"Berthita" was born to a devoutly Catholic mother and a humble and repentant Mormon father. When Bertha was born her father was 59 and her mother was nearly 22.  Right from the beginning Bertha, the second child and first daughter of this marriage, benefited from the sagacity and patience of her father and the energy and talents of her mother.  Her father was kind and doting, her mother high spirited and preoccupied.

Life began for Berthita in Ciudad Juaréz, Mexico, a city just south of the border of El Paso, Texas. Her father's parentage was Irish-English with a bit of Dutch.  Her mother's parentage was Mexican with perhaps a bit of Spanish and French.  As a result she learned much about the Mexican people and the Anglo community.  She was fortunate to learn both the English and Spanish languages.

Bertha's father's livelihood involved a necessity for him to travel a great deal. Orson traded and drove cattle and horses across three states and two countries.  Orson had mining and lumber interests in many remote areas of the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora. Often he would become involved in other business ventures outside the proximity of the very rural Mormon Colonies. Orson enjoyed the outdoors and wanderlust for new opportunities.  He was also a lawman for many years and in the Mormon militia.  Bertha adored him and all the stories he shared about his travels.

Bertha E. Brown - "La Marseillesa" c. 1938, 16 years old

In 1925, shortly after Orson was readmitted into the Mormon Church and his fourth child, Aaron, was born, the family moved from Ciudad Juárez to Namiquipa, a small mining town, to be closer to where Orson's business was keeping him.  This proved to be too primitive for Angela and the children so around a year later they moved to Colonia Dublán where there were schools and opportunities for the children.

In Dublán Bertha met and enjoyed many friends. She became a tagalong sister to her three brothers.  Her oldest brother, Gustavo, was particularly bothered to have her in his shadow, and as the older brother he took many opportunities to hurt her feelings. Among the worst and longest lasting of his teases was his insistence that she was not really a part of the family and not really related to her daddy and mother.  Gus would unrelentingly torment Bertha with his story that one of the vagrant Tarahumara Indians that Angela would feed on the porch steps had left Bertha there to be cared for and raised by the Brown family. This caused her great agony. In little Berthita's view, everyone in her family was fair skinned and had lighter hair than hers, therefore, Gus must be telling her something her parents did not want her to know.  This uncertainty was a basis of Bertha's insecurities for most of her life.

Bertha's father had served as Bishop of Morelos and also as President of the Mexican branch in Dublán, and a number of other unusual positions.  In this capacity his family became very close to the Mexican people as they taught and served them.  The Mormon colonies were a very close knit community of Americans. The instructions handed down from Salt Lake City to the Anglo Mormons was to 'Baptize them, don't marry them'. These policies were most likely issued in an attempt to protect and insulate the relocated polygamous Mormons in their estranged situation. Salt Lake City seemed to feel a duty not only to give spiritual guidance and ensure distance from the Catholic Church but also from the Mexican culture and people.

As a child Bertha described her childhood as containing many happy experiences, however, as Bertha grew into adolescence Bertha was accumulating deep layers of emotional injury from being discriminated against as a "quatrona", a child of mixed cultural background. Many times she and her siblings would have to protect each other from peer hostilities.

Secondly, Bertha was a child who had a father who was related to many of the colonies' American families. Because of his Church sanctioned previous polygamous four marriages Orson had 25 grown, living children and their relatives in and around Dublán. Bertha felt that these American families in the colonies did not view her and her family on equal terms and in large part she felt excluded by them.

Angela January 8, 1953	Grandma Maria January 8, 1953

Bertha's mother and grandmother were both devout Catholics.  Concurrent to this, Orson's calling by the Mormon Church for a number of years was as the ecclesiastic leader of Mexican congregations.  Bertha and her family loved these innocent and happy people.

On March 20 1929 Bertha's mother, Angela, was baptized into the Mormon religion and was very active in the women's organization of the Church.  Bertha was active in her Church work. She would teach the very young and the teenagers. She provided wonderful lessons and activities, following the example of her mother and father.  As she grew older she found it difficult to understand why there was a separation, an American congregation separate from the Mexican congregation. It seemed to be based on more than just language differences. As she grew up her confusion led her to feeling ashamed of her Mexican heritage, feeling a need to cover it up or discount it, alternately she would feel ashamed for denying kinship to the good Mexican people she loved. Bertha learned their songs and their dances. She performed the flamenco with castanets, dressed in the traditional red dress with white polka dots and ball fringe, for many years in Dublán, El Paso, and later in Michigan.

Bertha was a beautiful young woman and she was very popular with the young people. Her father enlisted the aide of her three brothers to always keep an eye on her. She resented that she was always being spied on but also enjoyed the devotion of her family.  Her mother nicknamed her "La Marseillesa" after the very proud and regal anthem of France.

On May 23, 1943 Bertha was called to serve a mission to the Mexican people. She served in Toluca, Pueblo and Cuautla.  During this time she was able to meet a number of the higher authorities of the Mormon Church and she served as a guide and translator for Apostle David O. McKay during his stays in Mexico. This was an experience she treasured very much.

After her release from her mission Bertha began to communicate through letters to a young man who had been recently baptized in Toluca. His name was Everardo Navas de Molina, nicknamed "Nano".  They were both very much in love and made a very handsome couple. Orson was relieved to see his Berthita find a good Mormon man to marry in the Temple.  Bertha and Nano had a double wedding with her brother Pauly and his fiancée, Lilia Gonzalez.  Bertha's skill at sewing can be seen in photographs of her wedding dress and veil.  She was a beautiful bride.

Aaron was released from his mission and traveled with Nano by train to Ciudad Juárez then onto Dublán.  They had a reception in the cultural hall of the American branch and the whole place was full. Orson danced with the two brides and Angela was so happy.  Mary was Bertha's bridesmaid. The next day the two couples traveled by train to El Paso and by bus to Mesa, Arizona where they were married and sealed in the Mesa Temple.  Aunt Eliza my Orson's 4^th wife gave them a lovely reception at their home.

Within two months of this marriage, Orson Pratt Brown died at the age of 83.  Bertha was devastated. She had been very close to her father all her life and would suffer terribly whenever he was gone from their home for any extended period of time. He was everything a father could be to a girl and her heart was partially buried with him.

Nano and Bertha returned to Mexico and Bertha soon took a job at a grand hotel where she made reservations and interpreted tourists in their needs.  She had a tremendous salary for being bilingual and she was such an attractive young lady.  Nano was with his physical education job.  Soon Bertha found out she was pregnant.  Their letters home were always about Orhito, their expected baby's namesake for Orson.  When Bertha had to quit her job in her 8^th month, Nano took her to Toluca to live with his parents. She felt like she was a burden to the family especially when at dinnertime Nano's sister looked at her plate and said, "You sure eat a lot!"

Nano and Bertha were able to rent the living quarters that the elders and sister missionaries had and were not being used.  That was the break Bertha needed. Nano was now working in Puebla and only came on week-ends. Here she was safe as the chapel was always having services of different kinds and missionaries were always around.

As events turned out Nano was very involved and absorbed in completing his college work and in his teaching so they missed Orson's funeral.  Bertha kept busy, living in a courtyard apartment on Las Calles de Plutarco Gonzalez Number 22 in Toluca. She was teaching English to business executives from the United States who wanted to do business in Mexico. She also did sewing and tailoring.

A year after the wedding, Bertha and Nano were blessed with a little girl, not the little Orhito they were expecting. They named her after Nano's mother, Lucia. Their second child, was also a girl, this time named after Bertha's mother.

Bertha was becoming dissatisfied with the living arrangements, she lived in Toluca while Nano lived in Matamoros.  Bertha was used to being doted on by her father and her admirers. Now she was left alone to care for two babies. To make matters worse, her Nano's occupation kept him in the company of young girls in college that admired him. Some missionaries had told Bertha that he was escorting the queen of a certain event at the university where he taught.  Mary came to visit her and insisted that Bertha, Lucy and she take the bus to Puebla to check things out. When they arrived at the University the guard opened the door to Nano's apartment and let them in. Bertha saw a couple of letters on the desk and she read them – she confirmed what she was so worried about, Nano had an amorous admirer .  When Nano came into the apartment he greeted her passionately, as usual he picked her up – as pregnant as she was. They walked out hand in hand and Mary was furious with them. Bertha really loved him and didn't face him with the letters.  After the visit Mary brought up the letters again and pressured her to rethink the marriage. She assisted Bertha in packing up her bags and daughters and moving to Dublán to live with her mother and grandmother Maria on the farm.

From this point on life became progressively more difficult for Bertha. She filed for a divorce from Nano on January 21, 1952 in the District of Bravo, Chihuahua, and found a job at Dr. Frank Devlyn's Optical store in Ciudad Juárez. For a while she rented a room above the store. Nano refused to accept the divorce and it is rumored that he took a few punches at the attorney. He consistently tried to contact Bertha for the next thirty years. Stubbornly she would not allow him to explain or deny the allegations.

In 1952 Angela unhappily sold the family homestead in Colonia Dublán and was taken to El Paso with Maria and Martha.  Aron put the down payment on a house at 5504 Paraguay in El Paso then Bertha found it necessary to move herself, and her daughters to live there with her mother, grandmother, and sisters Mary and Martha.

When the divorce was finalized on July 4, 1952 she began to date again. Most, if not all the men the writer of this story remembers were from Fort Bliss, a nearby U.S. Army base.  There was one man, Buddy, he really liked Bertha but he was also very good and kind to her daughters  They had nice 'family' outings.  The daughters thought for sure he would be their new daddy because he had asked mother to marry him. Usually they were kept hidden in Grandmother's part of the house with instructions not to make a peep. But with Buddy it was different, he wanted to include them.

Well, it was not to be. Bertha met a young G.I. that rang her bell, George Ronald Ferrara II.  At the same time Mary was dating a G.I. nicknamed "Red", John Denny Hayden. Mary and Red married on September 10, 1953 at the house on Paraguay Drive. Two months later on November 21, 1953 Bertha married the young G.I., Ronnie. Buddy, and the girls were devastated. They packed up their meager belongings and drove to their new home in Detroit, Michigan.

These three transplants were a little dismayed by the frigid climate of Detroit, Michigan in December. Bertha was not prepared for the constraints of the bitter cold.  At first Ronnie's German and Italian family was receptive and curious.  But before long their prejudice against Mexicans emerged as they joked and asked her if she had brought her own Mexican maids with her, referring to her daughters.

Bertha was still trying to obtain a Temple divorce from Nano.  David O. McKay was now the new President of the Mormon Church. Perhaps due to his and Bertha's former acquaintance during the Mexico mission years he was being particularly careful to do the right thing for her and her salvation and to resign Nano's petitions not to have the sealing cancelled.  In the meantime, Bertha gave birth on May 19, 1955 to her first son, George Ronald Ferrara II (or III depending on who is telling the story). Ronnie was happy and Bertha was radiant.  Herman Gardens, the housing project they lived in, was looking better with spring in the air and the beginnings of her new family. On May 30, 1955 Bertha's sealing to Nano was officially cancelled.

Master Sergeant Ronnie was working with radar and guided missiles at Southfield Michigan Army Base. Occasionally he would have to take duty in North Carolina or Virginia for three to six months.  Bertha was working at Rex Income Tax Record Company.

On October 24, 1955, nearly Nano's 34^th birthday he again wrote a letter to Bertha and asked her to contact him by phone or letter. He again declared his undying love for her and pled for reconciliation. The numerous gifts he sent to his daughters were always destroyed by Ronnie. The dolls Nano sent to the girls were hung from the basement ceiling by Ronnie and used for target practice with his .22 rifle.

On May 25, 1956, when Georgie was just over a year old, Bertha ended her brief employment at The Machined Parts Corporation. Ronnie had been taking longer and longer out of state tours of duty.  Bertha was very depressed; she had been totally inactive in the Church since she left Nano in Toluca. Ronnie's relatives, the large families of Tessmers and Ferraras, bickered and squabbled endlessly. They would take sides against each other for months at a time. Bertha never knew whose side she should be on.  She missed her mother and other family members and the life she had had in the colonies.

Enough money was finally saved for a down payment for a new house in a new subdivision near Michigan Avenue and Ford Road.  Bertha was finally out of the housing project in central Detroit and into a new brick three-bedroom house at 4956 Amboy Road and the corner of Midway in Dearborn Heights.

The Army provided free medical care, the doctors however were not guaranteed to have graduated from medical school, or so it seemed. Bertha's ailments multiplied. She developed arthritis and her depression found her in bed 24/7. The snow piled up outside and the icy winds of winter filled her heart. George, just over one year old, became Lucy's full-time responsibility, at her age of eight.  Bertha continued to be medicated for whatever the latest diagnosis happened to be. Then to everyone's surprise, Bertha was pregnant; the army doctors had been treating her for menopause. On January 4, 1958, she delivered a second son, Jeffrey Michael Ferrara.

Bertha's arthritis miraculously was cured with the pregnancy. She was feeling better and began to attend Church. She made friends and occupied her time with very elaborate wedding and special occasion cakes that she would provide for people at church or for a fee.  She made all sorts of decorative type items.  She began to sew again.  She worked at not allowing the snow and ice to imprison her physically and spiritually. After a car accident she became more afraid of driving the treacherous winter roads.  Again she took to her bed for respite from her ailments, her disappointments, her loneliness, her children, her marriage, her life.

Ronnie was staying away even longer now, as much as a year at a time. The girls were entering their teen years and showing the long years of neglect.  Bertha's battle with her feelings of racial inferiority since childhood had made her ashamed of them in this predominantly Anglo culture. They felt the ravages of Bertha's disdain on more occasions than she would be proud to admit. The "Mexican maids" were emerging from their adolescence and were not prepared for what they were seeing and feeling.

On June 13, 1962 Bertha delivered her third son, David Lawrence Ferrara. It was an absolute miracle. By now, Ronnie was becoming more and more verbally abusive. When he came home it was nothing more than a visit to the war zone.  Bertha endured this arrangement until she found out that Ronnie was living with a girl, fourteen years younger, in Germany where he was stationed. Bertha filed for a divorce. The divorce was finalized on November 4, 1966. That same day Ronnie married the girl from Germany he had brought with him, Rosemarie Plendl, at the home of Ronnie's uncle Anthony Ferrara in Romeo, Michigan.

On January 27, 1967 Bertha purchased a house at 10137 Luella in El Paso, Texas.

She lived with her three sons in a warmer climate and with her family close by.  Just six months later, on June 20, 1967, her mother died suddenly in her sleep of a stroke. It was a terrible blow to Bertha and her siblings.

Bertha, with the full responsibility of providing for her three sons, made a better life for herself.  Her sons provided challenges difficult for a single mother.

Bertha's life began to improve. Bertha now had the will to dress up and to socialize. Bertha started a new life in Texas.  She joined some Greek and Turkish groups that were sponsored by the service as hostess family in an effort to teach foreigners about the American way.  She stayed active. Unfortunately, by now her bouts with pneumonia and with depression in Michigan had left her bedridden lungs in terrible condition. She was susceptible to glandular infections and her breathing was very shallow.

Nano had never forgotten her and now Bertha became more receptive to his requests to rebuild their friendship. Bertha went down to Mexico to visit him and the places she had left behind so many years before. They were once again together.

Bertha was employed as the Director of the El Paso City-County Nutrition Center at 4824 Alberta.  She seemed to really enjoy working with the senior citizens, providing entertainment and recreational events for them and meals.  Bertha was dearly loved by "all her little people" as she called them.

In March of 1979 Jeffrey returned from the Washington Seattle Mission. In early April Lucy and her husband and two children came from California to visit Bertha in El Paso.  In November Bertha went to Utah. During this visit Bertha recorded stories from her first seventeen years of life.  She was very weak during this time and felt that her life's work was nearly over. She had seen all her children during the year and they were now adults.

On December 10^th Bertha drove herself to the Sierra Medical Center because she was having breathing trouble and her oxygen tank was not helping.  Her brother Pauly and his wife Lily visited her in the hospital. She told him "Patrona, I almost died last night, they barely brought me back in time."  On December 16^th Bertha died of severe pulmonary hypertension with right heart failure due to complications of an experimental medical procedure and the severe scarring on her lungs.

Bertha's funeral on December 19, 1979 was held at the L.D. S. Stake Center on 1212 Sumac Drive in El Paso. Interment was at Evergreen East Cemetery, 12400 E. Montana, El Paso, El Paso, Texas at Site A-14D-4.  Literally hundreds of "her little people" and friends and relatives attended both services to show her their last respects. 

On the 28^th of July 1992 Bertha and Nano's temple sealing was re-instated by petition to the First Presidency from her ever-patient and long-suffering Nano.

I will begin by going back to the time when Dad married Angela the 18^th of March 1919.  Angela was 19 and Dad was 56.  They were married in Las Cruces, N.M. Due to the Mexican revolution of 1912 the exodus of the Mormon families from the Colonies in Mexico, my father and his wives and families became estranged and because of the polygamy laws in the United States he was not able to follow with them, subsequently the church granted the four wives a church divorce due to the circumstances.

Orson Pratt Brown became a legend in the Mormon Colonies in Chihuahua and because of his exceeding courage and will to follow the leaders of the church at the time of the exodus he remained in Ciudad Juarez – El Paso area in an effort to deal with the Mexican government to allow the safe return of the Saints to Mexico.  His families had suffered the loss of their homes that they had to leave behind, that there was no desire for them to return.  My father lost the greater part of his life – his families.  He now had no anchor to hold on to, he became bitter and inactive and it was during this period from 1912 – to 1919 that he struggled with his values.  He met Angela in Ciudad Juarez - a young girl going to school and full of hope and determination to excel in her life.  Dad was very charismatic and well liked by everyone.  He was very good looking and when he proposed to her – his age didn't matter she wanted her children to be a leader like him.

It was in Ciudad Juarez that four of her children were born: Silvestre Gustavo 12-17-19, Bertha 7-31-22, Pauly 1-29-24, and Aaron Saul 7-29-25.

Mother was happy with her family yet it was hard for her since Dad was mining to make a living and was gone for long periods.  When he would return he would pay the grocery bill to this grocery owner that extended him credit.  He loved his new family and once again his arms held his children.

In 1925 Dad was re-baptized into the Mormon Church by Brother Arwell Pierce and was confirmed by Bro. Kimball of Thatcher Ariz. In El Paso, Texas.  These brethren were strong members of the church and friends of Dad's early days.  They indeed were their brother's keeper.  His life changed and he took his family back to the Colonies where he had been such a faithful and devoted member.  He had come home!

Mary Angela was born June 15, 1927 in Colonia Dublan.  That same year Dad traveled with the Stake members to attend the Centennial celebration of Salt Lake City.  While there Pre. Ivins told him that Pre. Grant had instructed him to confer to him his former blessings and he laid his hands upon him and resealed back to his wives and children.  This was the potential blessing in his life.

Upon his return to the Colonies he had a dream when in he saw himself laboring among the Mexican people.  Next day the presiding bishop of Dublan called him to the chapel and set him apart as Bishop to labor among the Natives.  He served as a bishop for 15 years and was joined by Angela being baptized and becoming a Relief Society President.  He was able to secure the rightful status for the Mexican Mormons and their children were allowed to go to school with the American members.

It is at this time that Bertha flourished in the church as a young girl- being a great asset to the Mexican Branch.  Bertha gave her narration of her early years, which began under the guidance of her parents. She was five years older than me and I adored her!  Mother made sure to prepare her to be a homemaker.  She learned every craft available – she learned to sew and became a professional seamstress, she designed bridal dresses etc. and earned enough money to make a nice wardrobe, for her and Mother and of course her little sister.  She learned to play the guitar and sing and be the Mutual leader.

Mother loved Bertha and nick named her " La Marsellesa" which was the national anthem to France.  Mother would play the record over and over and knew how the French people would love and respect their hymn. She also made a song for her it goes:

De las muchachos de Dublan (from all the girls in Dublan)
No hay nadie que me empareje (There is none that can match me)
Ni Virginia, Ni Roquel (not Virginia or Rachel)
Menos esa Lupe, Vieja (much less that old Lupe)

Porque me ha dicho Cipriano (Cypriano has told me)
Que no quiere verme Flores en el pelo (He doesn't want me putting flowers on my hair)

Chulapona, Chulapona— (Beautiful girl – Beautiful girl)
Eso dicen cuando pasa me persona! (That is what they sing when my persona goes by)

The part of Cipriano talking about the flowers was because Lemuel Flores (flowers) a returned missionary was seeking Bertha's attention.  He was 22 she was 17.

Bertha was so church oriented that Dad wanted her to go on a mission.  He was afraid that she would marry a non-member- There was a young Doctor in Nuevo Cases Grandes that would bring Mariachis to serenade her.  There were quite a few young men aspiring to be favorable to her.  While attending J.S.A. – Juarez Stake Academy in Colonia Juarez she met Cipriano Rubio.  Mother would let her go to get ice cream and ride around only with me as chaperone.  I liked him – he would get me big bags of candies.  I was about 12 years old and very impressed.  Who knows if her fate would have been more favorable to her!

Bertha was excited about her mission.  She left joyful to enter a new facet in her life.  She was in her mission from 1943 – 45 (aprox).  She arrived to Mexico City with other girls from Colonia Dublan at the same time that Gustavo was ending his mission.  Interesting enough the mission President was Arwell L. Pierce the longtime friend of Dad who also baptized him and later stood in proxy for Dad in the Mesa Temple when we as a family were sealed in 1946.

Bertha served in Toluca, Pueblo and Cuautla.  It was in the Toluca area where a young man named Everardo Navas was baptized by the missionaries.  I should mention that most of the Anglo missionaries were from the Colonies and were bilingual.  The men were very sport oriented and had played basketball in the state of Chihuahua in competition.  Everardo (Nano) immediately made friends with the missionaries as he was a physical education professor and these young boys were up his line his strong exuberance was matched by helping the missionaries and needless to say, Bertha was very impressed by him.  She enjoyed her mission and made many friends and converted many members.  When Bertha returned to Dublan she corresponded with Nano and shortly thereafter become engaged.  Pauly had made plans to marry his girlfriend Lily Gonzalez and all four agreed to have a double ceremony.  Aron was released from his mission and Nano traveled by train to Cuidad Juarez then onto Dublan.  They had a reception in the cultural hall of the American branch and the whole place was full.  Nano met some of his former missionaries again.  Dad danced with the two brides and Mother was so happy.  I was Berthas' bridesmaid an she made her dress and all the bridesmaid dresses.  The next day they traveled by train to El Paso and by bus to Mesa, Arizona where they were married and sealed in the Mesa Temple.  Aunt Eliza my Dads' 4^th wife gave them a lovely reception at their home.

Dad was elated that Bertha had married a handsome Mormon man and he seemed relaxed for that had been a big worry.

Nano and Bertha returned to Mexico and Bertha soon took a job at a grand hotel where she made reservations and interpreted tourists in their needs.  She had a tremendous salary for being bilingual and she was such an attractive young lady.  Nano was with his physical education job.  Soon Bertha found out she was pregnant.  Their letters home were always about Orhito (orson) for our dads' namesake.  When Bertha had to quit her job now in her 8^th month, Nano took her to Toluca to live with his parents – she felt like she was a burden to the family l especially when at dinnertime Nano's sister looked at her plate and said- you should eat a lot? As soon as Lucy was born 1-6-47 Bertha started to teach sewing, crocheting and English.  I was working with Lamsa Airlines and came to Toluca to meet Lucy.  Bertha had taken an apartment and was having to wash Lucy's' diapers outside in a stone tub it was so cold!  In those days there were no disposable diapers.  Mother gave her some money to hire a girl to help and she worked hard with her lessons.

Dad died March 10^th 1946 just 3 months after the wedding.  It surely broke Berthas heart not to be able to come to the funeral and held Nano responsible for not providing the way for her to come.

During the end of Sept. in 1946 a temple Arizona excursion was held and Aron escorted several people from the area of his mission. Mesa was the closest temple to Mexico.  During this excursion people from Dublan came and Mother, Aron, Pauly and Mary were sealed to Dad in the Temple.  It was much later that Bertha went to El Paso to Mesa to be sealed, something she wanted so much!

Nano and Bertha were able to rent the living quarters that the elders and sister missionaries had and were not all being used.  That was the break Bertha needed. Nano was now working in Puebla and only came on week-ends-here she was safe as the chapel was always having services of different kinds and missionaries were always around.

Bertha established herself now as a private English teacher and provided a classroom where she taught classes in the morning and at night.  She had several doctors and lawyers as students.  She soon was able to buy a washer, a stove, bedroom furniture etc.

By 1948 Nano was not coming often.  Some missionaries had told Bertha that he was escorting the queen of a certain event at the university where he taught.  I came to visit her and Bertha, Lucy and I took the bus to Puebla. When we arrived to the University the guard opened the door to his apartment and let us in.  We waited for a good while and meanwhile Bertha saw a couple of letters on the desk and she read them – she confirmed what she was so worried about.  When Nano came as usual he was picking her up – as pregnant as she was. They walked out hand in hand and I was furious with him but she really loved him and didn't face him with the problem.  Living so far from her relatives it was hard to deal with the problem even though she had so many friends.  One German family sort of adopted her and helped her so much.  Finally the time came when Bertha spoke to the mission president and after a thorough search granted her a divorce from the temple (her temple divorce was not granted until 1956).  She sold everything, which she had bought during the years and left Toluca with her two little girls and the beds and clothes she had.  When she came to El Paso she hired a lawyer and got a divorce.  When Nano came home the house was empty and Bertha was gone.  It was a foolish thing that Nano did to not fight for his home and honor and neglect his priesthood.  We never head from Nano.  The children never met him until they were grown up and married.  He never tried to do something for them.

Pauly and Lily and I were living in El Paso and helped her get established.  The main problem was getting someone to watch the children.  I got her a job at a store and one week end she went to Juarez to bring a maid back. When she found one they got on the street car and she told her to sit opposite to her, when the inspector came and asked questions she got scared and told him she was with Bertha.  That was a wrong step and they punished her to not be able to come across.  Now she lost her job.  We watched the children and some lady from church – sister Devlin- had an optical co. and she hired Bertha and allowed her to live in the top apartment from the optical, well, this was a break she found a place for the girls, she had a maid to watch them and she had a job.

I can't remember how long this took place maybe two years; we helped her to get her legal passport and the girls.  She changed the girls last name form Navas to Brown and was so bitter that she said that was the end of Navas.

We need to remember that there was still a lot of discrimination and being Hispanic was not popular.  The girls spoke only Spanish and she struggled to teach them English.

Soon after mother, Martha, and Gus helped buy a house.  We all were able to live in it.  Bertha had kept the junior beds for Nanos daughters and we let her have the Master Bedroom.  This move had a good change in our lives, we found a nursery close to where Bertha worked and we both worked at Bank's and picked up the girls after work.

In 1953 Sept. 12 I married Red Hayden and that same year Bertha met George Ferrara an army sergeant at Ft. Bliss. She married him and later moved to Michigan.  In 5-19-1955 her first son was born George, Jeffrey was born 1-4-59 and David 6-13-62. Bertha now had 2 girls and 3 boys.  Her move to Detroit was hard for her.  The winters were very harsh and she had to catch a bus to go to work, she worked to get a down payment on a house which when they moved into gave them more room.  The girls were now speaking English and Ronnie was their dad.  They were now a complete family!  Ronnie's aunts were very nice to Bertha and she often invited them for dinner.  The girls would help Bertha with the children and Ronnie having many faults was still supporting his family and being a good parent.

Bertha was always active in activities in the church and the community.  When Gov. Romney was running for office she campaigned for him (considering his roots were from, the Mormon colonies in Mexico).  She had a picture of him holding David.

Mother and I Eddie and Candy came to Detroit and visited for a week.  We had a wonderful time going to all the tourist places.  The flowers in her house were beautiful and all in all things were o.k.

Then Ronnie went overseas – Bertha was relieved – he was starting fights and knocking her around.  She almost lost David during her pregnancy.

I don't recall how long he was gone but when he returned he secretly brought back a German girl and her daughter and placed them with some relative.

Ronnie came home and started setting the way to drive Bertha to a divorce.  He was mean and violent.  Her mental attitude was so bad she couldn't go anymore.  She granted him a divorce and the same day he married his mistress from over seas.

The young family blamed Bertha for the distress and when Aunt Helen found out what Ronnie had planned she told Bertha and she went to the nearby town and got a copy of the wedding certificate, which she showed, to the girls to show them what he had done.

By this time Lucy was going to college.  Aron had been able to get her a scholarship at B.Y.U.  Bertha sold the house and moved to El Paso.  She was able to buy a nice house and they started a new home. 

Bertha started a new life in Texas.  She joined some Greek and Turkey groups that were sponsored by the service as hostess family in an effort to teach foreigners about the American way.  She stayed active in church.  She was able to control the boy's attitudes.  Jeffery went on a mission and she really was proud of him.

Bertha was a fighter – she didn't let things bring her down.  Her inspiration was to have a nice house and would work from paycheck to paycheck improving things in the house.  She invited her guests to the house and they all would bring a casserole or dessert- some Greeks would barbeque a goat the way they fixed them at home.  She would invite them to some of the senior programs and they would dance in a circle holding hands and the seniors loved it.

Bertha starting breaking down with the (like mumps) swelling on her sides and her breathing was shallow yet she worked until her last week and all the time we knew she would get out of the hospital.  Later we found that she was born with a congenital opening in her heart and she slipped away on Dec. 16, 1979.

I wish life had been kinder with her she died at 57 when she was still so young.  I miss her so much!

The first seventeen years of the life of Bertha Elizabeth Brown, as told by her on November, 1979 in Sandy, Utah.

PREFACE

Mother had been promised in several of her blessings throughout her life when she had been very ill and almost at death, that she would live long enough to raise her children.  She had seen all of her children that year and David was almost of legal age.  Her blessings were true.  We were all adults.

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I have written her story word by word from the tapes that she recorded for me.  I have tried to write the Spanish words by sounding them out.  I do not speak or read Spanish.  If you listen to the tapes while reading mothers history it might be clearer for you to understand the Spanish words and phrases. 

I hope you will be able to gain a feeling for life in the Colonies the family struggles as well as the personal struggles and inner feelings of mom.  Maybe we will be able to come to a greater understanding of her life and attitudes.  Maybe through this we will be better able to understand our selves.

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 Mother had been very ill and wanted to make sure she would get to see her namesake before she died.  When mother came she was suffering from chronic pneumonia, she had to wear an oxygen mask for the time she was here.  It was very hard for her to breath.  This altitude was very hard on her (we lived in Sandy Utah).

Mother was here for the two weeks.  She was very weak and stayed in bed most of the time, in Whitney's room.  They really enjoyed each other's company.  Mother always loved babies very much.  Whitney was about six months old and jabbered constantly.  You will be able to here her jabbering in the tapes.  Since mother was so ill, I asked her to record her life history for me.  She was very receptive to this and was grateful for the time and opportunity.  I had a hard time keeping tapes on hand.  It was very hard emotionally for her at times.

Mother left after Thanksgiving weekend to go home to El Paso, Texas.  She seemed to be in good spirits.  We really enjoyed having her with us.  She was a very fun grandmother with her grand children.  She always had big brown boxes with treats and toys and clothing for them.  They loved it.

While mother was with us she seemed to feel that she wouldn't be around much longer.  She told me in detail what color she wanted her coffin to be, what type of coffin, that she wanted a closed casket, (mother had been on cortisone medication that made her face puffy) and many other things concerning her funeral and will.

On December 16, 1979 mother passed away in El Paso, Texas.  She had been in the hospital and was going to be released that day to go home.  Minutes later she took a deep breathe and died.  We were all very surprised.  Mother was only 57 years old.

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The year mother passed away she had seen all five of her children which was very unusual.  Lucy and I live in Utah and didn't visit her very often.  Lucy and Mike had visited her in El Paso with their children in March or April 1979.  Mother had come to Utah to visit us in November 1979.  George was living in an apt. close by her and saw mother often.  Jeffery had returned from his mission to Washington State in March 1979.  David still lived at home; he was seventeen and a half years old.

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Bertha begins:

I will start the recollections of my life way back, long before I was 5 years old.  I guess I wouldn't remember that tragic thing, tragic event that made me remember these things.  The first thing as far as I go back into my life and I try to remember, the first thing I can remember is peaking out from under my mothers black veil and looking up to see the other people who were sitting around there with veils on their heads. We were all sitting around a big room an this girl about 19-20 years old Rosita Unteverro was her name, had died and we were at the Vellatha as they call it, and since we were Mormons they weren't saying all the Padre Newest the avthey (avey) Marias.  Rosary type of prayers, everybody was in silent prayer and speaking about the events that brought her to her death.

I was very, very young and I couldn't understand why they had fixed her hair so pretty and she was all dressed up so pretty and she had flowers and everyone that would come in would bring many, many flowers and put them around her coffin.  They would cry and scream; it was a very tense thing.  I couldn't understand why they seemed to be happy and bring flowers and yet they would cry so much and the tears and the crying would stop, until the next neighbor or relative would come in, then it would start all over again.  Everybody crying and screaming hollering and praying and then they would calm down.

My mother at that time still carried many of the Catholic believes.  She dressed accordingly as they did in her home town, dressed in black and covered with a black veil from the top of her head down.  Since I was her only little girl she used to take me to socials and visiting with neighbors, and things like that since the others were boys.  Seldom we'd take my brother Aaron since he was just a little boy along with us.  The next day we all went in a 2 horse carriages and my father drove our little buggy, one horse buggy with my mother, my baby brother and my self.  We went to the graveyard it seemed like we were going to a picnic, because there were several carriages and wagons going up to the graveyard.  My mother thought I was a little to excited and left me tending my baby brother Aaron in the buggy that my father had tied very carefully to a pole but I could see from where I was that they lowered the coffin where Rosita was, into the ground.  Then they all started shoveling the dirt until it was all covered with dirt.  They made like a little hill like tomb.  Everybody brought down flowers they had taken there and covered her grave with flowers.  A prayer was said my father was the Bishop or the President of the Mexican ward.  They blessed the grave and she was left there.  This was something that brought many question to my parents because I couldn't understand it.  They loved her so much, why then had they put her in that hole and why they were leaving her there.  My father and mother tried to explain it to me.  I was to young to understand but I told them I never wanted them to put me in a hole and leave me there regardless of what happened.  This was in Colonia Juarez, chih. Where we were raised.  We were not born there but brought there, by my fathers mining, and farming business and he was made the President of the Mexican Branch there, the Colonies.  This was one of the 5 Colonies, Mormon colonies.  Ninety percent of the people there were anglos or Americans, 5 % were mixed anglo or Mexican or Spanish, the other 5% were Mexican people who would ride along with the Saints.  The majority of them were Mormons L.D. S. people and we lived very near by Nva Casas Grandes and Old Cases Grandes.  Where there were many Mexican people who lived there.  They were catholic and other beliefs and they were most of them work hands for the farms of the Mormons.  We had maids at all times.  Mother had a maid that would do the washing and the ironing of the clothes and the cleaning of the house.  There would be another one that would take care of cleaning of the house and feeding the chickens.  We had animals of all kinds horses and cows when it came to milking, it was very, very interesting because there were 3 or 4 of the farm hands that would milk the cows they would bring buckets full of real hot rich milk and pour it into big milk cans that would then go to the dairy to be made into cheese butter or sold as milk to those that didn't have it.  We had many horses beautiful horses.  One thing that I remember is my mothers' horse, it was always shiny and brightly brushed.

My Mother was a 5' 4" woman.  She had very light brown hair.  In her earlier years it had been dishwater blonde hair but now her hair was very goldish, golden brown hair.  Her hazel eyes, big hazel eyes, and very, very fair. Many people tried to speak of her as a Mexican, which she wasn't.  She was born in Jiménez, Chih. She was of the Spanish and French origin but she was born a Mexican citizen.  She was not a Mexican in race.  She was very fair and very lovely and she was well educated.  She had read a lot and her education had been mostly in reading.

My father met her in Texas when she was studying to be a nurse and working at a drug store.  At this time my father had finished with the exodus where he had no wives.  His polygamy and his wives were all gone and he had been, all alone for a couple of years.  He was looking for a wife and found a very lovely young girl who was my mother Angelita Gabaldon Angela was her name. Everybody called her Angelita her nickname.  He formed his home with her in Susthad Juarez.  Then took her to Namethkeps, also in Chih.  There later on he took her and took us there where four of us, Gustovo, myself, Pauly and Aaron into the colonies we had a little black ford.  An old ford, which we soon traded in for a house, which was the house that we lived in for the rest of our lives, that we lived in the colonies.  My father was a very good tradesman.  He had something and would trade it for something he wanted and in those days that's about how you did your business.

You traded a cow for a horse or you traded a car for a house.  And he had to leave mother alone quite a bit because he still had business in Namakitha village in Chih. City, in the mines.  Where he had his other sons from his polygamy wives.  He would go back and forth leaving a young beautiful woman with four children but it was a good secure place because it was all good Mormon people and my mother was starting to learn the religion.

Mary Williams befriended my mother and she was also married to a very good anglo man.  Mary spoke both languages and started working with my mother, teaching her the gospel and my mother accepted the gospel very soon and she was able to translate the Pearl of Great Price along with Sister Williams and they would do a lot of work together like this translating the Book of Mormon and many of the church work's, they would sit for many hours in the afternoons and translate from English to Spanish, mainly news that would come from S.L.C.  My mother was made President of Relief Society very soon after her baptismal.  She carried through with the job of being President of Relief Society for many, many years, for as long as I can remember until her health gave up.  She was director of Drama and Acts, plays she was in charge of every youth activity that there was in the ward.  There was not an operetta in the colonies they had never heard of an opera or an operetta until mother came along.  She would have the highest models in place that were available in Mexico City.  She would bring the youth of the church and she would untiringly work with them in our living room, every nite, practicing their parts and showing them how to act.  They would put on some very, very well acted plays, operettas.  My mother won the respect and love of the people in the colonies by her much activity earned her respect for the church and she tried to get the talent out of who ever it was.  If it was an old man an old woman a mature woman a young lady a young girl or a young boy.  She would have them in the different plays.  She would work and work hard, until that play was ready to be set. 

People would come from the near by towns of Casas Grandes, Olanatheas, Vejay Cases Grandes to watch those plays and many times they took them to Cases Grandes to show them there.  My mother was what they would call a French Writer.

The thing I love most to remember about my mother is when I would see her riding sideways on a horse.  She had such a royal way she would get up on those horses on the side and sit there real straight.  My father had brought her some riding garb from El Paso and New Mexico.  It was some type of leather clothing that she had the riding pants and boots and she had the riding skirts and hat.  She would wear a riding jacket over her blouses and she would ride so straight.  She'd go to Cases Grandes she'd go to Romney store to get groceries and things on her horse.  She would look majestic.  I always wanted to look dignified and majestic on a horse but I never did.  It was just natural of her to do so.

I had my own horse that daddy gave me later on.  I was a very good horseback rider.  But I had to sit with both legs one on each side to hang on to the horse and I remember many times when the horse got away with me and would ride, but he never knocked me down but I remember one time when Mary decided one time she'd go riding with me and the horse jumped the ditch by Delfinas ditch and sat her there in the water.  I was a good 20 minutes before I could go get her because the horse had gotten out of control and would not stop.  There were many other things that I would like to mention about my mother.  My Father used to say, there's not a better cook a better baker in the whole world.  She learned the Mormon ways of baking bread, plus she had her own ways of making different foods and things she had brought back from home in El Paso, New Mexico, Jiménez Chih. Where she had lived with her mother.  But she learned to make cakes and cookies, pies and hot breads and she would make bread twice a week.

I'll never forget how many piggy back rides I got from Ashton and from the Longhursts, Preston Longhursts mainly, I'll give you a piggy back ride if I can have a nice big thick slice of your mothers homemade bread.  When we were coming from school we could smell that delicious bread that mother had just baked.  Then he would give me a piggyback ride all the way from his home to ours.  He'd get a big slice of hot bread with fresh churned butter and oh that was heaven to eat.  Those boys had lost their mother when they were younger and they knew to appreciate my mothers bread.  I used to go and get out yeast from Sister Blueth.  She lived about 4-5 blocks from where we lived.  My mother would give me a jar to go and get the yeast.  It was 10 cents in the beginning, later o it was 25 cents to go get it.  A quart of yeast was 25 cents.  This would keep my mother going till the following week.  She'd add potatoes and a little sugar some more water to it, flour to it a whole lot of it.  And she'd always have some left over for the next time. I remember many times taking a little sip of that yeast while I was skip scotching, coming home.  My mother was a very, very active woman, a hard workingwoman there wasn't a thing Mormons knew how to make that she didn't learn how to make them.  She would can all the strawberries, raspberries, mulberries to make pies, grapes, peaches, apricots, pears, apples you name it and we had it in our orchard.  Mother would put it up in jars she learned how to make jams and jellies and cajetas.  She would take the quince and make cajeta that would last the year that we could slice with hot bread and butter and eat.  There was always cookies in her cookie jar when we came home from school.

There was also many chores for us to do.  When the milkman would milk the cows in the morning, they would take the milk directly to the dairy. But the milk that was milked at nite we'd spread it out in big pans, big tubs and in the morning we'd take out with a big spoon or ladle.  We'd take out the cream from the top and later we would churn it into butter.  Every nite we were to pump the water that was in the little porch near the kitchen and we were to bring 4-5 bucket fulls of cold fresh water.  We were also to bring the wood in; the wood was cut by the peons the farm hands.  Our obligation was to bring the wood inside the house in the box next to the wood stove.  Mother had a big wooden box where we would put enough wood to warm the house up and to cook the meals.

There were many chickens and ducks and goats and lambs and dogs and cats and everything else to feed.  Mother would never permit a dog or a cat to come inside the house, but we had them all outside and when we went outside I remember mother having a big bucket with cracked corn or wheat to feed the chickens and how they recognized her an how they surrounded her.  I used to love to go outside with her to help her because all those chickens would come right to us.  We had another chore we'd get a basket and we'd pick those great big eggs from over all the many nests, sometimes we'd have 2-3 big baskets full of eggs we'd bring in every afternoon.  And we' take these to Casas Grandes or to the store, the Romney store and sell them.  Many people by themselves would come to our home to buy milk, eggs and fruit in the time when we had fruit in the time when we had fruit of all kinds.  We had people coming in to buy fruit from us all the time.  We sold peanuts we raised many, many peanuts that we' have ready for sale, we raised lard hogs and these hogs would come to a certain weight and be killed and they'd make lard.  We'd have several pans of lard that would be ready to be sold to different stores.  We'd also sell pig skins and of course my father was real good at curing hams he had big barrels, wooden barrels with ties around them and he'd fix those barrels with vinegar and oil and spices of different kinds that I can't remember.  He'd put the pork legs in there and different parts of the pork and make ham and make bacon so we were never short of food when we were in the colonies.  Any little male bull that was born, those little calves were left to take the milk from their mothers 1-2 weeks or less and killed real young that was our veal we had plenty of meat.  Sometimes we'd kill a bigger bull for meat, we had turkeys we either had a big turkey dinner or pork dinner or a chicken dinner every Sunday.  Vegetables we had of all kinds.  Mother took care of the vegetables she always saw to it we always had plenty of carrots and peas, green beans, potatoes were brought from the other farm, we had fresh turnips, beets you name it, if there was something to eat we had it.  We never lacked for food we always had the bread and milk butter and cheese and everything else you wanted. 

My father was an older man, my mother made up for his age.  My father never gave up he was a hard workingman.  He'd get up early in the mornings have breakfast and was gone with the work hands into the farms to work and he never learned the language, but he made himself understood and he would go out there and work just as hard as they would until in the later years when he would just tell them how to do it.  He was a hard workingman.  He would get on his horse and he'd go up there and supervise all the work and he had alfalfa and wheat.

Of my younger recollections I can also remember something that's very strong in my mind.  That I'll never forget.  We used to hop and skip to school to primary and to everything that we went to nothing was paved.  We'd run on the sidewalk and then there was a ditch of water and then the street where the wagons and horses would go and then another ditch with running water to the farms and then a sidewalk and I took 6-7 blocks from my house to school.  We used to go to primary Sunday school and church to the tithing building which was right in the corner of the main schoolhouse, which later on was sold to the Trareen family.  As I was arriving primary this afternoon I saw this huge fire and the blazes seemed to go all the way to heaven.  It was scary; it was interesting if it hadn't been for the Primary teachers to keep us away maybe great harm could have become us.

There was only one hotel in the colonies and this was Mary Spenser's Hotel, she was also a midwife that delivered most of the babies in the colonies.  Something happened and her hotel that was 3 or 4 stories high went into fire and you could see around the window the curtains going into fire and going up high and the walls coming down and when they would come down with all the fire and smoke and the blazes seemed to go higher and higher.  There were men from the L.D.S. people and others that came around but all they could do was throw water with buckets.  No fire dept. or anything else not even running water from hoses.  The only thing we could do would be to get the water from the pumps, pump the water and then some of the running water from the ditches and that was about all.  That was worthless the efforts were worthless and it was almost criminal to get by it because the blazes were so high it looked beautiful it looked powerful it looked scary and it almost looked diabolic, destruction.  I remember in my very early years the comment of the primary teachers and all other members of the colonies who came near by and would speak about it.  It burned and burned the whole day the whole afternoon and the whole nite until it was just shattered, ashes, broken bricks burnt wood.  It was a very sad time for the colonies.  Many of the trees that grew around the hotel also burnt down.

We used to meet at this tithing house and that's where the bishops, their counselors, Pres. Of the branch would get together and count the tithes and the food donation coming in and everybody in the colonies came to be very well taken care of.  You never knew if there were any people there among the saints because they all seemed to have enough to eat and were all well dressed and kept.  My parents would send us later on to kindergarten to the main school and this was the American school with teachers who would come graduated from the B.Y.U.  And we did have always a Spanish teacher who would teach us Spanish which was not very much we had to pick up the Spanish from the maids and the farm hands but my parents in their intelligence and not letting us want to be idle at any time.  When school was out for vacation the Mexican school would start and there, my mother went to register us for Mexican school.  We had to take Mexican history, Mexican geography and Mexican grammar.  This was right after school so we always put in a very full day because after our regular classes we would go to the Mexican school and this was not something other children had to do and it was very few like the Alverases, sometimes the Gonzales and Spenser Thames and us the Browns.  We were all of a Spanish, French or Mexican mother that were interested that we learned the Spanish traditions and the Spanish language so we had to do this.  Oh now the summer time came and we thought oh boy now is the resting time and its picnic time and we can go have ourselves a good time.  Oh no mother already had us registered for sewing lessons embroidery lessons, criss cross lessons you name it we went to sister Mary Williams house and for 2-3 hours in the morning, we took lessons from her then we took our lunches with us.  We ate at noon and went right next door to Mrs. Ila Deloros who was a retired Spanish grammar teacher that had from someplace in the south and had come to live in the Mormon Colonies she was a very refined woman at the time of Porfideo.  This very well lectured very educated and this was what mother wanted us to learn she didn't want us speaking our Spanish half way or the way they taught it in the American schools or even at the Mexican school she wanted us to learn about all the heros of Mexico, about the history, geography, arts, and crafts.  They taught us how to make the box spring for a dolls bed a baby's bed a mattress hand made and tied, embroidered all sheets all the linens all the pillowcases, make the pillows, everything.  We learned to make the clothing for babies or dolls from the first diaper to the last little dress and bonnet and this was our summers.

That doesn't mean we didn't go hunt picnics because mother took care that on Saturdays she would take us in the buggy and we would go to a real nice picnic to the river.  She had chicken in different ways all the time she had all kinds of goodies for us to eat in the picnics.  She always had a lot of good bread, pastries, fruit and vegetables; we would have a good time.  She always loved the mountains very much.  In the summer time the time of the beyotas we would go to the mountains with the Pontiverdos family, would also take there great big wagon and we would all ride together and they'd go deer hunting, they'd bring wild turkeys, and all of us kids would pick beyotas now is the word in English nuts anyway we'd have great big bag fulls that we'd bring home and we'd have them for the winter and we'd have so much fun because we'd cook and barbeque everything out there in the mountains.  We'd bring deer to have fresh deer for a while and then dry deer.  Daddy has special ways that he'd cut deer and slice it and hang it up and mother had made some covers out of screen and the screen would cover it so the flies didn't get to it.  The meat would dry right in the sun and when it was nice and dry and hard they would pack it into our large hardware plus food storage room.  They would do the same thing with turkey and we'd have so much turkey and wild duck that it was just wonderful to live in those days when we could go up there in the mountains and feel so free and we'd sing, we'd sing so many beautiful songs.  There is where my mothers stories came in, never in my life have I heard of a better storyteller.  Everybody seemed to hurry up and do their chores at home, eat their dinner and come over to our house in the wintertime.

We didn't have a fancy living room it was a small living room we had large bedrooms because my 3 brothers took one bedroom and Grandma Mary, mothers mother, and then later on Mary and I had the other bedroom.  Daddy had his own bedroom.  The kitchen was very, very large with a real big black stove, a wood stove with a big crate of wood with a long, long table.  You could sit 12 people on each side of the table with benches instead of chairs just a chair at the foot and head of the table.  Daddy sat at the head and I sat on the bench right next to him.  That was my favorite place, right next to daddy.  I was daddy's little girl.  I was a very happy girl.  He never did spank me.  That wasn't because I wasn't a naughty girl, because I could get into so much trouble.

I was a tomboy.  I had no sister.  It was Gus, Pauly, Aaron and all their boyfriends, Hector, Spenser, Elmo Robinson, Mc Lown Boy Laudro, Benito, Fletcher Memmot, Marion Robinson, Bud Taylor and all those boys that used to hang around my brothers.  Father used to say, "You're not going if you don't take your sister".  So you must know my brother especially Gus didn't like me very much, he hated having Bertha tagging along after him and his friends wherever they went.  If they went swimming I went swimming.  If they went up the trees, I went up the trees with them.  They were fishing I was fishing with them.  They were horseback riding there I was.  Hop scotch there I was.  Playing marbles my hands were just as crusty and as cracked as theirs.  Because I played marbles with them, Jacks, anything kick the ball, stilts, we'd walk to school in stilts and Bertha never said no to anything and Bertha was right along with all the boys doing all the things the boys were doing.  My brother Gus resented me all the time.  Pauly was 2 years younger than I and he was always patient and good and he felt sorry for Bertha and Bertha was a meany.  I didn't let anybody run over me.  If they did I took care of telling daddy about it.  It didn't happen again but if I was left behind, Pauly would always hang loose behind and kind of wait around for me.  When we went to the movies that was very interesting.  There was no movies in the colonies.  We had to go to Neueva Casas Grandes to go to the movies and that took going on the railroad tracks.  So we jumped and laughed, told jokes counted posts and jumped all the way on the railroad tracks form Dublan to Cases Grandes to go to the movies if they didn't take Bertha along they couldn't go.  So Bertha was always there.  I was a little older than Pauly a little stronger and Pauly and I grew up pretty close together.  He was not a bully like the rest of the boys and Gus was always bossy and a bully.  He always tried to tell us what to do whether we liked it or not.  Aaron began to go to the movies with us also.  He'd kind of stay behind and cry and whine and cry and whine and Pauly and I would have to wait for him and then come back and tell daddy on Gus that he would leave us behind and run around with his friends so if he did it again he was punished not to go again.  So then we couldn't go either so most of the time he got away with murder because we wouldn't tell daddy so he wouldn't punish him so we could go again.  The movies were sometimes in English and sometimes in Spanish.  But it sometimes took a long time, like an hour to get there an hour to get back so we didn't go to them very often but often enough so that we didn't miss the good movies.  Gus was my oldest brother and he always wanted things done his way and therefore he and I had a lot of opposition, because I had my way of thinking and Aaron and Pauly would more less go along with what Gus said but not me.  I always had to argue with him.  I always seemed to see things a little different and we'd argue.  I was a girl and he didn't like me I  remember one time how he stole me out of the toilet, we had an outhouse.  In those days where wasn't anything like a bathroom inside the house.  When we took a bath on Saturday nite we filled the tub with hot water, we heated up on the wood stove.  Put some cold water in it and we'd circle chairs around the tub with sheets and towels so no one could see us and we'd take our bath.  This was our Saturday bath.  But to go to the john we had to go behind the chicken coop, behind the warehouse where we had an out house with 2 holes and there we sat down and did our business and I had come to an age that I could read a lot and the boys would bring true stories and love stories some times they were just in the beginning funnies, comic things.  I would sit there and forget what I had gone for and I'd sit there and read and read and read.  Gus would shout to me "get out of there Bertha" and I wouldn't come out and so then he starts throwing stones at the outhouse where as if I wanted to come out or not I couldn't because I had stones being thrown at that outhouse from the side, front, and back from all over so there I was screaming and shouting until one of the farmhands would run over to my mother or father and say they've got Bertha, stoning her in the toilet and she can't come out, because they're throwing rocks at her.  Then another thing would happen they'd (my parents) would go and get me out and the boys would be punished.  So there was another reason not to like Bertha.

I remember doing naughty things to mother.  Mother would always turn me over to daddy.  If daddy wasn't around she would chase me.  She would chase my brothers with a whip or with a piece of branch from one of the trees and that was our punishment.  She'd get us, you can be sure your back and your legs were marked for a long time cuz she would give us a good beating.  I tried to stay away from my mothers' beatings because she was a very strong woman and when she would get angry she'd let me know it.  On the other hand my daddy never put a hand on me.  I was his sweetheart and at his saddest with me he'd say "sweetheart come in here we've got to talk".  He'd either be laying on his soft chicken feathered mattress or his rocking chair, but when he's say to me we've got to speak I knew I was in very much trouble.  My mother had all ready come to him and had told him what a bad girl I was.  He would look at me with those deep beautiful blue eyes that he had and he would ask me one question "why sweetheart why" and then and there I'd start crying and making excuses and apologizing and trying to change the story but my father wouldn't contradict me, he would let me talk and talk and say all I wanted to say and then he'd say now you know it was not like that now lets start all over again and you tell me why did you do this and why did you do that and that was worse than if he had taken a whip after me.  My mother would take the whip after me and my brothers and off to bed we'd go or whatever and that was the end of it.  She'd do a lot of screaming and yelling and that was it.  But to sit in judgment of my dear father sitting there not hitting you just giving you a chance to square yourself away was very hard.  You couldn't lie to daddy not with those deep blue eyes of his you couldn't make excuses.  There was no excuses for whatever we had done wrong.  There was only the truth you had to tell him the truth and that was real punishment and then the next morning he would hot have his hand over my hand when we'd say the blessing on the food.  He would not play with me or fuss with my hair when we were eating breakfast.  He would not come by my bed and caress me and he'd give me this kind of punishment for 2 or 3 days. It seemed eternities and that was the worst punishment I could have ever had.  Until daddy would again look at me and hold my hand and call me sweetheart again I was not at ease.  So any time I would prefer to take the punishment from mother.  I remember one time that I had spilled the berries and she went after me with the whip and I was barefooted and came to a patch of slivers, where there was no way if I'd go in there I'd have slivers all over my feet for weeks, so I knew she was coming she was right behind me but I just stood there and folded my arms and when she saw I wasn't gong to go into the slivers she stopped and I'll never forget how she laughed at me.  She laughed and laughed because I was between the sword and the wall no way out.  So she just gave me on little whip.

I'm in my religious part of life.  If you had lived in the colonies you know that most of it is religion, you would go to primary, and learn about Jesus and being good boys and girls.  We'd go to S. S. we'd go to Sacrament mtg. My mother would attend R.S., M.I.A. mtg. My father was at priesthood mtg. or Bishopric mtg. My brothers were at Aronic priesthood mtg. Deacons, Boy Scouts and I was with the Beehives.  We were a very active family and we belonged to everything and to top it off since my father had accepted being the Pres. of the Mexican ward we belonged to both. I went to primary on wed. to the American ward and spoke in primary the next day on Thursday I'd go to the Mexican ward and be a teacher.  So as far as I can remember I was a teacher about 9 years old and would get the lesson in English one day and translate it into Spanish the next day.  Something with S. S. lessons.  There I had a little more difficulty because sometimes It was too close to the hour of one class to the other.  But when it came to M.I.A. I took my 3 years of Beehive lessons from Sister Call.  She was Anthon B. Calls wife.  Still from the polygamy time, she was the sweetest woman, full of the graces of the lord she had so much knowledge and so much love and she always saw to it that I learn my lesson well, and paid special attention to my lario because she knew that as I was 12 years old and I was learning that lesson from her that I was to deliver that some lesson the next day to a group of Mexican speaking girls.  Among these girls was Rowina Gonzalas, Lillia Gonzalas, who was Paulys wife, Mary Brown my own sister, Rose Dondeagoes, Velia Dondeagoes and many other girls who were 3 or 4 years younger than I, yet I must teach them the lessons from the Beehive.  This wise full of knowledge woman would give to me.  So I being a Leo, being a leader and I was not dumb I was never dumb I was a smart girl and I knew the responsibility I had and I had special books, special notes, sheets and Sister Call would always give me her special little notes she had taken in studing her lessons so that I would have it to deliver my lesson.  In my second year of teaching Beehive she was able to get me a handbook which I could study during the week and when she would give us the lesson if there was something I had not quite understood I could ask her.  She would always keep me for cookies and milk or punch after all the girls would leave.  So we could discuss in which way I was going to give my lesson and then I would have a house full of girls the next day and my mother was very patient with me because of course she had the same activities.  She had to teach the women in R.S. she would teach the youth in Arts in M.I.A. so she was very willing to help me to teach the younger girls of our ward.  They were all very nice girls from very nice families.  They were very cooperative and enjoyed taking their lessons.  They didn't mind having such a young teacher.  Because I made myself respected and since I was the Bishops daughter that kind of helped.  The only one that would get out of hand once in a while was my own sister Mary Brown.  Sometimes she'd try to show off but father and mother soon taught her that she must respect me at the time I was teaching the lesson.  Because at that time I was not her sister I was her teacher.  Then she did fall right in with the other girls.  I did teach them for 3 years in a row until they graduated and then they gave me another group that I was able to teach for 2 years, before I left to go on my mission.  But going back in those years when I was just a tomboy and I was with my brothers all the time.  One day one glorious day I came home to find out that mother had delivered a baby girl and that was a very happy time of my life when I was able to go into the big bedroom and kiss mother.  I could see she had a big doll lying right next to her, her name was Mary.  She didn't have any hair you could see, she was very white and she had big brown eyes, she was very, very fair and she was fatso.  She was nice and cuddly and beautiful.  But it was hands off the baby I would have loved to grab her and dance with her played around with her but I didn't know you didn't do that with babies and Grandma Mary let me know very quick, if you want to see the baby you sit near the baby, you wash your hands I had to comb my hair, wash my face, hands, and be at the cleanest.  If I wanted to sit near the bed where my little baby sister lay.  Mother lay there so proud of her baby.  Now I really felt happy because now I had a baby sister, but my problems of identification started getting greater at that time.  My brothers in a way of teasing me and getting best out of me that is Gus my brother would say that I was not their sister that in one if the pilgrimages in which the Mexican soldiers would go right by our house they had dumped this little bundle and mother had picked it up and that was me.  Since I was the only dark one in the family I sometimes wondered if it was true, that I was preintheeado lucindatha like Gus used to call them, he would hurt me so much.  I don't think there is a bother that would ever hurt a sister as much as my brother Gus hurt me because he always made me feel as if I was the odd one, the black duckling in the family that I didn't belong and now there was a baby sister coming into the family and she was as white as white as she could be and I started to wonder could it be true that mother was not my mother and then at that time I started to notice that of course my mother had to double her attention to that little baby sister to my little brother Aaron who was still a baby boy.  The other boys seemed to have so many problems that mother always had to take care of for Grandma. Grandma Mary would always help me to get dressed, get my clothes, help me with my hair the maids usually combed my hair.  Daddy was always helping me to tie my bows, tie my dress and button up my dress. I was daddy's girl, daddy's sweetheart.  But mother always seemed to have more time for all the others than for myself.  This is at a time a very serious time in my life I started wondering how much truth there was to Gustavos stories about me being given away and me being an adopted child.  One day as I sat in my fathers rocking chair and I began to cry and tell him about the things that really bothered me and about what Gus would tease me about he told me, if anyone around here is my daughter that is you, you are the only one that is more of a Brown, you are like me with exception of your eyes.  You notice your face is like mine your hair is like mine, you are built like me and then he showed me some very peculiar birth marks that he had that I had, that my other brothers and sister did not have.  There's a red mark between our eyebrows that I am the only one in my father's family that have it.  I of course have passed it on to my children.  There are certain birthmarks that I have on my body exactly like my father in the same places and he told me if the children are light it is because of your mothers French and Spanish heritage.  Your mother was always a dish water blonde a whetta blondish, and that's why the children are like that.  They are not like that because of me.  I am the Anglo yes, Irish and English and although his skin was very white and his eyes were blue his hair was very black very dark, if you see the children of my other wives you will notice the resemblance you have with my other children and the resemblance you have with my mother and my sisters.  You look very much like my own mother with the exception you have your mothers eyes.  That was all I needed to have the reassurance that mother had not picked me up form the ditch where the army had thrown me away and I began to be closer and closer to my father knowing I belonged to him.  As I look back into my life, I realize I was very independent from the very early years.  I didn't need much help, I would like to get dressed alone, have my hair fixed alone, do my things alone.  I was very much of a leader.  I didn't need all the help my brothers needed and of course my little sister and that is why mother didn't pay all the attention to me that she had to pay to them, but looking back into my life and wondering if mother really loved me like she loved the others.  I carried those resentments through out a big part of my life.  To father I was fathers sweetheart fathers love but mother, where did I belong in mothers life, she was to busy with the others.  Was she really to busy with the others or did she care very much for them and not enough for me.  But in my recollections of life, my mother was a woman that gave names to people she loved if she really loved a maid she would give her a name nobody else would recognize her by, but we in the family knew who she was because this is the name she would give them.  I remember a little boy one of our maid had Manuel and she called him Ramon and the little boy could hardly speak he would repeat that whole name and then he would get a sucker from my mother after he had repeated the name my mother had given him.  She called another boy one of the Ayella boys Coco Fa Demacho and that boy is a grown man now and everyone knows him by that name.  O.K. she gave me the most beautiful name she could ever give anyone because of her French heritage and of how she loved the French people and French customs and the hymn for the French country is La Ma Se Es and she always told us with great pride of how Mexicans and Americans didn't seem to have the pride or the dignity or what is needed when you see the flag from your country and she would tell us many times how the Frenchmen when they would hear La Ma Se Es they would stand up and put their hands up in the air and sing with all their might and with happiness they were free  people they were gay and they were smart and she thought that was the most beautiful hymn there was in the whole world because the people of that country and made it so beautiful, because they would respect it and become so gay and beautiful and full of dignity.  This is what mother thought of me.  They thought I was the most beautiful girl in the colonies.  She thought I was the most beautiful girl in the colonies.  She thought I was the most beautiful girl and she gave me the name of Lama Yesa which I am known through out these years.  Anyone related to the family knows who Lama Yesa is because she thought I was full of arrogance, pride, beauty, self-respect, adorable and any thing else you want to add to that.  She really thought I was a beautiful girl and many times I didn't think she liked me because I was dark and all my other brothers and sister with light complexion and blue or green eyed and many times back in my life it hurt and I wondered if my brother Gus had any reason at all to say I didn't belong and I was very hurt by him throughout these many years.  Even though my daddy made me see later on how mistaken I was and how I should have brought it to his attention long before, but I was afraid he would say well yes you were adopted or we picked you up and I didn't want to hear this so I didn't want to bring it up and I'm sorry now that I didn't because my life would have been a much happier life had I known I was daddies and mother real daughter.  Gus always tried to run away from us he was with the family and he was gone away from the family he didn't want to seem to stick around with Pauly, Aaron, and then Mary but there were times he wouldn't miss being at home for anything in the world and that would be of course eating time and story telling time and game time.  Then Gus was there with the rest of us as I said before mother had many talents and one of her greatest talents was being a good storyteller.  In those days the church had not established a family nite in which the member of the family participated and someone tells a story. But mother invented that all her self like I say we had a very large rustic table in our eatery area, kitchen, dining room whatever and it wasn't just us that would hurry about dinner time and cleaning off that table but there was the Unteverous and Moffats and Ayalas and maybe others that would come to listen to mothers stories.  Hector Spenser, Alberto Thayne, would come and sit around and that big table and there wasn't one story of the thousand and one night that mother didn't tell us she could almost see those Arabians dressed up in their gallant outfits and their big horses.  The open- says a me- we could see that door opening that big rock we could see in our imagination mother would carry us into those far away lands that we had never heard about and she would tell us about stories about Greece the great anka da Turkey the Arabian nights in Arabian countries the Jordanians, the Indians, Africans the French and she had such great knowledge of stories of literature of different countries, different poets that she would go one nite from a faraway country back up there in Turkey the Great Constantinople  that belonged to Greece and was taken away by the Turkish she would let us know about these faraway countries these far away people that we had never heard about and we just sat there with open mouths amazed at the beautiful stories that she would bring to life and enrich our simple lives in the colonies.  The next nite it would be a story from the Old Testament.  An she in her very young experience in the Mormon church was tickled to death to be able to read the Bible, to be able to look into books that had been forbidden to her all her life. A Catholic does not

Read the bible not in those days but now mother had the bible in her own hands and she could sit there and read and read and at nite she would tell us from the beginning of the world, how the lord formed the earth how he formed men and Adam and Eve how we all came to this world and every night it would be a different chapter a different story.  We learned to love and appreciate the Bible because of mothers stories the stories maybe would've been told to us by school teachers, S.S. teachers and primary teacher but they could never be told like mother told them.  Seemed like in S. School and primary you had to listen to them.  Sometimes they were interesting and sometimes they weren't.  Sometimes they were confusing and when we would come and ask mother about a story a school teacher or a primary teach told us, she would straighten us up about that story fast.  She would get her bible out and that nite she would tell us that story like it should have been told in the first place by the primary teacher that left a lot out or that just didn't have the time or the talent mother had.  This is the way we learned about how Jesus Christ was born and came to the earth to be our savior.  She didn't leave out any details and as she told it to us little by little nite after nite it grew as part of our lives and we enjoyed this very much.  My mother was a healthy woman the most part of her life until later on which I don't want to remember but as I was growing there was a healthy woman a hard working woman, enthusiastic she would sometimes in the warm nights put a tent Luna outside in our yard we didn't have a pretty lawn or anything like that but we would be there under the stars and even the work men Hank Flores, Has Sanchez and others would come and sit around, stand around and listen to mothers stories of ancient customs and ancient times.  We also were united in our child hood by the same group that would come listen to mothers stories and would enthuse us into going out and playing games like run sheepy run and we had much older girls like Fefya Anteherdos, Estel , Juanita, Vehenia the Moffats, the Longhursts, Hector Spencer, Marion, Elmo Robinson, Fletcher others that would come and true friends at that time of our life we would set up sides and one side was suppose to stay, one group was suppose to stay in the middle of the road where we would play between Yet Everos house and our house and we would all sit in the middle of the road and just council and talk while the others were suppose to run away and hide and they would hide in the ditches behind the trees and house and they were suppose to leave signals at different places where we were suppose to pick up a signal that the captain would come back and would kind of signal where it would say we had turned left we have turned up or something that maybe would confuse us and we'd go left and right and turn as it said but not in the right direction and meanwhile they were running and sneaking out on us.  By the time that they would get back home with out us catching them or finding them we could here them shout run sheepy run.  They were running towards home and we were running to catch them and then we'd take turns doing it.  Then it would be us that would hide and we really grew a comradeship a real close unison in this type of games we would not betray each other we would be faithful to each other and we always wanted our side to win of course so there would be no fights among us.  Mother would always see to it that captains would change in the games and that different ones were picked out every time we'd play the game.  The captains would take turns in picking the players that we wouldn't become enemies like we belonged to one group they belonged to another group and who we were faithful for that nite for that game, to our group.  We used to play many, many games.  Halloween was a lot of fun.  Halloween was nothing like it is now of course it was terrible because in those days we would take in a pail rotten apples rotten squash and people who didn't treat us nice and who didn't give us a treat we'd smear windows and knock down their out house.  We'd turn their little bridges upside down and we'd let the cattle out of their fences and we were just a bunch of terrible, terrible kids.  I remember the shop the Genders had that was way down town in Dublan we had no business running that far out to play tricks on Halloween but we did and they had a fancy one of the very few nice cars in the colonies and we went to knock at their door and we were all looking ugly and crazy and they didn't know what the custom was all about an so they threw us out of their house with not very pleasant words but we made up for it, because their car was all washed up with pumpkin, rotten pumpkin and apples and tomatoes.  The next day when they went to complain about what happened to the car, they found out it had been Halloween nite and that nobody was to be punished for that because this was the custom.  Many people the next day had to put their outhouses back up and many had to go look for heir cows to milk, because they had been let out, of course we the ones who were the craziest ones we were not going to do it to our own and who was going to dare expose or harm the big group.  We were a large group and so our out houses were not turned over our bridges our cattle was not let out because they feared us.  We were a nice little gang and we used to have a lot of fun but we wouldn't do bad things on other days.  We did plenty on Halloween nite so that everybody would remember us for the whole year, feared us to come back at next year but then we'd turn good and we were all nice and the same bad group that would do this at Halloween would get together and bring fruit and nuts and peanuts and different things from our homes and put them together and make baskets out of grocery cartons and take them out to the poor laborers, an old woman an old man an old family, poor family that lived on the other side of the track and so we were also known for being gentle and good around thanksgiving not to speak about Christmas. Christmas in the colonies was like Halloween here something similar here to Halloween the kids dress up and they go from door to door and ask trick or treat an you come out and give them candy, candy and apples, cookies all kinds of goodies.  Well the Mexican people from the surrounding out skirts of the colonies and people from Casas Grandes would come on Christmas morning and say Meys Christmas that meant they wanted their Christmas and maybe that was all they were going to get but father was ready for them, father was always ready for them.  Weeks and weeks before Christmas came along he had us and other work hands and the maids helping to sack for the families that worked for us on the farms and in the house special bags of you name it, potatoes, carrots, peanuts, apples, pears, and other kind of fruit in season and daddy would often throw in some oranges that he would go to El Paso to take for the Holidays and he would always take hard tack candy he would always make us make two bags of hard tack candy to give to the families and to the children and his people came first early in the morning the and the mother with all their children would come.  Daddy was sitting early bright and early like a Santa Claus and he'd sit in the front porch with these bucket and tubs, big tubs filled with bags and bags.  He had names on these great big gunnysack bags.  Where it said for the Laya family, for the Gusievlo family for the Flores family or whatever and with some of this Christmas stuff many times he gave a little calf a male calf that could be killed and they could have a big festivity for Christmas and the New Year season to another family he would give them a duck a couple of rooster fryers.  There was so much food in abundance and if we had killed and this was the custom to kill 3,4,5 pigs to sell the lard and we had many pork skins and who in the colonies didn't like pork skins.  Daddy would have us bag this up in small bags to give out to everybody so daddy was really the real Santa Claus of the colonies.  This is what made him happy he never even had time to go inside and have breakfast we'd bring him out some hot porridge, hot cereal, hot choc, something that he could drink outside on the porch because he was not going to miss the smile of one of those children that would come and he didn't want anyone to come by on Christmas day and see that daddy was not on that front porch giving out giving out and giving out father gave so much that, was why he was never a rich man.  He was always giving of himself and of every thing else he had.  He not only was the Bishop of the ward, the President, their ulto verde as he called it, no he was not only that he was a Dr. Who had a pain, who had an ache that didn't come for father to take care of it.  Not only that but the medication included he was also the Dentist.  How people would come to him with out a penny in their pocket and have daddy pull out their teeth.  Oh those molars, how some of them were so rotted, how some of them would leave it to the last moment when it was critical for daddy to have to take their molars out and he would include the medication.  Not a penny, there was never a charge and daddy was always going to Casas Grandes to get medicines.  He was always coming to El Paso to get different types of medicines to kill the pain and to help how many times they came to daddy to ask him because somebody was having a lot of trouble, might have a baby an daddy was not home, Mother would get in that one horse buggy and their she goes with out any experience with out any thing only to help to be available to boil water to have clean sheets an she would say to the maids don't worry about it when the time comes (yo departo) I'll deliver your baby and they'd say oh no, no and she'd say it as a joke but how many times it turned out true and scared her to death because she had to do it.  Like I say when my father met her she was taking nursing lessons and she was going to nursing school and also working at a pharmacist in El Paso, she was a very young girl and she never learned anything about delivering babies or midwife or anything of the sort, but then she was to help the poor to help the needy many times both of my parents were called blessed because of what they would do. 

Among all this beauty and this goodness the colonies in those days, not so much now but yes there was a lot of discrimination in the colonies it was bad very bad and either you were or you weren't, and if you tried to be in between you had a fight all your life.  There were the Thaynes, Oliver Thayne, Elmer Thayne and his wife that had Lillian, Lupe, Beatrice and Albert, Doris.  I don't remember if I am leaving someone out.  They did have a couple of twins.  That also she was anglo and he was Spanish.  Then of course there was us, father but us worse that all the others.  Father had been related by polygamy to the majority of the families in the colonies and that way wasn't taken easy.  That was something that discriminated him because he used to be their relative and now he was not their relative and how dare he come back into the colonies with a young beautiful woman fair young, strong, intelligent and say this is my wife when the polygamy was over.  His wives were old his wives were gone back to the states their was a Skousen and he was also married to a Blueth and there families formed if not the most important, close to the most important families of the colonies.  When the exodus came about and my father had to divide his goodies among all his wives, his children and there at another part of my story I'll mention something more about his excommunication from the church with didn't last long and he came back into the church. His wives were already gone to the states, they were taken care of by what he had left them.  He had many children.  There were 32 of us and he took care of his duties with his wives and with his families.  Now after so many years he comes back into the colonies as a Bishop in the church with a young beautiful wife.  Intelligent well read well educated.  They wanted to call her a Mexican and she would say yes I am Mexican because she was born in Chih. Mexico and Jiménez Chih.  She was a Mexican citizen and she did descend from Mexican people that called them selves this for less explanation as to how there origin really came about and how they were descended of French and Spanish but it never faced mother to say I am Mexican and if they want her to be Mexican it's all right with her that didn't bother her one bit, Mexican, French, Spanish, American, Anglo one was just as good as the other to her and there were so many that were just white trash that she would not want to be numbered among them so mother took people as they were and not because of the nationality or the blood that ran in their veins and she taught us to have love for everyone, and she sent us to school so that we would learn to respect and appreciate Mexico and the Mexicans, where we were born raised and where we were being educated that we would learn about the good Mexicans about the good Spaniards about the good French about the good Anglo about the good Americans, and to learn to distinguish the difference between one and the other. That we were all sons and daughters of Christ, of God.  Brothers and sisters of Christ and that there was no difference between one and the other unless our education our actions our deeds made us different.  That is where we differed one from another.  But the discrimination was something very hard to fight against, very hard. In among the families that had been daddies top relatives because of his wives looked at this new family with envy with jealousy hoping they could just erase us our of their minds and some of their understanding of us, our problems later on loving us through mothers example through knowing mother and what a hard Relief Society worker she was and how many years she served the church as president of the Relief Society.  She set her example to all the them; if you need help I am going to give you help.  I'm going to give the best I can regardless of what color, what nationality you come from an she lived by this and people knew they could come to her and trust her and father was very proud, very humble to see that his wife had become such a heroin in the colonies, a hard worker and set an example to those who would have liked to cut her down.  The discrimination was worse off since my father was named President of the Mexican ward because mothers English was not that good although like I said before she and sister Williams translated the Pearl of Great Price, worked a lot in Doctrine and Covenants and other books that later on Bro Valedares verifies and published but it was mother and Sis. Williams work.  But because father was the President there and we would go there and our acquaintances from church our ties were much stronger with the Mexican-speaking people than it was with the American-speaking people although our schooling was all in the American schools.  Our church ties were with the Mexican people.  Many people didn't know how to take us, didn't know how to consider our origin and for this we had many fights of which I will tell you of, a couple of them just to let you know how we fought for our identity.  There were many times when girls would come up to me, these girls who were paying their tuition.  They were not Mormons but they came in from Nuevo Casas Grandes and from old Cases Grandes and they say " Bertha what are you Mexican or American, in the beginning I would say American of course later on I leaned to say (quatarona) which is half and half.  So that we wouldn't get into big fights of pulling hair and kicking and everything else.  These girls were big and were big fighters especially if we were in a school team say a baseball, basket ball and we would play against the schools from Cases Grandes and I would understand everything perfectly what they were saying because my mother had seen to it that we learned both languages.  We were well versed in the Spanish language.  They didn't like the idea of me understanding everything they said.  They were confused as to what I was, are you a Mexican or are you an American no say quatarono.  I'm half and half this was very difficult for many people to understand because like I say the Thaynes and the Spencers and us were the quatarones and so this was not very popular with either, you were American or Mexican.  You couldn't be half and half.  If you'd start to explain my mother is not really Mexican but you could consider her Mexican but she isn't, she's really Spanish, French and then it would be worse so we'd say quatarones and leave it at that.  One day while we were having lunch, we'd have lunch under the trees.  I heard a big yelp a cry of horror a cry of pain, Bertha, Bertha help me Bertha, help me, help me and I dropped my lunch kit and I ran towards the area where I could hear the screaming of pain.  There near the school pump where they had the garbage cans these big barrels where all the scratch paper was thrown into, this had been lit and you could see the fire coming out of the scratch papers.  There was six Mexican boys two from the colonies in Dublan and the others from Nueva Cases Grandes and Beahoe Cases Grandes that had taken my brothers pants down, Pauly my brother Pauly next to me.  They had pulled his pants down and they were running him back and forth, three holding his arms, and the other three holding his legs and running him over the flame of this fire, what was his crime:  They asked him if he was Mexican or American.  He said quatarone.  They asked him what his mothers name was and he said his name was Pauly Brown and he couldn't remember, he was just a young boy.  He couldn't remember mothers last name and because he didn't say it, they thought he was ashamed of the Spanish name.  They had his butt good and hot, and blistered.  I will never as long as I live forget the pain the anger that came over me and I grabbed one of the boys by the hair and pulled him back and there was a big piece of wood for warming up the school house and I hit the other guy with that one, right on his back then he let go of my brother.  I was making sure that I hit the ones that had his legs first so they wouldn't drop his head and then with two bucket, fulls of water that was there how the strength came over me.  I was worse than a panther worse than a lion, but I took care of all six of them everyone of them had been injured by me.  I had hit them, I had bled them, I had kicked them but I had put my brother Paulys' pants back on and I had him close to me.  I was screaming to everybody, call the principle, call the teachers, and get them over here.  How that place was filled with kids and none of them dared face those big Mexican boys.  They didn't dare face them because they were the bullies they were the animals for Cases Grandes. Everybody feared them.  I never stopped to think who they were I only knew it was my brother they were burning and that was all.  I asked the Lord to give me strength to kill those animals.  When the principle and the teachers came and they saw the disaster that was there, I told them where are you at lunch time hiding in your offices eating your lunch playing games saying jokes while these animals burned my brother up.  I pulled down his pants so they could see how they had blistered his little butt. I said of course I did, you hit the head of this one, his head was bleeding, yes I did, you hit this one his lame foot here, yes I did.  I said there were six against by brother and I hit each one of them they were punished not to come to school for a couple of weeks.  My brother of course couldn't come to school either for several days because his blisters on his butt were so bad he couldn't sit.  There was no way any of the teachers could punish me for being a beast, because I had defended my brother and I didn't lie.  I beat them and if I had, had more strength I would have killed them.  This brought my brother Pauly and I together closer and closer, from that time on I knew I was my brothers' keeper.  If Gus was out there someplace running and playing top, spin the top marbles or having a good time with his friends he was an eighth grader by then.  That didn't matter to me one bit I knew then I was to protect my brother and my little sister and they knew it.  They all knew it and they knew this brownie, stood for anything they wanted to call me.  They knew this quatarona meant it.  That I had blood of all kinds and that they had better stay away from me because I would fight them and I didn't care who I hit.  They respected me, they were all punched and they were all to stay away from me and away from my brothers.  When we'd go in these teams there were girls who would pull at my blouse where they would leave me in great pain because they'd say gringa, gringa bestosa (stinking American).  I'd say amucha hombre (very honored to be so).  I wouldn't let them run me down for anything.  I'd keep up the game and we'd play and I was never scared to be sent to one of these outside games where we were going to play with the Mexicans.  I knew to hold my own I was a strong girl and this being a tomboy and being used to running around with my brothers and there friends for the earlier years had taught me to be strong and to fight and I knew how to fight.  There was one time later on about a year after when Osadra Yorosko, she was a good six years older than I.  A well-formed girl from one of the higher dignified families had moved from Mathida Chih.  She was a fighter and there had been a program a talent show in which the teachers Velda Festista that was the Spanish talent teacher, Spanish teacher dance teacher and showed me how to dance a Spanish dance and how to sing a Spanish song and this song said you so puda mexicana natha tengo espanole.  The song said in its words I am pure Mexican there is no Spanish blood running in me.  I never took the song at heart it was a beautiful song.  A beautiful dance that went with it and it was my first castonet dance in this talent show and I won an award for singing and dancing but I never stopped to think that this was going to bother the real Mexican people or the Spanish people from the colonies.  As I was going down it was not a stairway it was kind of a sliding way to go into the schoolhouse, cement like.  After we had saluted the Mexican flag because this was a must we saluted the Mexican flag very morning before we went into school and then we marched into our rooms and it was kind of in the basement like.  As I was going down Rosada Oroscho, which was much older than I a well formed.  She grabbed me by the hair she said not tenus esponole eh (so you have no Spanish blood in you huh) and I'll tell you I felt she had all my hair in her hands.  I turned and twisted as I could and I held on to her bosom and I twisted on her until she let go of me by then we had teacher and many others around, that came around to see what had happened.  She had grown to a beautiful seniorita a well taken care of girl and she didn't know who she had gotten a hold of because I had been raised as a tomboy.  When she pulled my hair I pulled on her and I scratched her and I kicked her and she was much worse off when we finished than I was.  We were both reprimanded and taken to the principle and I had witnesses of what had happened.  She grabbed me by the back and she resented me not accepting I was a Mexican.  They wanted me to be on there side.  I was either suppose to be American and be with the Anglos or the Mexican, and be with the Mexicans.  I couldn't be either one.

My education my br