Aurora Garcia (surname: Lopez)
Dead trees, the grey skin of their boles leathery and dry, loom like sentinels amid rings of fallen leaves. The skeletal fingers of their branches clutch in desperation at the tired remnants of a Spring expired; a kaleidoscope mixture of pale reds and yellows shake fragile in the wind--like lazy embers in a dying fire…and still they continue to fall. It is November.
The wind, as I can only assume, purls dreary down empty dirt roads. By the mid-fifties most of them will be given names, but for now, where our story begins, they exist as they stand.
Down every road, the shoulders--if that anatomy can be given to such a primeval display--are dry and caked with old mud. The sky poses as a backdrop of deep azure, its solemnity seeming quaint as it frames in a picturesque view of scattered houses standing like crooked teeth in dirty gums. Juarez Street today stands paved and pock-marked, the sides still choked and cracked--tokens of time eaten away by tired feet and rain. However, in the late twenties this street is nothing more than a muddy track that eventually fades out into a field. Along the way humble abodes dot yards with dead grass and near the dead center of the soon-to-be Juarez Street road there sits off a small house set beside a small pond. This house is not painted; its facade is of black wood, rotten from winter rain and summer sun.
It sits South on the outskirts of the town Lytle, which, when compared to San Antonio stands minute. On the twenty-eighth of November, 1929, twenty-six year old Maria Lopez(nee: Zamora) gives birth to her second child; her first daughter.
The father, Juan Castio Lopez, looks on as the muffled sound of crying fills the house. Whether the emission is from the new baby or his wife, Juan can not tell. He can only look out the window at the dark and dirty road below and wonder if it's going to rain. Aurora Lopez grew up through the thirties in the small subsection of Coalmine, a seemingly town-like neighborhood on the then outskirts of the small city of Lytle. She is the second child of five: Her sister Mary [full name, Marillena (Maria-ellena)], her sister Rogelia (deceased) and brothers Juan, and Valentin. "…it's just like Valentine, but no one ever used the e at the end." she muses. At age eleven her mother put her into the first grade at the only school available at the time: The Lytle School House. She only reached the third grade, leaving behind school at the age fourteen to work out in the fields with her family and friends. After numerous jobs working out in farms, picking whatever needed to be picked--following work up north to Illinois and Wisconsin-- Aurora returned back to Texas to live with her parents. After waiting two years, as was her father's rule, she marries Bulfrano Garcia in 1956 in the Coalmine Church.
Somewhere in between this image of two lovers casting silhouettes inside the doorway of the church and that rustic Autumn day whence Aurora Lopez came to, there floods a parade of memories too important to just watch go by.
As a child, what kind of games did you play? Who did you hang around with, or, if no one, did you have a favorite toy? A doll?
We were poor. (laughs) We didn't have any games. I use to play with my cousin. She lived across the street from me and she would ask her father if she could cross the road. We weren't allowed to cross, no matter if there was no one coming, we still had to get permission.
And what would you two do?
We played near the pond, rolling up balls of mud…making tortillas. We would take the green china-berries off the trees and pretend that they were chile. The red ones too. We would even take the leaves off the mesquite tree, the strings, and pretend that they were fideo. It was fun.
We didn't have any toys. The only dolls I ever had were rag dolls. We would make them out of old pants and thread.
Growing up, what kind of chores were you expected to do? How did you help your parents when you were small?
For my mother, we had to wash dishes of course. My older brother and I use to help her grind corn for tortillas. We would work the crank while she caught the masa.
My father…(thinks to herself)…I use to take him his lunch everyday while he was at work. He would leave early in the morning--to work--, so my mother would make his lunch and have me take it to him. It was about a mile. Sometimes I would help him pick corn. We had a cart, with a mule, and I would control the rope (reigns), making the mule move forward a little bit while my father picked the corn and loaded it.
Where were your grandparents? Did you know them well?
(Shaking her head) My mother's mother…she lived in San Marcos. She use to live in Coalmine, but after her husband passed away she went to go live with a son-in-law…and when he moved to San Marcus she went with him.
I remember when we would go to see her. We all got in my father's car, a Model-T, and drive up. It took us two days to get there.
My father's parents lived in Laredo.
When World War II broke out, you were about eleven years old. What do you remember about the war? Did people listen about it on the radio?
No, we didn't have a radio. I don't think many of the people did. There might have been one or two in Coalmine but we didn't listen to a radio.
There were many boys from Coalmine who left for the draft. Sometimes we would get news of somebody getting killed over there, usually people we knew.
My older brother went in for the draft, so did my father, but they both failed the test and didn't go.
I remember blackouts. We weren't allowed to have on any lights sometimes, or if we had clothes hanging on the line, we couldn't have anything white hanging because it could be seen from the air. We also had to take all our tin cans and burn them so that they wouldn't shine. I remember too that no one was suppose to smoke during blackouts, but my parents did it anyways. These were things I remember my parents telling me.
What about racism? Do you remember the first time or an incident where something like that happened?
When I was young I didn't even know that that was how people were. I was always around other Mexicans and it never occurred to me, I never thought it was like that.
I remember…I must have been fourteen or fifteen…I was in Lubbock, working in the fields there, and I was given some money to go get something to eat. I went in to a little diner and sat down at the front. I tried to order a hamburger but the person behind the counter told me that the restaurant didn't sell to Mexicans. So I left.
Growing up were there any local stories that got told over and over?
People use to tell a story about a ghost, a woman wearing all white. They use to tell us kids not to go to some place or not to be out at night because the woman in white would get us. There were lots of those stories.
They also use to talk about a man missing his head. That one was already old when I was little, but that's how they scared us to behave.
So, you pretty much grew up in Coalmine? What about that neighboring little sub-sect that you told me about once? You told me that there use to be another Coalmine-like neighborhood not too far away…and that it's gone now.
Oh, no, that wasn't when I was little. That was when my parents were young.
(Thinks hard to herself) It was called Tirito, I don't know what it means in English. It's probably just a name. Well, it wasn't too far away. It was just another little area where people lived. They were campos…camps…it was when there were coalmines. They always use to say that it was where a lot of Mexicans got together, where they would gamble, drink….sometimes fight and kill each other. They always had parties, always having big parities for the 16th of September…when Mexico fought with Spain.
And they had a cemetery too, just like Coalmine?
That's what I was told. I don't know what happened to it. Farmers bought out the land and they used if for grazing. There's nothing there anymore, just cows.
Did they relocate the graves somewhere else?
I don't know. My parents never said…I don't think anyone knows where it use to be. Once the farmers bought the land, it kind of just vanished…all the people too.
Bulfrano and Aurora Garcia live today in Waukegan, Illinois. They have four children, Juan L. Garcia, Letecia Sanchez, Josie Lopez, and Bulfrano Garcia, Jr. All but one have a full family of their own.
From this assignment I have come away with a new grasp on storytelling. From my own grandmother I was able to take her memories and give them new conceptions. I grew up as well on Juarez St. in Coalmine, and I can take from my own childhood, my own perspective, and paint for readers a dark day in November in 1929. Doing this project has allowed me to look at Coalmine today with new eyes. I can look down empty roads and imagine ghost traces of forgotten lives, lost voices, and miseries and joys. All places decay, all homes. They falter into morbid shadows of their former selves, until one day--almost beneath one's nose--they are replaced by new buildings and new faces. This is always constant…this is always the case.
The Handbook of Texas Online This site gives a more in depth over view of towns and related articles. Despite the fact that Coalmine can not be found here the site allows for students to read more into the town Lytle and draw a mental picture of where and how the town has grown. It was produced in partnership with the College of Liberal Arts and the General Libraries at the University of Texas at Austin. Copyright © The Texas State Historical Association. Last Updated: May 6, 2004.
(ePodunk) Walkable small towns This site gives an interesting view of small towns located in South Texas. Apart from offering a brief over view of the town's history, as well as the family history of some of its original citizens, this site also compares crime rates and birth and death records throughout the years.
Buddenblog: Lytle, Texas This site gives a journalistic view and brief history of the small town of Lytle, where Coalmine is located. Even though the focus of this site is not set on Coalmine it does give the reader an idea of how the area is like today.