My maternal grandparents came from Guanajuato with my grandfather's mother, brother and their first born child. Like my father's family they also were tenant farmers near Martindale,TX from the late 1920's until 1950. My parent's knew each other since my mother was 11 and my father 22 years old. Both families lived through the Depression and then World War II. The farm mostly grew hybrid cotton for seed that was ginned in Martindale. Since they lived on a farm they could rely on fresh vegetables,chickens, eggs, corn and a yearly hog butchering for their sustenance.
During World War II several young men from the Mexican American community served in the armed forces including a cousin of my father and my mother's brother. My uncle volunteered at age 19 to serve in the Army towards the end of the war. He trained at Ft. Hood in San Antonio as part of Texas Oklahoma Company that served under General George Patton in Europe. My uncle served for 17 consecutive months in combat duty. He served at the Battle of the Bulge, in Germany and Belgium. Upon his safe return he made a pilgrimage to visit the Virgen de Guadalupe shrine in Mexico City. A few years later the family purchased a small farm in Maxwell,TX that remains as the family homestead. It served as a small family farm with arable land to grow mostly cotton and corn.