Our Story

La Historia de Nuestro Padre

“There’s sometimes a weird benefit to
having an alcoholic, violent father.
He really motivated me in that I never
wanted to be anything like him.”
~ Dean Koontz

Those few times throughout the years when he would open up, he would begin, usually while sitting at the kitchen table and start the narrative with a calm and steady voice. It was not very long after our immigration to this country that he would on occasion wax into a deep, almost catatonic state and reach back into that bygone past. Though not a drinker, a small glass of wine wouldn’t hurt to loosen his tongue and refresh his memory bringing back the same woeful tale of his tragic and lost childhood.

My father, stone faced, looking straight ahead, perhaps straining to reach back to those difficult years of that sad upbringing, would go on to expound his story to anyone of his brood around the table who is poised to listen. Yet he is talking to no one. He’s like in a trance, spilling out his cursed past as if to pathetically release his grief.

“Mi pobre padre…”, he would begin in a measured monotone Spanish, “…my poor father, was so irresponsible as a father. He was a drinker and a gambler. Many a time I had to pull him out drunk out of a ‘cantina’, suffering humiliation in the process. “ He would add that he had to carry his father’s pistol with him each time he entered the tavern to perform this odious task. My mother once added that my father told her he even had to dodge bullets once after getting caught in a crossfire.

He’s is about 11 years old as his story unfolds. Weaving his story back and forth, he paints a picture of an itinerant father who hauls his family of four around northern and central Mexico, picking up items from the dirt paths along the way to sell at the next town. After making some sales and getting some cash, he’ll end up in the company of strangers in a smoke filled cantina. There he proceeds to drink and gamble away any earnings he’s made to the detriment of his anxiously awaiting family.

Their trek across the country had a likely start out from the north where my father and perhaps also his 4 siblings were born in the border city of Juarez. Moving toward the South, without any means of transportation other than on occasion, the proverbial burro beast to carry my grandmother, they would trudge along on that mostly barren landscape. They’d move down across the deserts, plains, and even over the mountains of that “God forsaken” country still reeling from the aftermath of the Mexican revolution.

This stark terrain of Northern and Central Mexico sets the stage of that childhood period.

He talks on; tears beginning to well up in his sad eyes as he conjures up an image of a gypsy like, wandering clan, walking, walking, and walking. They’re navigating those dirt roads from one small “pueblo” to another one, with paste jewelry and trinkets being hawked  on the streets, some probably stolen,  smoke filled  cantinas with money grubbing men shuffling cards around a wooden table, and all the while money changing hands to the gain of some and the loss of others. “And this time I’ll make it”, he’d say; cock sure he’d hit the jackpot and come out with a bundle; “this time I can’t miss.” But with the sorry luck of an addict gambler and with the mix of hard booze surging through his veins, his luck would eventually turn to shame and loss for himself and his entire family. Then in the morning he would shriek out in pain with another hangover that explodes in his throbbing cranium.

My father would talk about the family picking up grain at the railroad stations for food when they were out. Once, when a newborn sibling died, his dad sent him off to a relative in the next town to help defray the cost of a small pine casket. And no sooner would he come across a toy found along the way, his father would take it to sell at the next opportunity. This was his ill-fated childhood, immersed in poverty and perhaps mirroring the life of a third world street urchin with the only solace of having a family in his surroundings.

My dad was the oldest of a family of 5 children, and as such, without a functioning father, he carried the burden of being the head of the family from an early age. To his credit he used this position in the clan to become ambitious and responsible as an adult and move on to a better life for himself and his family. But as he was growing up in those early years when education was an unreachable luxury, ill afforded for the Mexican poor, and when even a toy could not be enjoyed for but a brief moment, he struggles with a father who is more of a burden than a figure of strength and support.

That was my grandfather:  Apolinar Villaseñor Galaz,  originally from Guadalajara in central Mexico. Tall and gaunt, fair skinned and green eyed, he married a small figure of a woman, dark and probably more from the Mexican indian genome than that of Spanish European stock. As such, she was rejected from his family who were also fair skinned, and would presume to be more from a Spanish heritage than from the Indian side which was looked down upon. Sadly, this prejudice permeates Mexican society to this day. A prejudice that is without borders, as we would encounter similar rejections in our early years in the U.S.

When I was 30, living in Milwaukee, I made a trip to Mexico with my parents where along the way, my father would occasionally offer further tidbits of his early life. As we drove across this memorable landscape toward the south (this time the beast was a car), I found that the terrain was still surprisingly very familiar to my father.  Along the way, he would point out and name the various plants, vegetation, and agriculture, stretching his memory into that past when he made the same trek, albeit in a less satisfactory way. I was impressed at his memory retention of that distant past, however, this time he was enjoying the recollections, perhaps with a sense of achievement of where he’d been and that he’d beat the odds and come out ahead.

As we moved on and penetrated the interior toward the south, we passed towns and villages, wide arid landscapes as well as vistas bracketed by mountains and carved by occasional  streams and rivers. His familiarity with these surroundings were astounding, much as though it were yesterday that his wanderlust father was leading the pack into his seemingly endless journey. But one thing that stood out to me at the time was his desire to push on and make sure that we visited Matehuala, in the state of San Luis Potosi. We entered this run down town and drove around until we came to a section where he wanted to stop the car. He got out and quietly scanned the area, no doubt looking hard to catch a glimpse of his family walking down the dusty street along with his father with glazed steely eyes, in anticipation of his next adventure. I always figured that this town had a special meaning to my father, and maybe something remarkable occurred there; but after a short while, my father got back in the car and I never asked him anything about that incident nor did he ever mention anything about it, staying quiet and pensive for a while after re-visiting that memorable scene.

And reaching back into grandfather’s younger years, we find that in the Mexican Revolution that started in 1910, he was one of the many ragtag fighters in that war – not unlike my wife’s grandfather and many other Mexican immigrants’ grandfathers. He fought on the side of the Pancho Villa’s “Division del Norte“, though not for long. As my father recounted, while grandfather and a fellow conscript next to him were shooting it out with the opposing side, snugly concealed  behind wooden posts, a fateful bullet pierced the other fighter’s post, easily penetrating it through and instantly claiming the life of the hapless youth. As was the case with many of those young fighters at the time, they were picked up and hauled off to fight a war they did not fully understand. And as the bloody war raged on, discouraged through want and fear, some would take off heading north. It was the history of the times in Mexico during and after the revolution that seared the character of the men like my grandfather who fought the war and survived, only to find a barren land of little hope and future for himself and most of those wretched folk who made it through alive. And so it was that my grandfather crossed over to the U.S. for a spell and later as others  did, crossed right back after the war (though some stayed) to resume life in a torn country with not much of a future to offer. Much later his son, my father, would cross the same border north, but under different circumstances, clearer goals, and with a firm desire to stay put and raise a family in America.

But back to my father’s childhood. As he approaches maturity, perhaps 19 or 20, he goes on to work to support his family by landing an apprenticeship at a bakery in one of those oft traversed towns. (His bakery experience would later serve to regale us with the best Mexican bakery we ever tasted – and, fresh from the hot kitchen oven.) He later appears back in the northern State of Chihuahua where he meets his future wife who he spots on a Ferris wheel at a fair in the city of Parral as she was spinning round and round on the big wheel. Seems that at the same time his head was spinning as well because he was immediately smitten. While courting, and as was the custom in Mexico at the time, they were not allowed to be alone together. A family member had to accompany them wherever they would go and mother’s  adopted father “Reyes”, seemed to pop-up when least expected. Their favorite pastime would be to go to the town plaza on Sundays and walk around the kiosk where there was usually a band playing. Making their rounds, they would greet friends here and there with the usual “adios” greeting. (Yes, that’s goodbye, not hello.)

Not much is known about my mother’s childhood. She was from Jimenez, Chihuahua, a town about 35 miles east of Parral. Both her parents died when she was about 16 years old. She was then raised by a cousin in Parral, Mexico. She had always held the cousins that raised her in high regard for doing so, but at the same time she felt diminished because she saw her role as a maid in the household, and she always missed the warmth and attentions that she would have received from her natural mother. Besides having to do all of the housework, she had other chores to perform such as making candles for evening light, making the soap she’d employ in her cleaning chores and doing the family sewing.

After courting for a while, parents exchanged vows and settled in Parral where silver mining was the main industry. Father landed a job at one of those silver mines where he eventually became a labor organizer due to the dangerous conditions he witnessed at the mine. Besides having to penetrate the dark and dusty mine caverns to scrape out the raw silver ore, the workers had to scale tall scaffolding which always presented a danger. One day he would take a frightening fall off one of the scaffolds, land on a lower one, and with dumb luck, manage to come out of it with no permanent physical damage. Nevertheless, he was shaken enough to want to pursue a different life style with improved working conditions. So he set out to get certified as a commercial artist (graphic artist now) through a correspondence course from Mexico City. Dad would mention how he had to study by candlelight and kerosine lamp. And even at that early time he had already set his sights on going north, which motivated him to learn English through this same correspondence method. He didn’t know at the time how he would accomplish this, but had enough “chutzpah” to think that he could do it.

Once he completed his studies, family moved to the big city of Monterrey, Mexico where he started his career as a commercial artist. He would now go to work in a white shirt and tie and work in a clean environment in the downtown of the second largest and most industrial city in the country. He established himself as a successful artist in a reputable firm in that city, but he still wasn’t satisfied.

One day while waiting in line at the local post office, he noticed that the gentleman in front of him was an American having a difficult time communicating with the postal clerk. My father approached him and proceeded to help him out employing his newly acquired English skills so that he could complete his transaction. Afterwards they talked and sparked up a friendship that would last several years and stretch across 2 countries. This because this American tourist, Charlie Chandek, was a commercial artist as well, lived in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and promised to sponsor my father in the immigration process. He even offered to help him obtain a position as an artist in the same firm where he worked. Seems that my father, besides his ambition and perseverance, also had the luck that his father lacked, and so was now on his way to realizing his dreams.

Following through with the gracious help that Mr. Chandek provided, my father quit his job in Monterrey and traveled alone to Milwaukee to lay the groundwork for our immigration and to start his job in the Art Agency, Milprint.  He stayed in Milwaukee for some six months while my mother managed the family alone in Monterrey. He would send her money for the expenses and she would handle the paper processing for the emigration process such as  obtaining visas for the rest of the family. An anecdote from that time that my mother recounted was of a little spill she had when she was rushing from one place to another doing her outside chores. She was pregnant at the time with sister Esperanza and had at the same time, a small baby in tow. As she turned one of the corners in her scramble, she stepped on and slipped on a banana peeling on the street and went flying (yes, like in the movies), making a hard landing on the concrete below. At the same time, the baby went flying. The result:  I sustained a broken collarbone. Luckily neither my mother, my sister, nor I sustained any lasting damage after that fall.

Forward to 1948 and we are all in a train, northbound across the American south and toward the frigid north, headed straight for the state of Wisconsin. We were now made up of 5 ½ siblings and 2 parents – Mary was on the way. We landed in a strange city in the dead of winter, white with snow, in the bitter cold and with no place to stay.  With help from a church and some noble strangers, we got separated out into different homes and some of us got housed in a local orphanage.  It was Betty, Esperanza, Joe, and I who had the bad fortune to get housed there. My recollection of the orphanage was a dark place, bereft of emotional support and though we spent perhaps only a few weeks there, it seemed like an eternity. My mother, pregnant at the time with my sister Mary, got help from a generous doctor (Dr. Techan) who did not charge for his services.  A couple of years later we added another family member, Toni, which made for the seven offspring  that completed our family. Oldest to youngest, these are: Betty, Albert, Joe, Rudy, Esperanza, Mary, and Toni. Brother Joe passed away in 1997.

And to briefly relate what happened to my father’s siblings, these were brothers Florencio and Ricardo, and sisters Delfina and Margarita. My father helped to immigrate Florencio, Ricardo, and Delfina, and Margarita lived out her life in Monterrey Mexico. They are all deceased except aunt Delfina now in her 90s, and living in a nursing home in Texas. The children of Ricardo and Florencio currently reside mostly in Texas while some other relatives remain in Mexico, most in the city of Monterrey. On my mother’s side some extended family are still in the Chihuahua and Guadalajara, Mexico area and aunt Beatrice Esparza Corral and her son Poncho live in the San Francisco Bay area.

As far as housing after we arrived, we had a hard time due to our large family and perhaps due to some racism as well, such that we were not able to rent an apartment. Luck was with us again as a fellow worker at my dad’s new firm came to his aid and co-signed a loan for us to buy a home. We then moved into a starter home in a working class Milwaukee neighborhood where we settled in, got registered for school, and proceeded to learn a new language and culture.

School for us was a Catholic elementary education.  For the first couple of years we were in a public school, and later my parents being strict Catholics, transferred us to St. Josaphat Elementary school. I remember soon after we started school, we siblings would get together during recess and seeing that we had not yet learned English, we were baffled at how the “gringos” just did not make any sense in their communications. However, before we knew it, we ourselves weren’t making any sense either, that is, we joined the crowd and began to speak the language.

And despite some prejudice that we encountered in school and elsewhere in those early years, we also encountered some kind and charitable individuals, lay persons and religious ones, who assisted us in our arrival and helped us get through the “rough landing” we experienced. Though there was not a large population of Hispanics in Milwaukee at the time, we got help from “Our Lady of Guadalupe Church” in the small, but burgeoning Hispanic neighborhood not far from where we lived. Curiously, we did not land in this Hispanic part of the city, but instead, our new home was located smack in the middle of the  Polish neighborhood where soon after having learned English, had to catch up on some Polish as well.

Our journey took us far up north in this country where the weather was a drastic change from where we came from and our surroundings were made up of a different ethnic culture than ours. This was in contrast to the many other immigrants from Mexico who mostly settled in the South or in California where the cultural shock made less of an impact. But while outside the home English was the only language, we were fortunate to have a home where only Spanish was spoken by our parents and we were thus able to  maintain this as a second language. Likewise, my dad would keep us apprised of traditional Mexican music with LP records of Mariachi music and romantic ballads that were still popular in Mexico at that time. And of course at our birthdays we would be woken up to the sound of: “Las Mañanitas”, the Mexican birthday song.

My memory of that time in those early years in Milwaukee includes trolley cars with webs of cables strung down along the streets, horse drawn “trucks” picking up metal and junk of all kinds while depositing cakes of horse dung that decorated the streets, deliveries of coal for the coal burning furnaces and ashcans in the yards where the coal ashes would be dumped for later pickup by the city. No TV or phones in those early years but enough family to keep us from getting too bored.

This was the start of our life as immigrants in a land where my father eventually came to hold a position as a commercial artist and photographer for the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and we all went on to lead middle class lives in America. (My brother Al even earned a PH.D.!) Father retired in 1982 at the age of 67 and parents enjoyed their retirement in the pleasant city of Monona, Wisconsin.  They enjoyed being surrounded by most of the family in Wisconsin, did some traveling, and even visited Europe. In their final years family moved them to El Paso, Texas where brother Al had resided since 1995. We managed to have a big family reunion in that city in April, 2005 in celebration of my father’s 90^th birthday. Father passed away the same year, Dec. 26th, 2-1/2 years after mother died at the age of 89.

And so now, with our grown children who are having families of their own (well, mine will catch up), I hope that this little story, my recollection of our past, lives on with this next generation and starts a historical record that can be expanded and reach out into future generations for the sake of posterity for our extended family.