Niña Evangelina’s Life Story

Brief Account and History of Some Stages of My Life

 

Evangelina Velásquez Guzmán viuda de Rubio

(written by dictation of her own words)

 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

I want to tell you the story of my life, with respect to my friends and enemies.

 

My destiny was like the Alsacuán, which went up and down.  I was born in the village of El Escorpión, in the valley of the Guzmáns.  Afterwards my parents moved to the village of San Francisco, then we went to La Laguna, then returned to San Francisco because my mother was fearful of a crazy person in the county of Corralito.

 

Living in Corralito with two daughters, one of them 40 days old and the other 2 years old, I went to work for a man called Chavelo Rubio.  I worked there for two months.

 

Later I went to work for Don Higinio Villatoro.  From there I went to my mom’s house for a few days.  I’d been there for about 15 days when [her future husband] José Santos Rubio’s dad came looking for me to work for him.  He came back after another 5 days.  My mom told me she wouldn’t take care of my daughters, and that I should work for him for 8 days, no more, so that he wouldn’t come around so often.  So I started working for him.  There were 7 men and two women there.  He was a widower, his wife having died during her fifth childbirth.  She left two children that I took care of for 15 days, until their grandmother took them away. 

 

Juana Guzmán and I began working like animals.  We took care of 15 to 20 workers every day.  I worked like that for 14 months.  In that time everyone milled on a stone and we milled a half-bushel of corn a day.  Later my boss said to me, cousin, can you take care of 25 workers, and I said, yes, but you have to find someone else to help me, since my kids are sick with terrible fevers.  And thus I worked some time more.  Later I had Fermina, whom for three months I entrusted to the most holy Virgin of Carmen. 

 

Other Accounts:

On my way to the celebration of the holy mass at the church in town, I fell in a water hole in the Stream of the Orange Trees, on the land of Don Neftalí Benítez.  I was not very hurt, and I kept going on my way to mass.  I fell again as I was crossing a fence, into a big muddy puddle on the land of Don Rogelio Molina, in the village of San Francisco, resulting in some injuries.  The same as before, I kept going on to mass, all dirty and full of mud, that’s how I arrived at the church.

 

The third fall was in the evening while I was going to buy sweet bread from Sofía Argueta, when I was in the middle of a [cangilón].  I remained prone for a while, then I got up and kept going to buy the bread.

 

A fourth fall happened in a hammock.  I couldn’t stand the pain in my feet and went to rest, when the rope suspending the hammock came untied.  I fell to the ground and it almost killed me.  The fall resulted in three broken ribs and injuries along the whole right side of my spine.  Moments afterwards, when I woke up, I felt like my head was really big.

 

Another fall, this one being the fifth, happened in the same hammock, injuring my whole right side all over again, but thanks to God there was another person there who took me to the doctor.  This was the only fall when there was someone there to help me.

 

The sixth happened when I was in the United States.  My children went to work and I gave myself a blow strong enough to kill.  When I woke up I didn’t know if I was alive or dead.

 

The seventh, I fell again when I was living alone and again injured my spine, but like that I got on the bus.

 

The eighth, I’d just arrived from bringing medicine and I laid down for a rest in the hammock and the rope broke and I suffered a blow in the neck and stayed unconscious on the ground.  I got up and bathed myself in water and alcohol.

 

When I was pregnant with my son Andrés, in the sixth month I fell from the [tabanco], and a bunch of bananas fell on my stomach.  Once again I was alone. 

 

On the 17^th of October I’d had three days of strong birthing pains.  My mother in law didn’t love me, she wanted to kill me, and around 3 in the afternoon she threw three stones at me, and I said, you’re going to kill me and this child is about to be born.  I had him at 9 at night, once again me by myself.  But I’ve suffered in patience.  I went to throw the last handful of dirt on the grave and this message I want to leave for the youth: only suffering will we reach the kingdom of heaven. 

 

I’m going to tell you about my childhood.

When I was 7 years old my mother always sent me to a certain lady’s house where missionaries came, so I could help the woman and the priests.  My mom always sent me to help and to be a Christian.

 

At 8 years old I had my first communion purely through my own efforts, since my parents were pretty old.  They hadn’t gotten married, my mom had 10 kids, two of them married and the others lived with their partners, and my parents were quite delicate, but at 8 years old I began working.  At that time we had [tule] for weaving.  My mom brought olives for making soap.  At times our fingers bled from smashing olives so much.

 

When we went to help the woman and the priest we earned two cents a day.  My mom was a great bread maker, all kinds of bread and anything out of corn, which she milled on the stone.  Sometimes we went to sell seven loads of sweet breads in a place called Chilanga, where we had to walk kilometer after kilometer.  My parents were very strict about education because they wanted to put me through school.  Having to go to school made me cry, but my parents hadn’t been able to.  My father was very delicate, and when my mother saw that he was mad she sang songs to the Holy Virgin and it soothed his anger.  Sometimes my father sent us to work in the fields.  He liked the work of growing rice, which is something that I think none of the young people today know how to do.  My father did this work with a plow; I led the oxen and he went along planting the rice.  At harvest time it was like wheat.  We also had to go to the field to protect the rice from the birds that wanted to eat it.  When I was guarding the field I climbed a tree to sing, whistle, and shout; I threw stones at the birds so they wouldn’t eat the rice.  One time my father arrived and found me singing a song that I liked very much, with one foot on one branch and the other on another branch, singing the song “Jalisco Don’t Crack Open,” and right there he cut a branch and punished me, saying, girl don’t you know that’s a very tasteless song for a little girl like you to be singing, let’s go home, I’m going to put you to work in the cornfield.  I did what he told me, since I was a very obedient girl.

 

I was a very smart girl.  I went with a hatchet to split firewood like a man because I liked to see the chunks of wood I split and because it made my father happy to see the wood and he would say to me, well done, girl, you always behave, I think you’re going to see Jesus.  But since I found my cross I’ve been a crooked woman.

 

One time my mother sent me to a house where there was just a lone man, and he grabbed me and raped me.  I went back home and they never sent me to that house again.  Because of this I want to give the mothers of this day and age a message: mothers don’t take care of their daughters, and at times I hear it said, I see girls getting raped on TV, but I’ve gone through it and I say to the youth and the mothers that you should never leave your girls alone with boys or men, because this happened to me.  My son always went around with girls, and one day he went to play with two girls, and between them they ruined him.  That is, they raped him.  I didn’t know how to treat him, since there were no clinics in Corinto at that time, but there was a good nurse who cured him for me.

 

Since that day I’ve been a very jealous mother with my children.  I’ve had three granddaughters, whom I took good care of.  One time I got up, went to the kitchen, heard a noise, took off towards the girl, and to my surprise found her with a boy trying to get on top of her.  I said to the boy, are you a horse, she’s a girl not a cow.  I lifted her up and asked her if he’d touched her and she said, no mama he didn’t touch me.  I took off her underwear and inspected her, and I said, my girl, never sleep inside again, but I’m very afraid, but my son said to me, no mama it will never happen again now he took her far away.

 

When my granddaughter writes or calls she tells me, I pray to God that you don’t die anytime soon, since if it weren’t for your advice I’d be very bad, thank you mama, I love you very much and I tell my friends to take good care of you and ask you advice so they can be good girls. 

 

Because of this I say to the girls, I love you very much.  I’m an old woman of 71 years.  Be valiant women, never leave your husbands.  I suffered much with my husband.  He brought his other women to the house and I forgave him everything and I threw the last handful of dirt on his grave.  Since then I’ve been alone, because my children went away and left me alone.  I cried because of the old “brings home the milk,” but I loved him a lot. 

 

To be able to have this boy [her sixth child of seven] I suffered a lot.  I went to the doctors and they told me that I couldn’t have any more kids and I wanted to have a boy.  For this I put myself in penance before the Virgin of the Kingdom of Peace, on my knees, I cried to her and I said to her, I want a boy, if you give him to me I’ll give him your name and as long as I can still walk I’ll come and present him and give him to you, I love you very much.  And that’s exactly what I did, I presented him to her and I said to her, Queen of Peace, I love you for the great miracle you’ve bestowed upon me and I will change my faith.

 

Young women of this day and age, never cut your hair and don’t wear pants.  Carry on the example of the Virgin Mary.  Learn to love her.

 

Account of the First of August 1955

On this date, I had an accident.  My husband was off working in the cane field.  He’d told me to wake up early and prepare his food for the day.  I dedicated myself to making soap of olives on a three-hole stove.  But on the first of August I woke up around three in the morning to prepare his food and begin making soap.  I had all holes of the stove heating up and cooking; on one, corn for tortillas, on the other the soap, and on the third a big clay pot with boiling water.  As I prepared breakfast I told him to come to the table to eat.  He answered, no, I want to eat next to the stove by the side of my daughter Fermina, when suddenly a stick of firewood rose up, hitting the clay pot from the bottom, overturning it and spilling the water on my husband’s shoulders and the girl’s body, and on me from the waist down.  It was so bad that when we took off my husband’s shirt it took the skin of his back with it, and the same with the girl.  I went to dry the water with my hands, the skin of her hands and arm staying on them.  Upon seeing the situation I didn’t realize what had happened to me, I was so focused on helping my husband and daughter.  I had a 4-year-old boy named Andrés who upon seeing us at that moment took off running, fleeing out of terror of what had happened to us.  I suffered much from that emergency, even more when my mother in law arrived at the house and said to me that by my own will I’d burned my daughter and my husband.  She never loved me, nor accepted me as her daughter in law.

 

In that moment I gave myself up to God, who has protected and helped me so much, to whom I offered my tragedy.  Thus it was, 15 days later we were totally cured of the burns and we went to visit Saint Francis of Asisi [a holy representation of the saint found here long ago] to fulfill a promise.  Upon setting out we met many friends that later visited us, to see how we were doing after what happened.

 

This is the account given on the 20^th of June 1992, the day when my son Luis Alonso left for the United States, and I was totally devastated and cried and cried, exclaiming: Lord, how can I go on, as sick as I am?  Luis Alonso left in my care two calves, a pair of oxen, and a horse, and, on our small bit of land we had a small pasture where we released them in the morning until noon, when we brought them to the house to water them.  One day I sent a boy to put the animals once more out to pasture, when suddenly he came back crying and saying, grandma, they closed the fence and the animals can’t get through, and now what are we going to do?  What I did was tell my oldest son, who was living in San Salvador, to come and talk with the owners of the land we crossed to get to the pasture, to see if we could arrive at an agreement and open the fence.  My son came to talk with them, but all they did was get really mad.  So I let my son Luis Alonso know, and I told him I was going to sell the animals, since we could no longer take care of them.  He said to me, mama, get rid of them, you’re too old for disputes like that.  Thus I came to have nothing and the owners of the neighboring property remained permanently angry.

 

Now I say to them, I feel nothing because of them, I love them as if they were family, because I know that hatred gets you nowhere.  I want to say this as a demonstration that I know how various neighbors in my community have acted.

 

This having happened in the month of June 1986, when Sociedad was having its fair, my husband set out for a plot of land owned by Señor Buenaventura Santos, where there was a stand of avocado trees.  He had gone to town to talk with the Señor, to see if he would sell him some avocadoes.  He’d already made more than 5 trips asking, but the man wouldn’t sell them.  I said to him, don’t go, avoid being so insistent, but he went anyway, and he was chuckling and quite content.  But what a surprise, at one that afternoon a boy arrived and yelled for me through the window, saying, Señora, take a hammock, because your husband got killed by a tree.  I shouted crazily, my God what’s happened to me, running into the house, I put a knife to the hammock and grabbed a quilt and went.  In those days I didn’t use shoes because my feet were practically impervious and I wouldn’t imagine wearing shoes.  I went running, throwing myself over five barbed wire fences, but I didn’t feel a thing until eight days later when I felt the injuries and cuts I’d suffered.  When I arrived at the place where he was, the soldiers had already lifted him up.  Caramba, I said to him, José Santos, didn’t I tell you not to go.  At that moment we lifted him and carried him to Corinto and got him ready to go to the hospital.  We did all we could for him, but he couldn’t recover.  He’d broken his whole spine.  All that was left to do was for me and my children to take care of him like a child.  He eventually died on the 16^th of October, 1987, in the arms of his son Andrés, and in his death his legs came off.

 

We went to celebrate his burial, which lots of people attended.  We put him in the coffin and I said to the people, sing the Salve as we put him in the coffin, but nobody was brave enough, so I looked up at the heavens and said, oh Holy Spirit give me the courage, and I started to sing the Salve Regina and I didn’t cry until I came to the last verse of the song.