52 Ancestors #8 Barbara Pedroza Franco de Quintero

Barbara Pedroza de Quinteros,
estimate photo was probably
taken sometime during the
Mexican Revolution

Tia Barbarita was un-
doubtedly my favorite of all my father's paternal aunts. When I finally decided to write about her in my blog this week, I took a moment to review what I knew about her. I knew her parents & that she came from Jalisco, Mexico; I knew she had been married multiple times & I knew she had at least one child by each spouse. She only spoke Spanish (at the time, none of us spoke the language), so my family often had to pantomime in order to get her to understand what we were trying to get across to her. She spent the majority of her life as a wife, mother & homemaker, but her life was not always an easy one.

Baptismal record of Barbara Pedroza de Quinteros,
Sta Thereza, Union de San Antonio, Jalisco, Mexico

She was born on 4 December 1901 in Santa Thereza, Union de San Antonio, Jalisco, Mexico to Francisco & Panfila Franco de Pedroza. Her baptismal record in the parish of Senor de la Ascension records that her grandparents were Silvestre & Anastacia Vasquez de Pedroza & Silvero & Mauricia Rodriguez de Franco.

The Pedrozas had lived in Jalisco for many generations, but around 1915 or 1916, they decided to move their family to Texas. It seems that they wound up in Bell or Milam Counties, Texas because on 30 Nov 1916, Barbara was married at the age of 15 to Marcos Pacheco in Buckholts. They had one son, Jose, together about 1918. At some point during all this, they must have returned to live in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico where Marcos was from. In April 1919, she, her parents, her son & her husband Marcos returned to Texas via Laredo. The Manifests of Statistical and Some Nonstatistical Alien Arrivals at Laredo, Texas records that she can neither read nor write & that she is entering the US for the purpose of accompanying her husband who is looking for work.

Border crossing card of Barbara
Pedroza de Pacheco,
Laredo, Texas

They must only have been back in Texas for a year or so when some-
thing happened to change their life together as a family. It is not known whether Marcos died or simply left, but on 17 Nov 1921, in Bell Co., Texas, she was remarried to Basilio Garcia. They lived next door to her parents in temple & had four more children: Felipe, Ascension, Angelina & Faustino (aka "Frosty"). Basilio worked as a laborer on the Santa Fe railroad there in Temple. On July 4 1931, he was injured in a work related accident & died of internal hemorrhaging on 5 July 1931. He was laid to rest at Hillcrest Cemetery, one of the best known cemeteries in Temple.

Two years passed & eventually she met Jose de Jesus (Jesse) Quintero, son of Rafael & Domitila Mendez de Quinteros (there is a long standing family debate among some in the family about whether our family name is supposed to have the s or not. I suspect that the s was added at some point & our name originally did not have it. I have seen our name spelled both ways, sometimes even within the same document; although, I have seen it spelled most often with the s rather than without it). Tio Jesse worked for the Santa Fe Railroad also & later retired from there. They married on 1 May 1933 in Bell Co., Texas & had six more children together: Margarita (Margaret), Herlinda (Linda), Domitila (Tila), Amelia (Molly), Daniel & Jesse.

Marriage certificate of Jesse Quinteros & Barbarita Pedroza

My memories of Tia Barbarita are of visiting her & Tio Jesse as a child. When I was little, I thought she lived in the kitchen (& maybe that is not far from the truth) because I never recall seeing her anywhere else. She made her flour tortillas by hand (I enjoyed scarfing them as fast as she could make them). She & Tio Jesse made the best tamales (according to my mother since I don't remember them) in great big canning pots. She kept a couple of pet parakeets in a cage that sat on a chair in the kitchen. I took Spanish in junior high & high school & I recall one trip to Temple when I wanted to impress her with what I had learned in class (which wasn't very much). I asked her for a glass of milk in Spanish & her eyes lit up to hear me speaking the language. She said something I didn't understand (this would have been in the fall, so we hadn't been in class long enough to learn more than the basics) & she was disappointed to learn that what I had said was the extent of my comprehension of the Spanish language. It would be a few more years until I would be fluent enough in Spanish to carry on an actual conversation. =(

I didn't see either Tio Jesse or Tia Barbarita for many years after that. I last saw Tio Jesse when he was at a Temple Nursing Home in December 1992. Tia Barbarita was living with one of her children by then. Tio Jesse passed away on 3 Dec 1993. Tia Barbarita survived him by four more years & passed away at the age of 96 on 16 Dec 1997. Both were laid to rest side by side at Bellwood Cemetery in Temple.

Sources:
Mexico, Jalisco, Catholic Church Records, Unión de San Antonio, Señor de la Ascensión, Bautismos 1899-1905, pg 141, Img #300
"Texas, Marriages, 1837-1973," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F6BK-2LV : accessed 01 Mar 2014), Marcus Pacheco and Barbarita Pedrozo, 30 Sep 1916, vol V, pg 110.
Ancestry.com. Border Crossings: From Mexico to U.S., 1895-1964 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006.
"Texas, Marriages, 1837-1973," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F6BJ-V4T : accessed 01 Mar 2014), Bassilia Garcia and Barbarita Pedrosa, 17 Nov 1921, certificate #1826, pg 480.
"Texas, Deaths, 1890-1976," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/K33W-TPX : accessed 01 Mar 2014), Basilio Garcia, 05 Jul 1931; citing certificate number 142, State Registrar Office, Austin; FHL microfilm 2135603.
"Texas, Marriages, 1837-1973," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F6BK-8TL : accessed 01 Mar 2014), Jesus Quintras and Barbareta Pedroza, 01 May 1933, Bk 30, Pg 26, 848.