MY NEW YEAR RESOLUTION FOR 2018

Throughout the years, I have written numerous little special memories, but I have not arranged them in any order. This year I decided to do that. First, I will write an outline for a chronology, and then eventually fit those little stories into that chronological structure.

I will be sharing the challenge, as I go along, with Somos Primos readers, with the hope that you might join me in this adventure.   I will try to help by including some ideas each month and then share what I've written.

Below is the outline I prepared for chapter one, my birth. I prepar ed ten fill in the blanks which may be helpful to you in writing your birth story.   I really hope, some of you will join me and write a personal history too in 2018. ~ Mimi

My name is __________
My father _________________ was born in _____________
My mother ____________________ was born in ______________
I was born ________________ ( at home, in a hospital, in a car, etc. in _____________.

My first home was __________________________,
I was the (first, second, etc) . _________ child.
The country was experiencing _______, my parents___________________ were young. old, educated, uneducated,

Something different about my birth was ______________________
Was it raining? Was it a strange hour, or location?   Ask your Mom from her perspective.
She will remember something . . or maybe your Dad was present. Every birth is special. Mine was rather unusual.

I was born in San Antonio, Texas, October 18, 1933. Although most people know me as Mimi, my real name is Nohemi. Dad named me. I was told by some Hawaiians that my name is Hawaiian and it means, "beautiful gift." A nice thought. Wonder if my Dad knew?
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My parents were Catalino Lozano, born in San Antonio and Aurora Chapa, born in Sabinas Hidalgo, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Dad father died when he was in the 3rd grade He stopped attending school and instead shined shoes and had a newspaper route Mom, whose family migrated from Mexico to San Antonio in the 1920s, dropped out of school after the 10th grade and got married. Dad, five years older than Mom was very capable, and had two businesses. Mom said, he had a fleet of taxi cabs, and men working for him. He also had a tailoring and dry cleaning shop. Mom, with pride sad, "He had older men working for him as tailors." But we were in the middle of the recession. I was the second of two daughters, both born during the big depression. The whole nation was suffering. When money is tight, people tend to walk, instead of taking a cab.		Men without jobs, don't have new suits made. Mom described our house as a small log-cabin, rented monthly for $15. The house was drafty, cracks between some of the logs, but Mom said it was easy to clean. She simply hosed the walls and floor down, with an outside garden hose. I am assuming that the floor was cement. The doctor who delivered me was assisted by my Aunt Elia Valdez. Tia Elia, was the mother of my cousin Yolanda Valdez Auclair whose story is about turning the Stockton City tree lights on to honor her husband. Tia described to Mom how difficult it was to wash me off. Mom said Tia Elia said I was in two sacs, not one. She described the second bag, the internal one, that it completely covered me with an enclosed sticky bag, made of a waxy substance.

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"A baby emerges fully inside the amniotic sac, which looks like a thin and filmy membrane. Some call this condition "born with a veil."

Babies born en-caul are some of the rarest type of births in the world today. It's so rare, in fact, that many moms have never even heard of it until it happens to them. A caul birth occurs in about 1 in every 80,000 births. These rare births do appear all over the world. The doctor told Tia that he had heard about the condition, but had never seen it.

Many have superstitions connected to these births. With less than one in every 80,000 babies born with a caul, it comes as no surprise that superstitions and stories surround this mysterious and rare phenomenon [source: babyMed]. Believed to be the mark of something special, a birth caul may appear startling and sometimes frightening for the mother. Maybe that is why Mom did not tell me about my birth story, until long after my own children were born.

Maybe the fact of my Caul birth is why my birth was never recorded by the doctor. He may have thought I was not going to survive, or something? Apparently, I was very small, in contrast to my sister, whose birth weight was close to nine pounds.

I was an adult very involved with family history, but with no birth certificate. I often wondered how Mom was able to register me for school in the Los Angeles School District.

During my first trip to research in San Antonio, the first thing I wanted to accomplished was to get a copy of my birth certificate. I was shocked and disappointed, I could not be found in any county records. I was a non-person!!

My friend Ophelia Marquez suggested we go to the San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio to see if we could find my baptism record there. Gratefully and very relieved, there was a record that I had been born. I had an identity.

However, since, the Roman Catholic Church believes it is important that "parents are obliged to see that their infants are baptized within the first few weeks," I was surprised that Mom and Dad waited almost a year before baptizing me. I asked Mom why the delay. She never did give me an answer. Maybe the answer was simply, Dad was a Catholic and Mom was not. Maybe they both wanted to make sure I was going to live.

The San Fernando Cathedral were I was baptized.

The 18th-century San Fernando Cathedral is the first church built in San Antonio, the oldest standing church in Texas, and one of the oldest cathedrals in the U.S. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places. (Photo circa 1907) Photo: Ernst Raba /San Antonio Conservation Society / San Antonio Conservation Society
(Photo circa 1907)

The 18th-century San Fernando Cathedral is the first church built in San Antonio, the oldest standing church in Texas, and the oldest Roman Catholic Cathedrals in the contiguous United States. The cornerstone was first laid years before the Alamo church was built. The Cathedral is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. http://www.mysanantonio.com/150years/article/20-things-to-know-about-San-Fernando-Cathedral-6465172.php

===================Rare Images of Babies Born in the Amniotic Sac below, not of me.