Bridging Santa Cruz County history with motherly love

NOGALES — At age 104, Lucila Gomez Bejarano might be Santa Cruz County’s oldest resident and the last person alive who once lived in the long-gone town of Calabasas.

But that’s not why Tony Velasquez wanted to get a bridge named after her. His motives were personal.

In the late 1960s, when Velasquez was 9, he and his siblings were taken from their alcoholic parents and placed in foster care. They would spend the rest of their childhoods under Bejarano’s roof.

“Seven little kids — seven little Indians — showed up at her house, and none of us were separated,” Velasquez said. “I have a lot (of reasons) to be grateful to this foster mother of mine and the Bejarano family, who made us who we are.”

After a months-long campaign by Velasquez, the Santa Cruz County Supervisors voted Thursday to dedicate Rio Rico‘s newest bridge to Bejarano. The box-culvert structure that carries Pendleton Drive over Sonoita Creek just east of the Santa Cruz River will henceforth be known as the Lucila G. Bejarano Crossing.

“This couldn’t go to a better person,” said Supervisor Rudy Molera. “(Her) family has been doing so many great things for this community for so long. What a blessing.”

Board of Supervisors Chairman Manuel Ruiz said he felt especially fortunate to be able to honor Lucila while “she is still on God’s green earth with us.”

“I’m so glad we’re doing this. Too often we forget our citizens who have seen so many things,” Ruiz said.

Historic home

Outside of a few short stints from her childhood, when her father moved the family to Yuma or Willcox in search of work, Lucila Bejarano has spent her entire life in Santa Cruz County.

She was born on Aug. 5, 1919, in one of the last remnants of Calabasas, a late 19th-century railroad stop that flared then faded at a spot along the Santa Cruz River previously occupied by an O’odham village, a Spanish mission, a Mexican presidio and a U.S. Army camp.

Lucila’s parents lived on the other side of the river from the abandoned two-story Hotel Santa Rita in Calabasas. When her mother went into labor, she was taken across the Santa Cruz in a wagon to the old post office inside the hotel.

“The midwife was there, and that’s where she was born,” said Velasquez, a former law enforcement officer who now owns his own business and runs the “Viva Nogales!” Facebook group dedicated to local history.

In 1937, at the age of 17, Lucila married Raul Arvizu Bejarano, a young cowboy from another pioneer family. They settled in Tumacacori and welcomed the first of their four children the following year.

Raul died at the age of 43 after an accident in 1960. Lucila still lives in the house they shared just up the road from the Tumacacori National Historical Park.

That address also has been home to more than 20 foster children over the years, Velasquez said. “Some were dropped off for one night only; others stayed for years.”

The Bejarano home was a “culture shock” at first for him and his siblings because it was the opposite of the chaos and neglect they had experienced before, he said.

“She made a tremendous home for us. Dedication, kindness, love — she showed us everything.”

And though their parents would visit them in Tumacacori, it was Bejarano who made sure their bellies were full and their school work was finished — with the help of her own grown sons and daughters.

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“The family, her children, took us in as one of their own. There was no hesitation. They treated us like brothers and sisters,” Velasquez said.

Extended family

Thursday’s supervisors meeting at the county building in Nogales drew about 20 members of Bejarano’s extended family, including three of her great-grandchildren. (She also has nine great-great-grandchildren and two great-great-great-grandchildren.)

Velasquez said there were relatives there he hadn’t seen in years. “In a sense, it’s a family reunion.”

When the time came to speak, Bejarano’s youngest son, Raul, went to the podium to thank the supervisors for honoring his mother.

The 79-year-old former superintendent of the Nogales and Sunnyside Unified school districts also thanked Velasquez for all he has done — and continues to do — for Lucila.

“I think of him as a brother,” Raul Bejarano said.

One of the only people missing was the woman of the hour.

Family members said they decided not to bring Bejarano to the meeting because they worried it might be too stressful for her.

It also would have required her to be pushed around in a wheelchair, and she hates that thing.

Raul Bejarano said his mother, who turns 105 in August, prefers to move around with a broom in her hands, which she uses to help her walk and occasionally sweep around her house.

“Once in a while we catch her raking leaves,” Velasquez added.

Family members said they planned to surprise their matriarch with news of the bridge dedication after Thursday’s meeting.

Raul Bejarano said his mom has some trouble with her short-term memory these days, so they will probably get to surprise her with the news a few more times after that.

They also hope to take her to see the signs with her name on them, once the county installs them at either end of the bridge.

Velasquez first approached the supervisors about all of this a few months ago. Then he collected more than 300 signatures from county residents in support of the idea.

“It was quick,” he said of the petition drive. “People in Tubac and Tumacacori responded in droves.”

Velasquez can’t think of a more fitting tribute to his foster mother: a crossing near the place where she was born, designed to make life better in Santa Cruz County for generations to come.

As he put it in his initial request to the supervisors, “Lucila created a bridge of her love and compassion for all of her children to grow and embark on life’s beautiful journeys.”

Now she will be remembered with a bridge of her own.