Ancestor fled for his life in Mexico's war

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This photo, taken around 1911 in Torreon, Mexico, shows, left to right, a bugler; Gonzalo Garza, who served in the Mexican Revolution as a lieutenant; and a sergeant. Gonzalo Garza was the great-grandfather of Paul Hernandez, a Santa Ana resident who wrote of his family's experiences in the Mexican Revolution. "My great-grandfather, Gonzalo Garza, joined the effort as one of Madero's lieutenants," Hernandez writes. Madero paid for this photo, still in the family's possession.COURTESY OF PAUL HERNANDEZ

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My family's experience with the Mexican Revolution of 1910 began with my great-grandfather on my mother's side.

When Francisco I. Madero's run for the presidency in 1910 ended in loss due to voter manipulation and fraud, Madero called on the people for revolution in order to free Mexico of the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, who had been in power for 38 years.

My great-grandfather, Gonzalo Garza, joined the effort as one of Madero's lieutenants. Gonzalo knew Madero prior to the revolution, having worked at one of the mines owned by Madero.

As a lieutenant, my great-grandfather was responsible for a victory in the city of Torréon in the state of Coahuila, and Madero rewarded him by paying for a photo of him, his sergeant, and bugler, which we still have.

Madero's forces were eventually victorious, and he became president in 1911. Gonzalo and his family, including his oldest child, Rita, born on May 22, 1903, who was my grandmother, moved to Tlalnepantla, which, at the time, was a short distance from the capital, Mexico City.

Madero was a cautious man and wanted to fairly distribute land owned by the few wealthy landowners to the majority of the people who were mostly poor, but he did not move fast enough for some and was assassinated in 1913 by one of his own generals, Victoriano Huerta, who betrayed him and assumed the presidency.

My great-grandfather, Gonzalo, had to flee for his life since his allegiance had been to Madero, and he sent his family north to Gómez Palacio, in the state of Durango, to live with his sister, Gabriela.

Unfortunately, the revolution eventually caught up with them there, and my grandmother's family endured hardships for many years, including invasions by various revolutionary armies and bombardment of the city.

They even read in the casualty reports that Gonzalo had been killed in a battle in Ciudad Victoria in the state of Tamaulipas. However, the reports proved to be wrong when Gonzalo returned to the family after a two-year absence. He had survived the battle in Ciudad Victoria, but his nephew, Federico, who was the son of his sister, Gabriela, had been killed.

After his return, he became a merchant and opened a store in Aguascalientes.

By this time, the major bloody fighting of the revolution had ended, but there were still battles between different generals or factions for years to come.

On one occasion, my great-grandfather came home early from the store and took my grandmother, Rita, to see somebody special. He took her to the train station where she saw Pancho Villa, a general in the northern part of Mexico and a hero of the revolution, sitting in the back of an open railcar greeting the people of the city.

My grandmother, Rita, married Severiano Luévano in 1923, and they settled down to raise a family in Aguascalientes.

My uncle, Andrés Rafael, was born in 1924, and my aunt, Elena, was born in 1926. A week prior to my aunt's birth, on the last day of July, 1926, all the churches in Mexico had been closed due to enforcement of a provision of the Constitution of 1917 which up to this time had not been enforced.

It called for the confiscation of all church-owned land. The Mexican government was distrustful of the church because of its support of the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz prior to the revolution. After a curfew had been imposed due to the church crisis, my grandparents had to make a dangerous night journey through the streets of Aguascalientes in order to get my aunt baptized.

In 1927, Rita made her usual morning trip to the marketplace in the center of the city to shop for her family's daily meal, and just as she crossed the street from the market on her way home, a band of revolutionaries loyal to the church and opposed to the government attacked, and she was caught in the middle of the skirmish.

The policeman who stood directing traffic on the corner she had just passed was shot by the rebels, and she was among a crowd of people who had to flee for their lives.

She thought she would never see her family again, but, miraculously, arrived home safely, although she was scared and breathless. She then told my grandfather, Severiano, who had been caring for the children while she shopped, that she could no longer live in fear of her life or that of her family's.

This episode led to the Luévano family's departure from Mexico. They traveled from Aguascalientes to the border crossing at Ciudad Juarez, where they obtained papers to enter legally into the United States, paying a head tax of $8 each to cross.

My grandfather found a job working with Santa Fe Railroad, and the family first moved to Danville, Arizona ,and, eventually, settled in Kansas where my mother, Anita, was born in 1930 in the small town of Attica.

My great-grandfather's sister, Gabriela, had long before left Mexico because of the revolution and had moved to the Logan neighborhood of Santa Ana. The Luévano family would visit her most summers, and in 1948, finally relocated to the city, attracted to the mild weather and the beautiful scenery. They have been here ever since.

I was fascinated by my grandmother's stories about her family's experience during the revolution and had her repeat them over and over to me.

I have learned to appreciate the strength of my ancestors in their struggles, not only during the revolution, but in their migration to the United States and their challenges during the Great Depression and World War II.


As the lyrics of a famous mariachi song state, "Viva Mexico! Viva America!"

Translation: Long live Mexico, long live America.

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