Vasquez, Petra (audio interview #1 of 1)

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Rancho Los Alamitos - Hotchkis Collection

Vasquez, Petra (audio interview #1 of 1)

Vasquez, Petra (b. 1923 - ); Hotchkis, Joan, interviewer

URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10211.3/224423

Date: 2022-10-21

Abstract:

INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - Joan Hotchkis, who conducted this interview, grew up in San Marino and her maternal grandparents lived nearby at Rancho Los Alamitos in Long Beach. When she was growing up, she visited there often with her parents and siblings. In 1979, she decided to interview some of the people shoe remembered living and working at the ranch when she visited. She was studying her own family history and planning to write about it. Eventually this led her to write and perform a one woman show that she presented across the United States and in Europe. TOPICS - Topics on this side of tape include, father's death from tuberculosis, domestic work at Rancho Los Alamitos, schooling, emigration to US, living at Bixby's Cojo ranch and living at Rancho Los AlamitosTopics on this side of tape include, schooling, domestic work at Rancho Los Alamitos, father's work at Rancho Los Alamitos, food; 1933 Long Beach earthquake, meeting husband and marriageTopics on this side of tape include, living at Rancho Los Alamitos, the Depression, domestic work at Rancho Los Alamitos and deaths of family members;Topics on this side of tape include, Florence Bixby, her mother, Granny Green, wooden beds and health problems 5/30/1979

Description:

SUBJECT BIO - Petra Vasquez came to Rancho Los Alamitos in 1916 and moved away when she married in 1932. She was born in 1909 in Michoacan, Mexico and her family soon emigrated to the United States. In 1914, he father began working for Fred Bixby at a ranch he owned near Santa Barbara called the Cojo. Two years later, Florence Bixby, Fred's wife, said the Cojo wasn't a good place for children to live because it was too far away from a doctor, so Vasquez family moved to Rancho Los Alamitos, near Long Beach. Vasquez' father had tuberculosis while she was growing up. He may have contracted the disease when he started drinking heavily after many of his family members died in the 1918 flu epidemic. At Rancho Los Alamitos, Florence Bixby isolated him in a room separate from the rest of his family and arranged for his family to get public assistance and nurses to come and monitor his care. Vasquez attended a local one room school but droped out after the fifth grade because her father was sick and she had to stay home and help out. Then she did domestic work in the ranch house, helping the cook, washing dishes and helping to clean the house. She left when she got married one of the ranch workers. They moved to the town of Los Alamitos and he commuted to work. Joan Hotchkis interviewed Vasquez at her house in Los Alamitos. It was surrounded by a garden, which seemed to growing everywhere. Hotchkis noted there were plants in hanging pots, pots on tables, home made pots and pots made out of cast off materials such as a bird cage and a wooden 7Up crate. And there were eight cages of birds on the back porch. Vasquez' husband bought the land on which the house was sitting in 1921 and his family members had lived there since. Hotchkis conducted this interview as part of a project to collect stories about Rancho Los Alamitos. INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - Joan Hotchkis, who conducted this interview, grew up in San Marino and her maternal grandparents lived nearby at Rancho Los Alamitos in Long Beach. When she was growing up, she visited there often with her parents and siblings. In 1979, she decided to interview some of the people shoe remembered living and working at the ranch when she visited. She was studying her own family history and planning to write about it. Eventually this led her to write and perform a one woman show that she presented across the United States and in Europe. TOPICS - Topics on this side of tape include, father's death from tuberculosis, domestic work at Rancho Los Alamitos, schooling, emigration to US, living at Bixby's Cojo ranch and living at Rancho Los AlamitosTopics on this side of tape include, schooling, domestic work at Rancho Los Alamitos, father's work at Rancho Los Alamitos, food; 1933 Long Beach earthquake, meeting husband and marriageTopics on this side of tape include, living at Rancho Los Alamitos, the Depression, domestic work at Rancho Los Alamitos and deaths of family members;Topics on this side of tape include, Florence Bixby, her mother, Granny Green, wooden beds and health problems

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