Family Saga

Recently I've been sharing photos and information with my nephew, Julio Castro, from Bakersfield California.

I'll try to make a little story here, for the kids, you know. They are curious. I am 62 and have children, nieces and nephews, even grand nieces and nephews.

I have ancestors from Guatemala, Quezaltenango, and Mexico, Huitzuco. My parents met in Iguala, Mexico; my father was buying watermelons to sell in Mexico City, and found a beautiful girl at the main plaza. He had to find out where that princess was from; he found out she was from Huitzuco, and since then, we all have been going to that city in the North part of Guerrero State,  South of Mexico.

During the forties, my father came to the US, because American men were sent to war to the Pacific, and Europe during World War II. He returned to Mexico around 1947 to marry my mother. My older brother was born in 1948, and I was born in 1949. We were born and lived in Mexico City, always near our relatives from Huitzuco. My uncle Andres Figueroa Figueroa, married my grandpa's sister, Juana Uriza Marban. Closer to us though, was uncle Ruben, my mother's brother, who won a Gold Medal in the London Olympics of 1948; by the way, after 64 years the games return to London!

Uncle Andres was War Minister with President Lazaro Cardenas in the late thirties. Cardenas is the best President that Mexico has ever had.

My grandma's brothers all fought against the Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz. Here is where Julio's branch of the family comes in. He is very curious about his Mexican origins. He is right, he should be very proud of our grand uncles from Huitzuco.

The older son of Natalia Uriza de Castro, was not a son of Abraham Castro, her husband, his name was Rosendo Valencia, and was from a previous marriage, great grandma Natalia was a widow. Abraham accepted though, that Rosendo used his Castro name. Rosendo V. Castro worked in the mercury mine in Huitzuco, he did not like the way Porfirio's people treated the poor miners. Porfirio was the owner of the mine, and great uncle Rosendo was a manager there. Porfirio gave it as a gift to Carmen Romero Rubio, Porfirio's wife. Rosendo joined other courageous men from Hutzuco, the Figueroa Mata brothers, and their cousin, Andres Figueroa Figueroa. When the civil war started in Huitzuco, February 28, 1911; all of Natalia's boys had to join the war. They would've been dead, if they didn't, because Rosendo was a conspirator with Francisco I. Madero. They were, Julio's great grand father, Fidel, and his brothers, Mardonio, Ambrosio, and Abraham Castro Uriza.

After the war, Julio's great grand father, died of encephalitis. He was putting down a fire in Huitzuco, with other town people, he fell from a roof or tree, and hit his head, he got a brain infection. His orphan children, together with his wife Inocencia Ruiz, eventually had to leave Huitzuco. My mother was like a sister with one of them, Irma, she missed her very much. Other siblings were Fidel Castro Ruiz, Julio's grandpa, Abraham Castro, and Elemi.

This story is getting gnarly; Grand Aunt Justina Castro Uriza, sister of my grand mother Tayde, had left Huitzuco with a daughter, Raquel. They lived in Mexico City, where Raquel went to high school, she met Salvador Novo there, a famous Mexican intellectual. Eventually Justina, and Raquel moved to the US, and at some point they took Inocencia (Chenchita) with her orphan kids to Tijuana and California. The girls Irma and Elemi, together with their mother, crossed the border with them to California, and left the boys behind.

Now my mother, Irma, Inocencia, Justina and Raquel are dead. All the errors in this story are mine.

Julio is trying to put the family history together.