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Some family/Mexican/American history


Brisketexan

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24 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Moral of the story: never tell someone you’re going to kill them. Just kill them.

Can't remember how many times I've overheard some upset student talking about how they were gonna "kill" so-and-so.

I'm always like "Don't say that. That's how they prove First Degree Murder."

Back to the theme of Ancient Days, one great-great-uncle was a professor at what later became Vanderbilt. Some dude was sneakin around to see uncle's wife. Uncle told dude "If I ever see you again, I'll shoot you and kick your body into the gutter." They say that uncle would have gotten away with just shooting the guy, which he later did, but the fact that he actually kicked the guy into the gutter complicated the case and forced the family to sell land to lawyer uncle out of the situation.

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Back to Mexico, Don Brisquete, I don't know how current your Meskin is but one way to whip it into shape would be enjoying Mariano Azuela's Las tribulaciones de una familia decente. Azuela was a university student who got swept up as a medic for a band of illiterate revolutionaries, then later became a doctor in a Mexico City slum. Anyway, the family in the story are Huerta supporters from Zacatecas who flee to Mexico City, where they navigate getting knocked down a few pegs in the new order.

Louise Lilly McBride made an English translation for your convenience in 1951.

https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3246&context=etd

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Cool stories.

All I have is this Winchester 1894 (made in 1914) that my dad bought from an old caballero who owned a coin shop in Monterrey up until the early 1960s. He was getting ready to close shop & retire, so he sold a lot of his things off.

Anyway, the old gent claimed he was with Carranza’s forces in the revolution and carried this rifle. He also claimed his twin brother rode with Villa.

 

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6 minutes ago, pantone159 said:

Distrito Federal, aka Mexico City, or the semi-state that most of the city is part of. (Kind of like DC in a way.)

Thanks. Stuff like this as you get older gives you a greater appreciation of how compressed what as a kid you thought was far away history. 

Come this August, it will be the 43 year anniversary of MTV's debut. Using the 1910 year in one of the pics as a time mark - move forward 43 years and Elvis is walking into Sun Records to make his first recording. Go back 43 years from that and Congress is passing the first Reconstruction Act. 

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1 hour ago, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:

Thanks. Stuff like this as you get older gives you a greater appreciation of how compressed what as a kid you thought was far away history. 

Come this August, it will be the 43 year anniversary of MTV's debut. Using the 1910 year in one of the pics as a time mark - move forward 43 years and Elvis is walking into Sun Records to make his first recording. Go back 43 years from that and Congress is passing the first Reconstruction Act. 

You want some real fun, figure out how many years it's been since your high school graduation. Then subtract that same number of years from the graduation year. eg The kids on Dazed and Confused are about as close to Hitler's rise to power as they are to today. Maybe this is their grandmother:

 

 

Lange-MigrantMother02.jpeg

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1 hour ago, RDCanecutter said:

1,1

To be fair, none of us today have witnessed a woman removing her whalebone corset in a slow dance, all the while provocatively holding a bottle of Dr. Thompson‘s Ladies Love Lotion purchased from a gypsy on a horse-drawn cart. 

Well, except Army Brat. 

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8 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

 

My old man was digging through some old stuff over the holidays, and brought some of it over to our house at Christmas to check out. It prompted some discussions about family history. For example, our family had places in Mexico City and Del Rio in the early 1900s. But we were closely aligned with the Porfirio Diaz regime, so once the revolution got hot enough, we had to scoot from the DF. For a time during the fighting, it was really only safe for the kids to be out in the streets, as the combatants would leave them alone. You know that famous picture of Zapata and Villa in the presidential palace, as the revolutionaries took it? Family legend is that my grandfather (a kid at the time) was in the next room at the time, along with many other locals just checking shit out:

 

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(Photo from the web, it’s not one of ours)

 

But being aligned with the Diaz regime, we had some cool shit, like these Mexican centennial postcards:

 

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And on one of my grandfather’s stays in Del Rio, he was quite worried about his chickens, who he had left back in the DF in his sister’s care (note sent on a Diaz postcard, of course):

 

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It’s good to hop that non of your chickens has dide, I think we can all agree.

 

We left the DF during the revolution under a flag of truce, and although some family members live there now, it took them a long time to return.

 

A really cool bit of Del Rio history to follow….

 

Cool story. I was raised to despise Pancho Villa and all the morenos. My great grand father was a small child when they were forced off of their property in Mexico. We have some family that returned to reclaim lost property in the 1950's.

Things get really interesting when discussing the theft of property by the whites on the Texas side.

 

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2 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

All of my grandparents were born in the 1880s.  This makes my self-image as a non-old much, much harder to carry off.

Here is my grandmother, the sexy fox that she was:

IMG_1854.thumb.jpeg.9984a5ba6eb7700d7d68950a79f631b1.jpeg

 

Your grandma would get it, musky pelt and all.

Also, holy shit, you are Brat old.

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10 minutes ago, F250 said:

Your grandma would get it, musky pelt and all.

Also, holy shit, you are Brat old.

Not quite Brat old.  For reasons unknown my family breeds like Galapagos tortoises.  We usually have kids in our 40s or 50s. There are no 36 year old grandmas like Bobert in the Ubet family.  

Still, vague young boy memory of President Ike on my folks’ black and white tv.  So most def old-ish.   Pictures of my dad’s Sherman tank was a clue. 

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8 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

To be fair, none of us today have witnessed a woman removing her whalebone corset in a slow dance, all the while provocatively holding a bottle of Dr. Thompson‘s Ladies Love Lotion purchased from a gypsy on a horse-drawn cart. 

Reads like turn of the (last) century Penthouse Forum. 

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8 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

To be fair, none of us today have witnessed a woman removing her whalebone corset in a slow dance, all the while provocatively holding a bottle of Dr. Thompson‘s Ladies Love Lotion purchased from a gypsy on a horse-drawn cart. 

Well, except Army Brat. 

Grandma Maggie didn’t need any stinkin’ love potion…. she was a sweet lady who didn’t put up with any crap. 
Here she is, all hot to trot on her 21st birthday in 1898.

 

3F2837B3-D3D6-47DC-A014-1F7062EF0C9B.jpeg

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Posted this pic in another thread before. Center is my great grandfather, 2nd from left is my grandfather. He was born in Mexico in 1900 and my Great grandparents brought the children over to flee from Villas revolution. This picture was taken on a ranch near Del Rio where they lived. My grandfather and his brother look to be in their teens(standing, far left) and married 2 sisters and lived the rest of their days on Bean Street in Del Rio. Both brothers worked for ranchers in the area so I got to spend a lot of time hunting and fishing out there. Some of the best catfish I've ever caught came out of Pinto Creek! I was born in the hospital on Laughlin AFB and spent most of my life in Del Rio. That's some cool stuff you posted @Brisketexansotofm2.jpg.a423977120c7c18bcbca2f8e1dfee4ce.jpg

Edited by Longhornstampede
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10 hours ago, Armybrat said:

Grandma Maggie didn’t need any stinkin’ love potion…. 

3F2837B3-D3D6-47DC-A014-1F7062EF0C9B.jpeg

You need to blow up Maggie’s picture and look at her face. That glow is likely related to Dr. Thompson’s Genuine Ivory Carved Gentleman Friend. 

The Gypsy peddler covered a large territory. 

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Amendment to my earlier story about the GG Uncle - I heard it wrong (to be fair, it was recited in spanglish).  Turns out, GG uncle was just a local fellow, pissed off that said rustler was taking his brother's livestock (and lots of stock from their friends and neighbors).  Encountered rustler at a crossroads, told him that if he saw him in that area again (Del Rio/Acuna), he'd kill him.  Some months later....he comes across rustler in the area, and shoots him dead, plain old vigilante justice (and not exactly legal).  The local ranchers gather some money together so GG uncle could GTFO there.  He departed to Juarez.  Where he eventually became the police chief.  He was indeed killed while he was the chief, but it was just a "in the line of duty" thing, not a "rustler got the drop on him because the chief had threatened him."  I mean, in both versions of the story, he ends up dead, so it probably doesn't matter to him.

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3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Amendment to my earlier story about the GG Uncle - I heard it wrong (to be fair, it was recited in spanglish).  Turns out, GG uncle was just a local fellow, pissed off that said rustler was taking his brother's livestock (and lots of stock from their friends and neighbors).  Encountered rustler at a crossroads, told him that if he saw him in that area again (Del Rio/Acuna), he'd kill him.  Some months later....he comes across rustler in the area, and shoots him dead, plain old vigilante justice (and not exactly legal).  The local ranchers gather some money together so GG uncle could GTFO there.  He departed to Juarez.  Where he eventually became the police chief.  He was indeed killed while he was the chief, but it was just a "in the line of duty" thing, not a "rustler got the drop on him because the chief had threatened him."  I mean, in both versions of the story, he ends up dead, so it probably doesn't matter to him.

Which relative did your .38 revolver belong to?

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Just now, Armybrat said:

 

Which relative did your .38 revolver belong to?

It belonged to my mom's adoptive father (the man I knew as my grandfather).  He used it to shoot himself when the time came.

It did NOT belong to the man I THOUGHT was my natural grandfather (an abusive NOLA alcoholic, who was my mom's father till her mom left him and ran away to S. Texas).

Nor did it belong to my ACTUAL natural grandfather....a randy NOLA physician who had a penchant for screwing and impregnating his patients (including my, ummm, apparently quite persuadable grandmother).

My NOLA family history may be sketchier than my mexican family history.  I do have an old .32 revolver from the Mexican side, provenance unknown.  I've never fired it (have you found .32 ammo around the past century?  I sure haven't).

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Posted (edited)
14 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

It belonged to my mom's adoptive father (the man I knew as my grandfather).  He used it to shoot himself when the time came.

It did NOT belong to the man I THOUGHT was my natural grandfather (an abusive NOLA alcoholic, who was my mom's father till her mom left him and ran away to S. Texas).

Nor did it belong to my ACTUAL natural grandfather....a randy NOLA physician who had a penchant for screwing and impregnating his patients (including my, ummm, apparently quite persuadable grandmother).

My NOLA family history may be sketchier than my mexican family history.  I do have an old .32 revolver from the Mexican side, provenance unknown.  I've never fired it (have you found .32 ammo around the past century?  I sure haven't).

Yes, I found a few boxes of S&W Long at Academy just before the pandemic. 
It can be fired through a .327 magnum.

Says here there is some at the Research 183/Oak Knoll store.

https://www.academy.com/p/aguila-ammunition-32-s-w-long-98-grain-centerfire-ammunition-50-rounds

Edited by Armybrat
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2 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

Looks about right. That was back during my Dad's homemade-witness-relocation days. I was told some garbled story about how he was never going to Mexico again, ever. Another family member mentioned the family being chased north on the interstate. Then, in another tale that ties in with all that, appears to be that they made it home to the Hill Country, my Dad got this .32 cal faux-16 and showed himself to whoever was coming over the rise. They left. May not have happened like that, but I doubt Beowulf actually wrassled with Grendel. We still sing about it in the mead halls.

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