From NPR’s NextGeneration Radio Project:
Miguel Mendías remembers the first time he walked into the small adobe house on San Antonio St. in Marfa, Texas where his grandmother grew up.
“I have this memory of my childhood, my grandmother walking me through this house and explaining a lot, and I’m really grateful to her that she did,” said Mendías, a Texas native.
On that day in 1999, his grandmother gave him a tour of the over 100-year-old house, explaining the history of the four-room building. The front two rooms made of adobe predate 1906 and the two back rooms were added in 1941. Mendías’ family spent a lot of time in the larger home next door, but he never knew that they also owned this house that his family referred to as the “corner house” or “little house.”
Miguel Mendías’ house on San Antonio Street in Marfa, TX.
“I didn’t know (she) still owned a house in Marfa,” and Mendías. “We were always coming to town and we’re staying with my great-great aunt Carolina and my grandfather who still lived there. We were staying at the ranch. I stayed with my other cousins.”
Without realizing it at the time, this visit from his childhood would spark Mendías’ journey to reconnect with his deep family history while reclaiming his family home.
