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Herstory

Abuela is 2nd from the right
Abuela is 2nd from the right.

Abuela was raised in a small pueblo just after the Mexican Revolution of Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. Grandpa Angel, 16 years older than Abuela, fought in the revolution. The illegitimate son of a wealthy landowner, he killed a man for the first time at the age of 15 in a dispute over the ownership of some pigs. The revolution was good for him as murdering men frequently thrive in violent times. By the close of the war he co-owned a banana plantation and was quite wealthy. His fortunes changed when a drunken bar incident escalated to violence that culminated in a large gun battle in the center of town. Grandpa Angel and his men killed people including some important government officials and had to go on the run. A former general in the revolutionary war helped my grandfather to hide and convert his resources into land and cattle in the pueblo where Abuela lived.

Although raised in humble circumstances, Abuela loved to read and declaim. She first memorized patriotic poems as a three-year-old, declaiming at community events or simple family gatherings. An aunt who married into the family taught school and provided a free education to Abuela, who was reading by age four. Although much of her time was devoted to the typical farm and household chores expected of young girls, in her free time Abuela read every book she could acquire. It was well known in the community that no gift would please her so much as a book (although she also loved to play with dolls). When Abuela was 15 years old, Angel came to the house to visit with her parents. It didn’t matter that Grandpa Angel already had a family in the pueblo with another woman out of wedlock. He settled on a price of cattle and land with Abuela’s parents that greatly improved the resources of the family. Abuela put her books and dolls away and was married.

She describes her wedding night and the two and a half years that followed as a nightmare of continual rape, violence, and pregnancy. She lived in fear that the next beating would kill her. Grandpa Angel slept with his gun on the nightstand. Especially on nights when he was drunk, she fantasized about taking his gun and killing him before he awoke. As time went on she became more concrete in her plans for murder and waited for the right night to steal his gun.

Before Abuela could realize her plan, a land dispute led to a gun battle at the home. Abuela protected her babies with her body on the floor as bullets flew over head. Grandpa Angel was shot in the back of the head and killed instantly. Terrified by the violence and concerned that she might be a target, Abuela fled to the jungle to hide with my three month old mother and two year old aunt. Her father brought food and other needed supplies to her primitive camp until it was safe for her to return to the pueblo.

Widowed at 17 years old with two young daughters, Abuela turned to her mother for child care and started a business selling clothes. She also found love with Grandpa Gabriel. They married and had three daughters and a son, growing the family to six children.

Tragedy re-entered Abuela’s life when middle daughter Marilu, died of a sudden illness at age nine. Abuela’s grief at the loss of her daughter was profound. She spent many nights sleeping on her daughter’s grave site, fearful her daughter remained in limbo because her family couldn’t afford a special mass. A friend remembered that Abuela investigated the Mormon church some years prior. She contacted members of the fledgling church to reach out to Abuela.

Deeply comforted by the LDS doctrine of the afterlife, Abuela and the rest of the family were baptized (although Grandpa Gabriel probably neglected to mention his infidelity and second secret family in the baptismal interview). Abuela found purpose and empowerment in the LDS faith. The branch needed her and her daughters. Her family raised substantial funds for the construction of the first LDS chapel in their city. She was soon the president of the Relief Society: providing instruction to other women, but also collaborating with male leaders to coordinate missionary work and budgets. Her older daughters taught Sunday School and led the youth Mutual Improvement Association putting on dance festivals and cultural events that drew a large community audience.

Abuela joined the Church in the sweet spot of gospel growth when a branch has so many needs that no one really cares if it is a woman that does the work, as long as it gets done. She was integral to the growth of the LDS community in her city. My mother was a Sunday School President and Ward Secretary before the local Church was organized enough to staff those callings with men.

However, the transition to LDS living was not entirely easy. The heavy-drinking-fiesta side of the family lived next door and shunned Abuela for years. Grandpa Gabriel ran off to live with his other family, leaving Abuela burdened with numerous debts. Abuela faced these trials with holy confidence in her ability to survive loss. She honed her leadership skills in church callings and was prepared to meet new challenges in her life.  Abuela used her growing confidence and skills to open a bookstore and support her family. Her life was free from domestic violence, her children safe and finally, she could read all of the books she wanted.

The gospel of Jesus Christ changed my family culture to one in which violence against women no longer exists and marital fidelity is the norm. Grandpa Angel’s murdering ways died with him. My generation of the family may succeed in eradicating violence towards children.

As I consider my Mexican pioneer heritage and my own experiences in the LDS Church, I am grateful for the “sweet spot” in leadership opportunities for women when a new branch of the church is growing. If the Church in Mexico had been entrenched and well established when my grandmother joined, I doubt my family would have experienced the same depth of transformation. After too many years as a powerless woman, Abuela was truly born again in opportunities to work in the Church and lead. She learned what it meant to be respected and listened to as she allowed the atonement to transform her life from the story of a victim to the narrative of a survivor.

Abuela’s story is in some ways the story of the Church not running exactly the way that it should, but enabling the atonement to work in the lives of women unhindered by bureaucracy and tradition. Abuela became a woman who acts and is not merely acted upon. I wish more women could engage in the empowering opportunities of leadership that my Abuela, mother and aunts were afforded. I see how the lives of hundreds of men and women have been touched by the transformation that occurred in Abuela’s life. Leading and building the Church changed a history of violence and subjugation to a her story of healing and rebirth.

16 Responses

  1. I love this story! We really do limit ourselves as a church when we are so entrenched in tradition that we don’t allow for change and individual growth and progress. I love that your grandmother found just what she needed in the church. My grandmother did as well. I hope that my own children will have a similar ability to find what they need in the church.

  2. Wow. I love how this story shows how the power of Christ (working through a strong woman) can change the course of a lineage. It’s wonderful to see how leadership opportunities played such an important role in Abuela’s transformation. I long for the day when it will no longer be exceptional for women to have these opportunities.

  3. Love this! I really do believe in the power of owning our narratives. I think it’s so marvelous that you received this story from your grandmother, and put fingers to keyboard in order to record and share it. It also makes sense, after all our conversations about finding satisfaction in building programs. I understand now that, like your grandmother, you enjoy working in the space that exists before rigid structures and convention set in.

    Lately, I’ve been thinking about all the marvelous things that we each learn and experience every day. And how many of those concepts are lost by the simple fact that they aren’t acknowledged, recorded, or shared.

    1. I sometimes get the sense at Church that only our stories of conventional success are welcome. The truly messy stories of how the atonement works in a life or the ways that we reject it and get stuck, don’t frequently make it into the official record. I very much agree that daily wisdom of life is often lost through a lack of record keeping. I have often thought of sharing this story when I listen to a narrative of Utah pioneers from descendants who appear to be the product of many generations of happy Christ centered living. I don’t want to take away from other stories, just add some awareness that there are people in our congregations with a very different type of experience and history.

  4. Wow, thank you for sharing your family’s story, Cruelest Month. The imperfect parts of the church catch my attention so often that I sometimes forget things like this can happen: “The gospel of Jesus Christ changed my family culture to one in which violence against women no longer exists and marital fidelity is the norm.” That’s such a powerful statement.

  5. I loved this. It was beautiful, and powerful, and a different story from what we always hear. I also loved that you bore testimony to your lives being profoundly better, without the outcome being perfect or fitting a standard mold. The Atonement and the Gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to make our lives better. That doesn’t mean our lives become one specified version of better, but that as we look back we see the changes. Thank you for sharing this, it can be so hard to admit to the parts of the not-too-distant past that are embarrassing or uncomfortable.

  6. I love this story, and I love how she emerges triumphant. I often don’t feel like I hear stories of the truly transformative power of the gospel enough – I hear a lot about little things, but I don’t usually get to hear about how it literally changes lives like this. Thank you for sharing it.

  7. “The gospel of Jesus Christ changed my family culture to one in which violence against women no longer exists and marital fidelity is the norm.”

    What a great perspective. I often get caught up in the inequities of our current priesthood system, so I love hearing the ways that your abuela found empowerment and leadership and hope in her conversion to Mormonism. I think the empowerment your abuela experienced in her Mormon branch must have been what early Mormon women experienced in the church — opportunities to claim power and personal relationships with God and real gospel work to do. Fantastic post, Cruelest Month. Thank you!

  8. I love that your grandmother shared this with you, and that you were able to share these sacred experiences here. I have such an admiration of how she used the church to rise above some nearly-unimaginable trials. Would that all women could share these stories, for I think many of us have them. Thank you for sharing, Cruelest Month.

  9. This is breathtaking, Cruelest Month. Like others, this sentence “The gospel of Jesus Christ changed my family culture to one in which violence against women no longer exists and marital fidelity is the norm” is beautiful, powerful, and a witness of the good that exists in he church. Thank you for sharing this here.

  10. So powerful. So tear-inducing. Especially this line (as well as the very last): “Her life was free from domestic violence, her children safe and finally, she could read all of the books she wanted.”

    Bless your Abuela, and bless you for sharing Herstory.

  11. Thank you for sharing this powerful account. I hope that someday, all women can have opportunities for transformative lesdership experiences, and not just when adequate numbers of men are absent. It is so important that our church organization rises above our patriarchal cultures.

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I’m going to try to do a better job holding multiple truths about Mormon women’s experiences at once with care, including wisdom gained from my North American-specific feminist awakening, and the recognition that many wise and experienced Latter-day Saint women of color around the world are focusing on priorities and using approaches that have meaningful and understandable distinctions from mine. 
I can’t pinpoint the year or occasion that I switched to filling the space of cards and letters with lists of qualities I love about the recipient or expressing pride in their achievements. It makes me feel like I’m celebrating them for who they are rather than focusing on what they need to do.

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