The Family Orozco
It was decided when I was four years old that I would accompany my grandmother, my dad’s mother, on Saturdays, to do errands and visit her “in-laws.” This went on until I was about seven.
She would pick me up from our house on Kern and Eagle. We would catch the ancient rickety Kern Bus, a private bus line, that would take us down to Whittier Blvd. Next a street car would take us to 7th and Broadway downtown. One of the few pleasant memories I have of my grandmother was seeing the department store Christmas windows, and listening to the Salvation Army band. One of the few times I remember, possibly the only time I remember my grandmother smiling.
She was a fast walker, so she would pull me along a couple of blocks up to Grand Central Market. I still have great affection for this bustling, busy marketplace, but the memory of the visits with my grandmother is of embarrassment. She would bicker with the Italian vendors, bargaining over bruised fruit and wilting vegetables.
Then, off to Mass at La Placita church across from Olvera Street. The church was founded in 1784. She complained to the priest that I hadn’t had my first communion, and so couldn’t go up with her. She asked if he couldn’t do something about it. He asked me if I had any questions about the church.
“Since one of the 10 Commandments says not to have idols, how come there are so many statues in here?”
The priest gave me one of those noncommittal …It’s all a mystery…. Catholic answers. He told my grandmother that I would be alright.
My grandmother did not like this answer, we left the building, and my grandmother said that this fool was a stupid Jesuit.
After that we went to Saint Vibiana’s Cathedral, a beautiful church much more ornate and 100 years younger. And it cut off a few blocks of walking.
After church, once again on the street car and on to the cut rate department stores on 1st Street in East LA. Many years later, while walking along that street, I saw my grandmother coming in the opposite direction, I ducked into a shop. That was the last time I saw her, I’m pretty sure she didn’t see me.
Now, a bit of history for you…
In 1925, when my dad was five years old, his father sent my grandmother, and their two children, to live with, and be supported by, a branch of the family that lived in Los Angeles since the 1890s. I believed that they were a “second family,” and I always thought that the shit hit the fan, and she and the kids had to leave her home town of Manzanillo.
However…
Sarah figured out a much more likely story. In 1926 there was the Mexican Catholic Purge, when the government, like many other Latin American countries, ousted the Catholic Church. They also persecuted the very faithful.
My grandmother was a Super Catholic. Mass most every day, the candles, the saints, the statues, the home altars. She was such a Catholic that when her saints failed to answer her prayers, she would punish them by turning them to the wall, or covering them with a cloth, and in extreme situations, she would turn them upside down.
It is possible that instead of my grandfather getting them out of town, he was protecting the family by sending them to Los Angeles.
Of course, my dad felt abandoned by his father, and I don’t think he ever recovered from that hurt. And it didn’t help that he was raised by his eternally angry mother, and by an uncle who he always described as being very cruel.
I don’t think he saw his father again, until…
When I was four or five, and my dad was almost 40, his father and one of his sons came to visit. My memory of it isn’t clear. You know how it is, Come say hello and shake hands. I immediately didn’t like the man. I didn’t like how he looked, the perfume he was wearing, or how he talked. While he was there I stayed under the kitchen table with a roll of Lifesavers and a little hammer from my woodworking kit, quietly and slowly turning each lifesaver to dust.
I refused to come out when they left, but went to the front window. They talked for the longest time. Then they all got in a car. I was so afraid they were taking my father away. But they just sat in the car talking. I could see the pain in my father’s face. I saw my grandfather’s face soften. That made me dislike him even more. Eventually, my dad and his half brother got out of the car and exchanged information. They lived in Ensenada.
My dad would love to take long Sunday drives. Once in a while we would go to Ensenada. I think he was always hoping to casually run into his brother, but it never happened.
Back to the story.
From First Street my grandmother and I rode a bus about a mile to my grand-uncle‘s house. The man who raised my father. He was responsible for providing financial support to my grandmother. One of the family's businesses was barbershops. There were a number of Orozco barbershops on the east side. My grand-uncle owned one on the corner of Mariana and Michigan Ave. I remember it as a comfortable old-fashioned barbershop. A magical thing happened when you went through a curtain in the back of the shop. There was a house, a very large house, that did not belong in the neighborhood. I looked at it on Google, and I saw the building is still there, and that it is made up of three joined houses plus the shop.
I remember my grand-uncle as being a nice man, and my grand-aunt always giving me something to eat and being affectionate.
A little side story…
My grand-aunt would sometimes make this wonderful something to eat. She would make me a piece of toast, but only toasted on one side. The untoasted side would be saturated with butter and some salt. Then on top would be a softly scrambled egg. Little salsa on the side. A delicious snack. When my brother was eight or nine I made this for him and for years and years, he became obsessed with this snack. He would experiment with different kinds of bread and different degrees of salt and different styles of eggs.
Back to the story…
Next, we would walk up half a block to my great grandmother‘s house. There were always a lot of people in the front room, and there were always nuns around. After much shaking of hands and greetings, we would be taken back to my great grandmother's bedroom. The room was all in white. There were two white bedside tables, and two white chairs, and in the bed was an ancient woman dressed in white, with full long black hair, and on either side of her, stood two nuns in black.
My great grandmother did not speak Spanish, and everything she said had to be interpreted by the nuns. She asked about my parents, and how I was doing in school, and she seemed very interested and engaged. When she was done, she reached out her beautiful old hand onto my head and gave me a blessing, and then she caressed my cheek.
Then the nuns shooed us out of the house by a side door.
And every time, as we walked from the house, my grandmother would go on and on about how these people weren’t even Christians and how dare they dress up like nuns.
Back to the barbershop. My grand-uncle gave my grandmother her allowance, and asked about the visit. Then he would give me a silver dollar, which my mom always took from me when l got home.
Then we said goodbye, walked the block or two to the Kern Bus, and it took us right to our house on Kern and Eagle.
It occurred to me while thinking about this story, that my grand-uncle, who’s exact family relationship to me I don’t know, who’s name I don’t remember, who raised my father, was in a real way, my grandfather. After these visits, I never saw him again. I wish I had.
When my dad was 18, the family set him up with a bakery. The shop is still there, still a Mexican bakery, on Maple Street a couple of blocks south of Washington Blvd. When he was drafted, he became a baker in the Air Corps. I don’t think my dad kept the bakery long after he returned from the war.
Then I got sick, we moved, and I no longer shopped with my grandmother.
There’s one more bit of this story that belongs here, but I'd rather not include it here. But, if you ask me, I’ll tell you the story of my grandmother on the street car.