Mi super Abuelita!

My grandma’s mother was a school teacher. And during this time they had just separated religion from schools in Mexico. There were a lot of people that were very upset that this happened. There was a group of people that were taking it out on the teachers. They would go around and kill the teachers in school. My grandma’s mother decided to teach regardless and one of the men came to the school where she was teaching. My grandma tells me that her mother was extremely beautiful, and she must have been because the man claimed her for himself. She was already married at the time and pregnant with my grandmother as well. This man took my great grandmother with her son and my grandmother still inside her. The man said that he would take her son as his own and if her new child was a boy then he would take him as well. The only thing was it was my grandma. So the man wanted to give my grandma away to some lonely old woman with a bunch of cats. Luckily, she ended up being raised by her grandma instead.

My grandma eventually became interested in boys in her early teens, but her grandma did not like that very much. She thought it was very unusual and did not like her hanging around boys. Her Grandmother would hit her behind legs and on her back with a bicycle tire. She tells me she got some rough beatings. Not liking my grandmother hanging out with boys, my great great grandmother decided to take her out of school and move to another town to solve this boy obsession problem. My grandma had just gotten out of the car in her new city and a young man couldn’t help but notice her. He immediately asked about this new beautiful girl who just moved to his town. Of course that man would become my grandfather. My great great grandmother’s plan had backfired.

My grandma had a lot of kids to take care of. She had to cook and clean their clothes every day. They were poor and especially with so many mouths to feed could only have meat on rare occasions. One of my grandma’s children got married and had five kids and they also lived in the same house. In total, there was 21 of them. My grandma took care of them all. They did not have much money for clothes but thankfully there was a generous short fat gentleman who would give my grandma a lot of his old clothes. Of course because he was a big man all of my aunts and uncles would be drowning in these clothes and because he was short the pants would end way too high. My grandma luckily had a sewing machine and took in all the shirts and added some material to the bottom of the pants. One day my grandma got a little lawn of her own on their property, but no lawn mower. Pero, mi abuelita was a resourceful woman. She would use a kitchen knife to cut the grass all by herself and make it pretty. She tells me that those were some challenging times but she said that everything she did “con amor” or with love because she loves her family more than anything. She always stayed positive through her challenges. She tells me, “If you fall, what are you going to do? Just stay on the ground and cry? No, you got to get back up and keep going.”

Comments

Mi super Abuelita! — 1 Comment

  1. I think it’s really cool that you’re able to trace your family history that far back (: