A GODSON'S TRIBUTE TO HIS MADRINA OF WILLACY COUNTY

(Ed.s Note: We stumbled into the following tribute from the late Dan Reyna to his godmother. We don't know if his madrina survived Dan, but his tribute to her on her 100th birthday is priceless and mirrors the traditions on South Texas, especially rural Willacy County.)


By Daniel Reyna

When mi madrina Maria Cantu Garza was born, the 30-year-reign of Dictator Porfirio Diaz had come to an end. Villa made war in the north and Zapata fought the government in the south. Around South Texas Catarino Garza had also waged war against Texas Rangers and the Mexican dictator.
A new order took over Mexico with ideas that celebrated the freedom and progress of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans across the Rio Grande.
These new ideas included the equality of all men, the equality between men and women, and a deep appreciation for knowledge and education over superstitious customs and class discrimination.
Yet, these men and women who were born at the turn of the last century retained a deep sense of family, honor, and an unshakeable faith in a higher power.
If anyone embodied these beliefs, it was mi madrina. She took this revolution business seriously.
I don’t use the term madrina lightly. In those days, being a padrino or madrina carried with it a huge responsibility. I was left an orphan when my father was killed in the war in 1942. When my mother remarried, I was sent off to Raymondville to be raised by my stepfather. Besides my grandmother, the only other figures of respect and role models were my padrino and madrina, who took me under their wing and encouraged me to work hard and make something of myself despite the loss of the companionship of my parents.
For that I can never thank then enough. My sons and daughters and grandchildren are the result of the faith and trust they placed in me. As long as my offspring live, they will be living testament to the kindness and love they invested in me.
Being a woman in the early 1900s was not easy. Minority men – and women especially – were not thought to be intelligent enough to get an education. It was hard enough to be a Mexican in South Texas. Being a Mexican American woman carried with it even more obstacles. Men were supposed to work in the fields. Women were to be relegated to the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant.
Mi madrina broke the mold. Despite these hurdles placed before her, she went on to graduate from Incarnate Word University in San Antonio, and even was chosen as a Queen in the Fiestas Patrias of 1927, with more than 500 votes over the next nominee.
She insisted as being treated as a first-class citizen and worked as hard as anyone I know to insure the equal opportunity for advancement of our mothers, wives, daughters, and granddaughters.
But that’s not all. By force of her personality and perseverance, she also established herself as the patrona of a 15,000-acre working ranch that had been in her family for 13 to 14 generations. Living in the ranches at that time was hard work. During the Great Depression, the family labored on the ranch themselves when it got hard to hire other people to do the work.
Yet, despite the long hours and privations, she demanded and required that her two children get an education. Maria Cimodonia became a dietician and spent her entire professional career serving the Veterans Administration in Houston.
Carlos became an aerospace engineer and worked on the first space shuttle mission.
As for me, I goy my Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctorate in the Humanities.
In one generation, every stereotype that sought to intimidate and keep our people from progressing was sent crashing by this ranchera woman from Willacy County.
When I graduated from Raymondville High School, she made sure I had a tuxedo to wear to the prom and a ride to get there.
Let me tell you a little story of how she operated. When Cimodonia graduated from Incarnate Word University, she applied with the VA Hospital. I was then the Texas Surgeon General with the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Mi madrina called me and told me that all she wanted for Cimo when she applied at the VA was for her to get treated fairly.
Not only was did I make sure she was treated fairly, but I made sure she got the job. As a result, our veterans received 30 years of responsible, competent care for their recovery after serving our country.
I could go on forever, but let me tell you a few short stories that will show the kind of person mi madrina has been all her life.
As a student in the summer, I applied for a job with the Raymondville Cotton Co-Op Gin and was told there was no work for me. I told my padrino and he in turn told my madrina what had happened. “Don’t take our cotton to that gin,” she told him.” Now, 1,000 bales of cotton is a lot of profit for a gin to lose. When they heard what my madrina had said, I had a job offer the very next day.
And when she heard that a local car dealer told me that a T-Bird was too much of a car for a Mexican to drive, she called up the bank, had them pay for it, and then had the dealer bring it to my house in Raymondville and deliver it to me in person.
And when I fell in love with a Ford truck, she got me one, except for one thing. It had to be a Chrysler, her favorite make. In fact, all her life she has been a Chrysler fan and she wouldn’t be caught driving anything other than a Chrysler Town car. Class, I guess, begets class.
When I married my wife Virginia in 1955, she called her up and took her to the furniture store and told her to pick out the bedroom, living room and kitchen furniture. However, she insisted on picking the mattress.
Then, in 1959, my late wife got a call again from mi madrina. She said that when we got ready to come home to Raymondville we could check out a house she had bought for our family. She wanted us to come home and see if we liked it.
And when I ran to become the first Mexican-American Tax Assessor-Collector in Willacy County, there wasn’t a weekend that she didn’t make sure our campaign rallies had rice, beans, beer and a calf to be butchered for the people to eat.
You’d think mi madrina would mellow with time. Think again.
She kept a long-barreled shotgun loaded with rice shot instead of bird shot in case anyone would come messing at the ranch at night.
Once, after mi padrino told me that I could have some watermelons for a fundraiser at Bronco Fiesta for the veteran’s club at Pan American University at Edinburg, I guess he forgot to tell mi madrina. Even we battle-hardened veterans were startled when she appeared with a shotgun demanding to know why we were stealing her watermelons.
And when the county Judge Bill Rapp and I were driven home by the local DPS after our intake of spirits prevented us from driving, she had the DPS officer give her the keys to the judge’s car. When Bill awoke and demanded his keys saying that he was the judge of the county, mi madrina told him, “You may be the judge of the county, but on this ranch I’m the judge.”
Bill went back to sleep.
Other big shots got the same treatment.
Former Congressman Kika de la Garza and the federal judge from Brownsville Reynaldo Garza would go hunting on the ranch and they would ask us to stay around to help them. Mi mardina would say “What do those borrachos know about hunting? All they do is get drunk and play a la baraja.”
One last story: I took a phone call once for me and my padrino from the president of Mexico Alvarez Echeverria inviting us to a conference in Mexico City. He would send the government plane to Matamoros and they would take us from there to Mexico City. Lopez Mateos also hunted on the ranch. Mi madrina’s response?
“Que quiere ese viejo?
When I went to visit the Great Wall of China, I struggled to walk on the steep climb. She, on the other hand, walked the climb of the road built by Chinese emperors with the greatest of ease. She has been to every Mexican state in that country and traveled all around the world.
Many of us won’t reach to be her age. And even if we did, it is highly doubtful that we could accomplish as much as she has or touch as many lives positively as she has. Madrina, on this your 100th birthday, I love you and I thank you for touching me and my family. Gracias.