Texas State Historical Association - My Texas

Read a story

Lucia's Girls

My foster mother, Lucia Montalvo, was one of three daughters. She had a sister named Beatrice and a half-sister named Olivia. Their mother, Eugenia, was married and widowed twice. I only met these women when they were already middle-aged, but their mother, whom we girls called "Welita," was the best-looking of them all. She was very beautiful.

Lucia accepted the role, in varying degrees, of protecting her mother, sisters, a widowed niece, and a nephew. She looked after other people all her life, but she was best known in San Benito for taking in foster children, and particularly for making sure that when her girls left from under her wing, they were properly married.

I know of only one person who was unable to sustain the benefit of coming briefly under Lucia's care. I met this teenager when she was newly wed, pregnant, and seemingly content with simple dreams for the future. Her marriage to an uneducated ranchero didn't work out. When they split up, he kept the children. She repeated this pattern, and in sporadic letters over the years informed Lucia that she was a policeman's mistress and had given birth to two more children.

Lucia hired a live-in housekeeper who brought her little girl with her. When the woman took a lover, they moved out. After being molested by this man, the child was left with Lucia at intervals. She was back with Lucia when she married a boy I'd dated once. She had an extremely solid marriage and made a loving family.

After the girl I'd known at the orphanage returned to Lucia's, she became undone. Lucia thought that this young woman had emerged from the nuns' protective rules at the Ursuline Academy ill equipped to deal with freedom and unlimited choices.

There was another, disturbing side to this young woman. When she worked at Valley Baptist Hospital she was known to sneak up behind other nurses and forcibly hold gauze sprinkled with chloroform to their noses, for a joke. At her worst, she became the mistress of a cantina owner in Brownsville. Horrified as Lucia was, she encouraged the young woman to keep visiting her. She cringed at seeing her drunken behaviour, her hair a gaudy peroxide blonde, and dressed most inappropriately. Lucia kept hoping to wean this young woman away from the cantina proprietor. She described how she finally managed to get her out of that destructive relationship and into a healthier environment.

Lucia encouraged the young woman to bring her lover over for a chat. Then Lucia spoke to him along these lines: he would tire of this girl eventually, what then? She was a young woman without employment skills. Should she look forward to becoming the mistress of one man after another, after he finished with her? If he cared for her, and she was sure he did, why not allow her to study, to take up a profession, like nursing, for example? They could continue seeing each other. She herself would not do anything to break them up or keep them apart.

He agreed, and when this young woman became a nurse and made other friends, she dropped the cantina owner of her own accord. She later married, and even sent me a snapshot of herself wearing tight torero pants with a low-cut blouse, holding her baby, one arm around her husband!

Lucia was just as determined to save the boys in her care as she was protective of her girls.

Her nephew didn't find out his true parentage for years. His siblings couldn't resist telling him the truth in the most hurtful terms possible, but Lucia protected him as long as she could. She accepted responsibility for him when he was a critically ill infant. His already overtaxed mother had other young children and could not look after him properly. By then Lucia already had a daughter and two sons.

A borderline mentally defective pubescent boy placed in Lucia's care remained with her for years. He attended school and performed simple chores. He might have posed a threat to himself and others but for the protection and attention her home provided.

Two children, a half-brother and sister, arrived at Lucia's on a temporary basis; the department was hoping to have them adopted. Their mother suffered from a mental disorder. When she was well she looked after her children properly, but when the illness became uncontrollable her children had to fend for themselves. Various men stole her money, beat her, and abused her and her children. The department moved in after one child was so badly sexually abused, her mind so damaged, that she was institutionalised. Another of her children, a girl, had already been taken away and adopted. These two siblings survived through the boy's efforts. Taking his little sister with him, they hid at the nearby cemetery among the tombstones nightly, to avoid abuse. He stole food from the shops.

Months later, the department notified Lucia that the family who'd adopted their sister wanted to adopt the boy, too, but not the younger girl.

Lucia fought the department fiercely. She was adamant that these children who had suffered through so much together not be separated! She had long discussions with the social worker and refused to let the boy alone be adopted. The prospective parents finally met the children, and agreed to accept them both.

They were allowed one visit to Lucia's after their adoption. Lucia said that the boy heaved a sigh as he snuggled his head into her massive bosom for the last time. In the early '70s Lucia's grandchildren began to trickle down from Houston, taking their turn staying with her through their times of personal turmoil, getting things right.

I don't know how many children Lucia helped raise or fostered. I was only one of Lucia's girls.

Alma Iris Ramirez
Adelaide, South Australia
Published: February 19, 2006