Voices From The Past

The Finest Blades Of Steel

I'm not sure how I feel about ghosts.  Elderly Cajun family members certainly taught me that they believed in them.   I don't see dead people, but I do sometimes hear the voices of the past in places I've been and things I've read.  More importantly, I feel things I cannot explain, real events that I would have had no way of have knowing.  San Elizario, Texas was one of those places where this proved to be true.  It was there that we met an elderly man who had the keys to the chapel.  He took us on a tour and told us a lovely tale about how the angels came to be painted inside the church.

Now, I've heard similar stories over the years and found them equally charming, but probably didn't place much stock in them being true.  This gentleman refused any offer of payment for his tour, but did steer us to place a donation in the locked box at the chapel  After that first visit to San Elizario, I did a little research on the history of the area and fell asleep dreaming about what I'd learned and seen.  I thought that the history would make a good story.

We went back the next day for some more exploring and hoping to ask some questions of our former tour guide.  This is a very small town.  The kind of place where everyone knows everyone.  Each person we met denied that Don Ignacio lived there, and certainly each was puzzled our claim that he had unlocked the doors to certain buildings.

Weeks later, upon returning home I went to the Library of Congress to look at old Depression era photographs of San Elizario, and to find any books that held keys to the history of the area.    I kept finding references to a Don Ignacio, who had died long before I was born.  Descriptions of him were eerily exact to the man we met.

I never finished writing about that town.  I just couldn't see how it's past would be relevant to today.  Now I know better.  Over fifteen years later, I begin again.

Fifty-Three Slain in Seventy-two hours in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico