Good Morning, All!!
Please forgive my indolence. We have been inundated by minor problems like medical issues among friends and relatives, and other minor social interruptions. One of our lesser problems is the issuance of new regulations concerning crossing the Texas - Mexico border. Going back and forth has normally been either very simple to only mildly complicated during these many years. Our family has been wandering around and doing business in Mexico since the 1880s...anything legal that needed to be bought or sold.
We have also been involved in various businesses, raising family, being grandparents, and generally living life. We have a little adobe home in the interior of Mexico which is very pleasant and profoundly scenic, although it has been a bit of a chore to go and come during the past couple of months…due to the before-mentioned complications concerning getting American permission to depart to Mexico and return. The world becomes pretty wacky at times. Above is a view of our little place…it has served us well and has been a pleasant bird-watching centre as well as retreat for couples who just want to be in a scenic hideaway and relax.
My Great-Grandfather Peter Bonesteel Christian…(father of my grandmother Esther Lee Christian) ranched about 1,200 acres down in the tropical areas of central Vera Cruz for about 20 years ...and Esther stayed down there much of the time. She was Peter's firstborn, and his only daughter. They enjoyed their time until the great freezes came, their otherwise their "stay" would have been totally profitable and enjoyable.
Weaving such a tale...which has literally hundreds of anecdotes...sad, hilarious, adventurous, and sublimely tranquil...filled the tales rendered down to my father by his mother (and father). Lamentably, my grandmother and her husband, Norman N. Newton died long before my birth, so almost everything I learned about them came from my father...although he had numerous photographs of their times and places.
You should be aware that that father...my father...was a cavalry soldier (mounted) down on the Mexican border among other things. He enlisted in 1928, thinking of a career as an officer. After marriage back in the 1930s he went into the business of care and production of citrus down here on the border...in the southernmost parts of the County of Hidalgo, Texas. So now you know the dirty little secret. We are just plain agriculturists...people who thought that farming and production-to-market was what it meant to be "making a living".
It is also the case that my father and eldest brother were both Ph.d's. My father became a psychologist and finally an administrator winding up in his last years as the Superintendent of the largest MH and MR facility in the Republic of Texas. He was a very conservative person...politically, religiously, etc. Oddly enough, he was also an innovator and a "fixer". During his early days at the MH/MR campus, for instance, he encountered numerous children in the facility who spoke no English, or perhaps very little. Many had been referred by public school "counsellors" who would test said children with a fresh Stanford - Binet or similar (in English)...and then proceed to declare that this little Juan and/or this little Maria could not make a creditable score and that the children were too mentally retarded to ever hope to "catch up".
As a token of caution please be aware that most of the "quick draw" testers were from out of State, and were admittedly prone to suppose the worst about anything Texian. While some of this might be a bit of melodramatic over-statement, it is not far off the mark.
My father set about testing the "mentally retarded" Latin children and in fairly quick order established that one or two were marginal, while the other 55 or so were at or above, at times well above, what was considered "normal". It was not really an active measure designed to discriminate by the first crew...by that time high-achieving people of Mexican / Spanish extraction were commonly found in the "TOP 10" or as Valedictorians, Head Cheerleader or Drum Major of the Varsity band, etc. BUT, there was that lingering "thing" back in the psychometrist's or psychologists mind, perhaps.
During my father's waning days, I reminded him of his "stalwart position" above described. He smiled slightly, and whispered with some vigour, "All in a day's work…all in a day's work". Very shortly later, he died in Austin, Texas during a cold Christmastide in 1983, less than a couple of miles from that "State School". And oddly enough it remains simply one of his legacies.
 |
| An example of the "travois" for hauling things. First it was done by dogs, but when the White man came, horses were available, especially to the Plains Indians…circa 1895 _________________________________ |
He had been born in Gwinner, North Dakota during a bitterly cold moment on the 1st of April 1911. His mother was there, as one might imagine because she needed to be close to her son at such an hour. But his father was not "there"…he was in Minneapolis, buying necessities for the Spring planting. The Stork had mis-read his directions and dates…he was almost two months early!!
Although my grandmother was essentially incapacitated by the labour and birthing, she tried to warm the three year old, two-storied Victorian home. That home was a pride point for my Grandfather, but…who would come at this hour through the three to six foot drifts of new snow so as to help a new mother with her first born? Then, quite suddenly there were clunking sounds outside…women and children speaking in Indian language…un-shod hooves were clomping on the gallery floor at the front door!!
There was a telephone with long distance capacity in Gwinner, a few hundred yards through a thick white blanket. The Indian ladies went and requested a long distance call on behalf of the Lady Esther Lee (Christian) Newton to Mr. Newton. Three or four days went by...each recounting of the story is the same and a bit different, but the ladies upon the arrival of the man of the house, organised up their convoy and headed for Fargo, some sixty miles to the northeast...on the border with Minnesota.
Norman N. Newton took over the affairs of the home, and he mildly scolded the Swedish / Norwegian ladies (settlers from the old countries) who were aghast that "...those Indian squaws came in and stabled their horses in the parlour and poor Mrs. Newton had to protect the baby from the smallpox".
I can only imagine. One must remember that this woman had helped operate a large tropical fruit and vegetable production hacienda in Mexico, owned by her father. She had learned Spanish and the two Indian languages and cultures of the Huastec and Totonac nations. Those were the Indians who came and went daily and who were generally fixtures of the mountains, rivers, and jungles of the area during their time in the Mexican tropics in central Vera Cruz State.
And then above, one can appreciate the dress of a traditional Totonac man of some significant resources. The men have other vestments that are very similar, but rougher, for hard work in their fields and farms…usually very angular, and deeply sloped, and replete with some of the finest soil imaginable…good for almost any crop.
One can see below the famous "Flying Indians", who perform this precarious whirling dive while tied (hopefully very securely) at the ankles while twirling around thirteen times. The descent is about 100 feet from the small platform. It performed for touristic purposes and also, with much greater pomp and circumstance, much more expression and symbolism during certain periods of religious and cultural importance.
_______________________
