Fill out this form to email this article to a friend
Unveiling her past
By BECKY BOWERS
Published October 2, 2005
It was a simple e-mail message that set me on a family quest. A foreign address, a phone number and my mother's words: "You are the keeper of this info now!"
I was a 24-year-old newspaper copy editor in Florida, not long out of college. And now I was being charged with an adult task: Uncover the past. Track down a ghost.
Who was Gloria?
I turned to a tool that as a 20-something journalist, I understood. The Internet.
My dad, Rick Anderson, grew up in the '50s and '60s in a middle-class white neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.
When he was 8, his mom and dad, my Grandma Eileen and Grandpa Harold, sat him down for a talk. They told him something he didn't remember: Eileen was his mom, but was not the one who had birthed him. There was another mom, who had died when he was 2.
I don't remember when I first saw a photograph of Gloria, the lovely woman with brown hair and brown eyes, slightly darker than mine.
For years the only photograph I knew of was her wedding portrait, my Grandpa Harold young, handsome and proud, his wife, Gloria, with dark perfect hair, a delicate row of pearls at her throat.
My Grandma Eileen told me stories: Gloria studied at Oxford. Her father was a diplomat. Oh, and this was important: She was Spanish. European.
My Grandpa Harold didn't tell me anything. And I don't think I ever asked. The mere mention of his late wife's name, my dad told me, would bring tears to his eyes.
Harold and Gloria married in 1952. She died in 1958. No one told her two little boys, 2 and 4, that she wasn't coming back.
Gloria wasn't the only missing link in my family, but she was the one who fascinated me. With her, there was something more: a mystery. When Grandpa Harold died of kidney failure in 1997, my last connection to memories of her vanished.
It was a romantic, exotic mystery: A lovely foreign woman had married my dashing war-veteran grandfather, only to suddenly collapse, a victim of encephalitis.
When I looked at Gloria's photograph, I wondered, was I like her?
It might have been 1990, when I was in sixth grade, that I got the pearl necklace in the wedding portrait. My mother had kept the broken strand in its original velvet box, then coaxed a local jeweler to restring the 280 tiny beads.
A piece of the black-and-white past was new and in my hands.
Two rings followed, delightfully gaudy costume pieces that Gloria had worn the day she collapsed in her kitchen. A jeweler smoothed the bands.
As a teenager, I wore them, always using the jewelry as an excuse to talk about Gloria. She was Spanish, I told my friends. She studied at Oxford. Her father was a diplomat.
When I reached high school, the fairy tale started to unravel. Partly because of my mysterious family past, I studied Spanish. Grandma Eileen decided to show me photos and documents she had never deciphered: birth and citizenship records, snapshots with carefully inscribed notes.
I sat cross-legged on my bed with my Spanish-English dictionary and read every word.
Gloria was Mexican.
In Los Angeles in the 1950s, "Spanish" was an easier thing to tell the neighbors. But it wasn't true. Gloria's maiden name was Gloria Martinez. She was born and raised in Mexico City, not far from the towns where her mother and grandmother were born. Her father was born in Cuba.
Second, while I found evidence of Gloria's high school studies at a prep school in Mexico City, and even of her later teaching English there, there was no hint of Oxford. Nor was there mention of any diplomatic work by her father. He was listed merely as a businessman.
I was now officially skeptical of the childhood stories. Where information was incomplete, it had simply been invented.
What could I believe now?
My mother's e-mail in 2003 had contained the last known address of a mysterious figure whose name I had heard all my childhood: Uncle Vicky.
He was Gloria's only brother.
No one had heard from him since a major earthquake killed thousands in Mexico City in 1985. When Mom didn't get a response to a letter in the '80s, she and Dad assumed the worst.
Besides, Uncle Vicky had always been nothing more than a faded photograph. Even Grandma Eileen, who met him in the '50s, thought he had died long ago.
But now that I could read old documents and backs of photographs, the ghost gained flesh. Vicky was an engineer. His name was Armando. He was married and had two little girls, Marta Elena and Ana Cecilia. Even after his sister Gloria's death, Armando and his wife, Ileana, sent photos of the babies with notes like this to my dad's brother Jimmy: Para mi primito Jimmy, con carino, de Marta Elena. For my cousin Jimmy, with love from Marta Elena.
I showed the photos to my father, translating the notes for him. He may have glanced over them before, but never with names attached. Now I introduced him to his family.
This wasn't easy for my dad. The only mother he remembered was the one who raised him.
But he studied photos of Gloria, wondered what she was like and how very different his life would have been if she had lived. He imagined Uncle Vicky's life. Finally, he had so many questions.
Perhaps because we presumed Uncle Vicky was dead, no one had looked for him.
And now my mother's e-mail: "You are the keeper of this info now!" That was all I needed to begin my search.
I asked my dad for every photo and record he could find. On his next trip to Florida, he brought a full briefcase. Where were these when I was in sixth grade?
I pulled out my computer scanner and spent several days at my desk at home, making high-resolution copies of yellowing bits of history.
And I exposed my family's story for scrutiny on the Web.
I had already started a blog to keep my family back in California updated on my Florida life. Now it had new purpose: to chronicle my search for my grandmother.
On Nov. 6, 2003, the entries began. I titled the first blog entry En busca de Gloria, In search of Gloria:
"It's time. For years Dad and I have kicked around the idea of searching out his mother's relatives in Mexico. Is his uncle alive? Does he have cousins? . . .
"Who was she? What did she do? What was she like? And does her family ever wonder what happened to her little boys in the United States? . . .
"Wish us luck."
Then I turned to Google and Yahoo Mexico. I couldn't believe what a few searches turned up. The school where Gloria taught English? It had a Web site. The church where she was baptized? A university site had a photo.
Technology had bridged 40 years. And that was just the beginning.
I was looking for a Martinez in Mexico City, a city of 20-million people. So I knew that even if I found a matching name on the Web, it probably wouldn't be the right one. Then again, any of them could be the ones I was looking for, the little girls in the photographs.
There was Miss Ana Cecilia Martinez, personnel director of the American School of Torreon, Mexico. I found her photo on the school's Web site. She took my breath away.
She had the right name. She appeared to be the right age - Dad's cousins would be his age, in their late 40s. She had Gloria's full forehead, her almond-shaped eyes. I wrote on my blog on Nov. 9, 2003: "I'm feeling a bit like a lunatic grasping at impossible straws, but I couldn't NOT e-mail her." And so I had, with a message in Spanish, repeated in English.
Less than 24 hours later, she replied.
Ms. Anderson,
I'm sorry!
I'm not the person who you're looking for.
Best regards.
And there it was. The Web had made the world a tiny place, and a disappointingly large one.
Eight months later, I found another match, a Marta Elena Martinez Crespo. Crespo had been Ileana's last name, so a Martinez Crespo was just what I was looking for. This one was a doctor, the head of elder care services in the state of Chiapas.
I trotted out my rusty Spanish to e-mail her.
Excuse por favor mi espanol; hablo ingles. Pero necesito que pedirle una pregunta: Es Ud. la hija de Armando Martinez e Ileana Crespo?
Please excuse my Spanish; I speak English. But I need to ask you a question: Are you the daughter of Armando Martinez and Ileana Crespo?
I included a few more details, and a link to my Web site. And as with so many messages I sent, to embassies and strangers on both sides of the border, I never heard back.
Nine months later, in April 2005, I sat at my desk at the St. Petersburg Times. It was after 5 o'clock, but not yet 6. A co-worker had just asked me if I had received his e-mail about a recent trip to Chicago. I pulled up my e-mail. Among the messages was an alert that a visitor had left a comment on my Web site.
Curious, I clicked.
I AM BROTHER OF MATRTA AND ANA CECILIA MARTINEZ CRESPO.
I LIVE IN MEXICO CITY ...
THEY BOTH LIVE IN THE SOUTHERN PART OF THE COUNTRY.
IT IS GREAT TO HEARD FROM YOU
ANDRES AARMANDO MARTINEZ Y CRESPO
Under my breath, I reacted. Holy crap.
I could feel tears starting to tickle the edges of my eyes. I picked up my cell phone to call my father.
Go to my Web site, I told him. Read the latest comment. His first reaction was like mine: "Whoa. Wow." But he was in San Francisco on business. He was distracted. He didn't know what to think.
I had never heard of Andres, but after 40 years, two families had just been linked by one message on the Internet.
It was the last thing I had expected, after nearly two years of searching - that Gloria's family would find me first.
As the story unfolded, it would only get better.
Before I went to bed that night, I sent Andres a reply:
"Muchas gracias por su mensaje de la red! Que sorpresa! No se que Marta y Ana Cecilia tienen un hermano! Hay otros?"
Thank you for your message on the Web! What a surprise! I didn't know that Marta Elena and Ana Cecilia had a brother. Are there others?
By the next afternoon, he replied. He included a snapshot of himself with his two children, a girl, 11, and a boy, 10. He looked just like his father, Uncle Vicky, in the old photos.
REBECCA.
IT IS A GREAT PLEASURE TO HEARD FROM YOU ALL.
YOUR SPANISH IS REALLY GREAT, SO PLEASE YOU WRITE IN SPANISH AND TO PRACTICE I WILL DO IN INGLISH, IS IT O.K. ?.
And then he wrote something that made me cry.
MI FATHER ARMANDO, GLORIAS BROTHER LIVES WITH MARTHA ELENA IN CHIAPAS.
His father Armando, my dad's Uncle Vicky, the young man who grew up with Gloria: He was alive. Sitting at home at my computer, I put my hands over my face and sobbed.
A day later, I got another e-mail, this one from a familiar name: Ana Cecilia. To me, she was still the charming toddler from the old photos. But here she was, an adult with grown children, and a story for me.
It began, "A few days ago, a friend studying in Canada forwarded me the link to your home page."
And just like that, like the pearl necklace in sixth grade, black and white became color.
In subsequent letters and phone calls, a stumbling blend of English and Spanish, I learned about Uncle Vicky's children: Marta Elena was now a doctor, Ana Cecilia a biologist and Andres a businessman.
The first time my dad and I spoke with Armando and Marta Elena, a three-way call between Florida, California and Chiapas, my dad was polite, his voice sometimes tight with emotion.
He asked a series of planned questions: When had Armando last visited the United States?
At 77, Armando was incredibly sharp. In crisp English, he gave answers: He had visited Texas in 1997. The men traded remarks like curious strangers.
When his daughter Marta Elena joined us on the phone, she choked up. For so many years, she had saved a doll of Gloria's, just in case. Marta and I, we cried.
And she confirmed a suspicion I'd had since I first learned she lived in Chiapas: She was the Marta Elena Martinez Crespo I had e-mailed in fall 2004. But uncomfortable with technology, she didn't check her e-mail. She had never read the message.
Andres and Marta Elena both invited us to visit. With a choice between Mexico City and Chiapas, Dad didn't have to think about it. Mexico City. Where his mother grew up.
His Uncle Armando would fly to meet us there, at Andres' home in the city.
Just four months after that first message from Andres, I was on a flight to meet him.
There was plenty we still didn't know about the family, but most fears vanished when I saw Andres, a tall, well-dressed man in the airport. The rest faded away as we picked up my father and retired to Andres' house.
Dad, the sales manager, and Andres, the business owner, traded work stories. Dad was thrilled he had found cousins who shared his energy.
Dad and I plotted to learn what we could about Gloria during our weeklong visit. And that meant asking Armando. He had a story for every subject: Bangladeshi oil fields. The rain forests of Panama. But just like Harold, when it came to Gloria, years of pain buried his words.
One morning, we asked about Gloria's funeral. Who had attended?
"Gloria died before my father. My father and I flew to Los Angeles for her burial."
He looked away, and announced that we needed to call his granddaughter about our morning's plans. He had changed the subject, again.
Over other meals, we learned a few more details: Gloria played the radio too loud. She was an excellent student. She was always social, outgoing.
The last night of our weeklong trip, we made a breakthrough. But it wasn't with Armando.
Dad and I were alone in the city with one of Marta Elena's daughters, my second cousin Mariana, 28. She helped us hunt down a Web cafe. We sat down together.
She had never seen photos of our great-great-grandmother Juana. She was fascinated by old photos of homes, clothes, our great-grandmother Nora. She sat, blinking, tears in her eyes.
"I feel now like you must have felt when you got that message from Andres," she said.
Mariana and her sister, Gaby, didn't have cousins just their age. And here I was, 26 years old and married, the same as Gaby. We could say "our" great-grandmother. Nuestra.
Dad and I traded meaningful glances. Someone we had never known existed was as excited as I was about old photos. About his mother.
And then I knew: Dad and I came in search of Gloria.
But the real gift wasn't in reliving the past; it was about our future.
Our family.
--Becky Bowers can be reached at 727 893-8859 or bowers@sptimes.com
[Last modified October 2, 2005, 06:18:57]
Share your thoughts on this story
|
News
Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
Print
Email story
Comment
Email editor
