"[My family bought their groceries] in the Phelps Dodge Store. My mother would take a big list of whatever she needed and she would go early in the morning. Then in the evening they would bring her groceries. They delivered them. The Phelps Dodge had trucks. During the war, we had shopping bags and whenever my mama needed a few groceries, we would go to the store. Madero and Don Manuel, those were the only grocery stores that were there. Then later years, they put that bakery there by the Catholic Church, down below the Catholic Church. Where the Berras had a store. Little things, not too much. Chelino worked for PD and Chelado, too. They [PD] had [what] they used to call it el cambio (the exchange). When the time changed then they would give so much credit. They'd give so much credit to Chelino to buy the groceries. [They took it out of his paycheck.]

[I lived in Morenci] until I got married then I moved to Plantsite. I think it was sometime in the 60's. From Gila Street we went to Clifton. After Mr. Todd lost his job, we moved to Clifton.

I had too many kids [to belong to a club]. The only time I ever joined anything was when I moved to York Valley - the Homemakers. [That was] in the 80's.

It [Morenci] belonged to the Phelps Dodge. Nothing belonged to us. I remember the worst thing that ever happened when they told my mother and my daddy they had to move because they were gonna start digging around their home. It was when my daddy had the stroke. He didn't know where they were going. I think they sent them a letter because Carmen got one too.

[What made Morenci special was] because people knew each other and then anytime if anything happened they helped people. Like when Mr. Todd had an operation on his back, they made a collection for him cause he wasn't working. Then my kids would get free lunch at the cafeteria when he wasn't working.

The one [neighborhood] I liked the best was when we used to live up by the Longfellow Inn. That's where I met Angela. It was [by] that tunnel. I like that [neighborhood]. It was when Mr. Todd lost his job. I think that's the best thing that ever happened when Mr. Todd lost his job because I think he felt more free, more like our soul didn't belong to the PD Store. (laughs) That's where this man that you went and interviewed, that Rodolfo, they were our neighbors and Angela and her girls [too]. [They were] all around there. Angela is a very friendly lady. She would make friends with anyone. I used to know her when she was a little girl but not later on when she was married and already a mother and the girls got attached to us. They still [are]. Angela Nuñez. Her last name was Lujan, married name is Nuñez. [The name of that neighborhood was] El Puerto [near the mine entrance].

Tomás [my son] knows the names of all those hills. He said he was gonna write them down for me but he never has. [The Villarreals, the Nuñezes, were my neighbors and] there were some [other] people. Eddie [Cocking] was more with the Mexican people. [He lived in El Puerto too.] Ivy [his sister] wasn't that much with the Mexican people. He [Eddie] lived in York Valley too [later]. [He spoke Spanish] and he was mostly for the Mexican people.

The Indians came during the war and [so did] the Jamaicans. The Navajos and the Apaches [did too]. [PD built tent city for them,] Later on after the war, they [PD] started renting it to the Mexican people. Tere lived in tent city after that. There was a lot of little cabins. Tere hated it because it was full of roaches. She said [that] there when they come home when they went to the movies or somewhere, "Don't forget, we're gonna do the roaches stomp!" (laughs) [The floor was] all covered. That 's the way Morenci used to be. [Except that] it wasn't full of roaches, it was full of scorpions. My mother, at night she put cans underneath the legs of the beds so the bugs wouldn't crawl up, like the scorpions. Sometimes they were in the ceiling and they [would] fall from the ceiling. That was my daddy's idea [to put the cans]. I don't know what he put [in them], if he put oil or something, but I remember [they'd do that].

This family, they were colored. Color George. No, that was later on. Color George used to work in the hospital. But this was when I was younger. [There was another one that] was very popular among the Mexican people. He spoke Spanish just like a Mexican. They [African Americans] were treated just like us. [The Anglos treated them] like if they were Mexicans. I think [Morenci was segregated] because like me, I was married to an Anglo but we couldn't go live in Stargo [an area of Morenci]. [It] was only for Anglos so they give me a place over there on Gila Street. [Stargo was reserved for Anglos.] Because Mr. Todd was married to a Mexican, they could only give him [a house] over there on Gila Street.

[There was] a cemetery up there on top of the hill on la Arizona. They had it separated. They had another one in Bunkers and that one was separated [Anglos from Mexicana], too. Tomás wrote a big article about that. You should have read the letter he put in the Copper Era. Even made Daddy mad. I told him, "You leave my kids alone. He knows what he's doing." He wrote a real nice letter about, "Why are you people so afraid of the dead Mexicans will come and attack your Anglos?" Cause it made him angry when we went and he told me, "Mama, what is this section over here?" I told him, "That's for the Anglos. The Mexicans are over here. They have to be buried over here."

Over there in the Sacred Heart Cemetery, only Catholics can be buried in Clifton. [Bunkers is a nondenominational one.] That's where my mother and my daddy are buried and my grandma. My grandpa is buried over there in the one up on the hill. [They called it] just the cemetery up in Morenci. I don't know if it ever had a name. That road used to go up on top, then we had to crawl down to the graveyard. Later on they made a road right underneath it. Then they had to remove all the ones that were down below. There was no road in the middle that went to the lookout until they made the lookout and they fixed that road going up to the Coronado Trail. They removed them [the coffins that were dug up] but I don't know where they put them. I think they put them in Bunkers. I really don't remember. They told Sammy [my cousin], Sammy was telling me that they're gonna remove the rest. He said, "You're not gonna move my parents." Because his parents are up there by grandpa. What can they remove? There's nothing. Bones? [The coffins are probably] rotted.

Little family stores [sold groceries] like Madero. Bianco. There was this Don Manuel. Later on the Ritzes, but the Ritzes used to sell furniture. Paul used to have a little store up there, where Bufo used to have his little store. Bufo used to have a little jewelry store then Paul Aguilar used to have a little store right there, a little meat market. [Later he opened it] in the shopping center. Then he went to Clifton. By the church, coming up was the Berras. Coming down there by the highway. Bufo in the beginning over there by the Burro Alley, he used to have a little jewelry store then later on the young Bufo went up there on the hill where Paul had his meat market. [It was] right there by the theater, the Imperio, further down this way before you get to the pool hall. There was a pool hall. The hardware [store] by the Imperio was the Ritzes. [It burned down.]

The Ritzes used to have a serrucho (sawmill) over there in the corner where the Imperio is, down there by where you used to live, down that hill, up on top of the hill. The Ritzes used to call it el serrucho. They would bring wood then he'd cut it into logs. My daddy would buy some coal and they would drop it down the hill. Then me and Chelado [my brother]and Nati [my sister] used to go and pick it up and put it in the shed. We had to put just like the way my daddy ordered because if we didn't, boy. We had to do it just exactly. So me and Nati load it for Chelado in the wheelbarrow, then we'd fill the buckets full of coal and we'd take to that little shed. My daddy had built a little bin to put all that coal in there. [That was during the Depression.] [The Ritzes sold that coal] and the wood.

It [Morenci] belonged to the Phelps Dodge. There was no way we could stop it [from being destroyed]. Every time somebody came to my home, that's the first place we went, on a tour to show them where everything was. [The values] I got from Morenci, just that we had to do the best for ourselves and that we had the same rights as anybody else. That we had to get out of there to show them [the Anglos]. (laughs) There's a lot of people that have come out of there that have amounted to a lot. If somebody would have give us a push, maybe we would [have] amounted to a lot. I used to tell my kids, "You know if I had had an education, I would have fought for my rights, left and right." Just like the way my kids done. During the war [Vietnam], I went with Carlitos. They were going to put us in jail in Duncan because we were passing leaflets.

[I'd tell my great-grandkids] that we knew what it is to go hungry. That's why the kids get mad at me. They says, "Mother, you save every little thing." I tell 'em, "I went through a lot. We had to do the most with what we had." If it hadn't been for my grandmother, my grandmother taught us a lot and she was all by herself taking care of my grandfather that was blind. Doing washing and ironing for people for just a few cents. Those few cents gave us enough. She used to get enough money to send us to the movies and she used to make the best macaroni I ever tasted.

I'd tell them [great-grandkids] that now it's [Morenci] buried underneath and all of our memories are buried underneath. We went through good times and bad times. I remember when during the Depression, there was no rain, it was dry. How we used to go pray up in the hills. I'd tell them about my mother and all her strength from praying. We used to go marching up to the hills and pray for rain. My mom and my grandma."