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Chapter 21: End of warWith war's end, families fan out to the bigger cities
Dolores and Florencia Tellez wait for a bus with their sister Leonarda in Morenci. Some in the family would remain in the area; others left, settling in cities across the Southwest. Florencia and Leonarda were among those ending up in Tucson. By Carmen Duarte The Arizona Daily Star As the war progressed, growers found a partial answer to their labor shortage. ``The Duncan area survived because of the German and Italian prisoners of war who were shipped to camps in Lordsburg and trucked in daily to the cotton fields,'' says Duncan farmer Wilbur Lunt. Nala's cousin Apolonia Rodriguez Garcia was a teen-ager when she talked to the Italian prisoners of war in the cotton fields. ``There were 10 men to a farm with a guard,'' says Apolonia. ``They would tell us they missed their families. They would take out pictures and show us their kids. Many of them would cry. They didn't want a war. Mussolini made them go to war. ``They would be picking cotton and they would come over and talk to us because they could understand some of our Spanish,'' she recalls. Apolonia's family worked for the Lunts, and she and her husband, José, a retired miner, raised their seven children in Luntville, between Duncan and Virden, N.M. The couple still lives there. During the war, Apolonia wrote about 10 letters to American soldiers each week, something she was encouraged to do by radio disc jockeys and talk-show hosts. ``I'd write my letters after picking cotton all day. My letters were cheerful letters, uplifting letters. We were told at school not to write about deaths or anything sad. I loved to write. I graduated from eighth grade. I was 16 and I was pulled out from school in Morenci. ``The way I see it, it was an experience. I educated myself by reading Modern magazine. I started in 1944. ``I had a friend who told me about a dictionary and how to look up words. I bought my own dictionary in 1948. I learned how to spell, and I love to read. I have about 80 books written by Louis L'Amour.'' Like so many other Hispanics who worked in the cotton fields and were not able to finish school, Apolonia simply says: ``That was just the way life was.'' During the wartime cotton boom, some children attended school and joined their families in the afternoons. ``School was let out at noon, and the buses went to the fields,'' recalls Wilbur Lunt. ``I loved those Hispanic families,'' he says, ``because Dad could pick 400 pounds, Mom could pick 300 pounds and the children picked their share.'' The good economy brought improvement to the valley. Mama's sister Angela used her extra money to bring electricity to her house and the others on Don Juanito's acres. She also paid for water lines. Now the family could draw water from an outdoor faucet rather than fetching it from the irrigation ditch. She bought linoleum for her home's concrete floor. Attitudes toward education improved along with the economy. More Hispanic children were attending school. The principal came to Angela's house several times to try to convince her son Ambrosio that he should go back to Duncan High School after he dropped out in his sophomore year. ``My parents did not say much. You know how it is. We had to work. My mom and dad worked so hard, and I wanted to help,'' says Ambrosio, sitting in the kitchen of his beautiful home in the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains in Tucson. Ambrosio Castrillo didn't go back, but he made sure his family received schooling. He continued to work hard. He worked for years underground at the San Manuel mine, earning money to send his wife, Isabel, and his three daughters through the University of Arizona. The women earned degrees in education and now work for the Tucson Unified School District. Isabel, Ambrosio's wife, has a bunch of success stories in her family. Her brother, U.S. District Judge Frank Zapata, also grew up in Safford and also picked cotton. After the war, Nala's sister Florencia and her husband Manuel became parents to Raul in 1946 and Irene in 1948. Raul was born in Phoenix, and Irene in San Antonio, Texas. Manuel moved the family from Texas to Phoenix, then to Morenci, back to Texas, and then to Duncan. They finally settled in Tucson, and Florencia refused to leave. Nala still did not understand what her younger sister saw in Manuel. The war opened the eyes of young men across America. Nala's brothers were no different. They headed for the big cities of the Southwest. Florentino, Juan and Isidro (Chilo) all eventually moved to Tucson. Teodoro had moved to Phoenix during the war, and later went to California. Antonio moved to California. José stayed in the region. He married Dora Lopez and worked in Morenci's mine before settling in Safford. He got a job as a mail carrier. He's the uncle I told you about in Chapter 1, who was buried in his pajamas. Gumesinda and Lola, the oldest and youngest sisters, stayed in Morenci with their families. Angela remained in Duncan with her family, but years later left her husband, Geronimo, and moved to Phoenix. After Florentino landed a job at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Tucson, he drove down to Duncan and told his little sister, Nala, to pack. Opportunity awaited. Tucson had become a mecca. It was a Sun Belt boom town. An exciting town. But my family would learn that the streets were not exactly paved with gold.
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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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