Mis Raices

I've started a new page on EarlyMaineMcCurdys.com, "Mis Raices." This page is dedicated to my mother and her side of my family. Here is part of my Grandma's story as written by my aunt Ruth Saiz.
Maria's Story
This story begins in Pesqueria Chica, a small town nestled in the shadows of "El Cerro de la Silla"(Saddle Mountain) Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.
Maria, the heroine in my story was born in this little town in the spring of 1914. Two years after the birth of this little girl another little sister cane to join her. These little girls grew with no special happenings surrounding them until the rumors of unrest came to happen in the towns and villages. It was the spring of 1918. Mexico was experiencing rebel unrest. Families were being torn apart. The Mexican revolution was at it's peak and the rebel troops were taking all able bodied men and women to fight.
Petra, a brave young woman bought train tickets for her two little girls ages 4 and 2 in a little town named San Nicolas, and went north to the American border where with a few pesos in her hand found some "coyotes" to take her and her children across.
She was fleeing the Mexican rebel army for a better life in the United States of America. She had just lost her young husband, Ignacio Garza in the war, and her older sister had already been recruited to fight with the rebel army. The rebels were taking every able bodied man and woman to join their forces. This young woman with the few pesos in her hand was willing to risk this crossing to an unknown future rather than being taken to fight with the army and separated from her two little girls.
She paid the men at the banks of the Rio Grande to take her and her children across. The plan was to take the children first in large tubs and then come back for her and two other people. She sent her two little girls ahead, but this young mother in her desperation to get across realized that she had put all her trust in these two men to safely get her children to the other side.
Fear came over her with the realization that these men might not come back for her and became so distraught that she contemplated crossing herself even though she didn't know how to swim. With a prayer in her heart and just as she was going to attempt to swim she saw the men coming back for her. She was safely taken across to be reunited with her children.
Together the young family started their hard and arduous journey into an unknown country, a strange language, and a different way of life. With no money, and only a few things to eat arrived in the town of Weslaco, Texas. It seemed like they had walked and walked for many miles before they came to some fields where four men were sitting by a fire and getting ready to eat a meal. One of the men asked her where they were going and she told him that she wasn't sure but she had faith that she would able to find food and shelter and a job so that she could provide for her little girls.
One of the men invited them to sit with them by the fire and share their meal and he also told the young mother that he had a boarding house and the he could take them there where he offered her a job as the cook.
The job was easy since Petra had learned to cook at a very early age and while she worked hard preparing the meals for the laborers, her little girls would sit in a corner of the kitchen where she would keep an eye on them. The four year old took care of her little sister. This four year old was my mother Maria.