After I retired from the military I tried to get a job as an ROTC instructor. I didn’t get it though so I decided to go to college. It was a little difficult at first because one of the required subjects was Texas History which I didn’t know much about. However, as time passed, I became fascinated by the history of the Texas revolution.
I started to read more and became sort of a Texas history buff. I also wanted to know more about the Mexicans who participated in the revolution. Just about everybody knows about the battle of the Alamo and the San Jacinto battle and some credit is given to the Hispanics who died during those battles. But, that’s where Hispanic involvement ends. Nothing is mentioned about what happened to them afterwards.
For example, Jose Francisco Ruiz, one of the first Mexican senator during the Texas revolution and one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence was humiliated by the Texans and he decided to go and live among the Comanche Indians. Furthermore, his son, Jose Francisco Ruiz, was the mayor (Alcalde) of San Antonio during the siege of the Alamo and had been under house arrest and after the battle was forced to identify the bodies in the Alamo. Later he was ordered to take bodies of all the Mexican soldiers who died during the battle and bury them. He along with other Mexican citizens move the bodies by cart to the Campo Santo, the site of the present Santa Rosa Hospital. It is said that they buried them in a mass grave. There were so many that some of the bodies fell into the river while travelling across the bridge on Commerce street.
Later, when Santa Rosa hospital was being built, they excavated all the bodies they could find and moved them to San Fernando cemetery located on South Colorado street and Vera Cruz street. At that cemetery are located the bodies of the Mexican Texans soldiers who participated during the battle of San Jacinto. In my search for the gravestone, I found a cluster of graves of Hispanic confederate soldiers who served during the civil war. Afterwards I went back a year later and the grave stones were gone. At the entrance to the cemetery, there is a Texas memorial Stone for Francisco Ruiz. However, the body is not there.
I knew that my brother in law, Jose F. Ruiz was related to the historic family and during my investigation, found that all his family are buried at a place called Paso de Los Garza which is located off Somerset and Fischer Road a few miles off Interstate 35 south.
In front of the cemetery which is now called Ruiz Herrera, there is a historical marker placed there in 1936 identifying the remains of Francisco Ruiz. His children are also buried there. Other Mexican Texan heroes are also buried there. Blas Herrera’s body who sounded the alarm that Santa Anna was entering San Antonio is also buried there.
When the battle of the Alamo ended, Jose Maria (Gregorio ) Esparza’s body was the only one that was given a Christian burial because his brother, a Mexican soldier, asked Santa Anna permission to pick up his body. His son, Enrique Esparza, a survivor of the battle, later related the story of what he saw during the battle. Enrique is buried at El Carmen Catholic church cemetery in Losoya, Texas.
San Antonio has two National cemeteries. One at Dodd Field off Harry Wurzbach Road and one on the East Side off S. New Braunfels street. At this cemetery are the remains of military men who fought in the Indian Wars and Spanish American Wars. A lot of them were black soldiers known as Buffalo Soldiers. A lot of them were awarded the Medal of Honor inscribed on their gravestone.
Juan Seguin, the soldier who fought throughout the Texas revolution and left the Alamo before the battle to deliver a message to Sam Houston is the man who afterwards came back to San Antonio to gather some of the ashes of the Alamo defenders who he believed were the bodies of Travis, Crockett and Jim Bowie and placed them in a semi coffin and took them to San Fernando church. He later became Mayor of San Antonio but, also, was so humiliated by the Texans that he left back to Mexico and fought in The Mexican American War against the United States. He eventually returned to the U.S. His body is located in Seguin, Texas in a place of honor and in a city named for him.
By the way, the bell which was rung when the Alamo fell was moved from San Fernando church when the church was being renovated and sent to Immaculate Heart of Mary church where it still rings for Mass. Also, during the building of city hall, the house of Francisco Ruiz was moved stone by stone to the Witte Museum and rebuilt back the way it was where it is still used as part of the museum today.]\
We, who are part of the generations of Mexican descent need to impart the history of our forgotten Mexican heroes and honor them for what they fought for. They also cried out for their freedom from tyranny.

If you had asked me about 20 or 30 years ago which is my favorite movie? I would have answered “The Quiet Man” with John Wayne. Of course all John Wayne movies were my favorite. However, in my later years and being nostalgic I would say “Grease” is my favorite now.
The movie “Grease” reminds me of my years at Lanier High School from my Freshman to Senior years. Not because of the music but because of the dress and characters. Even though they portrayed anglos, the similarities are the same whether they were anglos or Hispanic.
In my freshman year, I was still growing up and not mature enough to understand life. It was an education that has lasted a lifetime. Lanier High School, even though it had it’s harsh rule, made a big impression on me. The students were very prideful of their many events that made them standout in the community. The football and basketball team called the “Voks” became the mainstay of Lanier.
The first time we went to the gym, I was overcome by the smell of sweat in the locker room. After a while we got used to it. We were required to change into our shorts and tennis shoes before we went onto the gym floor. That was because it was used as a competition floor. So the girls would be on one side and the boys on the other. If you didn’t play, you sat on the bleachers. After wards we would take showers regardless if you need one or not. There would be a lot of towel snapping especially against freshmen like us who have never had a community shower.
The first year every freshman got a taste of vocational studies from Woodworking, auto shop, or the like to see where they would fit in the curriculum. If they like it, they would stay with it.
One of the things I like about Lanier is the social clubs. Each club would ask you to join their club based on your friendship with one of the members. There would be initiation to become a member. This would be held at the beginning of the school year. Afterward you would be required to help in their activities which would be fundraising or hosting a dance. You would mix with sophomores, juniors and seniors and learn from them.
Our dress changed as we went throughout the years at Lanier. I started wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt. Then jeans and a short sleeve shirt. When I joined the ROTC, I started wearing khaki pants and a short sleeve shirt. Some days we would wear our ROTC uniform. As for our hair, it went from duck tails and front curly hair to flat tops and short hair to Mohawk for the ROTC drill team. In my senior year I was wearing a see through short sleeve shirt with denim pants that came to a point at the bottom held up with a thin silver belt and wearing Stacy Adams shoes. I never wore a suit until I graduated from high school.
Every year during football season, we would have a rally in the middle of the campus between the shops and cafeteria. The band and cheerleaders would be out there trying to instill support for the team. In the beginning of my freshman year I didn’t pay too much attention to the rallies and just stood on the sidelines and wondering why all the hoopla. Later on, because of my involvement with the basketball and drill team, it became obvious that we needed the kids behind us and pushing us on to become successful.

The 1950s were turbulent years. We had a war in Korea and Eisenhower was our president. We didn’t know it then but there were several crises that almost went to a nuclear war. We lived in that era and were very innocent of those events. We lived peacefully. However, there were veterans who came back from Korea and re-enrolled at Lanier to get their graduation diploma. There was no GED at that time. They were former students who joined the service before they graduated.

Like any school which has rivals they compete with every year, Lanier had ours. Tech High School had been our rival ever since the 1940s. Not solely because of the football team but because they were the other mostly Hispanic team and that most students came from the west side. Students who chose to go to Tech even though they should have gone to Lanier. It was labeled the Annual “Chili Bowl”. So there was a little animosity there. Back then, there were raids against the school and vise versa. However, it was made in fun. Victory against Tech necessitated a ride down Houston and Commerce street if you had a car. We had some altercations after the game, depending who won but we made up afterwards because we had to ride the same bus back home. Some of the Lanier student were dating Tech students, even married them. How’s that for rivalry?

Today the tradition continues. Student from the fifties meet and share their stories. Reunions are scheduled and funds collected go to the San Antonio School District foundation for the purpose of providing scholarships for deserving students.