Stories from my Lineage: Mama Lupita and Papa Santiago
I never met Mama Lupita she was my great great grandmother and passed before I was born. I have heard many stories about her, she was the town “healer”. She cared for the sick and brought babies into the world. Made shampoos and ailments for people and she had a certain knowledge that helped the people in the crater mountain village they lived in.
Mama Lupita was set to get married. Due to the location where they lived, they needed to travel up the mountain to the city in order to officiate the marriage. She requested that her groom send horses for her and her bridal party. However when the day came the groom only sent one horse. Mama Lupita called off the wedding.
His cousin, Papa Santiago, saw this as his opportunity, asked for Mama Lupita’s hand in marriage and when the day came made sure to have the horses, they got married and had many children including my Grandma, Mami Mitty.
Papa Santiago died at age 49, due to complications after a surgery in the city. He was a good man, hard working, caring, loving. He died when my grandma was still a kid. She fondly remembers going with her sister to bring the food her mom would pack for him to the campo where the men were working. My grandma looking back thought about how he must have been tired and hungry but he would share his food with them whenever they were craving some. My grandma and her sister at the time blissfully unaware of his loving sacrifice.
When he passed, my grandma recalls her youngest brother, who was very fond of Papa Santiago, becoming deeply sad, until one day he too passed, they say he died of sadness. Occasionally my grandma’s older siblings would attempt to discipline her, she would grow frustrated and run to the mountains, shouting for her dad to intercede. “Like a crazy child” she said, telling me this story one rainy day in Durango while we sat on a dusty couch in her old home looking through photos we had found in a box.
I was able to visit both Mama Lupita and Papa Santiago’s graves on my last visit to Durango, July/August of 2021.
