"He went to the service but he didn't go to the overseas or nothing because he developed double pneumonia so they sent him back home. Not too long after [we met, we got married] about two months I think. One day he appeared at the house and I didn't even know that he was coming. Nati [translated.] I went and covered her mouth because my mother told Nati, "Tell him that she doesn't know how to do nothing. She doesn't know how to cook, and she doesn't know how to do nothing!" So Nati was gonna tell Mr. Todd and I covered her mouth. (laughs) I told her, let him be surprised.

I was working at the store. I quit [after I got married.] I didn't last too long nowhere. I didn't last at school or work or nothing. I thought everything was supposed to be . . . No, I was working at the hospital when I met Mr. Todd. I used to work in the kitchen because one day, I didn't even know that he knew where I worked because I hadn't talked to him too much. One day it was raining and I was climbing up the little hill to go to the hospital. I used to walk by the Longfellow [Inn] and around like that. Somebody flipped a cigarette in front of my feet and I saw that there was Mr. Todd waiting to take me to work. I told him, "Wha'cha doing?" He said, "I thought I'd give you a ride to work. It's raining." So he took me to work then later on, he would come and pick me up or drive me home.

One day I was coming home from work at night and my mother would send the girls to go pick me up because she was afraid something would happen. I was coming from work, it was in winter and I was walking down the street, when all of a sudden this guy stopped by in his car and says, "Get in." I looked around and he opened the door to make me get in and boy did I ever, there was a little wall, and I jumped the wall down to the bottom and I went running down those steps by the mine. It was somebody who thought maybe I was a streetwalker because I was walking by myself.

We lived up there by my mom and my dad's house in a three-story house. It was right on top of my mom's house. We used to rent the middle apartment. I told him one day, "Mr. Todd, I know how to make biscuits. I'm gonna make you biscuits, okay?" He said, "Okay." So he was gonna make gravy and I was gonna make biscuits. Then I told him, "You know the biscuits are not getting baked Mr. Todd and I had turned the oven." You know what? There was nothing on the back. It was just like, como una plaquita (like a little stove top). There was just the top and nothing on the back. You could open the oven door but nothing in the back. We were really in danger to burning the house down or [being]gassed.

Later on we got a PD home when Mr. Todd was working in the PD. They were duplexes over there by where Carmen bought that house. Frances [my sister-in-law] used to live there too and so did we. Carmen first lived in an apartment, one of those duplexes by the tunnel and then they bought that house. I remember that day she went to borrow money from the priest and the priest lent it to her to buy that house. Because William <her husband> wouldn't do it. Carmen was the one who was the head of everything. The priest had a lot of respect for Carmen, and it was Father Narcisso. The first duplex by the tunnel that's where Carmen and William used to live. Later on when that house was for sale, the house that they lived in later on in Morenci, she went and borrowed money from the priest.

We moved to Plantsite. We were one of the first ones to move to Plantsite when they started building those houses. We only paid $28 for rent. It was $26 and then $2 for the garage. [They took the money out of his paycheck.] Everything went back to the PD. Everybody lived with those coupons. In later years they had it where you can get a special and you can buy so much for when it was time for the school to begin. We used to get a special; buy clothes for the kids. All their clothes, their shoes. Then PD would take so much out of his paycheck.

My father, Wenseslado Díaz, my mother, Teresa Limón Díaz, with my children, Carlitos, Tommy, James, Franco, Kathy, and Donny in the front yard of our home on Gila Street in Plantsite.

I had six [kids]. First is Tommy, and then Donny, and then Carlitos, then Kathy, Franco, and then James. Is that six? (laughs) I used to call him [Carlitos], my Bobito, my little clown because he was always clowning around and he was so quiet but he was a clown. The things that he would say were amusing. He was such an amusing little boy. [They were all born in Morenci.] I knew there was a lot of responsibility and I wish I could have been stronger. If I had known then what I know now, I would have been stronger and fought for them. Maybe things would have been different in a lot of ways. [In school] and everything else.

[I spent my time] just cleaning and cooking. I think I used to have diabetes since I was a little girl because I remember some days I would sit down so tired and I'd feel like I was floating in the air. Franquito was the one that weighed the most. He weighed eight pounds. He was the biggest of them all. Donino was the little one, he weighed less than five pounds. Tomas weighed six pounds, six ounces I think.

Until I moved to Gila, that's when Mr. Todd bought me a stove and a washing machine and some furniture. That Joe Ritz said it was a furnished apartment. You should have seen the furniture we had there. It was ready to go to the dump! The apartment where I lived first, in the three-story [house]. It was garbage and it was from the Ritzes [who owned it and rented it us]. I don't remember how much rent we paid. From there [the duplex] I went to the apartment, then I went to Gila Street.

[Donald and I spent time] just going to the movies sometimes. We didn't do too much. Sometimes [we went out with friends.] We visit [relatives]. He never said nothing. He was such a quiet man. Sometimes I had to pull the words out of his mouth. I did the talking for both of us. (laughs) Sometimes [we got into arguments]. He always wanted to be right and I wanted to be right. I remember the time that they accused Carlitos. This darn dame accused Carlitos and Kathy that they had stolen a purse. We had gone to visit my mother at the hospital. Later on I had gone to mass, because after we went from visiting my mother I went to mass. When I got home, the kids were crying. Daddy wasn't there, he was in the corrals. He spent his time up there in the corrals with his chickens and whatever he had up there. Y luego I got there at the house y Carlitos and Kathy were crying. I told them, "What's the matter? What happened?" They said, "The cops come over to the house and said we had stolen a purse from when we went to visit grandma in the hospital." I told 'em, "What?"

At that time Mr. Todd came and we went to the Sheriff's department and told them, "What was the idea of coming over there to the house and frightening my kids that way?" They said, "Some lady had witnessed." I told them, "Witnessed nothing. They were with me all the time and nobody carried a purse." It turned out that the Johnson's were with us too and all of us went to the Sheriff's department and Robert Johnson said, "I'm going to beat the hell out of that one that accused my kid of stealing that purse."

It turned out that lady, the lady that accused my kids of stealing the purse, she was the one that stole it. They caught her in so many lies. She was the one who took it. All that day, there was a big confusion and I was mad. I got even angry because Sheriff Wilkerson wasn't even in his office, he had gone out of town. Later on I told my mom what had happened. She said they had gone to the room and searched the little closet. They were looking in the closet. They were looking in her little nightstand and they were looking everywhere for that purse. I told that Wilkerson, "What was the idea of going over there to my mom? My mother was very sick, she's having heart problems and then here comes all your so-called deputies." I even told [him], he died not too long, that Bencomo, "Darn you, you Mexican lambiche [brown noser]. Just because they put that badge down on your shoulder, you think you're such a big shot." I told him, "You're not going to push me around or my kids." He said, "You don't have to get angry at me, Mrs. Todd. I was doing my job." I told him, "Yeah, doing your job, you lambiche." It was a Mexican dame and it turned out that she was the one that stole the purse. They found it in her home. The lady didn't even know what was happening. The one that they stole the purse from. It was her, the lady that stole it, was the one that made up all that story.

We talked about it [making major purchases], and because we needed the car for him to go to work. We lived in Plantsite and we didn't have a car. We bought some furniture. We bought it from the Phelps Dodge. He [Mr. Todd] first started as a brakeman, then he went on to a locomotive engineer. He was the one running one of the trains. Through the insurance [we paid for the births of our kids.]

I wished the best for themselves. I used to tell them, "You try." Tomas and Carlos were the more interested in school. Donnie Ray, he wasn't. He was worse than I was. I used to tell her [daughter] to try to make something of her life. That's what I used to tell them, all of them. I tell them, "Don't be like me and Dad. Because me and Dad, we never had an education. Without an education, you won't amount to much." They did. All they done, they done it on their own. I used to tell Donnie Ray, "Donnie Ray, come and do your homework. You better study, Donnie Ray. What do you want to be when you grow up?" "I wanna be a bum!" (laughs) He was the one that done the most work. He has worked, that guy!"