Now, for the story of Enrique Pacheco, my grandfather, on my mother Olivia's side of the family.

Apparently, he was a very "gifted' person, with excellence in sports, as I was told. From his photographs, he was very handsome and debonair.

As a nine year old, about 1949, my mother took me to Tucson, to visit "Henry", in a hospital. I remember him in the hospital bed from an illness, the type of illness, not in my memory bank. I remember staying at a home, where in the backyard, I could see, way across a landscape, the famous "A" on the front side of a mountain.

I would guess that we were staying at my mother's cousin's home, as there were a few women that lived there, and acted like family. Saw him once again, before leaving Tucson. Just don't remember what he really looked like.

That is it---My contact with my maternal grandfather. After I was discharged from the Army in 1962, I met once again with my uncle Rudolph Pacheco, and my middle name is Rudolph, and he invited me to join him on a trip to Tucson, to meet the family. But, not wanting to leave my newly acquired job, I declined.

That was it, I never even thought about, or inquired on the Pacheco Family connection in Tucson. I was never told of his death in Tucson in 1972. I only found out all this information, beginning in 2000,  with no one to talk to directly. I was not in contact with any Pacheco, until I met, on the Internet in the year 2000, Eric Pacheco, grandson of Nabor Pacheco Jr., when we were both doing research on the Pacheco's.

Thereafter, I easily spent the next 6 months researching "everything", and with additional information and photographs from Eric, it started to "fit". But, I was also researching all of the other surnames as well. So, within about two years, it began to get serious, thanks to the Mission 2000 Foundation in Tubac, where I met the researchers, where much of my information came from, as well as the "old" familysearch.com web site, which was excellent, until they changed the format and ancestry.com. But, those three informational "links", which gave me a great start, only started the real job of researching newspapers, government agencies, Internet and books.

By 2006, I placed this web site on the Internet, and have been improving since then. Great information was supplied by many cousins, especially the photographs.

Now, back to Enrique. My grandmother, Leonor Pacheco Federico, God Bless her Soul, was really a saint that never complained, went to Church every morning and was simply a very kind person. From the stories that I heard, growing up, never told to me directly, was how the Pacheco Family was "fractured". Bottom line, Enrique was a lazy bastard(my words) that never supported his family. Maybe the reason was, that he also had other families(my words).

But, I think that they knew that there was at least one additional family, as my mother, when I had the habit of looking through a box of old photographs as a youngster, saw one that I will never forget. It was a photograph of her "cousin"(really her half brother), by the name of Robert, that died in "France", in a tank battle. Another piece of information that I never forgot, was an old newspaper clipping proclaiming that a Nabor Pacheco was elected Sheriff, with his picture.

The picture I saw, Robert Pacheco, was a handsome man with a soldiers uniform, standing in front of a tank. He looked fit and tall, with a thin mustache. This year, 2012, Sylvia Gonzales, the daughter of Robert Maxwell Pacheco, contacted me with the help of Carol Auclair(previously married, because of his tragic death, to the son of the daughter of Richard Pacheco, brother of Enrique)

Robert Pacheco, God Bless his Soul.

Well, Sylvia told me that in reality, Robert, her father was killed during the "Battle of the Bulge", the largest battle during WW2(In Luxembourg, next to France). She sent me his photograph, in his uniform, and yes, that was the man that I remembered. God Bless Him. My brother Robert, who was born 6 months after the Robert Pacheco death, was named after him. In fact, my sister Norma, was named after Norma Pacheco(Bustamante), daughter of Richard Pacheco.

So.....Why all the secrets? There was a story how the grandmother of my mother helped them financially during their move to Los Angeles, as well as purchasing their duplex in East LA. This was in the early 1920's. That would be Carmen Monteverde, mother of Enrique. All I know is this; The Federico's, my maternal Grandmother's family worked very hard to create income during the depression, which they did manufacturing Home Products, that were hand made, some with sewing products for flower presentations. Actually remember crawling as a baby watching 3 people with sewing machines moving their feet on the "pedals".

As for Enrique Pacheco, he had a "first" family, that in my research accidentally stumbled across in some Tucson newspaper, and I did not know that it was actually him, that an Enrique Pacheco had "run off", with a heiress of a San Francisco Family that also owned "horse drawn trolley cars" in Tucson and she had been dis-inherited. But, in my innocence, that could never be a person doing that in my family.

Well, I was wrong, as it turned out that during about 1909, he had a son, that he named Enrique Jr., a daughter by the name of Evelyn about 1916, and another son by the name of Robert Pacheco, born in 1915. His first wife was named Elvira. I don't know her last name, forgotten it, but one of my cousins has the information.

He married, according to my copy of the marriage license, to Leonor Federico, in May of 1912.

Unfortunately, Leonor had a death of her first baby, at birth, that would be about early 1913, and the second baby born, Henry Gilbert, died, thirty days after birth, in January 11, 1915.

In July of 1916, my uncle Rudolph was born, and my mother Olivia was born in May of 1918.

In reading the will that I acquired, for Nabor Pacheco, all of the assets, worth about $600,000 in today's dollars went primarily to Carmen. My uncle told me some stories on how there had been a "fight" for some of the assets, and that a Richard Pacheco was given some land and cattle, and the other two boys received nothing, while the four girls received something. He did not mention why. And he did mention on how the grandmother helped the family get established in Los Angeles.

Other than the events above, that is it, pertaining to my interaction with Enrique Pacheco. I have no feelings for him, sorry that he suffered in his later life, but, my side of the family, with the exception of my uncle Rudolph, who researched the Pacheco family in Tucson and produced an excellent report, and did a good job, as I have a copy of it, did not mention his father, and neither had I, until the information became available from people that were there.

Picture of Norma Jordan Pacheco, with Enrique Pacheco in Hospital, 1968.

In researching the additional information, I kept running across an Enrique Pacheco that lived in the Wilmington/Long Beach area of Los Angeles County. He had a family, with a wife not named Mary. One of his children died in 2000. His children were listed, and should be in their early to middle 60's by now. As my research indicated, he was also a worker in the shipping yards. And he only lived about 15 miles from my family in the South Los Angeles area!

I did have a great long conversation with Richard Rudolph Pacheco, age 77, and he was the first member of the Enrique Pacheco Junior or Senior, "family", that I have ever had a conversation with, aside from my uncle and mother, and I must say, it was a very "moving" experience for me. If Richard is reading this, I could say a lot about my father as well, that is similar to your experience.

I would recommend that anybody interested get in touch with him, as he does have the information of the families. No, it was not easy to come from a fractured family environment, especially for a male.

I am sure that there is much more information that will surface in the near future, hopefully before I die. But will welcome any information, that any of my cousins, and there should be plenty, can supply.