Interview with Soveida Obregon
picture of Soveida Obregon
Robert Graves: Well, umm my name is Robert Graves and our assignment was to conduct research on a small town and to get information about its history and to gather information we are suppose to interview. I'm going to ask you twenty questions, you don' have to stick with those, it's just incase the person does not want to talk a lot.
Soveida Obregon: I don't think you'll have that problem with me.
Robert: The first thing our teacher wants us to do is to get a short bibliography, just umm where you've lived, what you did for a living.
Soveida: Oh, I see, Oh, ok. Well my name is Soveida Obregon and I was born in here Dilley. My parents were here, they were both born in this area. My grandparents came here, some of them from Mexico, and some of them from the area, they were already in Texas. So I am umm, I've been you know part of this uh, legacy of uh tejanos, texmex, for many generations. I can say as far back you know three generations.
I uh was educated here, went to school in Dilley my 12 years, I graduated from here, went on to college, received my first degree from Mary Martin Bayer. From there on I uh, taught school a little bit, then went and worked on my masters at the University of West Texas, which now I know it has a different name, it's, it's uh University of Texas and West Texas or something like that in Canyon. And then umm I went to Alaska, and there I was, I became, well I, no no, after after Canyon I started working on my PHD, but I was burned out by that time and so I, I decided to return to teaching, and I did I returned to San Antonio and I taught there a total of seven years.
I taught in New Mexico, and I taught in, in San Antonio, and I also taught at West Texas State as uh, uh and assistant instructor, and then also in The University of Oklahoma as, also as an assistant instructor. And then, and then I went to Alaska and I taught school there also. I was uh I started a community college there in Alaska, and I, I ran that for about eight years, and it was a community college, umm that later became, a branch of a four year uh school. Uh, I still to this day have people who call me, or uh talk to me, or write to me and talk to me about umm, finishing college, being uh, uh, a very good friend, a person who graduated, the very first one who graduated from that community college. And I also taught school there.
I returned back to Texas after I um, graduate, after I um retired from Alaska's teaching system, the Alaska education system, I returned to Texas and I actually taught school here in Dilley several years. Umm, uh the early part of the 90s I decided that I just couldn't teach full time anymore so what I did is I opened a, a business and I I have a quilting business. I also run the adult education program and I've been doing that now for seventeen years. I have been teaching in the adult education program for over twenty-one years, and so I still am active in that. I've been trying to quit teaching or quit teaching the quilters, but they won't let me and so I would say no if you stop then what are we going to do.
My parents were very uh uh my grandparents, my grandfather Jose Obregon was very instrumental in the building of the community, I can remember that he was a mover and a shaper here in the community when I was a little girl. My parents were not as active in the community, although they were active in the Catholic Church, my father was a farmer and my mother was just a worker. She worked everywhere; she was just a hard worker. And now all of my sisters my brother, there were three of us, four of us, there were three girls and a boy. And my brother passed away when he was forty-four, he's been gone for quite a few years now all three of the sisters, all three of us, live here in Dilley. And so here I am doing, what I like to do best, usually sowing and I'd like to do more, but uh time runs out.
Robert: Ok, that is a lot. Ok umm umm some of my questions you already answered, so I'll just find one you haven't answered yet.
Soveida: OK, OK well go ahead and ask one and maybe I can add to it.
Robert: Well my first one was how did you come to live in Dilley; it sounds like your parents.
Soveida: Yes, because my parents I came back from Alaska because my mother was alone, daddy had passed away and she needed somebody to be here so I came back. And when I did she and I, just uh umm, and I needed to to because I felt like I was never close to my mother, and I came back I uh we became quite close, eventually I built this home for her and she became also a member of the Mormon church because I had become a member of the Mormon church many years earlier and she too became a member of the church, so she and I would right back and forth to Hondo to go to church. So that's why I'm in Dilley, Texas.
Robert: OK, umm how long have you lived in Dilley?
Soveida: I have now lived in Dilley, for twenty, well how much is that since 1986, when I came back from Alaska, so I was gone for about thirty-five years and then I came back.
Robert: Umm, How has farming and ranching affected Dilley?
Soveida: Farming and ranching specifically farming, when I was growing up farming was the king. I mean everybody was a farmer here. People in town depended on the farmers so that they could go and help with the crops. And then ranching became a little bit more popular, so a lot of the owners, the land owners land owners got to have more land. But I can remember even during the war, World War II, that we my daddy did not have to go to war, because he was a farmer, so as long as he had some crops going on, he could stay here and not go to war.
So ranching and farming had affected the community a great deal, and since I have seen it through the years, how farming has become less and less and less important, and um we don't have the migrant workers, we don't have those workers that depend on the, on the crops, because they also have, have machinery that that takes care of the harvesting of the crops, and so people don't have a great dependency on farming anymore, and also there aren't that many farmers left. Many of them are big time farmers and they usually are the ones that have the money to afford the, those irrigation systems and larger lands, you the larger acreage or more acreage.
Robert: That makes sense. Uh, well I was checking information on Dilley and I found a lot on watermelons, it seems this place is famous for watermelons, how did that come to be?
Soveida: It is famous for watermelons and the reason that it's famous, it's not because of the, because there are other places that are famous for their watermelons like Lulin, and so on, but Dilley at one time the area was called the winter garden area. And we have red soil, the red sand of Dilley, and it grows, for some reason or other the watermelons love that soil, I don't know if it's the iron, and I can tell you for a fact that watermelons if they're grown naturally, not the irrigation watermelons, but naturally if possible, are the sweetest, best watermelons. I can remember uh, eating my daddy's watermelons, that they were so very good, so delicious.
Now I don't know when they started, I know that my father planted watermelons, in the in the 40s, you know 1940, so uh watermelons have been here a long time. We don't grow a lot of watermelons anymore, maybe they're too famished. I have seen the decline since I've been back these twenty years; I've seen the decline of the growing of watermelons in the area.
Robert: Interesting, um, I read about an oil boom in the 1960s and 70s, how did that affect Dilley?
Soveida: We've had two oil booms the one in the 60s of course that one when it came, it brought new people to the community and it brought money to the community because the community like I said before was dependant on farming. And a lot of people moved, you know the ranchers came about then, and and the wealthier farmers who had more land. And of course we were quite fortunate, we ended up with four oil wells on our land at that time, and uh they they brought a lot of, they brought very good money, money that otherwise we wouldn't have had. A lot of people were able to uh, to take advantage of it, of of the money and you know the opportunity, many of them built houses, many of them went on to college, etc.
The one in the 80s, that too was basically a good one, you know a good one, in fact this house that you see that was built with that money, from the oil boom in the 80s. Umm, World War II, it's not mentioned here, of course you're too young, but World War II had a great change on the community, a lot of young boys went to war, and when they came back they were changed men. They, they had seen the world. Before, they, they had never been very far, maybe San Antonio was the farthest they had been, but here they able to go to Europe and see places over there that they had heard of, or some of them hadn't even heard of, because many of them were not able to go to school. And so World War II also, opened their eyes, many of them came back and they were able to go to college, you know finish school and go to college, get um, they had the veterans loans and they could come and build houses and get married and live in houses, so it really, made a change in the community at that time.
Robert: Hmm, How has changing technology affected Dilley?
Soveida: Well, uh, like I said before so many of the farms now have farm equipment. A lot of the harvesting is done using machine and modern technology; they have of course irrigations, and irrigation systems. Now I'm sure that the satellites will tell us something about rain and so on. I, I've seen a great deal of change like I told you earlier, that a lot of change has come about, I think probably through changing technology, or probably just because people, farming is such a hard way of life, and so they have just chosen not to.
Whether it's the worker as well as the farmer, most of the farmers have grown old and died. And the young ones go on to college and many of them don' return to come and and serve the land anymore, so I guess that's modern technology and how it has affected the community. Umm the community is basically dead here. Our economic base, our job base is the school, the city, and we do have a prison. So we have a prison system, many of the young people who graduate go on and serve here, as as guards not as prisoners.
Robert: Umm, my next question was, how did the Great Depression affect Dilley?
Soveida: I don't know, I don't know. I can remember during the war, but that was after the uh, the depression.
Robert: Ok, uh, one of my questions was could you tell me about the school system in Dilley and how racism has affected the town.
Soveida: Well, the school system started out in the country, and uh I never went to the school that we used to have out in the country, but my older sister did. And then that was integrated, or it was brought it, the students from out in the country were aloud come to the system. In the early uh 40s I think maybe 50s, no maybe 40s, the Hispanics and the Anglos were separated, they were segregated. We had schools on the two sides; we had the West side and the East side. And the Hispanics went only to the East side of the school.
And then in the, when I was in the 6th grade, no the, the 4th grade my sister and I and seven boys decided that we wanted to go to school and get the same privileges as the others did. So we went as those eight or nine people, we went across the tracks and went to school on the other side, and from that point forward the schools became integrated, not completely it wasn't until several years later that they did away with the school on the east side. Also the buses I can remember that we as the Hispanics could sit, only in the back, and one day again my sister and I decided that we wanted to sit in the front and we did, and we caused sort of like a ruckus, but we wont the battle, we lost the war, or lost the battle, but we won the war. That day they told us today sit in the back, but from here forward you can sit wherever you want to, and so we did.
The prejudice still exist, we've seen it more here lately, there was an incident with the police department here and we saw where this one policeman ended up dividing the community and it was Hispanics against the Anglos. I don't know the reason, but I saw that it was divided. Racism has affected the community off and on throughout its history I can tell you that.
Robert: One of the questions that we are required to ask is, is there anything else that you would like to tell me about.
Soveida: Well, one thing I wanted to talk about was hunting. Earlier we talked about some jobs in the area, well hunting is not necessarily a job, but hunting has become a real big, part of sort of like an economic base, and ranchers and farmers have prepared their land, whether it's for dove hunting or for deer hunting or for other wild game, and, and they have prepared their land, they placed the high fences, they have planted the grasses so that it will attract the wild game. They have gone into, you know with wild life and uh, to with the rangers, whatever it is, the people who do who do the wild life, and have become knowledgeable as to how to better attract wild game, and consequently it's a real big deal here to uh, you know when people say I understand that you have quite a few people who come and hunt here.
And usually those people are basically are oftentimes quite wealthy, or they set aside money because it's one of those things that you know it's a man thing, and they will come and hunt on a yearly basis. I know that we have the crop, they were teachers then they became ranchers and farmers, but now most of their income is, results from their hunting. They bring people in, and they cook for them, and I know that when my mother was still alive, we would have another man who would bring in some friends of his and he'd come hunting here. And these were big guns, and I'm talking about people who were very wealth, and we would go over to his house and we would cook up a meal.
They wanted Mexican food, authentic Mexican food, so we would go and somebody would make the tortillas, and somebody would make the rice and beans, the real thing. So these people are attracted, not only because of the hunting, but because of they atmosphere of the still Mexican texmex, type of atmosphere. So hunting has become a very good source of income for a lot of people in this area.
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