For 45 years, I worked in the medical field. During my career as a Cytology Supervisor and later a Regional Cytology Manager, there was technical writing involved with the job. I knew myself enough to know that I needed a routine when I retired. So, ten years before the big event, I decided that I would write about family history. I began practicing creative writing by taking courses through Ed2Go, Phoenix College, and once, at the hospital where I worked, a creative writing workshop. I wrote a lot of short stories during that time none of which are about family history.
During a class at Phoenix College with American Novelist, Stella Pope Duarte[i], she guided the class in writing a memoir. When we finished, she encouraged me to pursue the story for a book. At the time, I thought that this memoir would be my first book which chronicled the family events of the infamous 1947 Texas City Disaster. It was not and that piece of writing is still on the shelf.
I retired in October 2018 three months after my 70th birthday. My husband Joe, and I threw a combination Birthday/Retirement/Halloween Party to celebrate the milestones. By the way, Joe has to have a Halloween Party, but that’s another story. We had a gala event and a house full of friends and family from all over. We had a blast! After the commotion, I downsized, surrounded my office with bookshelves, and updated my computer with Grammarly. I sit near a window which is a most pleasant place to write.
I’m lucky enough to have a brother who spent 50 years researching and compiling the genealogy of our pedigreed ancestors[ii]. In 2001, John submitted his application to the San Antonio Genealogical Society which honored the descendants of the settlers who created and contributed to the earliest history of Bexar County and who came from a variety of origins and ethnicities. At the induction, John gave a talk about the King of Spain in 1792 bestowing a 600,000-acre Land Grant, San Juan de Carricitos, to José Narciso Cavazos. José Narciso and my family line share our descendancy from mutual gateway ancestors, Don Juan Cavazos del Campo, and Doña Elena de la Garza Falcon. When John spoke of José Narciso, I heard the gasp of attendees who had no idea of this history and had never heard that the famed Texas King Ranch was once part of San Juan de Carricitos. I still had no idea I was writing José Narciso’s story.
It was during the Trump campaign that I decided to write about Texas days of yore through the eyes of a descendant who knew the history and the stories. I was deeply offended by Trump’s attitude regarding Hispanics, and I wanted to set the record straight—at least for Hispanics who may not know they have a history that goes back centuries. It’s not the Mexicans who brought the surnames we now attribute to Hispanics—it was the Spaniards. The history I learned in school is characterized by the movement of European settlers, and that includes Hispanics. I now knew that I wanted to write Narciso’s story. Next time: Steps to telling Narciso’s story.
[i] https://stellapopeduarte.com/
