JW: So, Ron I understand that you came to Alamos in 1955.

RP: I did a trip to Alamos, through Alamos in ’55.

JW: Through Alamos.

RP: Well, I was headed south.

JW: Oh.

RP: I found out that this town by the name of Alamos was up there. I knew about the town.

JW: How did you know about it, and what did you know?

RP: Well, my uncle was a mining engineer, a copper mining engineer. He was in charge of Miami Copper. He was General Manager of Miami Copper back in the ’30s and ’40s and ’50s. He had told my dad about this town, a beautiful town down in Mexico, and they were thinking that they were going to buy a house, my uncle and aunt. They had gone down a couple of times, but I think he had gone down for the copper business, too, mining business. He had gone down and looked at it. They were going to buy a house, and then he said it’s a fantastic, beautiful town. You ought to go down. I heard him talking to my mom and dad about it, so I knew the town was there, and that it was a very historical pretty town.

JW: How old were you?

RP: Well, I was in college. I heard about it probably when I was in High School. I was probably sixteen, seventeen years old. I heard first about it.

JW: What was it like? What was your impression as you came into town?

RP: Do you want to hear about going down?

JW: Yes.

RP: Okay, I was going to university. I had started university. I remembered about the town that my uncle had told me about it. I had heard my dad and him talking about it, and I was in university and I think. Well I know it was in the spring of ’55 a friend of mine, in university, a fraternity brother of mine, from California, had wanted to go to Mexico. I said, “Well let’s go down to this town. I know about this town. We’ll see how far south we can go.” His name was George Willwright??, III of San Francisco, an old family north of San Francisco, cattle ranching family. George Willwright and I took a car that I had. I forget which one it was, but we started down there. (Ron asks Joan: Are we pretty right? Are we still going?) We went down, and we were just taking our time. This was our - it probably was Easter break, but there will be an exact date I can give you. I know it ’55. I can give you the exact date. George and I started down there, just stopping in little towns along the way, and we stopped, we were looking at the ……………..we started out driving down, and we wanted to see the Yaqui villages. We knew about the Yaqui villages. They start just on the other side of Guaymas down there, off to the, off to the west. Most of the villages are off to the west in these big, big fields. We went over to Vicam and Potam. (Ron asks Joan: louder?)

JW: A little louder.

RP: We went over to Potam and Vicam and another one or so, and one of the villages we talked to, we stopped and talked to people. I wanted to know if they had any Yaqui masks, and I don’t remember if we bought any or not in the villages, I can’t remember, but those, there was a young boy. The people said, “Where are you going?”, and we said, “we’re goin on down to Obregon and then we’re going south.” There was a young boy there and he said, “Oh will you give me a ride to Obregon?” I said, “Sure, sure, sure.” So we went down to Obregon, and George and I stopped in Obregon, and we were letting this kid out on the street corner. We were parked. One of those street photographers came up and said he’d take our picture. I said, “no, no, no.” Anyway he took our picture, and he showed it to us, and it was very good of the young Yaqui boy and George and I, and so we each bought a ….

Carolyn: Hi there.

RP: It’s on now. And so we let this kid out. We had the photos in our hand, and I can’t remember if into, to go into Obregon, I can’t remember if the highway crossed on a bridge or if you had to go across the railway bridge. I can’t remember which way. They didn’t have the bridges in yet, and so you would have to turn off the highway and go down a little dirt road for a couple hundred yards, and then you got on the railway bridge, and you went across. There was somebody there that told you if there was a train there coming or not a train. So you went across. I think it was one way too. I know that Navojoa, when we got to Navojoa, I know that there was a railway bridge we had to cross.

JW: Was there much traffic on the way down?

RP: I don’t remember. Not much, no no, no. It was only a two lane highway.

JW: It wasn’t dangerous?

RP: No, no, no, no. It was only a two lane highway and rough road, too. The road was not good. This was fifty years ago. We got down, and we got to Navojoa, and we probably filled our car with gas, and then we turned to the east, and it was a dirt road up to Alamos. It was a dirt road all the way up there, just a two lane country dirt road. Two lane country dirt road, and it went about the same, same way - the direction was about the same way until you got just to a …. What’s the little church at Aduana before you turn off to go to Aduana? Minas Nuevas.

JW: Minas Nuevas.

RP: When we got to Minas Nueves and went just beyond Minas Nueves, when you just got beyond there about a mile, the road turned to the left. It went down into the wash. It didn’t go on straight into Alamos like it does now. It turned, and you went down a wash and then you kind of you got over where the airport is, and that was were the road went in. There was. The highway wasn’t like Chela’s house, you know where Chela’s house?

JW: There is a village there now, isn’t there?

RP: No, there’s no village. No, I think there is a service station nearby. Anyway the road went down along kind of over where the airport is. The airport might have been there. I can’t remember, but it was that road. The road that goes to Santa Barbara. No.

JW: San Bernardo.

RP: San Bernardo. You would hit that road over there, you would hit the road, and you went into town that way.

JW: Okay.

RP: You went into town that way. I’ve got to go. (Ron leaves the room)

…….Are we ready?

JW: Ready.

RP: Okay. We get into the town, and of course, the road into town was the same except it didn’t head, it didn’t head off to Navojoa that way (Ron gestures to the left), it went down by the airport (Ron gestures to the right.). It was dirt. We got in there, and we followed the road around and got into the Plaza. Got in the Plaza, because everything was marked to get downtown or so, I forget. We got down there, and we looked around and thought it was an interesting place, and then we went down to the Tesoros. We knew the Tesoros was there because I had read something about it, and I knew the Tesoros was there, and it was a five star hotel in those days. It was one of those, only about three or four in the country if I remember right. There were very, very few five star hotels in Mexico. It was known as a five stat hotel, I believe. I believe. Now somebody, somebody in the history club will know that. But I am pretty sure it was a five star hotel. (Ron asks Joan: What were you going to say?) We went in, but we were two college students in jeans, and jeans and sand shoes, and we looked like college students, and we didn’t get the time of the day more or less, because this was a pretty nice hotel, and there were tourists in it; well dresses tourists that were in there if I remember right. I don’t think - we looked in the bar, but I don’t think we wanted to be in there, because it wasn’t our kind of place, and so we went around, and if I am not mistaken, we stayed in the … Levant’s hotel.

JW: Portales?

RP: What?

JW: Portales.

RP: Yes, we stayed in the Portales and we stayed two days in town. Levant was there, of course. Yes, we met Levant that time, yes, and we met other people. I don’t remember who they are, but very, very, very few Americans. If anybody was in that hotel it was six people in the Portales. Not in the Portales, in Tesoros. We just walked around, fooled around town, and we debated if we wanted to take the dirt road that went on down to El Fuerte. It was a dirt two lane road that went down to El Fuerte, but I think there was - I don’t know if the dam had been built or not, and they said there night be a problems crossing the river to get to El Fuerte, so we, we just drove around - waked around town for a day or so, two days. Turned around and went back down to Navojoa, and then we went on to Guadalajara.

JW: Where did you eat when you were there?

RP: Oh, there were shops. There were little places to eat. There were little cantinas.

JW: You didn’t eat at the Tesoros?

RP: Oh, no. No, no, no. I don’t think we were welcomed in the Tesoros. (Joan laughs) I don’t say that derogatory. I say that, that was the way it was.

JW: Because that was the way you looked.

RP: The way we looked.

JW: You deserved it.

RP: Yes, we were two college students.

JW: Who did you meet, did you meet an Americans besides Levant?

RP: No, no.

JW: Did you talk to Levant?

RP: I think we talked to a couple of the gringos, yes.

JW: To Levant?

RP: Oh, we talked to Levant, yes.

JW: How did you meet him, and what did you talk to him about?

RP: He was there on the Plaza. He had a, I think he lived over on the other side. I think he lived over on the north side.

JW: Where Armeda?? lived.

RP: Yes, maybe over there.

JW: Did you meet Armeda?? ?

RP: No. Well, if we did I don’t remember. No. Because, you see, I didn’t speak Spanish. I didn't speak Spanish, and my friend spoke a little bit, but ….

JW: But he (Levant) spoke English.

RP: Yes, but I didn't speak to anybody who was Spanish.

JW: What did you talk to Levant about? You don’t remember?

RP: What are you boys doing in town? We said we were headed south.

JW: Did he look like a very dapper, charming fellow?

RP: He looked like Levant. He didn’t change much. Fifty-five years ago. (Ron laughs)

JW: What months was it when you were there?

RP: I’m going to tell you later, I think it was March.

JW: March. The weather was really good.

RP: Oh, beautiful. The reason I know these dates that we did this is because I took my post card that we had taken in Obregon. I took it, and I sent it to my grandmother in Hawaii, and it’s dated, see, and then she gave it to me when I got back in America. She gave it to me or so. I still have that post card.

JW: So, then how long was it before you went back there?

RP: That I went to Alamos?

JW: Yes.

RP: Well that was ’55. I’d really have to think about what my life happened after that. Well ’55, I went in ’60 for sure.

JW: You went in 1960?

RP: Yes, because I was married, and my wife and I drove down. I got married here in Tucson in 1960, and we drove down, and actually we drove - we went all the way to Mexico City.

JW: But you stopped in Alamos.

RP: Yes, we went up to Alamos.

JW: To show her the town you had seen. Where did you stay then? Were you better dressed by then?

RP: Oh, yes. I think that, yes, I’m not sure if Kelly Rollings was there then. If he was we probably stayed at Kelly’s house. I’m not sure if Kelly - but see we were married in 1960, and we were going to do our honeymoon to Mexico in August of ’60, and Kelly had come to the wedding. Kelly and Sally had been to the wedding, and I’m pretty sure that - we probably stayed at Kelly’s.

JW: Kelly’s your cousin?

RP: Yes.

JW: Okay. So he was already there. When did he go there?

RP: I don’t know.

JW: That would be pretty interesting.

RP: I think they went in the late ’50s.

JW: Late ’50s.

RP: I think so.

JW: Just before you got there on the second time.

RP: I think so.

JW: So, had you noticed anything different about the town when you came back?

RP: No.

JW: Did you stay at the Portales again?

RP: Oh, I’ve stayed at the Portales a number of times.

JW: No, on your honeymoon.

RP: No, we stayed in Kelly’s house.

JW: Oh, that’s right.

RP: I think we stayed in Kelly’s house. I’m pretty sure. We stayed at Kelly’s at other times.

JW: So then, when did you come back?

RP: I can’t tell you.

JW: Well, did you come back several times and stay with Kelly?

RP: Different times, I did over the years.

JW: Why did you buy, and when did you buy your house?

RP: You have to ask Carolyn (Leigh Carolyn). I don’t know that date.

JW: Why?

RP: Why what?

JW: Why did you buy a house down there?

RP: Well Kelly kept saying, “You ought to buy a house down here. You ought to buy a house. its a neat place and it’s not - and its close to get to”, and the reason I bought one is because I normally would stay at Kelly’s. I would normally go down and stay at Kelly’s, but he’d say “You ought to find a house, you ought to find a house.” So then, see I don’t know the date of this, but then my son came to America. My son lived in Australia. He came to America with two of his Australian friends. The three boys came down, and I took them to Alamos, and they loved it, because they loved to go to the bars and drink beer in the bars and every - they liked it. We would go out to Kelly’s ranch and look around. I think we rode horses and things, and then they were there. Where were we staying then? We didn’t have - oh we were staying at a hotel, we were staying at the Portales probably - my son and his two friends, and Carolyn and I were staying in the Portales. (Ron says to Joan: Go ahead. What?)

JW: So you bought your house in the ’80s sometime? Sometime in the ’80s probably.

RP: Yes, it would have to be the ’80s.

JW: Yes.

RP: It would have to be in the ’80s.

JW: So why did you pick the house that you bought?

RP: I’d looked at a lot of houses with Levant and Anna Maria. I had looked at a few houses. I looked at them. I went down with a friend here from Tucson, and we looked at the Rosentock’s?? house, but it was a ruin, and actually we put a bid in to buy it, but they wanted too much. They told me a price, whoever gave us a price, and then when I said I’ll buy it at that price, they upped it twenty-five thousand dollars or something so we said, “Forget it.” But when we were there, my son and his two friends, they would go off drinking in the bars. They would drink in the local bars, and the Tesoros and around. They were kids, twenty-five years old, twenty-five or twenty-six. My son went, ran to some guy he was drinking with by the name of Will Close. Do you remember Will?

JW: No.

RP: He owns the Geary house across the street from our house. The people from Canada.

JW: Yes.

RP: Will Close had bought that house. Will was a retired army sergeant.

JW: The Dales now own that house. (Albert and Elizabeth- 2nd of April #45 - del Perico)

RP: The Dales. Well, Will had bought that house out of the Geary Estate. They were killed in that plane crash.

JW: Now we don’t know that. Who were the Geary’s?

RP: The Gearys were - he was an oil man from, an oil man from Denver, Colorado.

JW: He owned that house where the Dales now own.?

RP: Mr. and Mrs. Geary owned that house.

JW: Where was the plane crash?

RP: Well, they had a plane. They used to fly to Alamos.

JW: Yes.

RP: They’d fly back, but somebody told them to not fly back, because it’s winter and it’s snow, and it’s bad. He thought he knew what he was doing, and he flew back and crashed. Killed both.

JW: Where did he crash?

RP: Denver.

JW: Denver.

RP: They lived in Denver, Cherry Creek. The house was vacant. The Geary’s house was vacant, and they also owned our house, and they also owned Lola’s house next to us. The Gearys did. When it came out in the end, it seemed as though the Gearys had promised Lola’s house to her, and our house was Mrs. Geary’s studio. She was a - what was she? She was a….

JW: Decorator.

RP: No she was a - she was somebody - she was a wealthy woman. Her family was wealthy like the Rockefellers or something.

JW: Oh.

RP: She built our house as her studio.

JW: Okay.

RP: That was her studio across the street out the front door. That house, the Geary house had just been bought by Will Close, and he got Lola’s house, he thought, and he got our house, and my son met him in the bars drinking, and he said, “Well, my dad wants to buy a house here”, and Will said, “Oh, I’ve got a good little house for sale”, and he took may son by to see our house - the guest house and so, what was the lady’s name? Mrs. Geary was a Dupont. She was a Dupont which is a big family. She was a Dupont, a wealthy Dupont. She had built that as her studio, and so Will said, “Let me take you by, and show you a little house I want to sell.” So he took my son around to see the house, our house and Scotty said, “Well, I’ll get my dad.” So I went around with him, and looked at it, and we started making offers, back and forth, back and forth, and I got Levant to act for me, Levant and Ana Maria to act for me, for my behalf, to do the paperwork so I didn’t know how to do it, and Will didn’t either. I think that Levant sent in the paperwork for the Geary house, the big house. So they got that, so we made an offer, and that’s when we started buying it. It took us a long, long, long time to get our title, because of the people we were buying it from.

JW: Were dead. And you had to deal with family and that slowed …?

RP: No we had to deal with Levant and Ana Maria.

JW: Oh. So, what else could we add to this story?

RP: There was an old yellow Volkswagen in the garage in my house, and they took that as part of the commission. Ana Maria and Levant took the Volkswagen as part of the commission. (Joan laughs) Anyway, Will, and I told Will, when he gave me the price, I said, “Oh, I don’t have that much money, I’ll give you a down payment. What I can do is give you a down payment.” So I think I gave him, I don’t know how much, five or ten thousand dollars. He said, “What will you give me?” I said, “Well I don’t really have any cash now, but I’ll give you some New Guinea art.” He said, “Oh, that will be interesting.” I think he came up to Tucson and looked at some. He was in Tucson. So he took New Guinea art as the payment, and it was five thousand or ten thousand dollars of art, and then when he left town he gave it to the museum.

JW: Which museum?

RP: In Alamos.

JW: In Alamos.

RP: In Alamos, and one night we were in the museum five years ago or six or seven years ago we were in there, and Tony said something to us, and he said, “You know I have New Guinea art in the office.” We said, “Where?” He took us into the office, and showed us this New Guinea art that I had given to as a commission as the house.

JW: What is that art in case we should see it ever on display?

RP: What is it?

JW: What is it, sculpture?

RP: Look behind you - look, look behind you, look behind me.

JW: But, but I know, but what pieces?

RP: I can’t tell you. I have no idea what pieces that many years ago.

JW: We’ll know it when we see it, right? It won’t look like Alamos.

RP: It won’t look like Alamos, that’s for sure. (Joan laughs) So I got the house with the down payment of New Guinea art. Actually I bought this property (Ron’s Tucson house) from Kelly with a down payment of New Guinea art.

JW: Oh. Have you ever paid cash for anything? You don’t have to answer that.

RP: Never have, I don’t have any cash. (Joan laughs) I have a wife instead.

RP: And of course we never knew the Gearys. Of course, they had been killed in the plane crash. Then I was up in Denver, Colorado. Carolyn and I went to Denver, Colorado. I think we used to do a show in Boulder, Colorado; a New Guinea art show every year. I was in Denver - we’d always stop and stay with this friend of ours in Denver out at Cherry Creek - Joan and George Anderman. We used to stop and stay with them, and one night George and I, we used to drink a bit, George and I. We were drinking, and we were at the dining room table. They had a very, very, nice house. He was an oil man, too. Well they had a very nice house in Cherry Creek, and we’re sitting there and he said, “Where have you been lately?” I said, “George you wouldn’t know the place where I’ve been.” He said, “Well where have you been?” I said, “Oh we were in Alamos a couple months ago.” He said, “Alamos!” He said, “We used to go to Alamos.” I said, “You went to Alamos?” He said, “Sure we have a very good friend down in Alamos, the Gearys.” I said to George and Joan, I said, “You know the Gearys?” He said, “Oh yes, we’d fly down in our airplane or their airplane, and we’d stay at the Geary’s house.” I said, “No kidding”. I said, “Do you realize that we just bought the Geary’s guest house?” George says, “That’s interesting, he says, get up for a minute.” It was ten at night. We had been drinking wine at the table while eating. He said, “Come over here and walk over to the window here.” We walked over the window, and he pointed up a hundred yards away, and that’s where the Gearys lived. In Cherry Creek, Colorado. Boulder. That’s the Geary’s house. They lived there before they got killed. Isn’t that a weird story? A coincidence?

JW: But there are many of those coincidences in Alamos, many stories like that.

RP: Many, many, many can you imagine these Anderman’s are very, very good friends of ours. We stay at their house. We’d stayed at their house for years. They had a very beautiful house, and he was a very wealthy oil man. He owned a twelve or sixteen story building downtown. He drilled oil wells in New Guinea and everything else.

JW: Well, people with airplanes have to go somewhere, and therefore, some of them will end up in Alamos. Was, there was an airport, oh in the ’80s, of course, there was an airport.

RP: But that was interesting. So that’s how I got the house from Will Close. Will Close had been, he retired as an army sergeant, and he took his full pay out instead of having a retirement. You can do that when you retire. You can get, you know, your eighty thousand dollars or be paid every year so much. He took his full pay, and he went to Alamos and bought the Geary house. He bought the house that the Dales live in.

JW: Then he sold it to the Dales. What was his story? Why did he leave?

RP: Will was a funny guy. He was a good old boy from Mississippi, I think, from a small corner of Mississippi, out in the country. His mother ran the, ran the store, and took food stamps but gave out, gave out beer and cigarettes instead of - you know you’re not supposed to give beer and cigarettes for food stamps. But they did it. In Alamos Will was okay. Will was okay. I talked to him every day. He tried renting horses out in front of his house. He had horses and tried to rent them. He was kind of out of any of the social scene at all, because he was ….

JW: Was he married?

RP: No. but he had some local girlfriends. He had some local girlfriends. He had a lot of girls who would come over and go swimming in the swimming pool up there. He had some of the local - not young girls. These were women that were in their twenties or their thirties and had been married or so or had been married and divorced. He went with quite a few of them, I think, over the years.

JW: How was, how old was he about the time he sold.

RP: He was forty-five he had to be about forty-five to retire. In twenty years in the army. He did twenty years in the army, and he retired as a sergeant. Will was okay, but I don’t think he ever really made any real close friends in Alamos if I’m not mistaken. I don’t think ….

JW: He didn’t connect with the Americans?

RP: I don’t think so.

JW: Did he speak Spanish?

RP: I don’t think so.

JW: How long was he there?

RP: Probably four or five years, maybe. An interesting story there is that he tried to sell Lola’s - you know Lola’s next to us? He tried to sell that house to somebody, to us and different people and Lola says, “You can’t sell the house, it’s mine”. It was taken to court, and figured out that the Gearys had promised Lola the house, and she got the house.

JW: They promised the house, but did they leave paperwork?

RP: Well I don’t know if they did or not, but she got it.

JW: Because I wondered if that was enough for her to make ….

RP: Well, she got the house.

JW: Well, good. Good.

RP: I don’t think she would have had any money to buy it. It went to the, it went to the court, and she got it, and they probably did promise it to her. I wouldn’t be surprised with the Gearys. I don’t know the Gearys, but I wouldn’t be surprised., and see nobody in the Gearys family wanted any of the houses down here. They were wealthy, young, business people in Colorado, and they didn’t want a house down there. I don’t know if they had ever even been to Alamos.

Transcribed by Ellen Ryan, Alamos History Association

February 4, 2020