SIDEBAR
The enduring legacies of former Laredoan H. B. Zachry: the Boys Club and the Colonia Guadalupe
Within blocks of one another two important construction projects planned in the late 1930s evoke the selfless humanitarian vision and legacy of former Laredoan H. B. (Pat) Zachry — the Boys Club on Moctezuma Street, which he funded and built in 1943; and the City’s first affordable housing project, the Colonia Guadalupe.
H. B. (Pat) Zachry funded and built the Boys Club on Moctezuma Street. The complex served as a USO during World War II.
Many will attest that both projects bore life-changing, quality of life results for Laredoans of all ages.
I write of the latter — my abbreviated version of the story of the collaboration of the many hands and minds that planned and executed the Colonia Guadalupe development — drawing heavily from Carlos Valle’s 2007 dissertation for a Doctorate of Philosophy in Urban Studies at the University of New Orleans, a 236-page document on the history of public housing in Laredo from 1938 to 2007. Valle’s narrative names the Laredoans who brought the project to life.
Zachry, a successful construction contractor, and Laredo Morning Times columnist Gilbert Isaac Garretson, who was also executive vice-president of the Laredo Chamber of Commerce, were the fuses that lit the backstory to orchestrate the affordable housing project’s many moving parts and personalities.
Versed in the slum clearance and construction guidelines of the U.S. Housing Act of 1937, Zachry teamed up with Garretson to go before the Laredo City Council on June 6, 1938 to begin the dialogue for affordable housing in Laredo. Within minutes of hearing from the two, the Council approved the creation of the Laredo Housing Authority (LHA) and appointed Zachry, Garretson, hat manufacturer Matias De Llano, attorney Phillip A. Kazen, and lumber company owner and builder Peter P. Leyendecker as housing commissioners.
The findings of a survey conducted in the summer of 1938 by 18 college students was an initial step to meet Housing Act criteria for slum clearance funding. That Housing Authority survey, which excluded downtown and affluent parts of the City, was published in The Laredo Morning Times.
The attached file of black and white photos documents the clearing of the 12 City blocks of substandard housing that were razed to make way for the Colonia Guadalupe’s 272 dwellings. Per U.S. Housing Authority stipulations, the number of new homes would equal the number of demolished homes.
Old neighborhood made way for Col. Guadalupe
The survey findings memorialized abject poverty and substandard housing in Laredo, calling them by their rightful names, substantiating them with real numbers that had shock value enough to motivate the high and noble reach for affordable housing in Laredo.
In this city of 38,326 inhabitants in 1938, the survey revealed that: 3,773 of them shared a community faucet and 2,604 had no access to clean water; 13, 476 used pit privies; 2,042 cooked in a fireplace and 4,768 used wood for cooking; 1,280 had no cooking facilities; there were 1.085 families per household, an average of 4.85 people in that household; the average single family household had 2.79 people, of which 1.76 were under the age of 15; the average home had 2.71 rooms and 1.33 bedrooms.
According to the survey, the combined wages earned by all members in a family in substandard housing averaged $32.50 per month, while the wages of a household’s single wage owner averaged $20.75 a month. The survey revealed that in some instances there were Laredoans subsisting on 18 cents per day.
The LHA grant application to the Department of Housing asked for a million dollars to build 180 units in the Colonia Guadalupe. The LHA received notification in mid-August 1938 of a grant of $600,000., which was revised in November to a million dollars to build 272 residences.
On July 1, 1941, six months before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, the Laredo Housing Authority showcased four model units — one, two, three, and four bedroom — in the recently developed neighborhood.
Within two weeks, 450 families submitted applications, and by the official inauguration of the Colonia Guadalupe on September 2, 1941, 1,000 Laredo families sought residence in the concrete homes finished out in walls of hard-kilned hollow brick, homes built with the expectation that they would last 60 years.
To give 1941 context to the word “affordable,” the advertised monthly rent for the new units, which included utilities, was three day’s wages for a family with a weekly income of $14.
If today’s measure for the urban walkability of a neighborhood had been applied to the Colonia Guadalupe project, it would have been rated in superlatives for its proximity to churches, three public schools, private schools and escuelitas, grocers, meat markets, bakeries and tortillerias, recreational and sports amenities, access to public transportation and the hub of downtown commerce. Though the term walkability wasn’t then coined, those nearby amenities were stipulated as green-light criteria for the neighborhood to have developed there.
The Colonia’s official opening and dedication brought together a bevy of federal, state, local, and Mexican officials and dignitaries. The program featured a concert of the Martin High School Band playing with the Work Projects Administration Symphony Orchestra of San Antonio and Spanish dance performances by Laredoan Blanche Flores. About 6,000 attended the dedication festivities and the dance that followed.
Four days after the Colonia’s official opening, residents welcomed its first newborn, a daughter born to Roberto and Elva Hale.
(The Laredo Housing Authority owns and manages 994 safe, decent, and affordable public housing units in eight locations and administers the Housing Choice Voucher Program for 1,390 families in the private housing sector in Laredo, Zapata, and Asherton. Through supportive services and self-sufficiency classes, LHA fortifies residents’ knowledge and skills necessary to improve their quality of life.)
The tranquility of the Colonia Guadalupe
engendered lifetime friendships
and inspired numerous successes
Success stories abound in the lives of many whose roots were nurtured in the Colonia Guadalupe.
Some of those successes have been entrepreneurial, others in satisfying careers in the practice of law, engineering, education, law enforcement, health care, and government; and still others in the rich realm of good marriages that raised and educated children who reached their own successes.
This story finds its way to print through the hearts of some who resided there.
NONI GARZA CHAVEZ
“We were blessed to grow up in such a beautiful environment,” said former resident Noni Garza Chavez, now 78 and residing in San Antonio.
“There were 12 of us – the 10 children my parents had and two step-brothers. We lived in the four-bedroom unit at 623 Bruni Court. We lived our life to the fullest there, and we were happy in a neighborhood of people who showed children such love and respect,” Chavez recalled.
“Our friendships ran deep, and I have kept those friendships for life. Raul Perales was among my dearest friends,” she said.
Noni Garza Chavez: a success at entrepreneurial sustainability Noni Garza Chavez (far right) is pictured at the ribbon cutting ceremony for Noni’s Skin and Hair Care Clinic. She is pictured with her husband Roldan Chavez Jr., son Roldan Chavez III, daughters Sandee C. Rogers and Selina C. Treviño, and at far left, Amelia and Roldan Chavez Sr.
Chavez praised her mother as a model for running an organized household. “She was proud of her home and kept it spotless — floors, windows, and window sills. My parents taught us that respect was far more important than money,” she said of Anadelia and Guadalupe Garza.
Guadalupe was employed by Laredo Creamery like his brother Ricardo, who lived nearby with his family.
“I was a sports freak who played baseball and learned synchronized swimming from Mrs. Estela Kramer at the Boys Club. We skated up and down the blocks of the sidewalks of the neighborhood,” Chavez said.
“I liked to work, too,” she said, recalling helping her Aunt Leonor at El Sol del Oriente, the women’s clothing and shoe store that was a mainstay of downtown commerce.
She met Roldan Chavez Jr. in 1961 when she was 21. He proposed marriage on their first date, and though she initially rejected the idea, they were engaged a month-and-a-half later.
Paquita Tijerina, the mother of her friend and neighbor Aminta, made Chavez’s wedding dress. Noni and Roldan were married November 24, 1963 in Guadalupe Church.
She worked at a finance company and then at Laredo National Bank before studying to be licensed as an aesthetician. She established a shop across from Mall del Norte in 1981, sowing the seeds of a sustainable business model that has enjoyed 40 years of success. Noni’s Skin and Hair Care Clinic, now located in the French Quarter, is operated by her daughters, Celina Chavez Treviño and Sandra Chavez Rogers.
Chavez, who has lived in San Antonio for the last 25 years, owns and operates Noni’s Skin Care Clinic at Truesdell Salon and Spa on Huebner Road.
She deeply mourns the loss of Roldan, who died in 2013, and speaks of “a beautiful life,” counting among her blessings the life she shared with her parents and siblings in the Colonia Guadalupe; her marriage to Roldan; being the mother of Celina, Sandra, and Roldan III; and having a career that called up her creativity and resourcefulness.
Two of Chavez’s brothers became attorneys. Lorenzo Garza is an attorney with the Department of Labor in San Antonio and Roberto Garza practiced law in Laredo and San Antonio before focusing his entrepreneurial skills into the founding of Siete Foods, the successful gluten-free tortilla and chip company based in San Antonio.
GUSTAVO ACEVEDO SR.
Gustavo Acevedo Sr., the son of Martin Acevedo and Angela Peña Acevedo, moved to the Colonia Guadalupe when he was eight years old. The development had just opened. He lived there through high school and while attending Laredo Junior College, and then lived in San Antonio while completing undergraduate studies at St. Mary’s University.
Acevedo enlisted in the U.S. Army during the Korean War and served from January 1954 through January 1956, and then returned to St. Mary’s University School of Law to earn a doctor of jurisprudence degree.
He distinguished himself in public service as assistant Webb County District Attorney under DA Oscar Laurel from 1960 to 1968. Acevedo was elected City Secretary in 1969 and held that position until 1974 when he was appointed by senior Federal District Judge Ben Connally to establish the Federal Public Defender’s Office for the Southern District of Texas. He entered private practice in 1984.
Now 86, Acevedo recalled the Colonia Guadalupe’s ambience of neighborly good will.
“It was wide open. There were no fences. We could ask Mr. Botello at the administration office for push mowers and other tools to maintain our yards and the gardens our mothers had planted. There was a salon for birthday parties, dances, and holiday celebrations. Our lives had harmony there, and the beneficial influences of good people like the attorney Francisco Flores who led our Boy Scout troop, and Mr. Treviño who organized baseball teams,” he said.
“Everything we needed was nearby — all the mom and pop stores, the meat market, and the church where we took our doctrina. Life was good at 318 Park Street. What I remember so well,” Acevedo stressed, “Were the people we had as friends and neighbors who opened their own roads to take on vital roles in the development of the City — Webb County District Attorney Carlos Castillon Sr.; the historian and archaeological steward Rose Tarver; attorney Roberto Ornelas who served as Hidalgo County District Attorney; and Paul Garza, the City Engineer.”
He said the women in his life at the Colonia Guadalupe — his mother and his two sisters, Amparo and Angie — were role models for commitment and hard work. “I am indebted to my sisters, who were lifetime educators and who helped me through college and law school.”
Acevedo and his wife Valeria, who became an attorney at the age of 52, have been married 61 years. They have seven children — Gustavo Jr., Ariadne A. Diaz, Gerardo, Miguel Angel, Martin, Veronica, and Valeria. “They are our greatest pride; all of them college graduates; two of them attorneys,” he said.
LUIS DOVALINA
“Our mother Charlotte Mae Dixon Dovalina grew up on a farm near Odessa, Delaware. My father Lazaro served in the Army in Germany during World War II. He met my mother when he was stateside at a USO near her home. Living in Laredo and not speaking Spanish was a real challenge for her,” said retired veteran Laredo patrolman Luis Dovalina. “It was culture shock to move into a neighborhood where English was rarely heard. She came through it fine, though, because we had good neighbors. She eventually learned Spanish,” he continued.
“I was pretty young when I lived in the Colonia Guadalupe. Some of my best memories are of the swing set, slide, and teeter-totter in the playground; buying homemade Kool Aid popsicles from a neighbor for two-cents; and walking to the bakery across Park Street. It was so safe back then,” Dovalina said.
Phyliss and Michael Dovalina at the Colonia Guadalupe
“My very best memory, though, is walking everywhere with my father Lazaro. If he had a softball game, we would walk to the Washington Park field where he played on a team called the Falstaffs. The Civic Center was later built on that site. Center field would have backed up to the fire station on San Bernardo,” Dovalina continued, adding, “He loved the game of baseball. He was a quiet man, very straight about things. If he got too much change back from a transaction, he would give it back. If you charged him too much, he would call it to your attention He was a civil service employee at the base, the paymaster. He was straight about everything, and expressed himself clearly. After he and my mother divorced and she moved away, he told us she would always be welcome in our home. He meant it, and she was,” he recalled, adding, “he never stopped loving her. He died five days after she did.”
Dovalina served in the Laredo Police Department for 34 years. Prior to that, he saw military service in the United States Air Force in Turkey and Panama from 1978 to 1984.
His brother, Larry Dovalina, served as Laredo City Manager from 2000 to 2006.
YOLANDA GARZA TREVINO
“We were poor, but it was a place of riches for family life and long friendships. To this day I remain friends with those I grew up with there. Our life there was very special,” said Yolanda Garza Treviño
One of 10 siblings, Garza moved into one of the four-bedroom units in the newly built affordable housing complex with her parents, Ricardo and Adela (Gonzalez) Garza in 1941.
Yolanda’s mother, Adela G. Garza, sits on the bench Mr. Garza bought to have his eight daughters and their boyfriends in plain sight.
“It was built for families in a neighborhood that met our needs. Everything we needed was nearby,” Treviño recalled.
“It wasn’t just convenient; it was perfect. We took pride in our homes and our small yards. Some of our teachers lived there, too, like Mr. Martin Chacon, who tutored us in math. Mr. Rodriguez organized a baseball team for girls. Mr. Aguilar, who had an orchestra, encouraged us in music,” she continued.
Yolanda Garza Treviño outside her home at the Colonia Guadalupe. She remembers well the dress she is wearing, which was sewn by a neighbor, Tomasita, a skilled costurera. Behind her is Brownie, the family pet.
Treviño said that the hall next to the administrative offices was the setting for cooking classes, first aid lessons, classes on etiquette, how to set a table, and how to care for Sunday shoes and dresses. She recalled the small auditorium that showcased an annual Halloween event, Christmas pageants, plays, and other performances. “The red mesh stocking full of candy that we were given every year at the Christmas party meant so much to us,” she said.
She recalled the proximity of clotheslines in backyards and the embarrassing visibility of her undergarments and those of her sisters in the open air.
“Las mamas en sus casas, y los padres a sus trabajos,” she said of the roles of her parents, whom she described as honorable, loving, and committed to the education of their children. “Not just the education of the classroom, but the education at home that builds character,” she clarified.
Treviño has vivid memories of life at 502 Park, of her mother’s fastidious housekeeping and her skills at the stove. “We walked home from school for lunch, which always included flour tortillas she had just made,” she said.
Treviño’s father, Ricardo, delivered milk for Laredo Creamery. “In the rush of enlistments after Pearl Harbor, my father was given a deferment from service because his job delivering to soldiers at the Laredo Air Field was considered essential.”
Treviño summoned summer nights in the Colonia Guadalupe. “Our mothers on benches visiting with each other and us with our friends on blankets looking up at the night sky of fireflies and falling stars. It was magical. Everyone thought que viviamos pobres, but we were safe and happy, and we shared that happiness. Our lives were full of play and joy. We wore ourselves out skating, turning maromas on the soft grass, playing ball, swimming at the Boy’s Club, and walking everywhere.”
In addition to Conchita Ancira, she counted among her friends Gustavo Acevedo, Olga Torres, Roberto Ornelas, Elvira Chacon, Rosalicia Moreno, Mary Fernandez, and Effie de la Garza. “We took dancing lessons in the salon, even square dancing,” she recalled.
“Like it was yesterday. I remember the sounds of the neighborhood on Sunday morning. Sleeping by an open window, waking to church bells and the call of the man selling barbacoa from the basket on his bicycle,” Treviño said.
She spoke with tenderness of two cousins. “Paul Garza is remembered for many good things. One is the shaved ice raspas he made for all of us. But he is also remembered for coming through our unlocked door to wake us with a rendition on our piano of the Marine Corps hymn (From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli.) The other cousin is Graziella Garza, who became a famous soprano in Mexico City. She married the grand tenor Hugo Avendaño and made films with María Felix,” she said.
Treviño remembered a woman named Mrs. Capra who was a regular for afternoon coffee with her mother. “She was very European. She lived a few doors down with her son. It was said she was related to the filmmaker Frank Capra, who made It’s A Wonderful Life,” she said.
She said that the metal clank of the mailbox opening at night signaled the distribution of an esquela, the printed notice of a neighbor’s death. “This was often accompanied by the ringing of the bells at the Church,” she noted.
She said she was 14 when she first set eyes on her future husband, Roberto Treviño, then a student at St. Joseph’s Academy, which was seven blocks away and up the hill from the Colonia Guadalupe. “He was playing ping pong at the Boys Club. I turned to my friend Conchita Ancira and told her, ‘I don’t know who he is, but I am going to marry him.’ I also saw him at El Puerto Rico, the fresh fruit popsicle store that was frequented by St. Joe students,” she said.
Time would prove out Treviño’s resolve. She and Roberto, a Texas A&M University graduate and an engineer, were married and would so be for 60 years, living for a time in Mexico and Panama, McAllen, and eventually in San Antonio — raising five sons, Roberto Jr., Michael, Daniel, Javier, and George.
With an eye for color and interior design Treviño opened a flower and home accessories shop on McCullough in San Antonio, which she operated for many years.
Her beloved Roberto passed away in 2016.
Now 86, Yolanda Garza Treviño writes fiction.
CARLOS VALLE
“The Colonia Guadalupe was my first home. I celebrated my first birthday at 315 Bruni Courts, and would live there 22 years.” Thus did Carlos Valle, the oldest of the six children of Carlos Valle Sr. and María de la Luz Rodriguez, begin the narrative of life in the Colonia Guadalupe.
“My father was an Army-trained nurse who served stateside and in the Pacific Theater from 1940 to 1945. He enlisted before the war. He met my mother, who was originally from San Luis Potosi, at the Ft. Crockett USO on Galveston Island in 1942. Mercy Hospital hired him as an orderly in 1946. He was a good nurse and a good man. He and his oldest brother, Samuel Jr., operated Sam’s Bakery at 915 Callaghan,” he continued, evoking the sugar-crusted childhood pleasure of having a father who was a baker.
Carlos Valle’s First Birthday
Valle is well-versed in the history of the planning and building of the Colonia, as much as a former resident as from the research he amassed for the writing of his doctoral dissertation titled Urban Growth with Limited Prosperity — A History of Low Income Housing in Laredo, Texas — 1938 to 2006.” Valle earned a Doctorate of Philosophy in Urban Studies at the University of New Orleans.
He graduated, reluctantly, from St. Joseph’s Academy in 1965, attending the private school on an agreement that applied seventy cents an hour to tuition as he whitewashed fences, sanded and varnished wooden desks, weeded the football field in summer, stripped the gym floor and re-coated it, and took on any other task required of him.
“I wanted to stay in school with my friends from Christen and Martin High, but my father wanted me at St. Joseph’s” he said.
Valle joined the USAF Reserve and served active duty at Laredo Air Force Base. “The barracks were too crowded, so my first sergeant requested I live with family since I was local. We continued to live in the Colonia Guadalupe until my paternal grandmother died in 1969, and my uncles willed her home to my father,” he said.
“Not everyone who lived there was impoverished,” Valle said, adding that the Colonia’s residents were a diverse mix of City and County employees, teachers, carpenters, civil servants, firefighters, police officers, business owners, single mothers, GIs returning from the war, and many who had jobs in downtown stores. “Helping the servicemen find housing after World War II had become a federal priority,” Valle said.
“My mother asked us when we were adults if we had ever felt poor when we lived there. I told her I never did. I felt loved. Our home was clean and thanks to her, well organized. Our four-bedroom home there was a move up. Urbanization required green spaces, and now we had a yard. Every home had a water heater and appliances in good repair. We were warm in winter, and in summer, a box fan pulled the night air through our living room,” Valle said.
The Valle Family
“Everyone had more than one mother. Everyone was looked out for. We knew the mothers by their voices. Our mothers had long, intimate friendships with each other, The stories of our lives were shared at the tendedero in the back yard. When someone was sick or going into child birth, the mothers went into high alert with prayer and remedies,” he continued, adding, “The mothers ruled in this small, tight community that was not unlike Iberian, Arab, and North African communities in which the mothers maintained order.”
He called the mothers of the neighborhood “the heartbeat of the Colonia Guadalupe.”
Done with such heart. Not just a report. I can see with my imagination how great of a community it was.
I agree with you brother. María Eugenia did an outstanding job putting this story together. The images these stories evoke are vivid and serene. I wish current affordable housing projects and those who live there could capture this ‘magical’ and ‘perfect’ quality. How sweet life could be.
I went to school with many of the Colonia Guadalupe families and they were the most handsome and most beautiful in my memories of school days. Inside and out!
Loved it! It brought wonderful memories of the times and the people that lived in La Colonia. My sister Olga married Yolanda Garza’s brother Ricardo, and Gustavo Acevedo and his wife Valeria were my friends. Carlos Valle is a member of my extended Valle family. Congratulations on this great article!!
I was delighted to read about Laredo’s first affordable housing project, La Colonia. I spent many days getting to know the Garza family when I was dating Ricardo Garza Jr. All his sisters and brother plus their mom and dad welcomed me and often invited me to eat dinner with them. It was like suddenly I had 8 sisters and loving it since I had only one sister, Raquel. Visiting with them was like having a lively party. Never a dull moment! Ricardo and I began dating and eventually led to a marriage that produced three wonderful children, Cynthia, Javier and Raul . Thanks for this delightful article. Memories are made of these vivid remembrances.
It was a pleasure to read about La Colonia housing project. Very vivid and special memories came to my mind as I read this article. Thank you, Maria Eugenia!
Saludos y muchas gracias por poder leer lo que escribes. Con mucho cariño, Tati Rubio
I enjoy your articles very much, keep it up. It’s like reading a history assignment by you but in a much depth unexplained. You bring joy in me when I read of my hometown past experiences. By the way, HB Zachry Jr just past away this month. May he and Mr Zachry SR be with the Lord. My dad worked with Mr. Zachry Jr. for a number of years. My dad felt proud working for him. He’d say the Zachry company instilled good and strong work ethics and that I believe were carried down to all of my parents 9 college educated children, which some are employed here and serving the community as well, as educators, law enforcement, engineers, business owners. God bless you.
I was born at home at 307 Gonzalez St. in 1950. My younger brother Renato ( Nuno ) was born there also. My mother lived there well into the late 80’s. We all grew up my 4 sisters and 2 brothers and had a wonderful times and a lot of friends and a lot of memories there. I grew up with Carlos Valle and his brother Javier and I were best friends. Cuate Santos the LMT photographer is my youngest brother. I think that he and Cuata where the only siblings born at the hospital. I left Laredo about 48 years ago and live in Florida but we visit Laredo once in a while. I retired from the Space Shuttle Program 8 years ago and my brother Renato is a retired attorney in Houston. I was real happy to see this article brought back a lot of childhood memories.