|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Chapter 20: The home frontWar brings prosperity at home, prayers for loved ones overseasBy Carmen DuarteThe Arizona Daily Star The war in Europe had begun to heal the economy of Greenlee County before the United States joined the war in 1941. Copper and cotton roared back from their Depression slumps.
Then, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the work force was drafted. Uncle Sam came looking for Nala's brothers, just as she had feared. Florentino was drafted into the Army, and Juan and Isidro enlisted. At age 16, José enlisted in the Navy. The women in the Gila River Valley worked even harder, some taking over jobs their husbands, brothers and sons left behind. Nala's sister Angela went to work for the railroad, laying and repairing track in the Duncan area, becoming one of the first female railroad workers. Women also entered the Morenci mine for the first time and helped keep the ore production moving. Nala decided to leave her maid's job with the Coon family in Duncan to make more money. She headed to Morenci, where she moved in with her mother, Dolores. Dolores, who moved to Safford when she left Nala's stepfather, Don Juanito, had moved again. She ran a boardinghouse in the mining town, which was booming once again. Florencia, whom Nala had nursed back to health from tuberculosis and who had graduated from Duncan High School, moved with Nala. Florencia got a job as a nurse's aide at the Morenci hospital. Nala beamed when people asked her how Florencia was doing. She was the first in the family to graduate from high school. Nala and her youngest sister, Dolores, known as Lola, went to work for Phelps Dodge, cleaning dormitories for the miners. There were several two-story wooden buildings, and each building had about 80 rooms. Nala was responsible for cleaning 18 rooms, and she moved like a dynamo, earning $16 a week. The mine workers came from all over: Phoenix, Oklahoma, Texas, Mexico. Indians were brought in from reservations. Injured veterans came from across the United States. After cleaning the dormitories, Nala helped her mother prepare lunch and dinner for the miners, who worked day, swing and night shifts. She made them burritos of chile and frijoles, and bologna sandwiches. Before she and Lola began their day, the sisters always attended 6:30 a.m. Mass and prayed for their brothers and the family. Nala was happy when she received letters from her brothers. They never mentioned how bad things were at the front, and things were especially bad for Juan, whose front-line division was pushing into Germany. Nala kept praying to God and Nuestra Señora de la Victoria to take care of the soldiers. She received letters from a boyfriend, Cristobal Montoya, who also had been drafted into the Army. She had met him when he was in the Civilian Conservation Corps camp in Virden, N.M. Cristobal wrote Nala a letter from a foxhole overseas on her birthday and enclosed $25. He wrote that he was not able to go shopping, so he wanted her to buy a gift for herself. Nala went to the town's jewelry store and bought a wristwatch with a gold band. Florencia wrote Nala's responses to Cristobal's letters. Nala would dictate to her in the evening after Florencia finished her shift at the hospital, where she cared for newborns and other patients with much tenderness. Florencia, meanwhile, had fallen in love with her boyfriend, Manuel Herrera. Herrera, from San Antonio, Texas, had been stationed at the CCC camp near the cemetery in Duncan. Florencia met him while watching a movie at the Duncan Theatre. Florencia had long, black hair, shapely legs and beautiful green eyes. She had her pick of boyfriends. Nala couldn't believe she picked Manuel. She thought Manuel acted like ``a big shot and talked down to people.'' She didn't know the half of it. Manuel joined the Navy and married Florencia when he came to Morenci on leave. As the war progressed and cotton prices continued to soar, Nala left Morenci and moved back to Duncan in 1945, where her stepfather, Don Juanito, had continued to work the fields with sons Dimas and Isidro. Nala moved into an adobe room with a tin roof behind sister Angela's house. She hit the fields, where she earned $50 a week picking cotton during August, September and October. With workers in short supply, the crop was still being harvested as late as February in some years. Nala was picking up to 300 pounds a day, and a couple of times collected 400 pounds. Nala came home from hoeing the fields one day to learn that Nana Leonarda, Nala's patroness and protector, had died. Strong and active to the end, Nana Leonarda had just walked several miles from her step-grandson Dimas's house, to the home of Nala's tío, Andrés. She arrived, sat down, and died, apparently of a heart attack. ``She is with God now,'' said Nala. There could be no other place for this woman of great faith. Her wake was held on the patio of Andrés' house, where her body was laid on a table. But first, according to her wishes, her children and grandchildren laid her body on the ground. Nana Leonarda, who with Tata Florentino had helped pioneer farming in the lush valley of the upper Gila, wanted her body to be ceremonially delivered to Mother Earth as her spirit soared to join God and her santos.
|
Ch. 1: Field of death
Ch. 18: The New Deal
Ch. 24: Cotton pickers and copper miners Ch. 27: The family doubles its size
|
