The Family of Mama Pepa: Coming to the US

Research note by Wesley Johnston, begun 31 Dec 2023, last updated 1 Jan 2024
https://www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/collection/1030/tree/27355561/person/2045639963/media/57d4117e-bddf-4bbc-8791-71134dda2951?_phsrc=Kfy1598

Overview

Josefa Ruiz (known as Mama Pepa to her family) and all of her surviving children came from Colotlan, Jalisco, Mexico, to the United State. This note gathers the information on all of them to understand when and where they came and what led most of them to spend the rest of their lives in Chicago. The children are considered in birth order, followed by Mama Pepa herself since she and her three youngest children were the last to come.

Two major events impacted Mexico and the US in the period 1910-1920 when these moves happened. In Mexico, the Mexican Revolution impacted life significantly in the decade, although I do not know what impact it had on the family. In the US and the World, World War I in 1914-1918 raged, causing labor shortages in the US.

In the US records, the women went by their maiden name. While Maria Josefa would go as Josefa in Mexico, she would be referred to by her first name Maria in the US records.

Rita (Salazar) Vela (born 7 May 1894)

Rita was the second child, given the same name as the first child Rita who had died as an infant. On 8 Jan 1913, Rita married Francisco Vela (born 10 Oct 1884), son of Rosalio Vela and Maria Antonia Enriquez. The 1910 census shows Francisco as laborer on railroad tracks for the Santa Fe Railroad in Pawnee, Oklahoma. He made multiple trips to the US, working as a tracadero (railroad laborer), and once they were married, Rita usually came with him, and Mama Pepa also came with them on at least two occasions. In fact, while their first 3 children were born in Colotlan, their fourth child, Juan Vela, was born 25 May 1918 in Kansas. (Juan died 30 Nov 1982 in Sacramento, Calfornia.)