"My mother used to say that parents placed a certain amount of time to give one [in marriage]. If they gave the girl [permission], then he [the man] had to bring food to her until the couple went to get married. When my brothers came back from the service is when they came to ask for my hand [in marriage]. My mother gave them fifteen days before I was given [permission]. (laughs) He would come and only through the window could we talk because my mother said, “¿Que no sabe él que no debia de venir hasta que no te vayamos a dar a los quince dias?” (Doesn’t he know that he shouldn’t come until we give you in fifteen days?) When he came for the answer, they called to ask me if I wanted to get married. I had been very sick the year before with typhoid fever and my mother did not want me to get married yet. I said “yes.”

He was on the verge of going to take his exam [for the service] and he wanted to get married before. He told me, “Yo no tengo mucho dinero junto pero te puedo dar para que te compres ropa y que vayamos a casarnos.” (I don’t have much money saved but I can give you it so that you can buy clothes and we can go get married.) I said, “Yo lo que quiero es que me pongas casa y me pongas muebles.” (All I want is for you to provide me with a house and furniture.) I said, “Cercas de mi mama porque esta enferma del corazón.” (Close to my mother because she is sick from her heart.) He knew it because he was in school with me when I was little. He used to go to the ranch often to help my brothers. He had gone to California and when he came back, he came directly to my brothers. He used to come to the hospital to visit me when I was there with typhoid fever. I was in the old hospital but then they moved me to the newly built hospital. [My husband was named] Raul Avila Hernandez. I was older than he. He was born in 1919 and I in 1918, only six months apart, he in April and I in October.

My husband as a young man.

Photo courtesy of Eduvigen Hernandez

I thought to get married. He said, “Entonces nos casaremos. Voy agarrte muebles.” (Then we’ll get married. I’ll get you furniture.)” He did not let my mother know or anything. I told him that and when they gave me, my mother told him that he could do what he wanted. She thought that we would let her know when we would get married. He said, “Voy a rentar casa cercas de tu mama, ensiguida de tu mama.”(I’m going to rent a house close to your mother’s house, next to your mother’s house.) [It was] in Newtown. He went and said, “¿Quieres ir a escoger los muebles?” (Do you want to go and choose the furniture?) I said, “No, mi mama no me deja hasta que yo no me case.” (No, my mother will not allow me, until I get married.) She did not want me to. He [husband] took one of my cousins and he got me a wood stove, two irons to put on the wood stove, he got me a table with four chairs and then the bed and the bureau. That was all that he got for me. He thought that we would go where his family was to get married. He did not want to spend much money. He also got a washtub with a clothes scrubber. Those things I had until my four children were born. They did not buy me a washing machine until later.

My husband and I, when he got a house and furniture and had told me, he borrowed a car because he did not have one, to go to Safford to get the license (laughs). My mother allowed me to go and one of my cousins came with me. One of his friends came with him. [husband]. We came to get the license here in Safford. The woman [clerk] told us that the judge was watering his ranch. We had gone to the court to get the paper signed. She said, “He has the books there. You can go there and sign.” We went and looked for him here in Sanchez. We found him. He said, “Why not get married now?” The man was wearing boots up to here [above the knee]. He [husband] said, “I do not have the ring. She only has the engagement [ring].” “It doesn’t matter,” the judge said. “Take it off and put it on. I’ll marry you here.” So when we went home and told my mother we were already married by law, she said, “I had thought to prepare you a dinner, but now I will only give you a cup of coffee.” That is all she had poor lady! (laughs) “If you want,” she said, “to wait and if you are going to get married by the church.” My husband told her yes that later we would [get married by the church].

We did get married by the church later. We got married when they built me this house [in Solomonville]. The priest came. There where the sofa was, we got married. It was after our children had gotten out of school. He came to give me the last rites. I have been given the last rites three times because I was dying. That time he came because I was very ill. He asked if we were married [by the church] and we said no. He married us by the church. Our children were already married. One of our grandsons was the best man and a friend who came [to visit] was the maid of honor (laughs).

I worked with Americanas washing their clothes using the washtub. [I was] pregnant, ready to deliver. Often they would come to pick me up by ambulance. My husband would come home and he would not find me at home. He would find me in the hospital because I worked so hard washing clothes for other people. [My husband] worked for the company [mining]. This was during the war. He was called and he went [for the physical exam] and he did not pass. My father died in ’40 and we were married in ’41 because in ’42 my first baby was born, ’43 the second, and ’44 Irene and ’47 Nasario. Raul [was the first one named] like his father. The second one was Jesus, Chuey is what they call him. Then Irene, then Nasario. He is the one who is fire chief for the fire department and works for the city of Clifton.

After we got married and I had my four children, we started to better ourselves, he [husband] bought me a house, and we started making tamales. My husband raised a pig or two every year, chickens we had, and goats. He killed a pig every year in December and he ordered me dough in the morning and picked it up in the afternoon when he got home from work. I prepared the meat and the chili and the husks and had everything ready for when he came. Both of us kneaded the dough, he in one basin and I in another. We made enough tamales and then on Saturday and Sunday when they were off work, on the night before we cooked everything and early Saturday morning we would go out to sell tamales. We would go in the truck and we would take a big bowl full of tamales. Raul and Jesus would get a bucket with a dozen each and would go level by level in Stargo. They would sell them and return for more and they would continue selling. Then we would go to Plantsite to sell.

Often at this time of year there were Americanos that killed deer and they gave us meat to make tamales. They only asked for two or three dozen tamales. We had the pork. It would help us to sell much more. Imagine, they used to sell for $1.50 a dozen. Now here they are selling for $15 a dozen.

My husband when he started working for the company, he got together with friends, six or seven of them and he was the first one to get married. They had a rented house. Later I would make the lunches for them. One of them would come to pick up the lunches with my husband. They would take six or seven lunch buckets. My husband helped me because he was very good. He used to help me a lot. He would get up in the morning and wrap [the burritos]. I would fry the beans with chili and cheese, what they asked for, eggs with chorizo. We would make potatoes. We left them peeled at night in a basin full of water, ready to be fried. Those we mixed with the burros that we made. We made the lunches.

[We did this] to buy a house and to help us. It was the time during the war and they paid very little at work. It was when they were putting down the pipes from the pumps to put the water for Morenci, those big, thick pipes. They passed by Newtown. He [husband] worked at that, welding. He burned himself. He had a leg that was burned. They had him in the hospital and he was there for a long time. That was the way I helped, washing other people’s clothes. My uncle rented a part of the house. He drank a lot and his children went to school. I helped them. I made them beans. I made them tortillas to help them. There was a woman who came to drink with him but she did not help. His daughters come to visit me from Phoenix. There are only three of them left now. One is in a nursing home, the youngest. Her family died and she had only one daughter left and she lost her mind. They had to put her in a nursing home. They used to take her out to dinner but no more. She does not want to leave there. She used to want to get out and live with her daughter and her sister but not any more. ¡Pobrecita! (Poor thing!)

[Our lives] were changed [living in Newtown] because my husband was a striver and I was too. We wanted to teach our children also so that they would not get into trouble. Thank God, that we have not had problems. Jesus is the only one that did not finish school. He went to eleventh grade. I think that boy has learned more than all these others who had schooling. (laughs)

[My husband] did not have schooling either. His father took him out so that he could go to take care of the goats, work. When we got married, he used to say to me, “let us go to school. There are many who are going to school at night. Let us go.” I never wanted to go so he never went. Now I am sorry. He learned how to weld from other people and he had such a good head that they had him training others how to weld there at his work until he retired from the company. Everything that he saved, it was for his children. We started saving for them.

When his father died, he went to the bank to borrow money to send to his brothers and they did not want to lend it to him. I was working there next to the bank. There were some dormitories and I was working there. The money that I was earning I was putting in the bank because he was working and he had everything for me in the house. I had $300 in the bank. They asked him who his wife was and when he told them, they said, “She has money here. If she comes to sign, we’ll loan you the money.” He had to come for me so that I could sign for him to get the loan. That is when he realized that it was not good that he did not save money in the bank. He always wanted to carry his wallet full of money. That is when he started saving money then he used to say to me, “how much are you going to save?” “I am going to put in $100.” “Well, then I will put in $200,” he used to say. That is how we went, saving.

This house [in San Jose} they built for me. Every payday he bought what he needed. He did not like to charge. I got used to it. He did not like me to nail anything in the wall and I got used to it. What do you see nailed up? Now my granddaughters say to me, “Grandma, we’re going to fix this room up for you. You will see. As soon as they finish everything.” No, he did not like to have anything nailed up on the walls. He died April 14, 1988."

My granddaughter, my husband, and me.