Parras de
la Fuente is a small city that time forgot, except for cars and internet, the
town is living in the early 1800s. Don't
get me wrong, it is a wonderful place to visit and even live if you want to
live with small-town values, be very family oriented, with people who enjoy the
simple things in life, like a walk to the town square to speak with friends and
family, sit in one of many of the small squares and small parks to have some
ice cream (or tacos) and watch the people and the world go by. All homes (and buildings) are straight out of
the Spanish colonial period with original adobe construction and painted in
colorful pastel colors; it is candy to the senses. I hope it will not be overrun by tourists and
developers - although I so some evidence of cheap row-housing in the outskirts
of town. There are no Walmarts, there
are no large chain stores, there is only local vendors with mostly local
producers producing and selling to the locals.
There are mayor industries, and Parras is or was known for denim
production, wine production (since the early 1600s - in fact the wine was so
good and cheap that the King of Spain prohibited them from selling and
competing with Spanish wine in the 1700s and the 1800s). It produces a large variety of fruits and
vegetables because it has been always considered the "Oasis" of the
high planes desert. Parras de la Fuente
also contains the roots of the Rivera family line.
Scenes from Parras - Stores and Business look like regular houses with few signs
My father
has always spoken of his family in Parras, but since they not affect me, I
never put much attention. My last trip
there, with my father, was over 45 years ago, and the only thing that I
remembered was that it was not a place I wanted to be. I was just initiating my career in the high
tech area, and the last thing I needed was to "waste" time with
farmers too concerned about, what I considered, were the simple things in life;
growing and harvesting grapes , nuts and fruit, making and drinking wine,
spending large portions of your life on family time, relaxing and enjoying the
trees, the flowers, the food and the people around you. At that time I thought all that was backward
and a waste of time. I think differently
now, and I'm sorry I did not stop and listen, smell the flowers and drank the
wine.
I knew
that if I wanted to get more facts on the Rivera family, I had to go to
Parras. I dragged my cousin from
Monterrey to go with me and made a one day trip there. All of my father's uncles, cousins and
relatives of his generation and the generation of his father were dead, and
since I did not bother to keep any records, I had no idea where to start to
look for this "lost" family (actually we were the ones that were
lost, they had been there all the time).
The town is a little less than a 3 hour drive from Monterrey on the
freeway. We got there about three in the
afternoon. I drove into the middle of
town where we knew one of my father's uncles had owned a large variety story,
akin to a small K-Mart store. I parked
in the main street of the commerce center, Reforma street, and my cousin and I
proceeded to look for the store - nothing!
One old security guard remembered that one of the variety stores used to
be a Rivera Variety Store but that was over fifteen years before.
Disillusioned,
we began to walk back to the car to try
to plan our next move. We passed two
little old ladies (and I mean little and old - about 80 years old) sitting on a
bench watching the world go by. We
decided to take a change and asked them if they remember a Rivera-owned store
on this street. They did! In fact, they used to shop there. But they been closed for a long time and the
owner died. "But," she said, "there
are other Rivera store owners around."
My heart jumped and my disillusionment melted. "I don't know who they are or where
their store is, but I can take you to someone who might know." She said, and proceeded to walk us to a small
hardware store about a block away. The
woman at the small hardware store pointed us to a small shoe shop about half a
block away. We went there and it turned
out that the lady minding the store was the wife of the owner whose name was
Rivera. The husband was not there and
was not due back until later that evening.
Realizing that not all Rivera's are family, we started asking her
questions on the relationship of her husband and I could tell that that was
going over like a "fart in church."
Not so much that she did not want to tell us, it's just that she did not
know. She did indicate to us where
another store was whose owner was a Rivera - about three or four block
away.
The other
store was a small grocery stored manned by a man about 50 and had a strong
resemblance to my father's father. His
reaction when I introduced myself was interesting, he said I looked like one of
his uncles. After some comparison of
family history (as much as I could remember), I realized we hit the
jackpot! He sent us to his 93 year-old
mother on the other side of town. He apologized
he could not leave the store unattended, gave us the address and directions to
his mother's house and sent us to go and talked to her. He also gave us the name of a cousin who is a
lawyer and had his law office on the way to his mother's house.
With Second Cousin Maria Olivia and her mother Maria de los Angeles
His
mother, although she is 93, took one look at me and immediately said "you
look like Juan." Her daughter,
Maria Olivia, in her late fifties, early sixties, proceeded to talk about
family history, trying to determined where we fit in the family tree relation
to her. The rest of the afternoon and
the morning of the next day went like clockwork, we visited more family members
and by noon the next day I had a draft of the family tree with at least ten
branches and over one hundred and fifty entries. I got some addresses, some phone numbers and
some e-mails, and even had some Facebook links.
Overall it was a successful 24-hour trip. I hope to summarize all the information and
return in a few months with more time and start gathering family stories. I got some interesting tid-bits of stories
dealing with of family intrigue, stories of adventurers, and businesses, and
can't wait to go back.
With other second cousins
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