It's taken a few months to pick up this story where we left off, but now that the transition to the new year is complete, the time has come to continue this story.
My great grandmother, Joaquina, and great grandfather, Manuel, despite the struggles of the World War I era, made a good life for themselves in El Paso. They raised a family of two sons and one daughter, Mercedes. She was a lovely girl with her mother's fair skin and her father's jet black hair. Joaquina made certain that her daughter was raised properly, as a fine lady should be, so she could maintain a good standing in El Paso's small, high society. Mercedes learned all the skills that a young lady of the day was expected to know, including sewing, embroidery, tatting, and lace making.
But, as more often occurs than not, Mercedes didn't follow her mother's plan to marry a gentleman of good family and fortune. Instead, Mercedes met and fell in love with a rogue from Mexico named Jesus. "Jess" as he was known, was a handsome young man with huge, doe-like eyes that held a wildness within them. When Mercedes' parents discovered this illicit relationship with Jess, they forbid her from associating with the "peasant" (as Joaquina referred to him), ever again. "Men like him will only break your heart", Joaquina warned her daughter. Mercedes, certain that she knew better than her mother, ignored the warning and eloped with Jess one night. The two lovers commenced an itinerant life, following the railroads to the Pacific Northwest where Jess made a living cutting railroad ties. Joaquina disowned her daughter and severed all communication with Mercedes.
With no one but her capricious, heavy-drinking husband to rely on, Mercedes felt alone and fearful, entering a world of the unknown. The only things she carried with her, other than her clothes, shoes, and rosary, were her sewing kit, and a woven wool saltillo that she had pulled from a trunk in the attic of her family home.
Babies quickly followed. Mercedes' first child - a son - was born in Nampa, Idaho. Next came a daughter, born in Yakima, Washington. Then, other daughters, and one more son; nine children in all, born across the Pacific Northwest. The life of a railroad worker was tough, the pay very poor. Jess housed his family in shacks owned by the O and C Railroad Company. They never stayed in one town more than a year. Jess provided enough to keep his family fed, but little more. Had he not such a penchant for drinking, there might have been money for clothes and shoes. As it was, Mercedes made do, fitting clothing for her children from other people's cast-offs. She used flour sacks softened in lime water to sew nightgowns and underwear for the girls, embellishing the hems and necklines with her finely crocheted lace. So lovely were these humble garments, that people would steal them right off the family's clothesline.
Mercedes seldom sewed anything for herself. She simply continued to patch and mend the dresses she left home with so many years ago. She didn't even own a coat. In the cold weather, Mercedes wrapped herself in the woven wool saltillo that she had taken from the trunk in the attic. That blanket was her sole connection to the life she'd once known, a life she had forsaken to become the wife of a wandering rogue.
Part three of this story to come soon.
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