00:00:00.240 - 00:00:10.240

You didn't. Yeah. It's, uh, it's a little hollow. The song was about, uh-

00:00:11.270 - 00:00:21.760

It's about After they tore everything down. How... There's nothing left of the way it was,

00:00:22.440 - 00:00:33.870

But he was always remembering, so I put it in there. I keep coming back to the past, you know. No more trees, no more flowers, no more birds.

00:00:34.820 - 00:00:44.630

No, that's {what this} song's about. Very simple. Sounds kind of country western. I'd love to hear it.

00:00:46.130 - 00:00:56.500

I would love you to hear it. Yeah. Uh, tell me your name. Your name.

00:00:56.500 - 00:01:07.950

Cenovia. Cenovia. Gamboa Madero. Madero was my husband's name.

00:01:08.870 - 00:01:17.440

Is my husband's. He's not my husband anymore, But that's his name. Okay. I should say my married name, but I'm not

00:01:17.440 - 00:01:27.700

married anymore. I'm so happy. No. And you guys have to be quiet.

00:01:31.270 - 00:01:43.650

You can laugh, silently, though. Tell me some of the first things you remember about growing up in the old neighborhood. I remember my mother.

00:01:45.750 - 00:01:52.990

Her name was Tiburcia Hernandez, her maiden name. Gamboa, My father's name.

00:01:54.300 - 00:02:09.330

I remember my father. His name was Jose Maria. And they were both very hard working people. My mother told me a lot about them, the early

00:02:09.330 - 00:02:24.140

years because I was a very sickly child, so I spent a lot of time with my mother. Uh, so I would ask her questions all the time. She would tell me. She loved to talk about the

00:02:24.140 - 00:02:38.230

old times. Anyway. My mother told me she was born in 1895. My father was born in 1884.

00:02:40.240 - 00:02:50.800

They were both from Mexico. My father From Pachíniba [Bachíniva], Chihuaha. My mother from Sain Alto, Zacatecas.

00:02:52.510 - 00:03:04.740

My mother came over here at seven years. I don't know the age my father came over, but I think he was already. In his 20's.

00:03:06.440 - 00:03:20.800

And my mother was 14 when she married my father. He was 24. They got married in Arizona in 1910. Okay.

00:03:21.680 - 00:03:30.370

My mother had a beautiful singing voice. Beautiful. She was always singing. That's how I learned the old songs.

00:03:30.370 - 00:03:39.260

Singing. I would- She would be sewing, crocheting, embroidering. She taught us all how to do that.

00:03:40.590 - 00:03:50.680

And she would be singing. And of course we followed. Both my mother and my father were- They just loved to read.

00:03:51.520 - 00:03:58.480

Both of them. They were never without something to read. And I think we picked up on that, my brother and I.

00:03:59.730 - 00:04:08.340

We were 12, in our family. I was number 11. He was number 12. And grew-

00:04:08.340 - 00:04:19.370

We grew up very close together. And the earliest memory I have of my brother was his- He was a baby.

00:04:19.970 - 00:04:30.320

He was lying on my mother's lap. She was nursing him. And I remember her saying, don't bite me, don't bite me, because I think he already had teeth.

00:04:30.860 - 00:04:40.180

And that was the earliest. After that It just comes scattered. But I remember

00:04:41.390 - 00:04:50.150

When they used to take us. My father and mother took us to the camps, where immigrant farmworkers- That's how they're called now,

00:04:50.510 - 00:04:59.960

Not at that time. We picked everything. Apricots. Lemons.

00:05:01.860 - 00:05:07.830

Grapes. Cotton. Before they brought in the machines, We picked cotton.

00:05:09.200 - 00:05:23.800

Those cotton camps were very hard, and they had the most awful tasting water. So when we would come back to LA The water here tasted heavenly, you know.

00:05:24.950 - 00:05:32.640

And, uh. My brother was a beautiful boy. He was a beautiful little boy.

00:05:32.970 - 00:05:40.640

Curly black hair. Dark. But red, red cheeks. He was also a very naughty.

00:05:41.630 - 00:05:48.330

Yeah. And I used to think he used to get away with murder. Because

00:05:49.970 - 00:06:00.060

in, uh, in our home, we always addressed my mother and my father in the formal way, which would be in Spanish "usted".

00:06:01.170 - 00:06:13.200

And he would always say "tú" which is the familiar, and we used to wonder about that. Of course, we couldn't say anything. You know, if we dared to say something like that,

00:06:13.200 - 00:06:18.150

we would get clobbered. You know, but he never did. He was the last one. So he-

00:06:18.360 - 00:06:28.150

I think he was kind of spoiled. You know, he was. It's, uh- It's hard to remember so many things.

00:06:28.480 - 00:06:35.710

I remember my brother picking cotton. He had this little sack, you know. And,

00:06:36.750 - 00:06:47.970

he would take it. When he got it filled up, he would take it, have it weighed. But then the foreman started complaining because it would weigh

00:06:47.970 - 00:06:58.270

about 5 pounds and it was a lot of bother to just mark down 5 pounds, you know, so he had to stop doing that. And, uh...

00:07:02.060 - 00:07:14.470

We used to go to the movies together when he grew older, until he was 11 years old. And I asked him why he didn't want to go

00:07:14.470 - 00:07:23.310

to the movies with me anymore. He said because the girls think you're my girlfriend. So, so I said, well, okay.

00:07:23.460 - 00:07:31.320

By the way, I remember his first- his first girlfriend. He had his first girlfriend when he was five years old.

00:07:31.960 - 00:07:41.970

It was in kindergarten, and her name was Martha. I remember that. He said he was crazy in love with her.

00:07:42.720 - 00:07:54.010

My brother. Yeah. And, uh, after that it's kind of hard to remember so many things.

00:07:54.850 - 00:08:01.990

Did you go to the elementary school there? Uh, yes. The elementary Palo Verde school. Oh, yeah.

00:08:02.890 - 00:08:13.380

We went. There's a fire truck going by. Yeah. Yeah.

00:08:13.470 - 00:08:23.860

That was Palo Verde School. We used to have to climb over the hill, you know. I remember those hills.

00:08:24.790 - 00:08:36.130

The houses. I used to like to look at the window. And, uh, early in the morning, I used to think it was so pretty.

00:08:36.890 - 00:08:46.770

The hills were green. Very picturesque. And I was very young, but I remember looking across the street.

00:08:47.800 - 00:09:00.670

And looking at these trees, and I would think it was beautiful, the different shades of green. You know, it would be funny that I would notice things like those because nobody else did.

00:09:01.860 - 00:09:16.920

But I always did. I would climb the hill. And then we would climb down again. That's how we had to go, uh, into the school,

00:09:16.920 - 00:09:25.410

you know. I won't tell you about my childhood in school because it was terrible. It was terrible until I was eight years old.

00:09:26.230 - 00:09:35.780

When I started to sing, I was eight years old. Because the kids were mean to me before then. But that's how, that was my-

00:09:35.810 - 00:09:45.770

That became my weapon. I would tell them: you hit me, I'm not gonna ever sing again. So then they would hug me and tell me: No!

00:09:45.950 - 00:09:55.950

sing again for us, sing another song, you know. And my brother and I, we used to sing together, you know?

00:09:56.820 - 00:10:08.580

Uh, what they call in Spanish "ranchera" songs. And, uh, we didn't sound so good. But we had a lot of fun.

00:10:09.850 - 00:10:20.440

And he didn't play the guitar at that time, I did. So any chance we got, we would sing. In fact, we would sing when we were in the

00:10:20.440 - 00:10:30.080

cotton fields. And- But in that time, there were also songs of the '40s, and we would

00:10:30.080 - 00:10:35.880

sing "Pardon me, Boy, Is that the Chattanooga Choo-Choo?" We knew it by heart,

00:10:36.750 - 00:10:48.350

so we would sing 'em. We also knew that song "Kalamazoo". Other songs, we'd sing them. They had to be fast songs because my father would

00:10:48.350 - 00:11:02.300

not allow us to sing the slow ones, because he said we were too slow. But the fast ones, he would come over and tell us, "Choose another one- faster, faster, you're working too slow."

00:11:02.510 - 00:11:16.910

So we did that, you know. I remember once when we were in this camp, um, picking apricots. My brother and I were playing ball.

00:11:18.710 - 00:11:31.200

My father was sitting there reading his- his newspaper. And we're just tossing the ball back and forth, and horror of horrors.

00:11:32.580 - 00:11:43.050

The ball landed on top of his head and we just froze, you know? Oh my God, we're going to get it now! But all he said was, "You naughty children, get

00:11:43.050 - 00:11:51.630

out of here. Go play someplace else." Well we thought, oh my God, you know, don't think "I'm scared", you know.

00:11:53.040 - 00:11:59.290

How old were you when you moved out of the neighborhood? I was 20. 20.

00:12:00.460 - 00:12:08.700

Uh, 20, 21. 21, must have been. Either. My father had died

00:12:09.440 - 00:12:19.030

the year before. He had died, though. And my brother when he was- when my father died

00:12:19.450 - 00:12:30.200

and we had the wake at home, I remember my brother was in, I don't know what camp, but prison. And they allowed him to come home.

00:12:30.560 - 00:12:41.570

But to me it was the saddest thing, heartbreaking, to see him come, between two- they were dressed in regular clothes, but I knew there were policemen.

00:12:42.750 - 00:12:50.980

They had him between them. And the handcuffs. They released him,

00:12:51.520 - 00:13:01.030

and I remember seeing my brother go up to the coffin, and he knelt down there. He didn't cry but he was very

00:13:02.110 - 00:13:10.640

serious. Very... I don't even know how to describe it. There was a very serious look on his face.

00:13:11.960 - 00:13:22.220

That's one thing I remember. Yeah, I was 21 probably when we moved out of there. Yeah.

00:13:22.820 - 00:13:35.680

I was telling my daughters that I must have been around 17 or 18 when I had this prophetic dream. I call it that now. I had this dream that all those hills had been

00:13:35.680 - 00:13:44.690

leveled. The houses torn down, I saw it in my dream. And when they started talking about how they were going

00:13:44.690 - 00:13:55.950

to buy us out, we had to sell out. I remembered, and I got the shivers. I remembered, and I told this friend we had, her name was Mercy.

00:13:56.610 - 00:14:04.320

"Remember Mercy? I told you about this dream that they were going to level all these hills?", and exactly the way I saw it,

00:14:04.320 - 00:14:13.430

that's the way it happened. No. And, uh. Sometimes, we used to come back.

00:14:13.790 - 00:14:23.740

We came back and all that was left of the house was the the foundation, the step. My father built that house.

00:14:25.310 - 00:14:35.540

I was born there. I was born in 1929. There. It was a nice house.

00:14:36.290 - 00:14:45.930

It had a garden in front. And they- it had a vine growing, and it covered all the roof in the- in the front.

00:14:46.350 - 00:14:56.620

And in spring, it looked like it was wearing a white crown. You know, it was beautiful. And when my father died, when they were taking out

00:14:56.620 - 00:15:07.520

the coffin. It was windy, and I saw the little flowers falling down. And I wrote a song about that.

00:15:08.220 - 00:15:18.570

How the vine, instead of weeping tears, was weeping flowers. And, it died.

00:15:19.140 - 00:15:32.000

My mother did whatever she could to keep it alive. It dried up. Nevermore, never bloomed again. And my mother used to say it must have felt...

00:15:33.530 - 00:15:41.330

Hmm, we think that flowers don't feel but they do! They're alive. They feel. They must have missed the care of his

00:15:41.330 - 00:15:45.590

hands. That's what I feel. No. And, uh,

00:15:48.390 - 00:16:00.320

my brother used to write to me. I- I might have some of his letters somewhere. Uh, because he was in and out of prison.

00:16:01.130 - 00:16:09.520

Nothing serious, you know, he didn't kill anybody or anything like that. But still, they were... whatever you call it.

00:16:10.420 - 00:16:24.150

Anyway, he was in prison a lot. Then he came out. There must have been a time when he got married and he had two sons.

00:16:27.930 - 00:16:35.530

Tell me about moving out of the neighborhood. How many of you were in your family when you moved? Oh,

00:16:35.530 - 00:16:45.070

let's see. My brother Henry. my brother Manuel. My sisters.

00:16:47.250 - 00:16:56.320

My sister Julie and Feliciana. So that makes four? Yeah. Four of us.

00:16:58.840 - 00:17:07.450

Yeah. Of the 12, I guess because my other sister, who survived childhood, her name was Adeline. Adelina.

00:17:08.670 - 00:17:22.960

She died in 1939. So she wasn't alive then, you know. And.... it was very sad.

00:17:24.300 - 00:17:38.910

It was very sad. And, you know, I've never felt about any other house the way I felt about that one. Sometimes I dream of it.

00:17:41.210 - 00:17:54.250

You could tell it was hand-built, you know. And, uh, from little squares of wood. I was always breaking the doors because I used to

00:17:54.250 - 00:18:05.380

like to hang from them. My- my father would, would get very impatient with me. He would scold me, but he would never- my mother was the one who disciplined us, not my

00:18:05.380 - 00:18:11.020

father. No. So it was hard. I remember hearing

00:18:13.770 - 00:18:23.170

the neighbors. You know, we were there during the first World War. No, not first one! The second one.

00:18:23.170 - 00:18:34.860

Yeah. 1941. I remember that the- we had to have food stamps, not food stamps.

00:18:34.890 - 00:18:40.350

Rations. Rations. The meat, the sugar.

00:18:41.360 - 00:18:53.040

People couldn't get silk stockings, you know. And, uh. And my brother Henry was in the service. He was in the Navy.

00:19:00.410 - 00:19:10.100

And he came home okay. But we used to have a star in the window because we had someone in the service. He was in it three years and a half.

00:19:10.900 - 00:19:21.080

No. About the time of moving out. Of course, he was sad. I remember looking at my house.

00:19:22.060 - 00:19:31.240

I knew I wasn't going to see it again. I just looked at it once and I- and I refused to look at it again because I knew I was going to break down.

00:19:31.840 - 00:19:42.240

And my mother was already all broken, and she needed somebody to be strong for her. So, I didn't look back.

00:19:43.160 - 00:19:49.040

No. So we moved away. It was gone. Yeah.

00:19:50.280 - 00:20:00.500

Everybody else felt the same way. No. We didn't think we could fight it. We didn't think so.

00:20:02.990 - 00:20:12.710

They would tell us, "If you don't sell, we're going to condemn your property, you won't get anything out of it." So that scared us, a lot of people there.

00:20:12.920 - 00:20:23.080

So we sold. We got 8000. A little more than 8000. It was my house and three others that my father

00:20:23.080 - 00:20:35.560

built also in back of ours, you know. And then in back of that, of all those houses was a hill. And I think that's where my brother wanted his ashes

00:20:35.560 - 00:20:43.990

to be scattered. You know. And, uh, I remember when we were kids.

00:20:45.070 - 00:20:51.030

Those hills were full of bluebells. We used to call them bluebells. Flowers that were blue.

00:20:51.920 - 00:21:03.100

I've never seen bluebells anywhere else. And we used to make, like, sleds out of cardboard. I never rode on them. You know, like sleds down the hill.

00:21:03.460 - 00:21:16.090

I never did because I was scared. I was even scared of going on the teeter totter. But, um, my brother, he would play, he would play on those cardboard slats going down.

00:21:16.750 - 00:21:23.980

No. You said your brother wanted his ashes to be scattered on that hill. Yes.

00:21:24.010 - 00:21:33.830

Were they? Yes. Yes, they were, but it was very windy. Um, most of the people went over the fence.

00:21:34.490 - 00:21:46.850

I was afraid because I have trouble keeping my balance and I was afraid to go down. I was afraid I might fall. So they gave me some of the ashes, and it

00:21:46.850 - 00:21:57.110

was very windy. So when I went like that to the ashes, some of it came on me, you know, but that was okay.

00:21:58.160 - 00:22:06.380

Um, the container, I kept it. It- it has a little bit of his ashes.

00:22:07.130 - 00:22:20.150

I kept it, and I have it in another box. Very pretty box that my daughter gave to me, and I took it to church, and I asked Father McSorley to bless

00:22:20.150 - 00:22:27.060

them. He did. So I have him in my house and I have a little bit of my brother there with me.

00:22:28.860 - 00:22:35.910

How long had it been since he had stood on that spot on that hill? Oh, years. I can't even remember how long.

00:22:36.360 - 00:22:44.910

Because when, uh, when I used to go, I used to go cruising with my brother when he was living in L.A. He would come-

00:22:45.120 - 00:22:50.700

Oh, I have to tell you about this. I didn't.