodded the oxen with
a fancy decorated stick,
a garrocha. The cart
trails were sandy in
places and rocky in
others, making for a
rough ride. Francisco
observed that his uncle
knew where to stop to
Ola sillar house near El Sauz
-'The house where Antonio and his family lived was later shown to Francisco L6pez Jr. by his
father in the early 1920s. By 1920 the house was within the town of San Pedro.
4
rest, to eat, and to yvater the oxen at the lagoons and creeks alongside the
trail. Along the way they passed through some isolated ranches. Most
consisted of sillar houses with one or two jacales nearby. His uncle knew
most of the people living at the ranches, and he stopped briefly to talk to
them. All of the ranches had names and served as landmarks in the area .
"'~
lacal de leila
. t~'*~ f::,;~
"""l~
" , , .
<j., .
. :.: ;;
Years later Francisco drove along the road in a vehicle and remem­bered
the sillar homes. When new roads bypassed the old homes, their
names as landmarks were no longer known. Some of the houses can still
be seen in ruins alongside the road from El Sauz to Rancho Randado. A
few of the old ranches had two or three of the sillar homes.
On the small ranches, the stock consisted mainly of sheep and
goats, a few cattle, and one or two horses to pull the buggy and provide
transportation. Francisco remembered that the largest ranch was Rancho
Randado, which had several of the sillar houses and many jacales. The
jacales housed the working ranch hands known as peones.
Francisco saw earthen dams called presas. The ranchers made the
presas by blocking the water flow of a creek with a ridge of dirt, un bordo
de tierra. In some of the presas, an excavation was dug into the side wall
and the dirt was used to build a ledge, giving it more depth so it would
hold more water and form a small lake to provide water for a longer time
for the livestock. These large ranches had cattle pens of mesquite logs,
corrales de lena. A few ranches today have preserved this type of corral.
5
Another ranch that Francisco remembered very well was San
Lorenzo. Later, though it's-not known why, the name of this ranch was
changed to Las Latas. His uncle usually made a late sleep stop there. Fran­cisco
came to know the owners, Albino and Crisanto Vela, well. They
were very friendly, and he developed a good relationship with them. At
that time, it was a very busy ranch, a landmark in the community. It
included some sillar houses and many jacales. From the 1860s to about
the 1920s, this ranch was a thriving community. There is nothing left of
Las Latas today except a nearby cemetery with the names of the early
pioneer families engraved on the tombstones. Other ranch families in
the surrounding area had ancestors who started working at Las Latas
when they came from Mexico and later went on to claim their own sur­veys
of land.
Don Faustino "Chato" Vela owned a ranch close to Antonio's (in
Mexico) and was the father of Jose Maria, Crisanto, Albino, and Teresa.
Antonio talked with Chato and was aware that the Velas at Rancho Las
Latas did well with their sheep and goat herds, ganado menor. In the early
1860s, they had just started adding cattle to their ranch stock. According
to the tax assessment rolls of Nueces County for those years, the Vela
family owned thousands of acres of land and had about 2,500 head of
sheep, as well as goats, cattle, and horses. They had many shepherds work­ing
for them and other people clearing the land to raise cropS.4
Francisco's first trip to Corpus Christi was a memorable experi­ence
for him. When he returned home, he was anxious to tell his father
all about his trip and all he saw at Rancho Randado, at the busy Vela
ranch, and the large herds of sheep, goats, cattle, and horses. The seaport
he saw was a busy place for exporting wool, animal hides, and tallow. The
stench of the hides and the tallow was terrible.
Francisco was eager to go on the next trip to Corpus Christi. The
next time, he took extra clothes because he wanted to stay at the Vela
Ranch until his uncle returned from Corpus Christ .
.j Information on the Vela family provided by Francisco L6pez Jr.
6
2
Moving North
Soon Antonio began thinking of expanding to this new land. He
prepared himself for the trip and started following the cart trails towards
Rancho Las Latas. On the way, he studied the terrain and the different
types of ranches that he passed. He visited for a few days at Las Latas with
the Vela family and made trips around the area looking for good land for
pasture, tierra de agostadero, where he could establish a ranch. He checked
into the possibility of buying land and moving his family to increase his
landholdings and stock. For each family member, additional land could
be obtained. He noticed also the abundance of wild horses. He later told
his family that those wild horses were the major reason he decided to
move to this new land.
In 1866 Antonio brought his wife and family to Rancho Las Latas.
They stayed in the jacales of the Vela family. Some of the older members
of his family started working with the Velas while he traveled back and
forth to his ranch in San Pedro. He still had to tend to the San Pedro
rancho in Mexico while trying to acquire land to' establish his new ranch.
Antonio L6pez first appears on the Nueces County tax assessment rolls
in 1869 as owning only sheep. He worked on the grazing land he had
leased. By 1872, although he owned no land on record, he owned 35 horses.
In 1873 he had 65 horses valued at $735 and four cows valued at $40.
Members of his family knew Antonio loved horses because he con­sistently
owned more horses than other livestock. He taught his sons to
ride bucking broncs at an early age by mounting his young sons on the
bare backs of semitrained horses. All they had to hold on to was the horse's
mane. When there were no more wild horses to capture, he raised his
7
own horses to break, train, and sell. Family stories and his public affida­vit
indicate that he sold tamed saddle horses throughout his working life.
In order to capture wild horses that were running loose in the
open pastures, a trap, or trampa, was used. The trampa consisted of two
fences made of mesquite logs that angled toward the entrance to both a
corral and a fenced area around the corral. A post supporting large mes­quite
branches served as a barrier along the longer of the two fences. The
second stretch of fence was about half the length of the first. A group of
wild horses was led slowly along the longer of the two fences until they
were between the two fences. The cowboys then closed in until all the
horses were inside the corral. Large logs were used to close the entrance.
The corralled to other fenced enclosures used to separate the horses
the cowboys wanted to keep from the horses they let go. A shallow lagoon
north of Antonio's house and several round, manmade waterholes, tinajas,
provided water for the animals. When the water in the lagoon got low,
the tinajas held water at the enclosures. Farther to the north was a pas­ture
for the horses to feed on.
The men observed small groups of horses at the waterholes to see
if they could pick one or two that met the overall natural beauty they
were seeking in a horse. They maneuvered to isolate the horses with fine
stature, good muscle, shiny coats, or a beautiful mane and tail from the
rest of the group.
Once out in the open, the cowboys worked in pairs as a team. Two
of them chased the horse in a circular direction. Then two more contin­ued
the chase to get the horse tired. The final two cowboys each roped
the horse and pulled it in two different directions in order to stop it and
control it.
These horses were worked, broken, and mounted in a round cor­ral
made of mesquite logs, corral de lena redondo. These round corrals
were made strong and solid enough to keep the horses contained and to
hold the cowboys standing or sitting on the fence. One of the corrals
built at Rancho El Bordo was still standing in the 1980s.
Antonio loved horses, and he must have either been a good horse
trainer or hired professional people to break these horses for him. The
daily task of breaking horses required dedicated people who loved the
dangerous work and had the patience to deal with the savage, brute ani­mals.
It took understanding and compassion to learn from each experi-
8
and improve their techniques because each animal behaved differ­ently.
The horses were always fed and cared for before the cowboys them­selves
ate.
After breaking and taming the horses) the cowboys took them in
herds) manadas) to sell as saddle horses. A manada of horses or mares
usually consisted of eleven animals.
In 1877 Antonio owned two tracts of land totaling 1,200 acres
valued at $640 and sixteen horses valued at $160) along with a wagon)
cattle) sheep) goats) and other personal property. By 1880 his listings were
as follows: Abstract #586: 640 acres; Abstract #587: 640 acres from Seal &
Morris) one wagon at $30) fifty horses at $300) fifteen cows at $120) 500
sheep at $500) 100 goats at $100) and other personal property at $20.
Antonio may have sold his property at San Pedro but kept his house for
visits to family. He continued to add to his landholdings) surveying and
recording his homestead claims. In 1884 he obtained another section of
land and another 320 acres adjacent to his landholdings on San Jose.s On
a public affidavit dated December 10) 1886) Antonio listed the following
property: 640 acres of land) forty mares) twenty fillies) seven saddle horses)
seven colts) forty-eight cows) and eight yearlings.
5 Information from conversations of Francisco L6pez Jr. with his father, Francisco Sr.
9
Hotnes-teading 01'1
Ral'lcllO Sal"} Jose
When Antonio L6pez carne to San Jose, there were two houses
made of sillares on Rancho San Andres. Architectural studies for the area
indicate this type of house was constructed during the 1820s.6 In this
case, the houses were constructed before land grants were issued. Who
built or lived in these houses is not known. When Antonio bought the
land, he may have lived in one, because he dug a well about 300 feet
south, close to a wash, a derranzadero, where water flowed from a higher
elevation to lower land. He struck water at a depth of thirty-five feet, but
it was salty. So the family used the water only for washing clothes. Today
this old well is covered with heavy boards and sheets of tin with dirt on
top. It is still visible from a road nearby. A reliable water source was im­portant
in deciding a homesite. As soon as Antonio moved to his home­stead,
he began to provide it with life-giving water.
After digging the first well, Antonio hired people to dig another
well located about three-quarters of a mile southwest of the first. He chose
the area because it was close to a lagoon, probably reasoning that the
water table would be shallower there. The second well lies about a half
mile south/southwest of present-day San Jose. Workers built the upper
structure of white limestone cemented with sand and lime. In the 1940s,
concrete was added around the upper part of the structure. This sup­ported
the heavy, thick boards placed over the top to keep anyone from
falling into the well. The water in this well was good for drinking, so
Antonio built his house about twenty-five yards south of the well. It was
6 Eugene George, The Historic Architecture of Texas: the Falcon Reservoir (Austin: Texas
Historical Commission, 1975 ).
10
a medium-sized dwelling built with a porch to the west. His son Margarito
also built his house close to the well in a westerly direction. Part of
Margarito's house stands today. Rodolfo, a grands?n of Margarito, s~id
that, after a good rain, the lagoon filled and water m the well would nse
almost to the top.
The family completed a third well, also dug by hand, about a ha~f
mile from the same underground stream, the derramadero, though a bIt
closer to the lagoon. This third well was over fifty feet deep and also pr~­duced
good drinking water. Today it provides ,:"ater for the C~thohc
Church on San Jose. The well has been modernIzed by cementmg the
upper structure and adding an electric pump. Pedro hand-dug this well
with the help of his family-Pedro Jr., Eduardo, Jose Maria, and Floren­tino-
and other people who were working for Pedro at the time.
While digging the third well, Eduardo was at the bottom and
wanted to bring out a load of rock. The mule pulling the load fell and was
dragged by the weight almost into the opening of the well: The results, of
course, would have been disastrous if the mule had fallen mto the well on
top of Eduardo.? ..
This well, like the others, had two mesqUIte posts WIth a cross­beam
holding a pulley, or carrillo. A rope held a large water bucke~, or
cuba. Men on horseback pulled the cuba from the well. The well proVIded
water for the livestock as well as for horne use. At Pedro's house, it took
two people to draw water from the well: one person on horseback pulled
the bucket out of the water, and another emptied the water into the troughs
for watering the sheep, goats, and cattle. The men also filled barrels of
water for drinking and, when necessary, for watering the rows of onions;
garlic; tomatoes; green peppers; pumpkins; squash, or calabazas; cucum­bers;
and sweet potatoes that grew in the garden.
The family stored water for horne consumption in wooden bar­rels,
barricas. Water troughs, canoas, were made of heavy wooden planks.
About 1910 Pedro installed a cylinder pump in the well and placed a
heavy forked log by its side. This long mesquite log served as a lever to lift
the rod from the pipes that ran to the water level of the well. About two
years later, a windmill was set over the well to pump the water. This wind­mill
worked well until 1919, when a storm destroyed it. At night the sheep
7 Information is from Pedro Lopez to his grandson Tomas Juan Benavides Jr.
11
and goats in corrals
were given water
from the well, but the
demand for water for
the livestock was not
excessive. In those
years, many of the la­goons
held water
almost year-round.
Some creeks that ran
through the pasture
also had water flow­ing
year-round.
The Lopez's
made regular trips to
visit relatives in San
Pedro, across the Rio
Grande from Roma,
Texas. The family sent
messages of deaths,
funerals, and mar­From
left, Flavia, Anastacia, Natalia, and Guadalupe,
daughters of Andres and Maria Engracia Villarreal Saenz
leal1ing on the mesquite log lever used to pump water all
El Fresllillo, c. 1925
riages back and forth in a method developed by other settlers who had
relatives in Guardado de Arriba and Guardado de Abajo. Someone would
shout that so-and-so was very sick or had died to another person across
the river, who relayed the message to a relative.
A trip by horseback from the ranch to San Pedro took about four
days each way. Pedro made several trips to visit relatives. On the way
back, he would stop to visit his close friend, Octaviano Escobar, at Rancho
Las Ojas near Escobares. Octaviano had a casa de sillares and several jacales
around his home. A rock house, a casa de piedra, still stands on this land.s
8 The current descendants of Mr. Escobar know much about the people who lived in Rancho
La Bandera and San Jose.
12
4
Sl'leepsl!}earil"lg
The busiest time for sheep ranchers was the sheep shearing sea­son,
la temporada de la trasquila. Sheepshearing season each year was
around the month of April. The ranchers sought the advice of older, more
experienced ranchers who determined from signs of nature that the win­ter
season was over. Their main purpose was to avoid a freeze after the
sheep were sheared. When this happened, unfortunate ranchers could
easily lose their entire flock. The dead carcasses then had to be burned
because the ranchers could not dig holes big enough to bury them. A
man who rented a ranch near Palo Blanco between Falfurrias and
Hebronville lost his flock in such a freeze. The owner of the land had a
difficult time getting the owner of the sheep to clean up the mess.9
The sheep were kept in a natural corral, a majada. Ponciano, Pedro's
brother-in-law, lived for a while in a majada about a half mile west of
San Jose. The majada stood on the high ground of the pasture belonging
to Pedro, Antonio's son. It was close to a fourth water well the family had
dug. The sheep stayed in pens during the night at this spot. A heavy con­centration
of cactus and brush obstructed the place. It may be that the
prickly cactus leaves were thrown around the fence to grow thick and
serve as a fence also. A single clearing provided an entrance to the majada.
All the mesquite trunks and logs from this corral have deteriorated, leav­ing
only the heavy growth of cacti and trees. Indeed, only a lone mesquite
tree in the center of this clearing remains, and it never grew to full size.
No grass would grow in the area that once served as a corral. It is possible
9 Information provided by Francisco Lopez Jr. from conversations with his father,
Francisco Sr.
13
that the sheep and goat excrement ruined the soil to a degree that it will
not produce vegetation even to this day.
Ponciano slept under a lean-to that faced south. To construct the
lean-to, men stacked a few logs over each other at the low end, placed two
vertical posts on the south end, and laid a log horizontally across the top.
The roof was made of mesquite branches. The entanglement of mesquite
branches was heavy and solid. It could withstand the cold winter nights
and serve as shelter from the sun and rain. Log walls stood at both ends.
The floor was cleared on the north end to make room for sleeping. The
lean-to was set up close to the only gate into the corral, allowing the shep­herd
to keep a close eye on the flock. Ponciano had some good dogs to
help watch for predators at night. He did some light cooking, hanging
his cooking utensils on the nearby tree branches between meals. Family
members visited daily from San Jose, bringing him meals to reheat.
Ponciano later moved to Kingsville, where he lived and raised his family.
Shearing sheep was a major operation in those days. The sheep­shearers
worked in a squatting position, which was painful to their legs
and knees and cut off the circulation. They remained alert to the sheep's
movements so as not to cut or stab it with the sharp points of the shear­ing
scissors, tijeras tacincas. Another painful part for the shearer was the
repetitive squeezing of the scissor blades, which were spring-loaded. Ten­sion
on the cutting edges made them very hard to close. The shearers got
sore hands, sore arms, and very painful wrists. They wrapped leather straps
around their wrists to ease the pain-they said that their wrists felt like
they were split open. The first few days, the shearing went slowly. After a
week or two, however, strong, experienced shearers could shear 100 sheep
a day, earning $3.00 a day. They were paid 3 cents a head at the time. The
earnmgs pro­vided
incentive
for ranchers to
enter the sheep
and wool in­dustryin
South
Texas.
Sheepshearing crew
14
5
The Children of
Jose Antonio Lopez and
Maria de los Santos
Jose Antonio L6pez and his wife, Maria de los Santos Gonzalez,
raised seven children: Jesus, Francisco, Ferman, Pedro, Margarito,
Gregoria, and Maria.
Jesus L6pez, the oldest, was adopted when the family lived at Las
Latas. Jesus claimed his last name was Garcia. Some people knew who his
parents were, but his name was never officially recorded. He lived at Las
Latas until after the 1890s, when he and his family moved to Rancho San
Andres near San Jose. He lived in a sillar home, the only sillar home still
standing in the area today.
Francisco L6pez, the oldest natural son of Antonio and Maria de
los Santos, also lived at Las Latas. Later he lived briefly on Rancho San
JOSe.lO After a drought in the late 1890s, he moved to a tract ofland that
he owned between Freer and Bruni. There he established a ranch that he
na~ed EI Bordo, because it was on a high ridge of land dividing two
bodIes of water, Los Olmos Creek and the Rio de las Nueces. He man­aged
to buy more than 3,000 acres in the area. I I
Ferman L6pez lived east of Rancho El Guajillo. The area of land
close to his ranch is called EI Refugio. Directly to the east stand the re­mains
of the two-story house of his father-in-law, Rafael Gutierrez.
Ferman built a ten-room ranch houseY Years later he moved his home
to Rancho Lorna Alta, where he lived with his family in his later years.
10 San Jose was the Lopez farm or ranch where many members of the family had homes.
II Information is from Francisco Lopez Jr. to his grandson Alejo Lopez.
12 Marina Lopez Lopez of San Diego owns a photograph of this house.
15
Pedro Lopez, my grandfather, lived on San Jose all his life. He built
his home there, raised his family, and increased his landholdings through
many years of hard work. Pedro built his house of lumber near the third
well close to the church on San Jose today.
Margarito Lopez lived on San Jose across the road from his father,
Antonio's, house. He and his family worked hard to improve his land.
His sons helped clear the land for planting.
Gregoria Lopez also lived on Rancho San Jose. Her house stood
just across the road and to the south of Pedro's house. She and her hus­band,
Dionicio Saenz, cleared some land for a field, built a home, and
raised their family there.
Maria Lopez lived a short distance to the north of San Jose on the
land she inherited. She and her husband, Eusebio Garcia, raised beef cattle.
Their daughter, Josefina, married Juan Sandoval.
Jose Moreno was a foster son raised by Antonio during his second
marriage to Dominga Pena. Jose lived near Antonio's house but later
moved to Oilton, Texas.
In the early 1880s, the brothers Jesus, Francisco, Pedro, and Ferman,
who were in their twenties, started to acquire their own stock. Like their
father, they had a love for horses. They learned to tame horses and be­came
hard -riding cowboys. By 1879 Pedro, Jesus, and Francisco had their
own horses, sheep, goats, and other personal property. Ferman was the
most enterprising of Antonio's children. He eventually owned a great
deal of land, livestock, and even property lots in the city of San Diego,
Texas. 13
Antonio's first wife, Maria de los Santos, died sometime between
1878 and 1884 at the home of their adopted son, Jesus, who lived at Rancho
Las Latas. She died of a carbuncle-type sore called a grana carbunco or
carbuncla. This type of sore had a black center core that got hard. It was a
painful malignant tumor, and the area around the sore turned reddish
from the infection. The sore was located on the back of her neck and
created complications. A present-day medical doctor consulted about this
type of sore said that if the patient was a diabetic or was in poor health,
the sore could cause death. It is believed that Maria de los Santos was
1.1 Tax Assessment Rolls: Nueces County.
16
r
buried in the cemetery at Las Latas. 14 Pedro's mother-in-law, Juanita Lopez
Adame, died of this same type of sore.
By the time of Antonio's second marriage to Dominga Pena in
1886, most of his children had married:
• Jesus married Gavina Garcia in 1873.
• Francisco married Petra Vela in 1875.
Pedro married Feliciana Adame on August 31, 1878.
• Ferman married Adelaida Gutierrez on December 15, 1880.
Gregoria married Dionicio Saenz on May 6,1881.
Margarito married Juana Garcia on May 23, 1888.
• Maria married Eusebio Garda on April 15, 1895.
The 1900 census listed Antonio as age sixty-eight and his wife,
Dominga, as age fifty-three, living in Duval County. At the time, they
./ were living on San Jose with Cleofas
I · ~
'~.' .' ."
Lopez and his wife, Victoriana.
Antonio Lopez had a brother
named Jose Manuel Lopez, who mar­ried
Maria Teresa Garcia on Decem­ber
9, 1868. Their sister Maria
Magdalena visited Antonio in 1880.
She is described as having a ruddy
complexion. Another sister was Maria
Casimira Lopez. Indeed, Antonio may
have had other brothers and sisters,
but there was a discrepancy over the
last name of Maria Marina, who was
listed as Hinojosa. This could have
. c .... <d. "'~ been an error of the priest, which was
very common. 15 Jose Antonio Lopez with his second
wife, Dominga Pefia, 1890
14 ~tonio's granddaughter Ydolina states that Maria de los Santos Gonzalez Lopez was
buned at the Las Latas cemetery, but the gravesite is unknown. However, there are two side­by-
side tombs encircled in iron that are close to the tomb of Gavina Garcia, Jesus' wife. It is
probable that these two unmarked tombs belong to Maria de los Santos Gonzalez Lopez and
Juanita Lopez Adame.
15 U.S. Bureau of the Census Manuscripts for Texas: 1880, 1890.
17
gravesite; thus, two acres were set apart for a cemetery on the southwest
corner of his property that is called the Antonio L6pez Cemetery. His
body rests there. Beside his gravestone stands a wooden grotto, which
had been attached to an early wooden marker. The grotto contains the
poem behind a hinged glass door. His great-grandson Reynaldo, who has
now passed away, kept a freshly written copy of the poem in the grotto.
Now Reynaldo's brother, Rodolfo, replaces the poem at the cemetery.16
Dominga died on May 18, 1922. She too is buried at the Antonio L6pez
Cemetery.
16 Reynaldo Lopez's brother, Rodolfo, provided the copy of the poem.
19
7
TIl'le Drougll-tS
of 1894 d I'1-d 1897
A drought occurred about 1894. All the members of the L6pez
family who had livestock suffered greatly and came very close to losing
all they had worked so hard to obtain. They gathered their stock and
drove them towards the open land west of Freer, near Bruni. At the end
of the first day's ride, they camped for the night. At midnight it started to
rain. All were soaked. The next morning, they continued their drive west
towards Freer. Rain continued to fall all day. They camped that night in
the rain, and the next morning they turned around and started home.l7
Another drought occurred about 1897. Again the L6pez brothers,
Francisco, Pedro, Jesus, and Margarito, gathered the stock and headed
out for different pastures in the same direction as in 1894. The land was
open range owned by the state. When they began pasturing their live­stock,
some of the people in the area started staking out the land claims
in the public domain. Through a state program, parcels of land were be­ing
sold. Francisco acquired enough parcels to provide for their livestock.
He staked his land on a ridge that separated the high rocky terrain from
the lower land to the north and called his ranch El Bordo.
The first thing they did on the new land was to establish a camp.
They built a shaded area, or portal, to provide protection from the hot
sun. Then they enclosed the sides to build a jacal, using the wood in the
area. Here they slept and cooked meals for the cowhands and shepherds
who tended the flock and for themselves.
17 Francisco, who was a cowboy also looking for new pastures, related this incident to his
grandson Hector Lopez.
20
There was a problem with water for the livestock, so they decided
to bring some men from San Jose to dig a well. They dug the well but
found no water. In their plight, Pedro asked advice from a local wise man.
He knew there was a wedding the next day at El Guajillo and that his
tocayo, or namesake, Don Pedrito Jaramillo, would attend. IS After greet­ing
him, Don Pedrito asked Pedro what he was doing there. Pedro told
him the problem they were having finding water where they had settled.
Don Pedrito described a nearby lagoon and directed them to ride from
the lagoon in a westerly direction until they arrived at a place where deep
trails crossed. Near the trails, they would see a mesquite grove, and there
they should dig for water.
Pedro left early the next morning to go to El Bordo. There he got
the men to start digging close to the mesquite trees. They had been dig­ging
a few days when Camilo Palacios put his head close to th.e wall of t~e
well hole and heard a noise behind the wall. He became cunous and hIt
the spot with the crowbar he used for digging. The water gushed out,
widening the hole as it poured through. He became frightened and yelled,
"Pull me out, pull me out, I'll drown!)) The men, not knowing the depth
of the water table, had already dug beneath it, and the water vein, venera,
poured into the well. This turned out to be a very good well. ~sing a
horse to pull a bucket tied to a rope, they developed the well s~ It pr~­duced
plenty of water. They were even able to share the water WIth theIr
neighbor at El Rancho Solo, with whom they became good friends. Be­ginning
in 1906, Rosendo, Francisco's son, worked as a foreman on the
ranch for several years.
Later, Jesus bought 2,500 acres to the north, or the lower section
ofland from Francisco's El Bordo Ranch near Freer, for 25 cents an acre.
His grandchildren remembered an incident that happened to Mauricio,
Jesus' son, and Samuel, a son of Mauricio. It seems that while carrying
the money to Laredo to pay for the land, they stopped to eat and rest.
After resting, they got on their horses and rode off. A few miles down the
road, one asked the other, "Do you have the money bag?)) When he an­swered
no, they returned as rapidly as they could to where they had rested.
Fortunately, no one had come along; the bag of money remained where
they had left it.
18 Don Pedrito Jaramillo was a famous healer who came to South Texas in 1881 and lived in
Los Olmos near Falfurrias. People throughout the area sought his services. He died in 1907.
21
The brothers went through many hardships living in the camp.
Francisco set up another small jacal with a kitchen and brought his old­est
daughter, Gumecinda, to do the cooking.
Once, when Rosendo was about nine years old, he was tending a
goat herd on horseback. They had some good dogs to help them take
care of the herd. Rosendo related to Alejo, his son, an incident involving
a rabid full-grown bobcat, un gato tigerio. The bobcat approached the
flock, and the dogs tried to chase it away. Rosendo moved quickly on his
horse to scare away the cat, but the cat came toward his horse instead.
Rosendo turned the horse around and rushed toward the camp, calling
for help. As he was still calling for help, his sister came out to pull him off
the saddle, but his foot got stuck in the stirrup. He could not pull his foot
out, so his sister uncinched the saddle and pulled him and the saddle off
together. They tried to chase the bobcat away, but it ran into the kitchen.
Then Camilo Palacios came to rescue them. He grabbed a hoe with a
heavy handle, azad6n de 0.10, and killed the animal. Rosendo recalled that
many times they saw mountain lions in the pastures.
Family members would travel back and forth from their camp on
El Bordo to San Jose, where the families stayed. After the drought ended
and the pastures of San Jose had recovered, Pedro and Margarito were
the only ones to bring their livestock back to San Jose. Francisco fixed a
permanent residence for himself at his El Bordo Ranch. Jesus remained
on his property to the north and improved it. Later he and his family
moved near El Bordo to take care of the stock at his ranch there. Rosendo
went back to San Jose to work the fields and cultivate the cotton.
When cotton became a good cash crop, the ranchers concentrated
on clearing land for fields. The main tools they used were a mattock, or
talache, and a good axe, or hacha. The people working to clear the land,
desenraiz, also carried files to keep their tools sharp. The first cotton gin
opened at Crestonio or Realitos. The hauling of the cotton bales to the
gin took a long time. Later there was a gin in Benavides, a town nearby.
When the railroad came to the area, people from the ranches would
go to a ranch called La Palangana to cut wood for the trains. The wood
was mainly dried mesquite wood that burned quickly to heat the water to
drive the steam engines.
22
A Victil'l'l of Rabies
At their open camp near El Bordo, the men set up shades, or
portales, similar to a lean-to. They slept on the ground under the~e. T~e
open sides exposed them to the elements as well as to attack by wIld aDl­mals.
One time, an animal bit a man named Ruiz from Rancho San
Andres. He was bitten during the night but did not see the animal. He
suspected, however, that it was a skunk and, fe.aring ~hat it was rabid,
went to the ranch house the next day. He told hIS family what had hap­pened.
When he began feeling sick, he asked his relatives to chain him ;0
an old torn-down sillar home near the Jesus L6pez house on San Andres.
Soon he began to show the strong effects of the disease. He began
to spit at his relatives and make horrible noises. He would yell and cry
very loud as though he was in great pain. His loud cries were reportedly
heard all the way back at San Jose. Someone had been sent to San Anto­nio
for a dOCtor, but, by the time the doctor arrived, Ruiz was in terrible
condition. The doctor told his relatives there was no cure for him, and ail
that was ahead for him was more suffering. The doctor mixed some medi­cine
for him to drink when he was momentarily calm. The unfortunate
man drank the medicine, lay down, and never got up.
23
9
Pedro aI:td FeJiciaI:ta Lopez
Ol:t Rmrtcl'1o Smrt Jose
Pedro was one of the sons of Antonio L6pez. He married Feliciana
Adame, and they raised their family on a portion of Antonio's original
Rancho San Jose. They are remembered by one of their daughters, Ydolina
L6pez, who was born December 2,1895, on the ranch.
Pedro and Feliciana Adame were married on August 31, 1878, in
San Diego by Father Peter Bard. Feliciana was born July 9, 1863, in a
ranch near Comales,
Tamaulipas, a small
community south of
Camargo. Their ranch
property lay close to
the Azucar Dam. The
house where Feliciana
was born was still
standing in the 1970s,
when members of
Pedro L6pez Jr.'s fam­ily
visited some rela­tives
there. Feliciana's
father, Reyes Adame,
owned property in
Nueces County in the
1870s. Perhaps it was
there the couple met.
Pedro Lopez, his daughter Carfota, and
his wife, Feficiana Adame,
at Rancho San Jose
To this marriage were born twelve children:
24
Name Sex Date of Birth Married to
Santos L6pez Female August 13, 1879 Encarnaci6n Pena
Juanita L6pez Female May 16, 1881 Carlos Benavides
Braulia L6pez Female May 23, 1883 Daniel Valadez
Victoria L6pez Female March 6, 1885 Silverio Valadez
Pedro L6pez Male May 5, 1887 Jesusa Valadez
Teresita L6pez Female October 15,1891 Died at age 15
Jose Maria L6pez Male July 4, 1893 Juanita Oliveira
Ydolina L6pez Female December 2, 1895 Praxedis Saenz
Eduardo L6pez Male February 10, 1898 Maria L6pez
Florentino L6pez Male February 8, 1900 Petra Garcia
Carlota L6pez Female February 10, 1903 Mateo Valadez
Rafaela L6pez Female Unknown Died at infancy
Pedro and Feliciana also raised a grandson named Raul Valadez
from the age of eight months, when his mother, Braulia, died. Another
household member was Santos Garda, who came to work with Pedro
when he was eight years old. He was from Benavides and remained with
the family until he married at age twenty-one. Pedro would take him to
see his family, hoping he would stay with them. But when it came time to
leave, Santos would go back home with Pedro again.
Pedro and Feliciana L6pez built their home near the hand-dug
well on San Jose and planted a palm tree that became a landmark at the
site. They lived in a jacal at first and later built a wooden frame house
with lumber brought from Corpus Christi in the early 1890s. In 1879
Pedro's assets included eight horses valued at $56, twenty sheep valued at
$20, ten goats valued at $10, and personal property valued at $15. His
brothers Jesus and Francisco also owned taxable property.19
From the turn of the century until about 1915, many develop­ments
took place at Rancho San Jose. Members of the family did much
work clearing the land and tending the flocks of sheep and goats. Addi­tionally,
the family employed many people who brought along their fami­lies.
They were allowed to live in the jacales that were constructed when
the family first cleared the land. Survey markers on Antonio's land had
the initials "AG," which probably referred to the original grantee, Jose
Antonio Gonzalez, as this land was part of the La Huerta land grant. A
family tale held that a shepherd had stolen the original title papers for
the grant from Jose Antonio Gonzalez.
19 Tax Assessment Rolls: Nueces County.
25
Rancho San Jose as drawn by Ydolina Saenz in 1980, when she was 85 years old
26
DOI'l Josesito
al'ld DOllta Cltavela
The house where Antonio and Dominga Pena L6pez lived was
still standing in the late 1930s, although there is no sign of it today. Jose
Maldonado, called Josesito, and his wife, Dona Chavela, a couple in their
late sixties, lived there. Don Josesito and Dona Chavela were humble
people and deeply religious, attending feasts and the Holy Rosary with
much devotion. They built an altar in their home, and during Lent the
neighbors gathered in their house to pray. The Maldonados had their
own prayer rituals, but every Friday they would pray the Rosary and sing
hymns of praise, alabanzas, for the people of the surrounding area.
Besides his farm work, Don Josesito trained mules for the plow or
wagon in order to make a living. Rodolfo, Margarito's grandson, lived
across from Don Josesito. One night Don Josesito returned from the gro­cery
store at San Jose on a donkey, or burra, and suffered an injury. Rodolfo
recalls that Don Josesito leaned too far to one side to unhook the gate
into his yard and fell, breaking his leg. He later died from complications
in the hospital in Alice.
The Maldonados often visited Tomas Juan Benavides Jr.'s
grandfather's house, always in a joyful mood. Don Josesito continually
prayed for rain, good crops, or for someone's health. Tomas, a great-grand­son
of Pedro L6pez, remembered that he was about six or seven years old
when Don Josesito died.
27
Jacales de Leiia
The most common type of ranch home was a hut made of logs
and brush called a jacal de lefta. Although the jacal was a modest dwell­ing,
its construction required a complex knowledge of local materials
and native building techniques.
Ranch hands from Mexico built the jacales. They first dug holes
for two posts opposite each other and lay mesquite logs between them at
about seven feet. The spaces for windows and doors in the jacales were
left open when laying the logs. Two large center posts with forks at the
top supported the roof. A long ridgepole extended from the fork of one
vertical post across the length of the jacal to the post at the other end. For
the first layer of the roof, workers found medium-thick logs and notched
them to tie to the ridgepole. After that, smaller-diameter logs were laid
crosswise to form the roof. The workers then tied together strips of yucca
leaves to make thatching to cover the roof. The leaves came from a South
Texas yucca plant called the pita. The workers cut strips of the pita leaves,
or cortar tiras de oja de pita. The strips were tied to each other with a
special knot that tightened when pulled. After the yucca leaves were in
place, workers piled another layer of even thinner branches over them.
Then they finished the thatched roof with bundles of grass, called zacaton,
which they gathered from nearby ponds. Sometimes they used palmetto
for this step. They tied the grass bundles together with thin strips of yucca
leaves and laid the bundles at the bottom of the roof, working toward the
top. After thatching to the top, they next laid bundles lengthwise along
the ridgepole to seal the roof crest. They tied the bundles to withstand
strong winds, but the roofs still had to be repaired and replaced often.
28
The jacales were used mainly for sleeping. Durin? t~e winter
months, family members filled crevices between the logs WIt? hm~ mud
called cal. Stripped cornhusks added fiber to the mortar mIX. ThIs po­rous
mix provided a viable insulation that effectively kept the cold wind
out. The doors and windows were crudely outlined by straight branches
from nearby bushes and trees. A favored tree, the tenasa, had straight
limbs and was strong and light in weight. The tenasa limbs were used for
roof slits and to make doors for the jacales. At night the crude log doors
were lifted and put in place to keep out snakes, skunks, possums, ~nd
other small creatures that prowled at night. The jacales were made m a
variety of sizes and styles, depending on the method preferred by the
workers. Some builders spaced the two posts closer and at shorter lengths
in order to use split logs.
Workers who followed traditional methods cut the mesquite tree
posts, center beams, and the rest of the wood used for makin~ the jacales
during a full moon. They believed any part of the tree cut d.unng the n.ew
crescent-shaped moon retained the sap and so attracted msects, whIch
left a powdery mess that rotted the wood. Houses made of such wood
would not last long.
About 1905 Pedro had a large two-room jacal for his family, in
addition to the wooden frame house he built about 1894. His property
probably also included three other jacales of different sizes .and shapes,
where the hired hands and their families lived. People passmg through
the area who stayed only a day or two before continuing on used the
smallest of the jacales. These transients helped with the daily chores like
cutting wood for the fire, hauling water, and other tasks. The L6pez fa:n­ily
fed the visitors and prepared food for them to t~ke wh~n they contm­ued
on their journey. The jacales were fully occupied dunng the harvest
season. Some of the workers who stayed for an extended time had small
children, and Pedro's family became attached to them. They found the
visiting children lovable and gracious, and they were sad to see them
leave, feeling they had lost part of their own ranch family.
One of the large jacales had a fireplace made of stones in a corner
for cooking. The jacales had a shady porch, a portal that was suppo~·ted
by large vertical posts with a Y-shaped fork at the top to support the ndge
pole and beams. Crossbeams of smaller diameter cover~d the fir~t layer
of beams, then the thatching of dried cornstalks, rastro]o, was laId. The
29
thatching was tied in bundles with yucca leaf strips and secured to the
crossbeams. Extra logs were laid over the bundles of rastrojo for weight
so the wind would not blow off the roof cover. The portales provided
good shade and protection from the rains for the tables where the family
and workers ate.
The people who worked clearing the land were told to save all the
mesquite branches and tree trunks for construction materials. They
brought in all the straight logs; the crooked logs; the short, middle-sized
logs; the thin branches; and the long logs with a Y-shaped end on them.
There was a use for each. Windows had no screens, but, in winter, the
family made wooden covers for them. Crude wooden doors were placed
on front openings in very cold weather.
30
Ral'1-cll H OLIses of Sil1ill~
Another type of ranch horne was the limestone block house, or
casa de sillar, peculiar to South Texas. There were two sillar houses on
Rancho San Andres, but only one still stood in 1930. A new roof added in
the 1940s preserved
the building well. The
doors faced to the
south, the east, and
the north, and a win­dow
was on the west
side that now faces a
ranch road. In all
probability, a window
always faced the road
for security reasons.
The last fam-ily
member to live in
this house on Rancho
,,,,,., : . ' A " ~<.
Sillar home, San Diego, c. 1908
San Andres was Jesus L6pez, the adopted son of Antonio. When Jesus
and his family lived there, it had bedrooms built of lumber added to the
north and south. The lumber construction was probably board and bat­ten.
The kitchen lay to the south and separate from the house as is typical
in South Texas ranch homes. The house was occupied in the 1940s.20
The other sillar house was in ruins in the early 1920s, and no evi­dence
remained by 1990. The sillares were probably removed and used
20 Interview with the grandchildren of Jesus Lopez.
31
/
/ -
for something else.
The area where these
two houses were lo­cated
is very rocky.
In the late 1930s,
eight to ten families
lived in the area.
Several other
sillar houses can be
found in the area
around San Jose, La
Mota, Guajillo, and
Refugio. The entire
area is rocky with
many caliche pits.
These houses were
built from limestone
blocks about 1820.
The houses left
standing today lack
the gunports that
Board-and-batten construction, many of the original
Duval County, c. 1908 homes had for pro-tection
against the
Indians. Two other sillar houses still stand on the Hinojosa Ranch, about
two miles north of the Gonzalitos Store on Farm to Market Road 1329
going towards San Diego. The sillar houses are about a quarter mile away
from the road to the west. These two houses had wooden floors and
wooden roofs that have now deteriorated. The lumber for these houses
was hauled from Corpus Christi.
There were more sillar houses located on the Hinojosa Ranch, a
large land and livestock enterprise in the area. Antonio Hinojosa Perez,
the oldest son of Luciano Hinojosa and Apolonia Perez, was born on De­cember
14, 1835, in Agualeguas, Mexico. He came to South Texas about
1850 at age fifteen to work at Las Latas Ranch. After a few years, he be­came
foreman, receiving as part of his wages a herd of sheep and a place
to graze them. From this beginning, he started buying parcels of land
32
and increased his herd of sheep and goats and then added cattle and
horses. He bought several thousand acres, which became the Hinojosa
Ranch, extending to the El Guajillo community. Mr. Perez hired many
workers and regularly hauled wool and hides to market at Corpus Christi,
returning with wagonloads of supplies. He bought more land at Rancho
Las Piedritas near Premont. From this ranch, Antonio donated 100 acres
to Don Pedrito Jaramillo, who had become a close friend of his. By the
time of Antonio's death on November 9,1912, he had brought all of his
relatives from Mexico to share in his fortune. He is buried at El Guajillo
Cemetery on land that he ownedY
Apparently there were more sillar homes northwest of Refugio in
the direction of El Guajillo. One house had an eight-foot rock fence
around it. The house itself is in ruins, however, and only a part of the wall
is left standing. An outline of rocks identifies the area where the fence
was situated. The rocks were probably removed and used by the later
generations living there. The chimney was the only structure remaining
by the 1950s. Because it had a fence for protection, this house may have
predated the other ones. It was probably one of the type that had gunports
built on it. Indeed, that may be the reason for the name of the town of
Refugio, which means refuge.
21 Interview with Tomas Hinojosa of San Antonio, great-grandson of Antonio Hinojosa Perez.
33
Neigllboril'lg Ral'lclleS
In the La Mota area, about five miles west of San Jose, stood more
sillar homes. In the mid -19 30s, members of the Bazan family lived there.
These houses were also placed on a rocky hill. The 1870 census lists Rancho
Bazan as a landmark as well as Rancho Los Tramojos.
East of Benavides, a few miles out Farm Road 114, a fOt-tlike struc­ture
sits on a rocky hill from which the city of Benavides is visible. In the
1940s, this fort had a wooden frame house built on top of it, and a family
actually lived there. The ruins of this structure are visible at the side of
the road. The fort must have had a very strong roof in order to support a
house. If so, it was like other forts with a roof constructed of a limestone
mixture called tipichil, made from pebbles, sand, lime, and water.
When attacked by the Indians, the ranch families could bolt the
downstairs door and climb to the rooms on top to defend themselves.
This roof would not catch fire if the Indians shot flaming arrows to burn
them out. Tomas Benavides Jr- recalls that his grandfather Pedro Lopez
Jr. told him that the stones, sillares, used in this fort came from a quarry
100 yards north of the fort.
Another landmark in the area was the Rancho Santa Cruz. Pedro
said that, in the mid-1870s when he was close to age eighteen, he worked
as a cowboy with his brother Ferman. With some others, they had gone
as far south as Rancho Santa Cruz looking for wild horses. They rounded
up the horses on the open range around San Jose. He spoke of the differ­ent
ranches that were landmarks at the time as they traveled catching
horses. Santa Cruz was a thriving community with a store and a school
in the 1880s and a post office in the 1920s. A creek that comes from
34
r
Concepci6n in a northeasterly direction runs through Santa Cruz. There
was a large lagoon at least a half mile in diameter called El Estero, which
always held water. An estero is a body of water fed by a river or some
other means. Sometimes water comes from underground springs. The
lagoon was clogged with heavy growth and vegetation in the center, mak­ing
it impossible to wade into. The water was always high up to the bank.
The area where it emptied into the creek was probably an ideal place to
catch wild horses.
In the late 1930s, one could still see two-foot-deep trails coming
from different directions to the estero. These trails may have been made
by animals going to the estero or by water running from higher ground.
In a field about a half mile northwest of the estero, on higher ground, one
finds many chips of flint rock. Once in a while after a rain, arrowheads
are found. It is possible Indians had camped there and used this water­hole
while hunting for meat. The camp area on high ground lay down­wind
from the estero, so the animals would not smell hunting parties
lying in wait.
A hand-dug square-shaped well stood about a quarter mile west
of the estero. Mesquite logs laid in the wall of the well kept the sand from
collapsing. This well was perhaps the work of the Benito Gonzalez family
or the Martinez family, who owned this land in the 1860s. The land formed
part of the EI Senor de la Carrera grant adjudicated to Dionicio Elizondo
in 1835. By the 1870s, members of the Elizondo family started selling
portions of land, with deeds recorded in the county clerk's office. Sales
were made to the Villarreal, Benito Gonzalez, and Martinez families, who
together eventually owned the total 10,096 acres of the grant. The land
stayed in one unit until the actual partitions of land were made in the
early 1900s, when the owners started fencing their property.
35
Ferl'l'ldl'l Lopez,
'I-'rail Boss Ol'l Cattle Drives
Pedro's brother Ferman was in charge of rounding up wild horses,
mestefzas. He and his crew drove the horses to market in San Antonio,
Monterrey, Corpus Christi, Mier, and surrounding towns. In those years,
the land was open grassland with no fences. Ferman's neighbor Antonio
Recio was a tall, strong, robust man skilled as a cowboy. He was depend­able
and respected in the community. Antonio always wore a six-shooter
pistol strapped to his waist and carried a rifle in a scabbard attached to
his saddle. Ferman and Antonio Recio were known far and wide for their
shooting skills. As they said, "Dande ponian el aja panian la bala," which
means they were known for their good marksmanship. No one dared
engage them in a duel.
Ferman started buying cattle for cattle drives to the stockyards in
San Antonio and Houston. He knew all the cattle trails. Because there
was no way to haul the cattle and stock to market, the cattle drives pro­vided
a means for the area ranchers to sell their livestock. They made a
good living at this hard work, considering the low market prices at the
time. Ferman bought land with his earnings and even acquired land in
the city of San Diego. Pedro also purchased land with his earnings, first
at 50 cents an acre, then at $1.00 per acre, later at $2.00 an acre; the last
five acres were purchased at $5.00 per acre. It is not known how long
Pedro worked with Ferman on the cattle drives. After a few years of the
hard drives, they settled down to work their land.
Ferman bought a large amount ofland around Rancho El Refugio
and Lorna Alta. He also owned property in San Diego and many small
ranches which people worked for him as sharecroppers. The sharecrop-
36
per families had children, and, in the bad years of low yields, Ferman
personally borrowed money from the bank for their support. He put his
own land up as collateral. He helped many people, but over the years
Ferman lost most of his land, though he kept enough for his family. He
also left horses and city lots in the city of San Diego for themY
A large collection of documents related to Ferman's life shows he
once owned 15,000 to 16,000 acres. The documents detail his cattle drives
to San Antonio and Houston as well as his other accomplishments. Ferman
was the trail boss on the cattle drives and lived a colorful life. On one
drive to San Antonio, Ferman met people named L6pez. They were re­lated
to him through a sister of his mother, Maria. The newly found rela­tives
included Maria Antonia, wife of Bacilio L6pez-Ferman's first
cousinY
Ferman's brother Pedro stayed on Rancho San Jose and occasion­ally
worked as a cowboy at La Chiva, a large ranch owned by brothers
Charles and John McNeill. La Chiva comprised 11,000 acres. Some of
Pedro's other neighbors also worked there.
22 Information provided by Mrs. Marina Lopez Lopez, a granddaughter of Ferman Lopez.
23 Information provided by Ricardo Gonzalez Lopez, a grandson of Ferman Lopez.
37
5
Plall}till}g of Crops
ill} the 1900s
Pedro and Feliciana's daughter Ydolina was six years old when
she began helping her brothers Pedro Jr. and Jose Maria plant corn and
beans in a small field near their house. Pedro plowed a furrow with an ox
team, and she followed carrying a small cotton canvas bag strapped over
her shoulder. Ydolina counted her steps to space out the kernels of corn.
Behind her came Jose Maria with another team of oxen dragging an imple­ment
that covered the seed. The beans were planted in the same manner.
After about a week, the children checked the rows for any plants that did
not sprout. They then replanted the empty spaces. Pedro dug a hole with
the heavy hoe, azad6n de ojo, and Ydolina dropped in the seed. Pedro
then covered it with his foot. The heavy hoes were used after each rain. It
seemed that the weeds always grew faster than the crop.
There was a specific season to plant each crop. Crops had to be
planted by a certain date to mature in season. Fortunately, the rains usu­ally
came at the right time during the growing season.
38
Tlle ScI-lools
arC)LIl'1d t:he Year 1900
The ranch families provided for their own education by contrib­uting
land, building the schoolhouses, and boarding the teachers at the
family's expense. The school on San Jose was built in the early 1890s. The
schools at El Guajillo and La Mota were built later. Most of the students
were from seven to fourteen years old.
Charlotte Gunter was the teacher at San Jose. Everyone called her
Carlota. She boarded at the house of Ydolina's grandfather Antonio.
Charlotte's hometown was San Antonio, and it was thought that she was
related to the owners of the Gunter Hotel. She taught Ydolina songs in
English. Ydolina was taken to the other schools for their programs. The
schools were close by, so all the neighboring families attended the school
programs. Ydolina sang in the school programs at San Jose, El Guajillo,
and La Mota schools. Carlota and Emeterio Pena, a carpenter, were
Fi rst schoolhouse 011 Sal1 Jose, built c. 1890; Pedro L6pez is th ird fro 111 left.
39
Ydolina's baptismal sponsors, padrinos de bautizmo, on November 19,
1896. Miss Gunter maintained a close relationship with Ydolina and over
the years gave her gifts.
Eliza Foster was another teacher who later boarded at Antonio's
house. Teachers who taught at San Jose in later years were:
• Maria L6pez, a daughter to Margarito Lopez, who later
married Margarito Bazan from La Mota
• Zela Foster, who may have been related to Eliza Foster
• Santos Bazan Cantu
Belia Garda
• Juanita Oliveira from Benavides, who married Jose Maria L6pez
• Rebecca Elizalde
Pajita Garda.
Some of these teachers rotated between the three schools. Ydolina
attended school for about six years, but she only went to school about
three or four months each year because of a tumor in her head. She had
constant headaches, and her eyes swelled. Over the years, she completed
the third grade and started the fourth grade. She and her cousin Amadeo
helped the teacher with the first graders.
In the 1919 storm, the schoolhouse at San Jose was lifted from its
foundation and swept about fifty feet west of its original location. Com­munity
members repaired the school and set it on a new foundation of
pylons, pilones, near the new place where it had landed. In 1925 a new,
larger schoolhouse was built. The old school continued in use as a voting
place, a casilla, for precinct elections until another place was designated.
40
Padre Pedro
Father Peter Bard, a Catholic priest, came through San Jose about
once a month. The locals at San Jose called him Padre Pedro. He arrived
in late afternoon after visiting with the people in the ranches close to the
road. On his arrival, he rang the school bell and greeted the people. The
people from the surrounding ranches then came for the Rosary and to
sing hymns of praise, cantos or alabanzas. Padre Pedro spoke and sang to
them in Spanish and told them to bring forward the children to be bap­tized.
He explained the church teachings, the doctrina, and the sacra­ments
and commandments, the sacramentos y mandamientos.
Ydolina said, "In his talks, he gave very wise advice to both old and
young:' "Daba consejos muy sabios a grandes y chicos en sus platicas." He
also visited the sick, prayed for them, and gave them encouragement,
mucho animo, making them feel better. Through his teaching, there was
much love and respect among people, "habia mucho carino y respeto en­tre
la gente." The older people were called uncles and aunts, or tios y tias,
and the older cousins were called brothers and sisters, hermanos y
hermanas. The older people who belonged to the community were ad­dressed
with titles of respect, don or dona.
The morning after Padre Pedro's arrival, the school bell rang, and
the neighbors came before breakfast to attend mass. Ydolina's mother,
Feliciana, got up early to make breakfast for the Padrecito and fix food
for him to eat as he traveled. Padre Pedro said that Pedro and Feliciana
were the first couple he married when he came to San Diego. After the
new school was built, the old school continued in use for services when
Padre Pedro visited.
41
Const:ruct:il'1g \!\Tells
01'1 t:he Ral'1ch
One of the most pressing needs on the ranch was obtaining fresh
drinking water. About 1904 Pedro and his family hand-dug a fourth well
about three-quarters of a mile west of San Jose. Pedro hired help to tend
his flock, to clear the land, and to help dig the wells. The fourth well,
about 45 feet deep, had a bell shape at the bottom of the shaft. A round
pool rose in the middle, surrounded by a raised ledge. Family members
who dug the well said that, from the bottom, one could see the stars dur­ing
the day. One night, as the well was being finished, water broke through
the well wall and rose to 35 feet. All the digging tools had been left inside
the well for the night, and no one wanted to go underwater to retrieve
them, so the tools remained at the bottom of the well.
Elderly people in the area remembered the hand-digging of the
wells. The ones on San Jose are round, from eight to ten feet in diameter,
providing enough space for two people to work inside at a time. It was
best for them to work in pairs, so if something happened to one of the
diggers, the other could secure him to the rope to be pulled out. Fortu­nately,
at San Jose there was no loose sand that could cause the walls to
cavem.
The family used various methods to determine where to dig. Some
people used a Y-shaped peach tree twig to locate water. When Pedro dug
his first well, Don Pedrito Jaramillo, the healer from Los Olmos near
Falfurrias, told him the direction and approximate distance from his house
to go. He told Pedro to bury a tin can upside down and to check it the
next day; if there was moisture inside, he should dig his well there.
42
The well-digging im­plements
included a mattock,
or talache; picks; shovels called
palas; and metal crowbars. The
crowbars had a wide, flattened
cutting edge on one side and
a sharp-pointed edge on the
other side for cutting into the
white limestone on each side
of the well. The workers set
two heavy, forked posts up­right
to secure the crossbeam
DOll Pedrito Jaramillo, healer that held the pulley. The pul-ley
lowered the men into the
hole and lifted them out. It was also used to lower the tools and take out
the buckets of dirt. In the San Jose area, they did not dig very deep before
they struck the white limestone layer, so most of these wells are solid rock
from top to bottom. The men chipped the rock and shoveled it into a
large cowhide container secured with ropes at the four corners. A heavy
rope at a central point on the cowhide threaded through a pulley that
was att~ched to the crossbeam over the well opening. A man leading a
mule raIsed and lowered the load on the rope.
. There was discussion about whether the ideal time to dig a well
was wmter or summer. In fact, it did not matter once the hole was deeper
than ten feet. At that depth, the surrounding dirt was cool in the summer
and warm in winter. ~he many stories about the challenges of digging
wells reveal the hardshIps and hard work that the people faced to survive.
But water was a basic necessity on the ranch, and the wells they dug pro­vided
good water.
Another structure that helped provide water for the ranch was the
man-made earthen dam, or presa, along one of the many stream beds, or
arroyos. An ea:othen dam was built near the last deep well Pedro dug.
When the famIly worked the field about three-quarters of a mile west of
San Jose, they passed near this presa. When digging the well, workers
used dirt from the we~l hole to build a levy on the east and west side. They
used the rest of the dIrt to block the passage of a creek to divert the flow
43
of water to the reservoir. This presa always had water for the cattle in
times of drought, and it had fish when it was flooded from an upstream
body of water. Pedro made fish hooks for the family out of wire, and, on
the way back home in the afternoon, they fished and took home the catch
to be prepared for a meal.
When the heavy rains came, the presa overflowed on the west side.
The creek continued on its way, taking some of the fish through the ar­royo
down to Rufino Vela's
and Margarito's properties.
Mr. Vela and Margarito
had also dug some round
holes, tinajas, beside the
creek to divert some of the
floodwater. These tinajas
held water for their cattle
and trapped fish that fol-lowed
the currents. When ~... J
the holes were half full of r-water,
the people gathered
the fish in burlap sacks,
carried them in buckets
and tubs to the presa, and
threw them in.
Around the 1930s,
these creeks still held wa­teryear-
round, butthewa­ter
had'become stagnant. It
developed yellow foam,
called lama, on the surface,
which was thought to
come from the leaves of
the tall trees that grew be­side
the creeks. Some la-goons
retained water for a
..
•
.•.
•
•
..
Rufino and Maria Lira de Vela on their ranch
in Duval County, c. 1910
long time after a rain-those at lower elevations were fed by water run­ning
in gullies or ravines from the higher ground. By 1950 all these creeks
had dried up.
44
Raisil!}g COttOl!}
By 1905, with provisions for water and livestock made, the family
directed their energy toward production of cotton as a cash crop. Cotton
became a leading crop as land was cleared for tillable fields. Pedro Jr.,
Jose Maria, and Ydolina worked the fields. Raising cotton entailed a lot of
work. They weeded with heavy hoes in a process called despajar, then
thinned in a process called desahijar, and cleaned out the fields again
after each rain. Finally came the picking of the cotton balls.
In the early years, the family members used oxcarts to go to the
fields. Later, they traveled in a mule-drawn wagon called a guajin. To
haul the cotton, they used large, heavy, mule-drawn wagons with high
sideboards as skirts. These skirts held a bale of cotton weighing about
1,500 pounds. The family hauled the bales to Calvin North's cotton gin
in Benavides. The roads and wagon trails had rocks, bumps, and sand, so
the wagons required at least two or three teams of mules to pull the load .
About 1920 area ranchers were raising cotton because it provided instant
cash on the favorable market .
The family profited from their industry. Pedro continued to buy
land from 1910 through 1915. These were profitable years. Ydolina as the
family bookkeeper and treasurer recorded the revenue from cotton sales,
the sale of livestock, and payment to workers on the ranch. Every mem­ber
of the family had chores to do. The older daughters who were not
married helped with the cooking, washing, or tending the garden. When
not working in the fields, Pedro Jr. continued clearing the land and dig­ging
new water wells. In later years Florentino and Eduardo worked in
the fields when school was not in session. Jose Maria tended sheep when
there were no other young men among the hired hands to do the work.
When shepherds were available, he worked alongside Pedro Jr.
45
Tick Fever
Pedro constructed some corrals with lumber given him by the
McNeill brothers, which he hauled to his ranch in the mule-drawn wagon.
He built one corral on San Jose and another on land he owned northwest
of San Jose. These corrals came in handy in 1933, when a severe tick fever
epidemic hit the area. The cattle were quarantined and could not be taken
in or out of the area. Mr. Jimenez, a mason, or albaflil, constructed a
dipping vat close to the corral northwest of San Jose. Jimenez also built a
concrete water trough at t h e presa.
For a couple of months, the cattle had to be dipped every seven
days, then every fourteen days, and finally every twenty-one days. The
tick inspectors supervised the herd being treated in the vats. At one end
of the vat, a slippery slope caused the cattle to fall into the deep end of the
long trough and became completely immersed in the medicinal mix. Then
they swam for a few feet to the other end of the trough, where the con­crete
rose gradually to ground level. The up-slope of the trough had ridges
so the cattle did not slip getting to the drying pen, and the drying pen
had a sloped floor that allowed the medicine to drain back into the vat,
thus conserving the medicine. Before the cattle were released from the
drying pen, workers marked them on the rump with green paint indicat­ing
that the cow had been treated for the week.
The tick inspectors monitored all movement of livestock within
the quarantined area of the county. They also periodically checked the
medicine in the vat to confirm its strength. When young calves were
dipped, they were hooked under the neck with a bent rod to pull them to
the vat. Horses had to be dipped also. During this tick fever epidemic,
46
men on horseback drove the livestock from surrounding ranches to a
dipping vat and then took them back to pasture. The tick inspectors were
Sabas de los Santos in Benavides, Margarito Bazan in the San Jose area,
Mateo Valadez in La Bandera, and Jose Marfa Saenz in the Mesquite Bo­nito
area.
Dog Pl~ot:ect:iol'1- at: Nigllt:
At night the dogs provided protection against the wild animals.
Pedro was a light sleeper and recognized the various ways the dogs barked.
He could detect when they were being attacked by a vicious animal or
just barking a warning to keep away prowling animals. He kept his rifle
ready near his bed. Sometimes the dogs barked at coyotes that tried to get
into the sheep and goat pens, and Pedro fired his gun to scare the coyotes
away. Some of the people passing through on wagons, or carretelas, wanted
to stay for the night. They slept in their wagons during the summer to be
safe from prowling animals.
47
SllOppi11.g Trips to To"'}'!
Pedro's ranch was the central location where the family sheared
the sheep. The shearers gathered the wool into small burlap sacks. When
these were full, they packed the sacks into a larger burlap sack that held
about 100 pounds. During the early 1880s, the burlap sacks were loaded
onto two-wheeled carts pulled by oxen and hauled to Corpus Christi.
Usually two people made the trip. The family also took animal hides to
sell on these trips.
On these early trips to Corpus Christi, Pedro took along his fa­ther-
in-Iaw, Reyes Adame, or his brother-in-law, Ponciano. In later years,
the sacks of wool were loaded into mule-drawn wagons that had wooden
bows on top with a tarpaulin tied over them to protect the wool from
ram.
Many preparations were needed for the trips to market in Corpus
Christi. A trip either by oxcart or mule-drawn wagon would take six to
seven days. First the family prepared food for the trip. A favorite was
panochitas made from dough of cornmeal, sugar, lard, and cinnamon
tea. The women squeezed handfuls of dough and laid them in a pan to
bake. These could be eaten with a meal or for snacks. Another favorite
was bread called pan jlojo, similar to the present-day bread baked out­doors
and made with either flour or cornmeal, pan de campo. The travel­ers
also packed dried jerky meat called carne seca, as well as coffee, sugar,
salt, spices, cooking utensils, tin cups for coffee, a jug of water, and other
personal things. They carried a gun to hunt fresh meat such as rabbits or
wild turkeys and to protect against wild or rabid animals. Sometimes
48
neighboring ranch people accompanied them, also hauling wool to Cor­pus
Christi.
On the way back, the travelers brought lumber, hardware sup­plies,
farm and ranch tools, and grocery staples. They purchased lard in
24-pound cans called arrobas de manteca gringa, which they used in mak­ing
flour tortillas. They brought sacks of sugar, beans, potatoes, coffee,
rice, and vermicelli. Feliciana ordered piece goods in 20-, 30-, or 50-yard
bolts of different colored flannel called jelpa, as well as bleached and un­bleached
muslin. She sewed the unbleached muslin into summer under­wear,
kitchen curtains, and room dividers. The bleached muslin, a finer
weave of cloth, was used for linens, shirts, and their finest underwear.
All the women in the family learned to sew the different kinds of
cloth and garments. Santos, Juanita, Braulia, Victoria, and Ydolina by age
fourteen sewed and made the
clothing for the family. Ydolina
sewed the long johns, calzon­ciUos
largos that reached to the
ankles. She made six button­holes
opposite each other and
sewed very thin strips of cloth
as strings to lace through the
holes and tie together at the
ankles. She also made button­holes
at the waist so it could be
laced; there was no elastic at the
time. Later, snap buttons were
used. Ydolina fashioned men's
tops like today's tee shirts with
a V-neck. These undershirts had
longer sleeves for the older men.
For very special occasions, she
made shirts of fine bleached
muslin for her brothers. She
Ydolina also constructed women's un­derwear,
petticoats, blouses, and simple dresses of gray, navy blue, black,
or brown fabric with white collars. On some of the dresses, she trimmed
the collars and sleeves with crocheted lace.
49
The men bought good durable shoes for the family on trips to
Corpus Christi. Mostly they limited their purchases to work shoes, but
occasionally they bought dress shoes. They usually guessed at the sizes,
and only rarely did the shoes fit right. The wrong-size shoes were ex­changed
on the next trip weeks later. Another item they had to buy was
pants. Pants were made of a material similar to present -day denim called
mesclia. The work pants were available in dark colors only-blue, black,
or gray.
There may have been commercial dyes available, but, in the 1880s,
the family boiled the roots of plants to color the unbleached cloth for
living room curtains. They used the root of the agarito plant to dye the
cloth a yellow color and the root of an oak tree, the chaparro prieto, for a
dark purplish color. After 1920 calico prints became available in differ­ent
types of cloth.
On these trips hauling the wool to Corpus Christi, the family had
to rely on good weather and hope there were no flooded road sections.
They knew all the roads that passed close to low areas or lagoons. They
planned how long they would travel each day, noting where it would be
safe to sleep and where to water and feed the animals. They selected sleep­ing
places close to a ranch they knew from previous trips.
50
j Old Types of Beds
dl'ld Beddil~g
In the past, the family slept on beds made of hand-hewn boards
and posts. The builder first nailed four horizontal boards to four vertical
posts, then placed smaller boards across the top to hold the mattress.
Sometimes the family nailed a cowhide to the boards to help hold the
mattress. This type of bed was a platform bed called a tarima. To make a
mattress, the women washed cornshucks, then shredded them with a fork
and stuffed them as filling into a heavy canvas material called mattress
ticking. In rare cases, they filled some mattresses with a type of dry grass.
Later, when the family began raising cotton, they gathered residue left in
the fields after the cotton crop had been picked. The pillows were made
of the same fabric and filled with the same materials. These were times of
poverty and hard work. A tired body could rest and sleep almost any­where.
In the early 1920s, when Pedro stopped raising sheep and began
raising beef cattle, he saved the wool from the few sheep he had left.
Women washed the wool in a lagoon with soap to remove the oil, then
carded it for use in making quilts and pillows. Sometimes the mattresses
were filled with a mixture of cotton and wool. Some blankets were bought
ready-made from peddlers or buyers who bartered for the animal hides.
One of the peddlers who came to the ranches was from the Alfredo Santos
firm in Laredo.
Sheep and goat skins were dried and cured and used as sleeping
pads. At times the family would throw the smaller hides on the floor for
the youngest children to sleep on. At other times these skins, cueros, were
51
- "
, :~--"' ,- - ~.: ,." -~.~ .. : .
. :.. ;. .. -~ .
A peddler on his rou1lds in Duval County, c. 1908
used like today's rubber sheets, so the babies would not wet the bedding
or mattress.
Larger cowhides were spread out to dry and then salted and cured
for making chaps. Strips were cut from the hide wide enough to make
mule harnesses. Rawhide reins and ropes were braided. Reyes Adame,
Ydolina's maternal grandfather, cut very thin strips of these hides. Using
an awl, he made holes in the leather and used strips as backing to repair
shoes, harnesses, and saddle bags. He also made leather bags to carry in
the buggies.
The women of the house were creative in using the resources' avail­able
to them on the ranch. They made quilts in simple designs from scrap
pieces of material. They covered old blankets with flannel and wove rugs
out of rags and leftover fabric scraps.
52
Makil~g Soap al~d
",ashil~g Clo-thil~g
Although soap was available in larger cities, ranch families made
most of their own soap. They took the tallow from the barrels and boiled
it again, then added lye and lime. In some cases, rose petals were thrown
in for fragrance. They poured the liquid onto a flat surface to cool, dry,
and harden. When it was hard, they cut the sheet of soap into square
bars. This soap had a yellowish color and was used to wash clothing.
They washed clothes in a lagoon about a half mile south of San
Jose, near the second water well behind Margarito's house. The women
loaded the dirty clothes in sacks and large tubs and hauled them in the
mule-drawn wagon to the lagoon. In later years, the clothes were hauled
to the lagoon in a buckboard. The women brought along a large iron
kettle, a cazo, and a 1" x 12" board for kneeling on at the edge of the water.
It took at least two people to do the washing.
Most of the clothing was work clothing, which was soaked in large
pots of water boiling over a fire to remove the sweat, dirt, and grime. The
women shaved the homemade soap into the hot water to dissolve before
adding the clothes. After boiling the clothes, they knelt on a board at the
water's edge and rinsed the· wash in the lagoon. White linens they soaked
in a bluing solution, then rinsed. They spread the clothing to dry on nearby
trees, shrubs, and bushes. At first, Santos, the oldest daughter, and Victoria
did the washing.
Later, Braulia, Juanita, and Ydolina did it. If the clothing was not
completely dry, the women brought it back in a tub for drying at home.
Still later, they did the washing at home in a tub with a washboard.
53
During the summer, they bathed some of the small children near
the water troughs, canoas, with a tin cup, or moca. The bathing soap was
similar to present-day crystal white soap, called jab6n del borrego. The
older family members and children washed inside the jacales in a large
tub, pouring water from a bucket. They also used the moca and jab6n del
borrego. During the cold winter, a fire was built inside the jacal to heat
the water for bathing.
Washtub hanging on the side of a jacal until needed,
Duval County, c. 1908
54
Slaughte ril'lg a Hog
When one of the large, fat hogs was killed, all the relatives were
called to help because everything had to be done the same day. If the
family wanted to slaughter a hog, they would separate one from the rest
of the herd and put it in a separate pen. This hog was fed corn and mes­quite
beans to fatten it for slaughter. The other hogs were fed scraps from
the kitchen. They also were fed pigweed, or quelite, a wild plant that grows
during the rainy season. During the months of May and June, the family
fed the hogs other types of feed, such as prickly pears. To collect them,
Pedro would take some members of his family in the mule-drawn wagon
to the rocky hills east of San Jose. There the family gathered prickly pear
tunas for the hogs. There were large cactus patches, nopaleras, past San
Andres near La Muralla Ranch.
After killing the hog, they proceeded with the removal of the hair
from the skin. To do this, they filled big pots with hot water in which to
dip the carcass and moisten the hair, then they scraped the skin with
sharp knives to shave off the hair. The skin was washed again with soapy
water. Finally, the workers cut the carcass open to get at the meat.
After trimming off all the fat, they cut the meat into strips and
hung it up. The fat chunks cut from the meat were put into a large iron
pot, a paila, to cook on an outside fire, while the cuts of meat were fried
with the rinds in their own fat on another fire. After the grease dripped
from the meat and rinds, the pieces were laid on a screen to dry. The fried
rinds were cracklings, or chicharrones de cuero.
The cubed, bite-size pieces of meat and fat were also fried and
then placed in a burlap sack. To squeeze out the fat, two people twisted a
55
Slaughtering a hog,
Atascosa County, 1901
stick at each end of the sack in opposite directions. These pieces, called
chicharrones de carne, were also placed on a screen to drip dry.
Some pieces of the choice meat were ground to make the sausage,
chorizo, preserved with spices, chile colorado, and vinegar. The intestines,
called las tripas, were cleaned to use as casing and stuffed with the ground
meat. Some strips were cut to form the sausage links. The chicharrones de
carne were served with eggs for breakfast, cooked just plain and eaten
with corn tortillas or bread, or cooked with beans. The chicharrones kept
for some time. Finally, the family made tamales from the choice ground
meat.
Much care was taken when frying to ensure that the meat did not
burn or brown too much or ruin the fat. The fat left in the paila was
strained through a fine cloth to make sure no meat was left to spoil. They
poured the whitest fat into cans to save for cooking later. The fat remain­ingwas
put into wooden barrels to use as tallow, manteca ° cebo, for mak­mg
soap.
56
2
Food PreparatiOI'l
Some cooking was done in a large jacal with a fireplace in one
corner. An opening in the top allowed the smoke to escape. Cooking imple­ments
included black cast iron pots (ollas), grills (parrillas), and large
griddle plates (comales) to cook the corn or flour tortillas. When cook­ing'
the women moved the coals to one side to keep coffee and other food
warm. Corn was boiled in a lime solution to make the corn dough, the
nixtamal, for the corn tortillas. For the main meals, the women boiled
the rice, beans, and other foods, such as cowboy stew (carne guisada) ,
ground meat, hash (picadillo), or jerky stew (caldillo con carne seca).
The meat usually came from a sheep, goat, calf, or small hog. Some
animal was usually killed daily, since venison, wild turkey, rabbit, quail,
and other kinds of wild meat were plentiful. When there were not many
people eating, the leftover meat was shared with brothers and sisters who
lived nearby.
Before refrigeration ranch people had to dry their meat, since all
of it was not consumed in one day. Women sliced the leftover meat into
thin layers to dry. They cut the layers of meat into small pieces and placed
them over a wire line similar to a clothesline. They hung the lines high so
the dogs could not reach them. To ensure even drying, they salted the
strips of meat and spread them with a wooden stick. After a few days in
the hot sun and the wind, the meat pieces were ready to continue air
drying in burlap sacks. People hung the sacks from the top beam inside
the jacales. Someone would place a round piece of tin with a hole in the
middle around the rope to keep the rats or mice from sliding down to get
to the meat. Axle grease was smeared on the wire to keep the ants away. In
57
the kitchen, shorter lines, called sarsos, held smaller amounts of meat or
stored food. Sarsos too had axle grease on the wire ends and the round
tin protectors. When meat was needed, family members pounded the
burlap sacks with something heavy to make it soft for cooking and eat­ing,
creating what we know as beef jerky. They cooked delicious-tasting
soups, caldillo, with the strips of meat and potatoes, spices, and vermicelli,
orfideo.
In addition to keeping major herds of sheep, goats, and cattle, the
ranch family raised poultry. The hens provided eggs for breakfast, al­though
some eggs were saved to hatch chickens. When the chickens were
grown, they were eaten also. Caring for the chickens required feeding
them corn, cooping them up at night, and turning them o"ut in the day.
Most of the ranches had goats, and they were milked in the evening.
The milk was boiled before drinking. Shepherds took sheep and goats
out to the pasture during the day and brought them in at night, putting
them in the corrals.
58
7
lJse of Corl,,}
For lunch and supper, the cooks used onions, garlic, and vegetables
from the garden when in season. In the traditional Mexican diet, corn
was basic. The families ate fresh corn on the cob, elate, when in season, or
corn cooked in various ways, as well as squash. Beans and cornbread,
called pan de maiz or pan de campo, were a regular part of the meals.
They made some of the scraped corn into tamales, tamales de elate. For
dessert they roasted the cornmeal and mixed it with milk, sugar, and
ground cinnamon to make a pudding called pinole. Another mixture was
squeezed into cookies, panochitas de elate. These could be eaten as a snack
or as a dessert after meals. The panochitas de elate kept for a long time
and were handy on trips, although they were so tasty that they didn't last
long. The women could never make enough of them! On birthdays they
baked cakes from scratch and made jams, jellies, and fillings or toppings
for the cakes.
The men harvested the rows of cornstalks, cutting them with a
machete. They brought the corn harvest from the fields in a mule-drawn
wagon and stored it in a corncrib, a chapil. The chapiles were like the
crude jacales, except the roofs resembled those of the portales to protect
the corn from the sun, weather, and rain. The chapiles provided long­term
storage for the ears of corn, mazorcas de maiz.
When ready to use it, the family shelled the corn and placed it in
burlap sacks. They washed the husks and saved them for wrapping tama­les
or shredded them later for use as mattress filling or to be mixed in the
mortar for the walls of the jacales. They shelled the corn by putting the
husked ear into a corn sheller, a desgranadora de maiz, which was secured
59
to a three- to four-foot-square wooden box, where the kernels of corn
were collected. Someone turned the handle on the corn sheller, while
someone else fed the ears into it. The family then poured the kernels of
corn into cotton sacks, loaded them onto the mule-drawn wagon, and
hauled them to the Moses Ranch about seven miles east of San Jose, where
the kernels were ground into cornmeal. With the cornmeal, family mem­bers
made cornbread; tamales; cookies, or panochitas; roasted cornmeal,
or pinole; and other desserts.24
When beans were ready for harvest, the family pulled them out of
the ground, turned them upside down to dry, gathered them together,
and placed them inside a sack. They beat the sack with a stick to break
the beans out of the pods, then poured them into a bucket. They lifted
the bucket of beans to head height and poured them slowly into a wash­tub,
while a cross wind blew out the chaff. They did this at least twice
before they placed the beans in burlap sacks and stored them in the jacales.
24 The Moses Ranch along the road from Gonzalitos to Highway 281 had modernized
buildings.
60
2
It\Tild Plal'lt:s lJsed
at: Salt} Jose
Living in the country, ranch families became familiar with a vari­ety
of plants and trees, many of which were peculiar to South Texas. They
used some of the plants to feed the livestock and others for human con­sumption
or medicinal purposes. A coma tree produced a green berry.
When it ripened, the berry juice oozed out and hardened on the outside.
It tasted like gum, chicle, when chewed. The ranch families also gathered
red berries, pitahayas, from the barrel cactus, the viznaga. These particu­lar
plants grew in the fields and produced three-inch white, carrotlike
roots that were washed, peeled, and eaten raw. They tasted sweet and
nutty. During the spring planting, the children followed in the plowed
furrows and collected these roots, called chancaquillas, putting them in
jars or bags.
Another plant, the agarita, had a red berry that ripened about
Easter time. The berries were collected and boiled with sugar until thick­ened,
producing a very tasty tart jelly. A plant with medicinal value was
salvia, or sage. Prepared as a tea, it helped babies fight diarrhea and nurs­ing
mothers produce milk.
Lemon balm, or toronjil, is another plant that grows wild near San
Jose but only where there is lime, or caliche, in the soil. It blooms in the
spring and has a lemonlike scent that makes it easily identifiable among
other plants in the pasture. This small plant is cut and boiled to make a
tea. To make the tea, it is best to bring the water to a boil, then lower the
heat to steep until it is as strong as desired and sweeten with sugar or
honey. This tea has a soothing effect and helps people sleep. It does not
induce sleep but lets one relax so that sleep comes more easily. If taken
61
before meals in a strong concentrated essence, it helps digestion and pre­vents
stomach gas when a person eats too much fried food. Fruits also
grew on the ranch: oranges; peaches; bananas; pomegranates, or granados;
and figs. At the front of the house, Pedro liked plants and flowers such as
roses, jasmine, and honeysuckle, or madreselva. He also grew medicinal
herbs such as sweet basil, or albacar; mint, or yerba buena; a bitter-leafed
plant called rue, or ruda; rosemary, or romero; and wormseed, or estafiate.
Another useful plant was a popular one in Mexico, the century
plant, often called maguey by people of that area. Feliciana's father, Reyes
Adame, lived with the family on the ranch until 1920. He walked west of
San Jose through an old creek bed to gather some American agave, or
maguey. He cut some of the prickly leaves, pencas. After cutting off the
thorns, he carried the leaves on his back to the ranch. He then dug a hole
in the ground to bury the leaves, separating each leaf with rocks. He cov­ered
the hole with dirt and piled red-hot coals on top. When the fire died
out and the maguey leaves had cooled, Reyes washed them, peeled the
skin, and cut them into small pieces, saving only the small tender leaves.
This tasted like cactus jelly.
Reyes also made the traditional Mexican beer, pulque, from which
tequila is distilled. To make the pulque, he cut a hole or a pit into the
center of the maguey plant and covered it with dirt. He took the piece cut
from the center and wrapped it to protect it from the dirt. He cooked it
with the rest of the plant in the ashes and coals. After cooking, it formed
a jelly or caramel, cajeta. The next morning, Reyes uncovered the pit he
had dug into the center of the maguey and dipped out a white milky
substance that had seeped into the hole. After fermenting, the liquid was
called pulque and had a liquor smelL Reyes liked to drink the pulque at
midmorning between breakfast and lunch. The cooked center part of the
plant was prepared with sugar, cinnamon, or aniseed (anis) to enhance
its taste as an excellent dessert.
Reyes was born and reared near the Azucar Dam in the Comales
area in Mexico. He may have learned these customs from his parents or
relatives. No one else at San Jose knew these recipes, although there were
plenty of yuccas, pitas, in the pastures. Reyes knew when the center flow­ery
bloom ripened and was ready to eat and not be bitter. He would cut
the flowery center and trim off the outer parts to eat raw like a salad or
boil as a steamed vegetable. The stalk was fed to the pigs.
62
Horseback Racil"lg
and Mus ic
Pedro had a keen interest in racehorses from 1910 until about
1918. He acquired some racehorses and built some tracks, veredas to
tra~n his horses. Later, he opened the tracks for racing on weekends. The
racmg tracks ran east and west on a tract of land southwest of San Jose.
At the time, m~ny of the ranchers were making the transition from sheep
to cattle ranchmg and owned horse herds. Cowboys came from the sur­rounding
areas of EI Guajillo, La Esperanza, La Bandera, Palito Blanco,
Mesquite Bonito, and even Benavides. The races usually were held on
Sundays during the late spring and summer. They were an exciting social
event that brought people together for a break from all the hard work.
Pedro was a slender person and not too tall. At times he would
race his own horses. Triunfo Trevino, a young man from Rancho Bretana,
trained and ran his horses as well.
At the races, each rancher would place a wager against another
person. Bets were made in reales, or bits. A bit was worth about 121/2
cents, so dos reales equaled 25 cents, four reales was 50 cents, 12 reales was
$1.50, and 14 reales was $1. 75. Few bets were over a dollar. Fifty-cent bets
v:ere the most common. Most jockeys raced bareback, although occa­SiOnally
someone would use a wide leather band to strap himself onto his
horse. The cowboys loved their horses and had confidence in them, and
that made for lots of fierce competition.
The last horse Pedro raced was named El Indio. After the horses
passed the finish line, la raya, the jockeys started pulling the reins to slow
the horses. Suddenly one of the reins on Pedro's horse broke. The horse
could not be controlled with one rein and ran off toward the pasture at
63
Pedro Lopez
on El Indio
with his brother
Fernuin holdillg
the reim
the end of the cleared area. Pedro escaped serious injury only by dodging
tree branches until the horse stopped. After this narrow escape, Pedro
decided it was time to quit racing.
At about this time, a rare incident of violence occurred. Eduardo
and Florentino had started playing the guitar and violin at the horse races,
at small gatherings, and family celebrations. The dances at that time took
place at the school or in family living rooms. At one of the celebrations, a
dance area had been cleared. A person named Garcia made a profane
remark about their father, Pedro. Eduardo heard it and got into a heated
discussion with the man. In the dispute, Eduardo used his violin as a
weapon. That ended the argument and the dance.
Pedro was a law officer in his precinct. Mr. Librado de la Garza, a
deputy sheriff from San Diego, appointed Pedro to go with him at times
to serve legal papers on people in the area.
64
AI'! HOlnage t:0
001'1 Yril'1eO Salil'1aS
About 1902 a man named Yrineo Salinas lived on Francisco's ranch
at San Andres. Don Y rineo was recognized by all as a pious man of prayer
who always talked to others about God and giving thanks. He was the
one to pray during times of drought and sickness. When he was old and
nearing his last days, he told everyone that, on the day he died, there
would be heavy rains.
Alejo L6pez's father, Rosendo, remembered a marker dated 1902
at the back of their fields, where Don Y rineo was buried in a shallow
grave. He was buried in such a grave because it rained for two days and
nights after he died. Anyplace the grave diggers tried to dig became mud.
Alejo said his mother, Lucia, had a lot of faith in this man. During droughts
the family would go to his grave and pray. Within three days, they would
get a rain. This devotion lasted for a generation, until about 1920. After
that, no more processions occurred or devotions took place.
65
La Voz del Cielo
Family members related many spiritual and religious stories. Pedro
often received special messages that the family referred to as a voice from
heaven, la voz del cielo. One cold winter night, when freezing sleet was
falling, Pedro received a message.