Growing Strong

My grandmother was age thirteen when she married. Although this was not uncommon for the era, one wonders how those few childhood years could have prepared her for what was ahead. What little schooling she received fed her mind with the bare essentials. One can only imagine what sort of conversations she had at home, if any, to nurture her emotional growth, Initially, I wondered if she married because of a love at first sight story. If so, she would never have uttered it aloud, it would have been considered immature—even at thirteen she would have recognized this. More likely it was to escape the increasing violence of the Mexican Revolution. Because of the political and economic climate, my best guess is both sets of parents decided these two young ones had a better chance at survival away from the violence. Any apprehension they may have felt about sending the children away didn't compare with the turmoil surrounding. Most everyone in the village knew right from wrong and chose to live moral lives and brought up their children in like manner. Commitment to family and hard work were also the norm, few other options were available, at least to the poor in Mexico. Of course there would be no romantic courting as that would have been considered frivolous for the time. Certainly no pomp and circumstance to announce the vows they would keep until death parted them. The ceremony was held in a small church and even though it was a sacred event witnessed by God, it was simply another page to turn in her book of life. Her few belongings waited for their new destination; due north -- Arizona, U.S.A. circa 1913.

I always thought my grandfather was a young man of at least seventeen years old given the responsibilities laid upon him. However, he, too was just a boy of fourteen. Whether he felt capable or daunted by the circumstances didn't matter much. This was their lot in life. It may have been a matter of just carrying on as he did in Chihuahua as a dirt farmer. Still, there's no telling how he felt. They likely arrived on foot or perhaps on the back of a cart. There at the Texas border the status of legal migrants was given to them along with social security cards.

English and citizenship would come later.

They made their way west and finally settled in California farmland where he was to meet a relative who gave him work. Both teens worked the orchards, traveling to whatever harvest was ready. She worked as long as she could, until she bore the first of their nine children. She was age seventeen. With a hard working farmer as her husband and a plot of land of their own, she felt her children would never go hungry. A steady job was difficult for a man to obtain but their needs were simple. His income would suffice.

Working at home was not a walk in the park. There were no conveniences, no mechanical devices to help out and certainly no leisurely activities to distract her from what needed to be done. She worked from dawn to dusk every day and in the morning more chores were waiting. Her only formal training was the few short years at home in Mexico watching her own mother and doing her assigned chores. After that, it was on the job training for the remainder of her life. The job would include cooking from scratch, washing by hand, cleaning and child rearing. Of course she knew how to keep a garden and chickens so no family member or friend would go hungry.

There were no books available to guide her along the way. Even telephone communication with her mother was not in the cards. There was one fact she knew— life is hard. She knew she had to instill this in her children and they each had to develop a thick skin. She would do them no favors to make things easy on any of them, especially my mother; the one right smack in the middle. Life was hard for that family. Somehow, they made it through the foretold better and worse.

My mother told me that her father would tell of the early days of their lives together and about the hundreds of trees he would plant each year. He worked walnut orchards, cherry orchards, fig, peach and pear orchards. My mother listened, spellbound at her parents adventures together with the romantic slant that only schoolgirls can have. She decided in order to preserve the memory of her parents, she would plant several fruit trees in whatever place she lived. She first planted pear trees and berry shrubs. As they matured and bore fruit she had enough to share. When she moved south it was avocado and orange trees likely still there producing fruit. When she moved south it was avocado and orange trees. After that she knew that anything was possible with a little hope and hard work. If it weren't for my mother to relay the history of our family, I wouldn't have known much, except that ....my grandmother was age thirteen when she married.