El Paso, Texas

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El Paso! What to say about El Paso, Texas?? It is the city of our parents’ childhood and the place that I (Sharon) was born, but since I moved with my parents to Calif. when I was 10 mos. old, I never claimed to be from Texas. We arrived in El Paso in the afternoon and pulled into an RV Park on the eastside of town on top of Interstate 10. With temperatures running in the high 80’s and low 90’s it was very hard to keep Rosie comfortable inside even connected to electricity so we could run the air conditioner. Think closed up car in 90+ hot sun on asphalt with no shade, 106 degrees inside at 1:30. Anyway, in the morning we decided to check into a motel for the rest of our stay.

My feelings of El Paso were mainly negative as a child and have not improved over time, if anything they are more strongly negative. Being kids, traveling in summers for 14+ hours in a hot car with no air conditioning , over a two lane road that followed the contours of the land---up and down with each wash,--crossing boring, boring dessert was NOT our idea of a fun summer vacation. It was also not fun to finally arrive at our grandmother’s home and have to wear dresses and “act like ladies”.

I (We) do have some pleasant memories of those summers—watching the alligators being fed in the downtown plaza pool, sliding in our socking feet down the main, really long, polished wooden hallway, playing all kinds of card games with Aunts and Uncles and assorted cousins, learning how to crochet from a favorite Aunt “because there was NOTHING TO DO”. The most fun was being with family—watching and participating in the kidding and laughter and love between my father and his siblings.

One other good time associated with El Paso, was the 50^th wedding celebration of our parents. They renewed their vows in the same church they were married in with all of their original 8 attendants in attendance except their flower girl (our mom’s sister) who was living in Hawaii at the time. All of the women wore dresses in the colors of their original pastel gowns, which was a pleasant surprise for my mother. We had a big reception for them and many of their old friends plus family came, several even made the trip from California. Both Mom and Dad had a good time showing the grandchildren all the places they lived, the high schools they attended, and other places that were important to them growing up.

But, El Paso for us, is also associated with family funerals. First to be buried in Restlawn Memorial Cemetery, was Mother’s father (William Tuvell) when she was about age 15. Then in 1946, it was our Dad’s father’s funeral, at age 91, when I was almost 5 and Valerie about 2 years old. We obviously did not know our grandfather, and were not allowed to attend the funeral, as we were too young, according to our grandmother. His death and funeral was at the end of October, which meant we were there in El Paso both during Halloween and my birthday. Both were celebrated I remember, on the insistence of our fun loving Aunt Edith. They even gathered up some young kids for my 5^th birthday party. We were not allowed to trick or treat in the neighborhood but, 4 cousins were dressed in “costumes” and spirited out the backdoor to run around to the front door and trick or treat the “surprised” Aunt Alice who was manning the door giving out candy to the neighborhood kids.

Other funerals have followed over the years; our grandmother’s when we were both in high school and then in more recent years Aunts, Uncles, and then our parents were buried in El Paso (Mother in 1999 and Dad in 2006).

The day after we arrived, we drove out to Rest Lawn Cemetery to check out all 8 of the family graves . All of the gravestones have a film of mineral scum from the hard water in El Paso and the rain bringing down pollutants from the manufacturing plants in Mexico. The two oldest headstones need some type of work on them to keep the engravings from being completely eroded away. We contacted the office to see about getting all of them cleaned.

After the visit to Restlawn, we went in search of the grave of one of Dad’s siblings that died when he was only 18 months old. He was born right before Dad and was buried in the very old Evergreen Cemetery closer to downtown. When we checked in at the office, we were told, since it was lunch time, that the man who could take us right to his grave was at lunch and would not return for an hour. So, out of the cemetery we drove and found a busy looking café across the street. What a cultural treat! No one in the whole place, which was really packed, was speaking English. They had only a few items on the menu and everyone was ordering rolled, beef filled tacos that were sold 3 to an order with a heated sauce, like a thin enchilada sauce, poured over them and then grated cheese and green chilies were added on top. We chickened out and each had hamburgers and then people watched as we ate.

We returned to meet with the man to show us the spot where Floyd was buried and found that there is no marker on his grave only a number 2. We don’t understand this at all. I know that at the time of Floyd’s death, Dad’s family were living in Ysleta and were very poor, so it would be understandable that a marker was not placed then. But, later when there was enough money??? We checked at the office, and they would charge us over $600 for a small infant marker. I think we will have it done, since it really bothers us, but want to check when we get home Grandmother’s bible for dates and if he had a middle name.

That evening, we had a really nice dinner with our 2^nd cousin, John Weiske, a career Army man who was stationed at Fort Bliss before he retired and loves El Paso. He came back to our motel suite and we caught up on things he has been up to. His father and our mother were first cousins or another way to look at it is that, his grandmother and our grandmother were sisters and, therefore, we share the same great-grandparents.

The next morning, we worked on our blog and then checked out of the motel and had lunch with one of our mother’s good friends, Virginia Bakosky and Virginia’s 2 nieces. She is 93 years old and is becoming a bit senile, but remembers mother and the other neighborhood kids that mother grew up with. At about 2:00, after a good visit, we hit the road toward Las Cruces. We took the Trans-mountain road that goes from the eastside to connect with interstate 10 on the west side over the mountains avoiding all of downtown El Paso.

Starting mileage that morning was 24090 morning, Thursday April 26^th and it was 84 degrees at 10:30 and high winds blowing dust. It was hard for Valerie to hold Rosie to the road as the winds are so strong. Dust, dust and more dust. You can see where they might have to close the road when it blows this bad as visibility was impaired in some stretches. We drove through the very attractive town of Las Cruces, NM, now on Interstate 25, with very nice adobe/southwestern style homes and businesses. About 60 miles north of Las Cruces, we checked into Caballo State Park on the dammed up Rio Grande River for the night. All along the river from Las Cruces, were pecan orchards and other green agricultural pursuits. Away from the river side, the desert is dry, dry.

Some final thoughts on this visit to El Paso:

* Lots of new building going on especially around Fort Bliss with the relocation of several Army units from Europe to here---new housing, new high school, road work, etc.

* They have painted the all the concrete of the overpasses and underpasses on the freeways in very attractive southwestern colors with western-themed designs along the tops of the supports.

* The men and women are still begging with their signs under all the freeway crossing and intersections.

* The city has tried to beautify the medians and flowers were blooming here and there.

* The city has expanded much, much further into the desert in all directions except of course toward Mexico, than when our parents were kids.

* It is still not a place we like and almost every time we visit, we believe it may be the last time. And every time we are there, we send thank you's to our parents for moving to California.

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