A POSTSCRIPT TO YET ANOTHER CHILTON WHITEWASH

By Juan Montoya
In last Sunday's history whitewash column by Herald mainstay Carl Chilton, he wrote at length of the way people used to travel in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
He included the picture of the convoy at right without mentioning some of the local people involved in the endeavor.
Luckily, some of our readers had knowledge of the local people involved and we are told that their names read like a who's who of familiar local Hispanic names.

Since Mr. Chilton may not have been aware, or even bothered to list the names under the photo he included in his article, we'll do it.
The people who accompanied John Young as his drivers, footmen and midwife, were listed on the original photo. We cannot understand why Chilton did not deem it important to include them in his article.
Those in the ambulance convoy included Bernardo Tijerina, Simon Diaz, Susana(?) Diaz, Alberta Balli Young, John Young, and Juan Mata.
Those of us who have followed the writings of Mr. Chilton know that he is loathe to mention any accomplishments by any local Mexican-Americans, preferring to idolize old Anglo families instead of the common people.
In some cases, as in Chilton's column two  Sundays ago, he even went as far as to ascribe Dr. William Crawford Gorgas's "research" as leading to finding the cause for yellow fever when a Cuban-born doctor – Juan Carlos Finlay – was publishing research papers years before Gorgas was even out of medical school.
As newer generations of researchers and historians begin discern truth from fiction, we are sure that some of the mythology passed off as local history by Mr. Chilton will be seen for what it is, a continued effort to whitewash our heritage.