This is the Crespin Torres, father of my great-grandfather Ignacio Torres. I've always liked this photo. He looks like a very rugged individual. I think I've inherited some of my looks from him - I have the Torres nose.
Crespin was born on 25 October 1847 to Anastacio Torres and Josefa Montoya. He married Andrea Trujillo on 5 April 1869. She preceded him to the grave. According to this certificate, Crespin died a few days before his 90th birthday on 21 October 1937 of gangrene caused by diabites.
Source: Death Certificate, #5335. New Mexico. County of Socorro.
1 comment:
I’m a cousin from California. My mother and and her sisters, granddaughters of Crespin and Andreita Torres, wanted me to share with you information that we gathered for a 1992 Torres Family Reunion in Los Angeles. A copy of this picture of Crespin that you have displayed here was given to us by an older relative at that time. For the reunion, we tried to contact as many descendants of Crespin and Andreita that we could.
Here’s a little information you might or might not have about your great-grandfather Ignacio’s siblings.
Domitila Torres Sanchez (The No. 1 sibling). She and more than half of her seven children, young and grown, moved to California around the time that she was widowed in Socorro in 1921.
Monica Torres Montoya (The No. 2 sibling). She died young, leaving a boy named Juan Jose, who was raised by Crespin and Andreita until he signed up for the Army during World War I. He, his wife and three children lived in Arizona and California.
Jose T. Torres. With his Albuquerque-born wife and stepson moved to California in 1918. All of their five children were born in California.
Dolores Torres Stapleton. She was married to Vivian Stapleton, the butcher at the family-run Stapleton store in Socorro. They had no children. Crespin lived with her in his final days. She’s buried at San Miguel Catholic Cemetery in Socorro.
Lupe Torres Olguin, the youngest. Also buried at San Miguel cemetery, next to her husband, a granddaughter and son. The graves are close to the road, not too far from Ignacio’s. She and Tomas had two children and raised three from his previous marriage.
Apolonio Torres. He was married to Aurora Tarin of Socorro and had seven children.
Rogerio Torres. Married Clara Sanchez McCullough (she was related to Domitila’s husband). Rogerio’s family wound up living in Crespin’s house on Mt. Carmel Avenue, which was a couple of doors down from Dolores Stapleton. Rogerio and Clara had three children, but Clara had four from her first marriage.
Couple of other things you might find interesting:
Crespin lived at Domitila’s in Los Angeles at the time of the 1930 census, perhaps it was just a visit. He lived out his final years in Socorro.
Jose T. Torres subscribed to El Defensor del Pueblo, wanting to stay in touch with his hometown. My 88-year-old mother has a yellowed copy of the newspaper that included Crespin’s front-page obituary, which we have translated from Spanish into English.
Andreita was a midwife, who delivered numerous Socorro babies. We’ve also got a copy of her obituary via microfilm.
A son of Juan Jose Montoya’s said: Ignacio certified Juan Jose’s June 3, 1896 birth and his background in a delayed certificate of birth. Ignacio was a young man at the time of his nephew’s birth. Ignacio verified that Monica Montoya was 24 and father David Montoya was 28 and owned his own farm at the time of Juan Jose’s birth.
A grandson of Domitila’s who grew up in Albuquerque remembered his Uncle Ignacio fondly but simply: “a tall, friendly man.”
Ignacio’s daughter Maggie took Jose Torres’s oldest daughter to a dance in Polvadera in the ‘30s. They stayed overnight with an oh-so-hospitable Abeyta family, relatives of Ignacio’s wife Andreita. The woman was the postmistress for Polvadera.
If you want to contact me, mpool@ocregister.com
Post a Comment