Growing up in the Rincon Valley:
Memories of family, School and the 1918 Pandemic
By Ramona Benitez Franco
“I was born on the thirteenth of May 1902, on my parents’ ranch in the Rincon Mountains. My parents’ names were Angel Benítez and Desideria Vindiola. My father was born in Banamachi, Sonora, Mexico, in 1860 and died in 1937. He came to Tucson at the age of nine with his parents and his sisters.
My paternal grandparent’s names were Jesus Benitez and Felisa Cisneros.
When my father’s mother died, his father returned to Mexico−he had a vineyard there. My father stayed in Tucson with Pedrod and Elena Pellon, who later became my godparents. My father was raised by them in a large brick house that is still standing on Simpson Street (Tucson). My father began to work as a very young boy; Mr. Pellon had freight wagons, and my father was responsible for watering the horses.
There were nine children all together (in our family). My oldest brother Angel, Teresa, Maria, Felisa, Rosario, myself (Ramona), Ignacia, Guadalupe, and Juan. Six were born on our ranch in the Rincon Mountains.
My father began to insist that there be a school out in the Rincon Valley, and he went around gathering signatures, and finally a school was built.
The school was about a mile from our house. One of the teachers I had was Ora McCannus. She and her mother lived for a time with us in a room on our ranch. They were so good. They were like family.
I remember so well the wedding of my brother Angel and Bernardita Tellez! They were married in town (Tucson) at the cathedral, and after the ceremony they came back to the ranch in a buggy with glass windows drawn by two white horses decorated with flowers and feathers on their heads!
My father paid for a horse-drawn wagon so that the musicians and all the townspeople invited would have a ride to the ranch! My father slaughtered two steers for the wedding celebration, and they made a barbecue. The musicians played all day and all night. I still remember how the wedding guests danced the cuadrillas [square dances], the schottische, the varsoviana, polkas, waltzes, and mazurkas.
My brother Angel was the one who helped our father the most with the ranch. Angel and Bernardita lived on the ranch with us. Soon after they married, the First World War began. Bernardita said, “Ay! They’re going to take my Angelito!” They decided to go to live in Mexicali, Mexico. At that time there was also the great flu epidemic that almost no one survived. Here in this area (Rincon Valley/Vail and Tucson) everyone had to wear masks.
My brother Angel got sick in Mexico, and when they let my mother know, she went immediately to Mexicali. Because of the epidemic, no one was allowed to cross the border, but my mother crossed the border anyway. She had to cross on a board plank. It is hard to imagine her doing that because she was so heavy. That’s a mother’s love for you.
Well, my brother did die from the flu after all, and my father had such a struggle to bring his body home, as well as his wife and two children, Adalberto and Matilde. My father had to pay a lot of money to cross the border. And, he and his friend from Tucson, Mr. Steinfeld, had to write dozens of letters to ask for permission to bring Angel home. They had to seal my brother’s body in three caskets so that the sickness would not get anyone else sick. My mother had to cross the border illegally again because at that time they were not allowing anyone to cross the border in either direction because of the epidemic.
I (Ramona) don’t know why I remember so much detail about the old days. I can see our house on the ranch as if it were in front of my eyes. I still remember the names of some of our horses: El Trigueno, El Jardin, Sandy, Portrillo, and Alanza. I wish I had a picture of our house and the windmill and the canal where the water ran! The last time I went to our ranch was in the 1960s. The windmill and the well and the gardens and the corrals were no longer there. I have a rock on my windowsill that I brought home from the ranch that day. It seemed to me to be so pretty. I put the date that I was there on it−the second of April 1967.“
Ramona’s memories of family life, love, despair, celebrations and simple everyday pleasures are a precious reminder of how our early memories of family, events and place shape our lives. Do you have a memory or story from 2020-2021 that you would like to share? Where you and what were were you doing when you first heard about COVID-19? What will you remember most from your experiences over the past year? What would you like the future Vail and Corona communities to know about how we have struggled or served, helped each other and found peace-or not, during the 2020 pandemic? We would love to hear your stories and make sure they available to speak to future Vail residents. You can email your stories to vailpreservationsociety@gmail.com, mail them to Vail Preservation Society, P.O. Box 982, Vail, AZ 85641 or call 520-419-4428 to schedule an interview.
Credits
Beloved Land, An Oral History of Mexican Americans in Southern Arizona. Collected and Edited by Patricia Preciado Martin. The University of Arizona Press. 2004.
1918 Rincon School Program Courtesy Miguel Escalante
J.J. Lamb is President & CEO of Vail Preservation Society. A U of A graduate, her family has lived in Vail since 1971. She was named an Arizona Culturekeeper in 2011 and an Arizona Friend of the Humanities in 2020.
