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Chapter 19: Winds of warFlorencia gets tuberculosis,but she's strongBy Carmen DuarteThe Arizona Daily Star In 1941, Nala's younger sister, Florencia, was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Florencia was a junior at Duncan High School, on the way to becoming the first of Nala's 10 brothers and sisters to graduate. But for that to happen, Nala (my Mama) would have to nurse Florencia back to health.
Florencia was then confined to bed for six months. She could not get up, and she needed to be segregated from her family. Nala and Florencia moved into an adobe house that their brother Teodoro had built near the cluster of homes on the family's acres in Duncan. Nala bathed and fed her sister. She cooked chicken soup and stews. She kept the house immaculate and boiled every dish Florencia used. Brother Isidro was in charge of bringing Florencia her daily treat - ice cream that Nala tried to keep from melting with wet burlap sacks. When not at Florencia's side, Nala kept house for her stepfather, Don Juanito, and her brother Isidro. Nala continued to wonder how her mother, Dolores, could have left this good man, who had cared for her 10 children. The months passed, and Florencia's nagging cough improved. She was getting stronger, and Nala was happy. She had a special bond with Florencia. Nala wished she could have been as smart and as unafraid as her younger sister. Florencia was a bit of a rebel like their brother Juan. Florencia stood up to those she felt were snobbish. She would slap around boys or girls who would mess with any of her siblings, and she always defended Nala.No one made Nala feel stupid when Florencia was around. They grew even closer during Florencia's illness. Once Florencia was healthy again, she went back to school, and Nala was offered a housemaid's job by Martha Coon, a Kansas native and University of Iowa graduate who came to Duncan to teach English. She and her husband, Stanley, ran the Duncan Mercantile Co. Stanley, a native Nebraskan, was a banker, a grower and a school board member. All Nala knew was that they were rich. They owned the mercantile store. Their three young daughters would go to universities. Mr. Coon had acquired a lot of farmland. And they had built a beautiful ranch-style adobe house that was plastered and painted white. It sat near the county fairgrounds, across the way from where Nala's family lived in the cluster of small adobe houses. Mrs. Coon offered to pay Nala $5 a week for cleaning, washing and ironing. ``I have never worked in a house before,'' Nala told Mrs. Coon. ``That's all right. I'll teach you,'' said Mrs. Coon, who also had taught home economics. I had to laugh when Mama told me her response. Later, I cried. Oh, Mama. Yes, you have worked in a house, in many houses. When you weren't toiling in the fields, and later cleaning houses, mining dormitories and hotel rooms, you were attending to the needs of your family and relatives. I remember when I was going to college, you made sure the house ran smoothly so that I could focus all my time on studying when I wasn't working. You wanted me to do well. You wanted all of us to do well, no matter what job or career we landed. You taught us to give our best and be proud of our work. We were your pollitos.
Last July, Mama and I visited the house where she had worked. As I drove up to the house, passing 15 acres of rich grazing land, Mama craned her neck toward the casa. ``I don't remember these trees,'' she says, looking at the gigantic black walnut and mulberry trees. ``These trees were not here.'' The home's current owner, Judy McKinley, kindly allowed Mama to go inside and reminisce. Mama walked up the steps of the front porch and into the living room. ``There's the fireplace,'' she says, staring at the brick structure that made the living room look homey. ``I used to clean the wooden floors every morning with an oil mop. They had a large piano over here in this corner of the room. ``On this shelf,'' says Mama, pointing to a wooden shelf set into a wall, ``Mrs. Coon had a container with ashes. I began dusting and I was going to throw it out because I thought it was dust and dirt. I went to tell Mrs. Coon and she yells: `No, no! That's my father,' '' says Mama, slowly giggling and then letting out a good, hearty laugh. It was in this house that Nala learned from Mrs. Coon about the Dec. 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor attack. ``I think we're in a war,'' said Mrs. Coon when Nala arrived to clean the following day. Nala's spirit sank. ``I felt so sad because I thought about my brothers.'' They would be going to war.
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Ch. 1: Field of death
Ch. 18: The New Deal
Ch. 24: Cotton pickers and copper miners Ch. 27: The family doubles its size
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