Rosa's Cantina

 

The song El Paso, by Marty Robbins, came out in 1959 and it has always had special meaning for me. My dad bought our first console record player, stereo system in 1960 and a few record albums too. I remember The Soundtrack of Tales of the South Pacific, Son's of the Pioneers, and Gunfighter Ballads by Marty Robbins. 

 

 

That year, 1960, Dad was working at Ford Motor Company's Stamping Plant in Chicago Heights, Illinois, about 45 miles north of our rental duplex in Bourbonnais. I was thirteen years old, my siblings eleven, nine, and five. On his days off from the Ford plant Dad would play his records in the living room and soon we all knew those songs by heart. It was a happy time for us all when the music was playing and Dad was singing along, sometimes dancing around in that self-conscious way of is. I especially loved "Tumbling Tumble Weeds".

 

 

 

Dad worked the 3 to 11, or afternoon shift at Ford, leaving the factory a little before midnight each night, driving south along Illinois State Highway 45 toward home. Friday nights were paydays when he liked to stop at his favorite Bar just south of Chicago Heights, a place named Purgy's. He'd cash his check and have a few drinks before coming home.

Sometimes Dad would have more than a few drinks and those were the nights I remember most (worst). They weren't often, but they were frightful. The window in the bedroom I shared with my two sisters was high off the floor and I would stand on my tip toes watching the car lights come up over the bridge on North Street, willing it to be Dad as each set of headlights appeared, knowing the sooner he got home the less drunk he would be.

Dad had a jealousy problem, and after a few too many drinks he'd accuse my mother of infidelity, of flirting with tall, dark, handsome men. Lots of yelling and ugly accusations. Sometimes shattered dishes and broken flowerpots. I use to blame alcohol but now I believe the real problem was Dad's low self esteem caused by a traumatic childhood. The alcohol was his relief valve. Dad needed mental health counseling and medication but men of his generation, tough men, Bosun's Mates in the U.S. Navy during WWII, preferred punching a guy in the nose to seeing a psychiatrist. Eventually, after twenty-three years of marriage, dad lost his wife, the love of his life, to another man. We, their four kids, watched it happen and there were no winners. Mom was not the flirt Dad accused her of being. She was a woman who had reached the end of her rope. And Dad was a good man, always a “good provider”, his generation’s measure of a husband and father.

Dad knew we all dreaded those nights. So what did he do? He changed "Rosa's" to "Purgy's" in Marty's El Paso and would sing El Paso, parts of it anyway, like this..."Out through the back door of Purgy's I ran, out where the horses were ti-i-i-ed.." . and then he'd laugh, Dad's distinctive chuckle. Oh, did he sing that over and over and laugh and enjoy it. It is forever etched in my mind, a happy memory of my dad singing and laughing at his own frailty.

This past week my cousin Patty Devine French and her husband Joe French came to visit me for the first time ever. We all told family stories which opened windows in my mind that had been shuttered for years. After their visit I was sitting in the recliner in my and Bob's bedroom and glanced up at a framed print on the wall, one that has hung there for years. Bob loves the artwork, by Stephen Morath, titled "Evening would Find Me" and then it clicked, “Evening would find me at Rosa’s Cantina, music would plan and Felina would whirl…” There it was again, Marty Robbins’ famous song, and it took me back.

 

And the day after that, over dinner with our family, my husband asked our daughter-in-law, Alejandra, “What is your favorite Mexican food?” As she started to answer she turned to her husband, our son, and asked, “What is the name of our favorite Mexican Restaurant in Longmont?” and Patrick answered, “Rosa’s Cantina.” Ha! I had to laugh and then I heard my dad laugh in my memory. And my heart clutched and I felt the loss of my dad in my life again, thankful for all he means to me, for all our shared life together, the good, the bad, and the musical. I asked my cousin, in front of her husband, did you marry a man like your dad? And she said no, and I said, neither did I, but I know there are similarities in my dad and my husband, one of them being "never a dull moment."

Patty’s and Joe’s visit has rekindled my appreciation and love for Illinois, for coal miners, for Route 45, my Devine family, and for my dad, Joe Uknavage. Thank you, cousins, I needed that. See you next Spring!

Grandma Reese, Was She Indian?

  

Grandma Reese, my dad’s maternal grandmother, was born Gertrude Mae Johnson on the 25^th day of February 1882 in Terre Haute, Vigo County, Indiana. At the tender age of 14, on August 11, 1896, she married Thomas Maple “Mape” Devine, a coal miner, in Vincennes, Knox County, Indiana. In April of 1912 she gave birth to her sixth child, a full term boy, stillborn, they named Orvil Lee Devine. Gertie buried him and was still mouring his death when her husband Mape died June 28, 1912, in Muddy, Saline County, Illinois, at the age of 36. His death certificate lists Bright’s Disease, a kidney failure, as his cause of death. Gertie was left with with no money and five children to raise by herself, John, 14, Annie, 12, Inez, 8, Charlie, 5, and Roy, almost 4.

 

Gertrude’s parents had divorced in 1891 and were not available to help her. Helena Johnson Potter, Gertrude’s younger sister, had four children of her own by 1912, unable to provide money but probably a shoulder to cry on.  Soon Gertrude’s situation became desperate and there was talk of the county taking her children and farming them out, a plan she could not tolerate. Nearby was a neighbor, a batchelor twenty years older than Gertie, William Edward Reese, who approached her and said if she would marry him he would be take responsibility for her and her kids, would keep them together. And so she did, in 1914, and became our Grandma Reese.

 

 

 

 

Gertrude and Bill Reese had two children together, Susie Ardena Reese in 1916 and Mary Jane Reese in 1919.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I first started studying our family history, thanks to my younger sister Kathy Benoit Hillary, I attended our annual Smith Family Reunions in southern Illinois each summer and asked a lot of questions. One subject that often came up was this “was Grandma Reese part Indian, i.e., Native American?” Many of us have remarked on her looks, dark hair, dark brown eyes, and high cheek bones. I now know that is a very common question by those who study genealogy, that many families have heard that someone in their family is Native American, most often Cherokee, but that after much study those same families rarely find proof of that. DNA testing has become affordable and popular and has helped identify ethnicity in families. Rarely is there evidence of Native Americans in the family trees.

 

 

Realizing that several of Gertrude’s relatives were interested in this I asked Mary Jane Reese Stark, Gertrude’s last living child, to take a DNA test, and at the advanced age of 98, she did! A special thanks to Mary's daughter, Lydia, for helping her mother take the test and for mailing it in. I really hoped that before Mary passed away I would be able to tell her, “YES”, you are part Native American, but I was not able to do that. Mary died August 31, 2021, at the age of 102, our longest lived relative. I have continued to study her family background, almost daily, as more and more DNA matches come in. Oh, I forgot to say that Mary allowed me to add her DNA results to my family tree so that I can see the names and family trees of those who share DNA with her.

Yesterday, October 18, 2024, my first cousin once removed, Patricia Faye Devine French, daughter of Gertrude Mae Johnson Devine’s son Charles, came with her husband Joe French, to visit me from their home in Missouri. We talked a lot about our families and, sure enough, the question of whether or not Grandma Reese was Native American came up again. That has prompted me to give my family an update on what I have learned, so far, about that.

 

 

 

 

 

Just this year (yes, it has taken me seven years!) I found that one of Gertrude’s ancestors is Elizabeth Jane Payne, born 1813 in Tennessee, Gertrude’s paternal gr-grandmother. Elizabeth’s great grandparents were, supposedly, both Cherokee Indians, Thomas Payne (Motoy), b. 21 Oct 1721 Christchurch, Middlesex, Virginia and Ardwood C (or Jennie Running Horse) Koch, b. 1720, Hanover, Virginia. I found this in other family trees and have not verified it!! As I told my cousin Patricia, I don’t feel confident about this and should not even put this word out without further study, but then I realize I am 77 years old and don’t want to go to my grave without someone knowing this might be real, provable information. And I want to point out that even if it is true this means Gertrude Mae Johnson was only 1/32^nd Native American, hardly enough to have a strong influence on her looks! But there you have it! 

I continue to study Grandma Reese’s family tree and may find another connection to Native Americans. If not, I am thankful she was a strong, healthy woman and I’m proud to be descended from her, through her second child, Anna Jane Devine.