Since her parents owned property here, Lorna Acosta came to Álamos as a teenager. She fell inn love with a local boy, Antonio Acosta, got married, raised three sons here, and has become an influential citizen of Álamos.

Lorna Acosta: (Lorna is standing in front of the fireplace) The Chinese cooking classes that Amigos is sponsoring with the great help of Gary and Yan Leeks. If you want more information on that. It’s every Sunday starting this coming Sunday. If you want more information, you know where to find me. For four weeks. Let’s get started here. Welcome to Kathy’s Korner. Kathy’s Korner has a bit of a history, so we’ll start with that. One of the one ways to tell in Alamos if these houses have been split or not is to look above on the - above the roof when you come in, and you’ll notice that the cornices will go all the way across. When you go outside look and see. You will notice that this house was once part of what is now the Hotel Colonial. Now, going back a ways the Hotel Colonial and this house were once connected. Why, how, what? This house was not originally a house. It was a warehouse. If you’ll notice, people keep telling me that we need to fix the steps, we need to fix the steps. They’re not your normal rise and run steps. The reason for that is because that was originally a ramp. If you go to the end of the sidewalk here you’ll see the sidewalk is also ramped. That is because in La Colorado, they used to make the tequila. No you can’t call it tequila unless it comes from Tequila, Jalisco. But it’s the same critter, believe me. What they do is they’d make the tequila, they put it in barrels, they put one barrel on each side of a burro and then they’d march the burros from La Colorado up here, up the sidewalk (Horn blows) and up this ramp. Underneath these two arches were two testing and receiving tables. God, I wish I’d had that job. (Laughter) They would test the tequila and decide what grade it was. Then they’d go through this patio, out into the patio and there were one, two, three, four - there were six consecutive rooms. The last two rooms have now been - well, God helped - the roof fell in and we decided to knock them out, but those were the storerooms, and each one had a door going in. If you go down the patio you will notice that there are doors going into each of the rooms, and we later on have connected them. This was originally (coughing) a doorway into the next room. (Lorna points to her left) The tequila would be stored there. The burros would come in, they’d test, they’d go down the right patio, they’d deliver their barrel to whatever wareroom was told and then they’d continue out the back. In the back there was a small stable. There was water. There was hay. There was a place for the burros to do whatever burros do. Then they’d go back out. They’d go back up to La Colorado and they’d do it all over again. So that was the original purpose of this house. Now, because it was connected to the house next door, which used to be called La Casa del Cisne It was called the Casa del Cisne because the fountain in the front patio was not the fountain you see now. It was a swan. Cisne. Swan. And the swan’s neck was up straight and that vulgar bird spit water all day long. Later on, while the houses were connected in the back patio about where you see the gate now, there was a door that went through that connected La Cisne to La Bodega, which was the warehouse, and that’s how they went back and forth without having to go outside. In the late sixties, early seventies a man named Edwards bought the house next door and redid it. He also bought the ranch La Cienegia and and I am sure many of you, if you don't know, have heard of Tiburcio Martinez, Bucho Martinez, the iron worker, lived next door. He took care of the house. He ran the ranch. In the late sixties, and I am not sure ’68, ’69, ’70 - yes?

Lynne Wiedman: Was it Dale Edwards that bought that house?

LA: It very well may have been, but I don’t know.

Lynne Wiedman: Was he a doctor from…?

LA: Not Zora’s husband. I don't know.

Lynne Wiedman: Not Zora’s husband. A different Edwards.

LA: I’m not sure. Antonio and I had a long discussion about this this morning. It required a - it was a two cup of coffee discussion.

Lynne Wiedman: You haven't resolved it yet?

LA: No we haven’t. We haven’t. And Antonio said, “Call Bucho.” I said, “I’m not going to call Bucho at seven o’clock in the morning. You call him.”

Linda Hellman: Bucho was a kid - like sixteen years old.

LA: Yes, Bucho was a kid, because Bucho and Antonio I can tell you for sure are about sixty-seven. Don’t anybody tell I told, but after that in ’68, ’69, ’70, ’71 my grandmother bought this ruin, and it was a ruin. She came in and she decided she wanted to fix it. Now, people say to me, “What brought somebody like Louise Snell from New York City to Alamos. I mean that’s kind of a stretch.” But what is now the entryway to the Hacienda de Los Santos was originally owned by Dolly and Bill Walsh, and they had decided to come down here and retire and Dolly and my grandmother had been great friends. They were part of the dancing group in New York City. They did all kinds of things together. Dolly invited my grandmother down to stay. A little aside, Bill Walsh was one of the prosecutors of the Nuremberg Trials. If you don’t know what the Nuremberg Trials are check your history book. So they became very good friends. My grandmother came in here. You’ll see many things today here that my grandmother brought down: the chandelier, the mirrors, the sconces, quite a bit of the furniture was her doing. We as children weren’t allowed in here, although as we grew older we were allowed to come in but we definitely had to be dressed appropriately. In those days, Alamos was very elegant, very elegant. People would have dinner parties or cocktail parties and the waiters would all walk around with white gloves and silver trays offering you appetizers or something to drink. There were no phones in those days so people communicated by hand written note, and on the bottom it always said “Delivered by hand by (Name)”. And whoever your houseboy was would deliver that. Alamos had an Alamos midnight. There was no electricity in Alamos in those days. Alamos was run by a generator. At ten o’clock the generator was turned off. So, either you had your own generator or you went home, and you got in bed, and you were in bed by ten o’clock. Thus Alamos midnight is nine o’clock, because that gave you an hour to get home to get ready for bed, to get tucked in, before the lights went out. That’s the saying for Alamos midnight. It’s not because we all need to go to bed early because we’re “getting there”.

??: Old.

LA: Thank you. I wasn't going to say that, but okay. This house as do many many places in Alamos has it’s own ghost. The historical rumor says that one of the caregivers …. Come on in! (Lorna waves in a guest)

Visitors: Can we look at books?

LA: You can do anything you want. That’s what this place is all about. Within reason. One of the caregivers here of the warehouse supposedly hanged himself in the back yard. Supposedly his ghost takes care of this place on a regular basis. If you see him let me know. I have never seen him.

Ellen Price: Well maybe that’s why the roof fell in.

LA: That’s very possible and there are a whole bunch of other reasons why the roof may have fallen in, but we’re not going to go there. Then when my grandmother decided that this place was not an easy place to get to, and it’s easier today than it ever has been, but it’s still a difficult place to get to, but she decided that getting here from New York City was a little bit more of an effort than she wanted to do, so she passed the house on to my parents. (Horn outside) My parents lived here during the season for several years and then at this point, my sister, Kathy who was living in Guadalajara decided she wanted to come to Alamos. So my parents said, “Well we’d rather move into a house where you can get from one room to the other when it’s raining without having to go outside, so we’ll go down the street and buy the house that currently belongs to the Wingate’s. If you like this house, we can work out some kind of a deal.” My dad was a master at making family deals. So they made a deal with my sister. My sister became the owner of Kathy’s Korner. It was then Kathy’s house. She put the dining room in and the dome in the ceiling. My grandmother put the pool in so the pool was there. If you want to go swimming, I am really sorry, it leaks like a sieve, so we don’t put water in it anymore. But Kathy lived here, Kathy lived here for many many years. Any of you who know or knew Kathy, this is Kathy (She points out photos of Kathy) And that is why this is Kathy’s Korner. (Phone rings) Kathy, by education, was an educator. She had a degree in secondary education. She had a Masters degree in secondary education. She had a degree in Art History. She had a degree in Administration. She, unlike myself who was a college drop out, was highly educated. That was one of the wonderful things about Kathy. Kathy had books like you wouldn't believe. There were rooms that were filled with books. So when Kathy passed away in ’04, after - if you die in Mexico, I hope you all have a will because dying in Mexico can be a bit of an adventure, so once Kathy’s estate was settled, I inherited this place. I thought, I have a house. I don't want to live here, but this is a really special place, and Kathy was a really special person. She was involved in Comadres. I remember walking in here. We had to walk in here kind of like this (Lorna demonstrates stepping over items). because there were baskets for the dispensa. I think there were two hundred baskets scattered through this room that she was in charge of helping fill for Comadres. Very involved. She started the Alamos Tennis Club. She did an awful lot of things, so she was very community oriented. I wanted to do something that honored Kathy as well as was a benefit to the community, something that she could smile down on me and say, “Good job. Thanks for doing that.” As I am going through all of these books, I thought, “Dang! A book store would be a really good idea.” Thus was born Kathy’s Korner. That’s why it’s Kathy’s Korner. That’s why it’s spelled with a “K”. That’s why Kathy’s picture hangs on the wall right there. (Lorna points to the entryway) How many of you knew Kathy? Okay. Okay. I can tell you that even to this day as I am walking down the street, periodically people will say to me, especially Mexicans will say, “Kathy, it’s been so long since I have seen you!” (Laughter). And I’ll say, “It’s going to be awhile longer until you see her again, because I’m her sister.” (Laughter)

??: So were you already here? You said you had a house in the same ….

LA: My husband and I, my husband and I were married in this church (pointing toward the Cathedral) in 1975. We raised our family here. It’s been our home since then. Yes.

Lynne Wiedman: I wondered. So when your grandma’s, grandmother started coming was your dad coming here to hunt already. Had he come or …?

LA: That’s the other side of the family. That’s the other side of the family. My father’s parent’s were divorced in the early ‘40s. My grandfather, my grandfather worked with the United States foreign service. Which is why my father was born in Berlin and lived part of his youth in Cuba. When my grandfather was stationed in Santiago, Chile, his counterpart with the Mexican embassy was a man from this general area of Mexico. They became very good friends. He said to my grandfather, “If you ever have the opportunity you’ve got to go to this little town called Alamos.” Well my grandfather, it may be, it may be inherited, but my grandfather was a bit of an explorer, so in 1955 my grandfather came here. In those days the only hunting guide was a man named Polo Acosta. My grandfather called my father and said, “You’ve got to see this place. It’s remarkable. It’s amazing. The bird shooting is fantastic.” My dad came the next year. My mother couldn't come, because she had a baby who was only a month old. I wonder who that could have been? So, the following year, both my parents came down in 1957. They came down every year thereafter and when they hunted with Polo Acosta, Polo utilized his three sons as bird retrievers: Polo, Felipe and Antonio. My mother fell in love with one of these bird boys, and every year she’d ask to have the same bird boy retrieve her birds. So the clock goes forward a few years. Antonio is home from medical school on Christmas leave and my mother hasn't seen him in four years, so she says, “Oh Felipe, it’s so nice to see you.” He’s looking at me in the back seat, and I am looking at him in the back seat and my mother is going, “What in the devil is going on.” She said, “She felt a zing.” Antonio said, “I am not Felipe, Audrey, I’m Antonio,” My mother said, “Got it.” So my mother used to love to tell people that she knew her son-in-law long before I did.

Lynne Wiedman: So your grand, the grandma, Kathryn. Her name was Kathryn, too, wasn’t it?

LA: No, my grandmother was Louise.

Lynne Wiedman: Louise, okay. So Louise - they were divorced?

LA: They were divorced.

Lynne Wiedman: They were divorced then she, then she, oh she came down here because of Dolly Walsh.

LA: She came down here because of Dolly.

Lynne Wiedman: What years were that, Lorna, or did you say?

LA: Similar time.

Lynne Wiedman: Did they run into each other?

LA: I want to say mid-fifties.

Lynne Wiedman: Did they run into each other.

LA: Not that they would have acknowledged.

Lynne Wiedman: Family story. That’s a great story.

LA: So that’s how I got here. Now, Lynne’s been great. Does anybody else have any other questions?

??: So your family went back to New York every summer? They ….

LA: No. My family, my father’s family is originally from Milwaukee. People tell me you can hear that in my voice periodically. I’ve never lived there. My father said, my father said, “I’m sick and tired of family, and I’m sick and tired of shoveling of snow.” So my parents moved to Arizona in ’56.

??: Then came here in the winter.

LA: They came here in the winters. Yes.

Jim Toevs: Lorna, part of the story is that your father’s name was Pabst, from Milwaukee.

LA: Yes, and that also happens to be my maiden name.

Jim Toevs: So Pabst Blue Ribbon beer was …

Linda Hellman: She was being modest. (Music outside)

LA: Any other questions or additions?

??: Do you live here year round? No. Or do you go somewhere in the summer?

LA: That’s very interesting. I call myself a year round resident, however when the temperatures get to triple digits, I have to go visit my grandchildren. They need me. They need me.

??: Where do they live?

LA: We have three grandsons living in Dallas with our oldest son and his wife. We have four grandchildren living in Santa Maria, California with our middle son, which is just north of Santa Barbara. And we have - our youngest son with his two children lives just outside of Sacramento in Folsom, and no, he’s not in jail. So Kathy’s Korner was born. We have quite a few books. It’s been awhile since we’ve counted them, but the last time we counted, we had over seven thousand volumes in here. This room is dedicated to fiction. The room in there (points to her right) is dedicated to non-fiction. If you’re willing to look through here a bit and thanks to Linda Adams and now to Kay it’s much more organized than I ever could have organized it. If you’re looking for something chances are if we don’t have it, we have something similar, so if you’re looking for something just keep pawing through it. It’s here, believe me. It’s here. We also have a table there dedicated to local authors. There are quite a few authors here. We have Emily Preece’s book, Over These Cobblestones. We have a couple of Michelee Cabot’s books. We have Richard …

Jim Toevs: Dalrymple.

LA: Schain? Richard Schain’s books. A couple of those. We have Richard ….

Jim Toevs: Dalrymple.

LA: And he’s going to have a book signing soon, is he not?

Jim Toevs: Yes. The twenty third.

LA: Yes. So, look out for that. We have Gia Ramirez’s book. Gia is kind of interesting. She’s been here almost as long as I have. I came to Alamos almost for the first time when I was six. I didn't come of my own accord. There was a time when Gia was my sister-in-law. She was married to Antonio’s identical twin brother, Felipe. That confused every Mexican in town. (Laughter) We have a book there by Tom Harkness. Now Tom Harkness was also a long time resident. No longer with us anymore. A book by Robin Ellis. Robin Ellis is also no longer with us, but her book is there. We have some books by Robert Cabot, by Donna Love, who is a part time resident, by Paul Molyneaux?

Jim Toevs: Molyneaux.

Ellen Price: Molyneaux.

LA: Okay. We’ve got a couple of his here, and then we have some other interesting books here. We have the women of Alamos (Our Stories of Alamos, A Pueblo Magico!). If you haven't read the women of Alamos it’s really fun. It’s written by - they’re short stories of seven hundred words or less written by women who live here in Alamos or have lived here in Alamos. It’s kind of either a fun story of what happened or how they got here or what they found when they got here. So that’s a fun book. If you haven’t, if you don't have a copy, we have lots. One hundred percent of those proceeds goes to Amigos de Educacion. We also have the directories which have now gone on sale for 150 (pesos). They are fifty percent off. Those also go one hundred percent to Amigos de Educacion. I might, I might add that all the proceeds - this place is one hundred percent sponsored. There are no expenses in this building. The electricity is sponsored. The taxes is sponsored. The employee is sponsored. One hundred percent of all process here go directly to the scholarship program, to Amigos de Educacion. So read and know you are helping others read too.

Linda Hellman: Sponsored by Lorna.

LA: Thank you, Linda.

??: And in memory of Kathryn.

LA: And in memory of Kathryn. There is also the history guide (El Alamos Historico) which was written by the History Club, so thank all of you very much, which is also on sale here. We have a new book that will be coming very shortly by Joan Winderman which is her stories and how her husband, Earle, some of the adventure they’ve had here in Alamos. Can I answer any questions? Yes.

??: Whom did your sister marry and is he still alive?

LA: My sister, my sister first married Antonio’s cousin Sergio, so we had two Acosta families here that were.…

??: And that is a picture behind you of …

LA: And that is my sister’s wedding, yes. And she also was married here in this church. It was an interesting story there. Kathy - there was a bit of an artist and she had ideas of how things should be done and during her wedding, she wanted to have trumpets. And the priest said, we don’t allow trumpets in the church. (Laughter) Trumpets are not church instruments. Kathy came to me and she was absolutely in tears. She said, “I want trumpets at my wedding. I want the Imperial March and I want it done like ….” I said, “Calm down. It’s okay.” So I went and I talked to the priest and I said, “Father, you know Gabriel has a trumpet.” (Laughter) And he said, “Oh, okay, well I guess we can have trumpets at a wedding.” So she got her trumpets. She was then, she was then divorced. She later married a man named Mauro Rodriguez. And Kathy passed away after that. Kathy passed away in ’04. Yes.

Kay McLean: You have some things beside books here.

LA: We have lots of wonderful things here besides books. We have some wonderful notecards. Some done by, well they are all done by locals, but some of them by local artists - local photographers, and there is a set here that I am particularly fond of, which are pen and ink drawings which were done by my mother, and they’re all pen and inks of Alamos done here on the sidewalk. Yes, Jim.

Jim Toevs: Kathy also made wonderful cookies. I was her neighbor across the street for several years, and every once in a while she’d surprise me with bringing over a wonderful plate of cookies.

LA: Kathy absolutely loved to cook. That’s one of the big differences between the two of us. (Laughter) Maybe it was because I raised three boys, and the cooking just never seemed to end. (Laughter) She had wonderful dinner parties here. She loved to cook and bake. She had some of the best recipes I have been the beneficiary of some of those. But yes, she loved to cook. Yes, Pam.

Pam Price: We also have here at Kathy’s Korner, the Alamos History Association library courtesy of the generosity of Lorna which is …

LA: We will, yes, as we go down, I have been asked after we adjourn the meeting here that we go down the hall to the first door in the porch there, and that is the Alamos History Club Research library. And thanks to Joan and Marta and the Alamos History Club, there are some absolutely phenomenal things. It is a research library only. Nothing leaves that room once it goes through those doors. But you are more than welcome to go in there and sit and place your bookmark in a book, and come back the next day and keep reading it and there are several people who do just that. It’s a wonderful, wonderful facility. Yes.

??: Do you recall a gentleman, Ramon, who had a cafe, I thought on the square, (phone noise) about early sixties - ‘61 ’63? Had a cafe on the square.

LA: Now you have to remember in the early sixties, I was six years old so my memory from those days, especially of a cafe, might be kind of limited.

??: I was seventeen, so I was way ahead of you.

LA: Yes, way ahead of me! (Laughs) I am fudging a little here.

Jim Toevs: Where was it located on the Plaza?

??: Well, that was a couple years ago, but I’m trying to - I am trying to remember it. I just remember going there for coffee which means Nescafe. And going there for dinner which was beans and tortillas.

Ellen Price: There was the Palmeras on the corner.

LA: The Palmeras was not originally on a corner. The Palmeras was originally what then later became the telephone, the telephone company and - what is in there now?

Ellen Price: You mean Polo’s?

LA: Yes, Polo’s. Palmeras was down there originally.

Linda Hellman: And wasn't there an ice cream shop on the plaza that people would come to on Sundays, because Angel told me about that? That people would come to Alamos. I mean this is way back. And they’d come on Sunday, spend the day here and there was a fantastic - it was known for its ice cream. I don't know where.

??: I just remember the shaved ice.

LA: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, yes! Yes. They had a ….

??: The shaved ice with flavoring.

Linda Hellman: Or maybe that’s what it was.

LA: Yes.

Linda Hellman: Maybe we’re talking about the same thing.

LA: Yes, That’s the same thing. They had a funny little instrument. It looked kind of like, it looked kind of like my son’s race car without the wheels.

??: It’s a raspado. It’s a rasp. Yes.

LA: And they’d just shave the ice in there and then they would open it up and stuff that into a cone.

??: ??

LA: Yes, raspado. Then they’d put the flavorings over it. Yes, that used to be on the Alameda. I remember that.

Linda Hellman: No, this was on the plaza.

??: I remember that on the Alameda.

??: Ramon said he was Yaqui and that’s about all the memory I’ve got. He was bald. Large man.

Lynne Wiedman: They’re all too young.

??: I am thinking ….

LA: It doesn't mean anything, but it would be something worth asking Angel and Antonio about, I am sure they have heard about.

??: One more question about your family. Did they drive here from New York or how would they get here?

LA: She would fly into Tucson, and then my father had an airplane. In those days, driving here even …. (Comment) Thank you. (Laughter) Even from Navojoa it was a bit of a journey. Antonio talks about his grandfather in the late forties going into Navojoa and he’d go in with his cart and the horse and he’d take him one day into Navojoa. He’d do his shopping very early, and it would take him another day to get back.

??: He would stay over night there somewhere.

??: So there was an airport here that long ago?

LA: No, there was an airstrip here (Lorna laughs). And if you fly you know the difference. Tom and I were just talking about it. What the pilots would do if they’d come here they’d buzz the town, and if you flew a 185 like my father did you also opened the little pilot window and threw out a bunch of hard candy. That would guarantee that if the taxi cabs didn't see you the kids would, and the kids would let the taxi cabs know that they had to go out to the airport to go get you. Then after you buzz the town you go and buzz the strip a couple of times, because you had to make sure that there were no donkeys, no cattle, no pigs, no children, because it was a great place to play soccer, but you really don't want to hit something like that in a small aircraft. Yes, Jim.

Ellen Price. Well wasn't that airport put in by Oregon?

LA: I believe it was. I believe it was by Alvaro Oregon during his presidency. Yes.

Jim Toevs: When I first got here in ’96, there had, there was a feud going between Polo, that had Polo’s restaurant ….

LA: Grajeda.

Jim Toevs: And Celsa and her husband who had the Las Palmeras.

LA: Who were brothers.

Jim Toevs: Who were brothers. And if you had, if you spoke to one you had nothing to do with the other. And if you spoke to the other you had nothing to do. Well, I was a friend of Celsa’s and her husband so I knew nothing about Polo for years and years and then after the Palmeras moved off the Plaza I did get acquainted with Polo. He was an interesting guy. But ….

LA: There is a saying in in Alamos. Does everyone know what a compadre is?

Audience: Sure.

LA: Is there anybody who does not know what a compadre is?

Jim Toevs: What is your meaning of compadre?

LA: Okay, a compadre really is someone who has baptized one of your children or confirmed one of your children.

??: Like a godfather.

LA: Or stood up for them. It’s like a godparent. It’s a godparent, and there is an old saying Alamos that says: “El quien no es Pariente, es Compadre”. He is who is not related to you is your compadre and that pretty well covers the Mexican community.

Lynne Wiedman: Because Javier’s parents are Antonio’s godparents at his baptism.

LA: And Javier’s father is - Javier’s father and this is how complicated Alamos gets. Javier’s father at one point was the only doctor in Alamos. He attended my mother-in-law when my husband was born.

Lynne Wiedman: The twins were born.

LA: This was long before they had any idea of x-rays and all of this. He attended my mother-in-law. Antonio was born. He and my father-in-law went off to have breakfast.

??: Oh Dear.

LA: And Antonio’s grandmother kept saying, there is something wrong here, there is something going on, so she went back to get Dr. Guerra (Dr Jose Maria Guerra Flores) and bring him back and that’s when Felipe was born. (Laughter) Yes.

John Jakupcak: Can you explain the difference between Amigos de Educacion and Las Comadres?

LA: I can try.

John Jakupcak: It’s two different groups.

LA: They’re two completely different groups, yes. with two completely different goals.

Linda Hellman: With a lot of the same people involved.

LA: Well it’s a small community. We all do a lot of the same things. Los Amigos de Educacion is strictly a scholarship program. They give scholarships to students while at the moment we have support for the secondary school. We have scholarships at COBASH, scholarships at ITESCA, scholarships in CECYTES scholarships in some of the surrounding communities. We have over three hundred? Over three hundred students on scholarship. When a student receives a scholarship from Amigos, that scholarship is valid for the entirety of whatever grade level they are studying. If they get their scholarship for COBASH, if they keep their GPA up, that scholarship is valid until they graduate. No questions asked.

Jim Toevs: From college?

LA: No high school.

Jim Toevs: High school.

LA: Until they finish COBASH. If a student at ITESCA receives a scholarship, that scholarship is valid until they finish whatever degree they are doing. Again if they maintain their GPA. That’s what Amigos does. Comadres is a different organization. Comadres provides dispenses or food baskets twice a year; once just before Christmas and once just before Easter. They distribute them to low economic people in the area of Alamos. (Street noise) and I need a Comadre (to verify the number of baskets), but I think this year they’ve got five hundred baskets going out.

Lynne Wiedman: Probably, yes.

LA: About five hundred baskets going out. They also maintain, where as Amigos has the bookshop, Comadres has the clothing store on the plaza. They also maintain a food bank so that if somebody is in great straights, they need something, they can go there. I know there have been many times when people with low economic means have had a family member deceased, and here a wake is a very definite part of the culture, and at the wake you have to have coffee, and you have to have some kind of pozole or some kind of warm soup, and people will go to Comadres and say, “We don’t have any coffee. We don't have any sugar. Can you help us.” And they’ll do that. They also provide a fund to help people of low economic means obtain medications that have been prescribed that for one reason or another they can’t, (afford?) they can’t do that. What am I missing? Somebody who is a Comadre.

Ellen Price: They also provide transportation.

Linda Hellman: Yes, a bus ticket or transportation if you need to go to Oregon or Navojoa.

LA: For medical needs.

Lynne Wiedman: For medical needs. They are all really specific by the bylaws. Like Amigos bylaws it’s - you are a 501(c) in the states, ….

LA: We’re a 501(c)(3) both in Mexico and the United States.

Lynne Wiedman: And the United States.

Linda Hellman: But Comadres is only in Mexico.

Lynne Wiedman: Yes, Compadres is only in Mexico.

LA: Does that kind of answer your question?

John Jakupcak: Yes, Thank you.

LA: You’re very welcome. Yes, Linda.

Linda Hellman: just getting back to the Amigos for one minute, that high school is not free here. That’s why kids need scholarships and it’s about three hundred dollars a year. The equivalent of three hundred dollars a year which is a whole lot of money. Like a $150 a semester.

LA: Especially if you’ve got six kids.

Linda Hellman: So that’s why there are scholarships and then the one university, ITESCA, that Lorna mentioned we do that one because it’s here in Alamos. So it’s a local.

??: I am guessing when Norberto came through.

Linda Hellman: Norbert, yes.

LA: Yes.

??: The organizations were just going like crazy.

Linda Hellman: Yes, like crazy.

LA: Yes, yes. I think we bought fifty backpacks and filled them with school supplies and distributed them to affected families. Not to mention those of us who grabbed shovels and dug and ….

Linda Hellman: That was really something.

Cynthia McKinnon: Fed people.

LA: Fed people. Specifically in our back yard. Our back yard and Stephanie Meyers, we set up a soup kitchen, and we had sixty people living in our back yard during Norbert.

Linda Hellman: Janet fed people, too.

Pam Price: Which Janet?

??: Did Amigos have any kind of counseling support for kids in college if maybe they’re having a tough time?

LA: No. No. No. We let the schools do that. They are better equipped and better prepared to do that. We work, we work in tandem with teachers and that kind of thing. Yes, Lynne.

Lynne Wiedman: There’s a lot of rules in Mexico about what foreigners can do. You are really limited. You can’t interfere with the education system. You can’t say well I want them to use this book in the school room. You can’t do that. It’s just - you can probably talk about that ….

LA: Anytime you receive some kind of a political donation, or are influenced by any kind of politics you immediately lose your charitable designation. We are guests.

??: Some laws are directed towards political action by foreigners, too. Americans.

LA: Yes. Jim.

Jim Toevs: Lorna, given the overall budget figure, I think a lot of people don't have a clue as to - don't we have over fifty thousand dollars that we have raised for scholarships?

LA: We started, we started Amigos back in the late ‘70s. We had one student who was an architecture student in Mexico City. It cost blood, sweat and tears to get enough money together to send that one student to school. We now have over three hundred students on scholarship. We have a budget of $45,000 a year.

Linda Hellman: It’s about $45,000.

LA: $45,000 a year and again we’re still working on blood, sweat and tears to pull that together. If anyone here would like to donate, we’d be more than willing to … We’re very appreciative.

Jim Toevs: You bet.

LA: Thank you. Yes.

??: Speaking of donations. Is there a list, a preferred list of thing that we can bring back form the U.S. for your education.

Linda Hellman: I can speak to that, yes.

??: What is a priority? Pencils, paper.

Linda Hellman: Yes, and that’s not done through Amigos. That is done through, well my husband for one, because he works with the schools and he takes a lot out to the outlying communities that if you think people have problems here, you have no idea what’s it like out there. There is nothing.

Cynthia McKinnon: If you could post that, that would be wonderful, because when we have friends coming down they always want to know.

LA: We can’t, we can’t post that.

Cynthia McKinnon: You can’t. Oh.

LA: We can’t post that because then we’re ….

Linda Hellman: Sister cities does it.

Lynne Wiedman: Sister Cities does it.

LA: Jim does it. Jim does it.

Linda Hellman: Trini is another one that ….

LA: Trini does it.

Jim Toevs: Always bring school supplies. You can never go wrong bringing school supplies.

Linda Hellman: Yes, any kind of school supplies. You can never go wrong. Backpacks ….

LA: And Jim through Trini, and Trini is an educator - kind of all over the place. That man is amazing, but Trini does an excellent job at distributing those kinds of things.

Jim Toevs: He teaches English to a hundred and fifty or two hundred ….

LA: Elementary school.

Jim Toevs: Elementary school students every week and an equal number of ITESCA students every week so he has his, he really has his finger on the educational system here and who are the needy people.

??: He told us he would teach us Spanish on Saturday mornings for ten dollars an hour.

LA: Well, there you go. He is excellent.

Lynne Wiedman: He was one of my best Spanish teachers I had when Linda had a language school here years ago, and he worked for you for a number of years.

Linda Hellman: He did. He’s fabulous.

??: He said he’d come to our house.

LA: He’s great. Anything else before we go explore the History research library.

Audience: Thank you!

LA: Thank you very, very much.

Ellen Price: What do you do when you’ve got umpteen copies of the same books?

LA: What do you do when we have umpteen thousand copies of the same books, which happens more regularly than you’d like to think. We put them in a box. We crate them up. Every time I go up to Tucson, I take three or four crates of boxes up with me. I take them to Bookman’s or to various book stores, and I ask for credit. I then take that credit, and I buy as many books in Spanish as I can afford, and I bring these back down here.

Jim Toevs: Great idea.

LA: Anything else? Thank you very very much. I appreciate you being here. Welcome to Kathy’s Korner. Cookies and coffee and now Pam can take you into the History Club research library and show you …..

Transcribed by Ellen Ryan, Alamos History Association

June 19, 2019

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