1929 Visit to Nogales

My Granny, Lydia Campuzano, her parents, Plutarco Campuzano and Manuela Portillo de Campuzano, and siblings Maria Jesus and Berta, visited my great-grandmother Manuela's Aunt Maria Diaz de Mirazo in Nogales, Sonora for three days in July 1929. We know this from the Border Crossings: Mexico to US 1895-1957 database.

This is a great record for a number of reasons. The record shows that Manuela's first visit to the US was on 28 November 1922, and that she was born in Hermosillo, Sonora. I later found the crossing record from November 1922 and I will have a separate posting on it.

The record provides the start date of their visit to Nogales as 9 July 1929, return on 12 July 1929, and shows their departure contact. This was a big find, because before this record I did not know the name of Manuela's Aunt Maria. I was able to find several references to Maria Diaz de Mirazo and her children (and their children) in the Border Crossing database, and this has been immensely useful in getting a better understanding of the Diaz side of the family in Sonora.

I showed my Granny a copy of the record before she passed in 2010. She recalled visiting her cousins in Nogales on several occasions. She noted that some of them competed as beauty queens.

A couple more interesting things about this record. My great-grandmother was 5'3'' (5'2" on other records). My Granny wasn't real tall either, and my Mom inherited her height. I think we found the source for short gene on my Mom's side of the family.

At the time of this visit, my Granny's brother Manuel (Manny) Campuzano would have been about a year and half old. I suspect he stayed behind in Tucson with his grandmother Teresa Diaz (my 2nd-great-grandmother).

The back side of the card shows Manuela's signature as Manuela Portillo.

One thing I don't understand is at the top of the manifest card it states the port of entry is Sasabe. This is at best a 2.5 hour drive from Nogales, and in 1929 was probably well over 3 hours. Nogales is on the border, so I wonder why they didn't cross there. Was the border closed? A small mystery.