Avila bits

We speak of the Avila branch of the family, and know such a limited amount about it. My son's grandmother, deceased before he was born, was Lucy Avila, and she had a few brothers and sisters, lots of cousins, though their names are scraps of paper in the wind right now... Lucy's mother was Cecelia, born in Mexico, we don't have her maiden name nailed down for sure, but it may have been Guttierez. Look to their postings for more coherant details.

The only "Aunt" left of the Avila's is Candy, or Candela as she was in the census schedules with her mother. She is alive still as far as we know, she has advanced Alzheimers, however. The last time 'we' know of, before her sister, Lucy died in 2001, Candy thought Lucy was her own mother. There used to be quite a lot of animosity between her and Lucy over, loosely speaking, class- or standard of living. She is somewhere in Los Angeles County, we believe.

Lucy's brother, Francisco, or Frank- also called Kikko, is thought to still be alive as well. Lucy and Frank were the only two of the siblings who really got along with each other. His wife, Nomi, put together pictures of all the children and grandchildren on to a video once, with subtitles identifying everyone... If only we could get a hold of one of those- and some actual photographs for the purpose of getting high resolution scanns...

It's one thing, I think, to have family secrets and keep them, it's another to attempt to totally wipe out familial associations- particularly when it comes to the innocent generations. All children deserve to be able to see photos of folks they're related to. It's wonderful to say, "Hey, look, we have the same nose!" or "Yikes! so THAT's where my hips came from!" Better still is to meet them and draw one's own conclusions about what makes a person tick...

One of the cousins did time at San Quentin, Madeline remembers going to visit. That's actually kind of cool, in an odd way, but we have no idea who it was- or if it was really a blood relative.

I just had a great new-year conversation with sister-in-law Madeline, and I'll let her do most of the writing on these lines because some of this just makes my head spin. She and my husband had basically the same dream a year or two ago, on the same night, and it is their task to bring the family back together, to begin the healing, and to do whatever the Spirits may inspire them to do to help bring that to pass. It won't be an easy task, by any means. Alcoholics en masse are full of surprises.