This story was originally told by Felipe Lozano. He was in his barber shop in Brownsville, Texas, in 1963. It was written down by Peter Gawenda . And edited for the book Studies in Brownsville History edited by Milo Kearney.
Before the turn of the century, several incidents occurred on Ranchito’s around Brownsville in which children and young mothers were helped by an old woman. Two of these stories are as follows.
The Garza’s lived in one of the rancheros right outside of Brownsville. Every morning they would head out into their fields and work all day long. Their only child, the 4 year old Consuelo, would be with them and she would usually play at the edge of the field or under the Mesquite trees. She would chase butterflies. Very often one could see her interrupt her activities to look for her parents, and only after she saw them would she continue her play.
One day, though, when. Chasing a butterfly, she. Started wandering off, and neither the parents nor she herself realized that she was getting lost in the Mesquite brush. When dusk set in The parents. Called their daughter, but they did not receive any response. As they always walked the same way to the fields and then home again, they finally hoped that Consuelo had already found her way to the house. But this was not the case. The parents looked and called in vain. They walked to all of the neighbors, but no one had seen or heard Consuelo. The father went to the Sheriff’s Department for help, and that same night a search party was assembled to look for the girl. Three days later, the search was discontinued, and Consuelo was given up as having died, either from hunger or from attacks of coyotes or snakes.
The parents and relatives were broken hearted, and especially the mother, who blamed herself for not having watched the 4-year-old.
On the 5th day, right after the parents had returned from church and were preparing to again search for their daughter, an old, frail looking woman in a strange outfit approached the house, led by little Consuelo. The girl showed no signs of hunger or thirst and was in excellent spirits. In fact, she was flowing over telling her parents about the nice treatment by the abuela, (this means grandmother in Spanish). As the parents were so busy caressing and kissing their daughter, they had completely forgotten to take notice of the old woman. When they finally turned around to thank her, she had disappeared. All three ran first inside the house, then to the back house. But in vain, the lady was gone.
The grateful parents made a novena at the church and the father set up a marker where the girl had been returned from the Mesquite brush. But the old woman never returned, and the girl would always remember her even when she herself was in her 70s. She would always remember a beautiful smile.
Another incident happened right across the river on the road from Matamoras to Reynosa, where a woman was about to deliver a baby in one of the desolate little farms.
The young woman’s husband had gone to town on his horse to get the midwife, but was held up for some unknown reason. As the young woman was in pain, she screamed several times, and suddenly an old woman wearing an old outfit walked into the Hut without. Saying a word, she quickly boiled water and put cold compresses on the young woman’s head, massaged her abdomen to ease the pain, and then helped a healthy little boy into this world. The old woman then washed the baby, cleaned the young woman, and left the son with the mother. By the time the young father returned with his midwife, he found only his wife and son, both sound asleep. The mother always remembered the beautiful and very soothing smile of the old woman, who was lovely. In all such incidents, the outfit of the old woman was described as being similar to an old Indian costume, as can be seen carved in some of Mexico’s ruins.
