My Family
My roots and my way...
Don Miguel de la Torre was born in 1896. He grew up in an agrarian culture, learning about life by living and working the land. As far as we know, he received no formal schooling. In rural Durango, it was not easy to find teachers or priests. Occasionally, one would visit the town and sometimes stay for a while...
Socorro Mercado was one of three sisters. She was born in 1910, also in a small town in the state of Durango. Her parents separated when she was a child, probably under five years old. She lived with her father and sister Manuela. Her mother moved to, probably, the state capital, Durango, with the third sister (name unknown). Socorro grew up quickly. At 14, she married Miguel and, a year later, gave birth to a son, Facundo.
Miguel and Socorro lived in areas south and west of the capital. In El Salto and Regocijo, Miguel worked in sawmills and later in communal land management, where he farmed the land and became the leader of the communal lands, a prestigious position at the time.
It was in this region filled with sawmills, farms, and even a few mines that his family grew to 11 members. My sisters, Zenona, Benita, Margarita, María de Jesús, María de la Cruz, and Micaela, were born in this rural area. It may be a myth, but Micaela may have been born on a train bound for Durango. My mother was trying to get to the capital to give birth, but Micaela didn't wait. She decided to be born on a train... Along with the girls, there were four boys: Facundo (the firstborn), Perfecto, Teófilo, and Pedro. They also grew up with limited schooling. As stated before, when a teacher arrived in the village, he attended “school,” otherwise he helped with the land and animals.
When Zenona and Benita were between 17 and 20 years old, a family who immigrated to Monterrey, Nuevo León, invited them to live with them and helped them find work as nannies. Soon, they told my father about the many opportunities available in the big city. The family moved to Monterrey in the mid-1950s.
My father found work at a paper company that sold paper products to wholesale distributors as well as to retail stores specializing in office supplies. There, he was part of the delivery team.
The rest of us were born here: José Luis, Héctor, me, and the youngest member of the family, Patricia. Schools were plentiful in Monterrey. All the younger children could attend a regular school and receive an academic education. This, along with the values our parents instilled in us, allowed us to achieve a lot...