Spent time at the Center for American History (CAH) at UT, where I do much of my newspaper research. I figured I should be able to find obituaries of some of the people involved with the mine and maybe those obituaries would have some tidbits of information that could help me in my research.
I was going to look for the obituary for Carlos Moser and J.W. Rutledge. Both died in El Paso county. The JW Rutledge I was looking for was 89 and could have been the John Rutledge in the 1910 census who was an 18 year old customs inspector in Boquillas (his dad was 31 years older, also a John, and also a customs inspector in Boquillas).
I knew when Moser died, thanks to Liz Hicks, Genealogy editor at the German-Texas Heritage Society. (To whom I am extremely grateful for her research help.) So I tried the Alpine Avalanche. No luck, or maybe I missed it. In the winter of 1915, the Avalanche was only published once a week, or maybe that's all that was microfilmed.
Seeing as Moser died in El Paso county, I tried looking in an El Paso paper, namely, the El Paso Herald. Oddly enough, the CAH doesn't have the 1915 editions on microfilm, they have the actual papers. I figured, I'd look on the day he died (not a smart idea) and each day through Sunday, figuring the Sunday edition would pick up any death's that were missed the week prior.
To my dismay, the Herald did not employ that great invention used by time strapped modern society...the Table of Contents. So, I had to slough through stories about Pancho Villa, Germany's aggression, local El Paso happenings, and ads for various snake oil treatments. After a half hour, I was frustrated, because I hadn't found it, but that didn't mean it didn't exist. In other words, it was very easy to get a false negative, while it's impossible to get a false positive (unless I incorrectly identify the subject of the obit).
As is often the case when I'm doing research, I have to go over the same material twice--or more--to really understand what it's telling me. So it was with the El Paso Herald. This is a constant theme in my research and is probably due to my ability to be distracted easily. In general, the material is not that hard to understand. I'll read something and get some stuff out of it. Then, when I hit a brick wall, I'll go back and re-read stuff and find there's more in there to milk.
Deciding that false negatives were too easy to come by, I decided to concentrate on the two days after the day Moser died and went back and scanned each page, column by column. With great relief and a lot of surprise, I found Moser's obituary.
From the El Paso Herald
Wednesday, March 3, 1915
Pg. 3
Center for American History
Owner of Boquillas Del Carmen Mine Dies Here.
"Carlos Moser, owner of the Boquillas del Carmen and other mines in the state of Coahuila, Mex., died Monday evening at a local hospital. The Mexican mine owner was 58 years old at the time of his death and had been operating in Mexico for the past 20 years.
"Mr. Moser was a native of Stuttgart, Germany, and has a brother, Wilhelm Moser, living in Germany. His wife, Mrs. Aimee Lyon Moser, was with him at the time of his death."
OK, it's not much. But it is something. There are a few interesting facts in these two short paragraphs.
1) Clearly, Moser was ill and his wife had enough time to get him to El Paso. From what did he die? My bet would be influenza.
2) They say he was from Coahuila, Mexico (clearly the Boquillas area). Yet, the 1910 census shows him in Marathon. I think he was most likely living near the mines and most likely was the mine engineer and got down to Boquillas as soon as the tramway was operating. Mining Engineer was his profession; I bet the mines are where he wanted to be.
3) Notice they talk of "mines". Plural. Could Moser have hauled most of the ore from this area? According to Gregory's 1908 master's degree thesis, we know there was more than one mine in Boquillas, with the Puerto Rico being the richest. We also know that ASARCO had closed their smelter there by 1907 as they consolidated all their smelting operations that year. Could Moser have been the only one mine owner in Boquillas at that time? He was a freelance mining engineer. Could this have been his first time as a mine owner? If so, could he have lived his dream for the last five years of his life?
4) Notice they call it the "del Carmen Mine". According to Gregory's thesis, there is a mine named "Boquillas del Carmen." It's 51.16 "pertenencias", which is an area measurement. That's the largest mine, in terms of area, in Gregory's list and therefore, probably Boquillas. (The Puerto Rico mine, the most productive mine in Boquillas, is 18 pertencencias.) Could this have been the "del Carmen mine?" If so, is this why the tramway ended five miles away from the entrance to the Puerto Rico mine? Is the entrance to the Boquillas del Carmen mine five miles away from the Puerto Rico mine?
5) We know know where's he from: Stuttgart. Good chance his family either left Germany or perished in the Holocaust.
6) Is wife's maiden name was "Lyon", or is that her middle name? According to the 1910 census, she was from Missouri. Where did they meet? Where did she go after he died? Did she remarry? If so, to whom and where?
So, the point of all this research and conjecture is to find a living relative of Carlos and Aimee Moser. There are no children recorded in the 1910 census--or at least none living with them in Marathon. So, I'm fearful that there are no direct descendents. Direct descendents are the greatest hope for family stories because people would be more apt to know about their grandfather Carlos and grandmother Aimee than they would about their great uncle (or cousin) Carlos and great aunt Aimee.
Carlos was 23 years older than Aimee. They were married in 1908, so they had seven happy years together. Could they have met in San Antonio? If so, would there be a Lyon family in San Antonio? Was she Jewish as well? That would narrow the field. This was the first marriage for both of them.
And what was it like for Aimee to move from San Antonio to Marathon, and then probably to Boquillas? While Carlos would have been used to life in a frontier mining town, would she? In the early 1900's San Antonio was the biggest city in Texas. It was modern; it was booming. While there may have been up to 3000 people in Boquillas, west Texas and northern Mexico would still be the dry, hot and desolate country it is today.
I suspect Aimee would have gone back home after Carlos' death. Would that have been San Antonio? Or, somewhere in Missouri? 1915 is the last date I have for her, when she was 29.
Posted by Joelg at August 23, 2004 10:40 PM | TrackBack