The Girl from Hermosillo

Yesterday's post on Jesus Felix Campuzano helped uncover a fascinating story on his wife, Jesus Anaya. I am going to treat this story carefully. Regardless of what was in the news articles of 1915 & 1916, the story begins with a 16 year old girl from Hermosillo. There may very well be descendants of hers alive today.

Source: Ancestry. US Border Crossing Records, 14 Aug 1911.

Jesus Anaya arrived in Tucson in August 1911, visiting her older sister Luisa Anaya. This may have been a short visit, as she appears again in the US border crossing records arriving on foot in March 1912 to again visit her sister. She may have stayed in Tucson with this visit, as she next appears in the Arizona marriage records on 29 July 1913 with her marriage to Jesus Felix Campuzano.

Source: Ancestry. US Border Crossing Records. 21 May 1914.

Jesus crossed the border in May 1914, after visiting family in Hermosillo, Sonora. She returned through Nogales to rejoin her husband Jesus in Tucson. Their marriage did not last, and Jesus Anaya filed for divorce in 1915. Jesus Anaya remarried on 18 February 1916, this time to Louis Basso.

  

When I ran a search on Louis Basso, I was quite surprised to see that this marriage took place in jail. It took a little time to unravel some of the facts. We'll likely never know all the detail, although it looks like Jesus separated from Jesus Campuzano, met Louis Basso, and they lived together in Tucson. In any event she was still young at the time, just 19 or 20 when she met Basso. A news clipping from 21 December 1915 describes Basso as an Italian, held in jail on charges of bringing a woman from Mexico for immoral purposes. According to the article he had been arrested the previous week. The article says Basso "eloped with a woman who was the wife of another man." Jesus Anaya's divorce was granted in November 1915, so perhaps they did elope in Mexico before the divorce was finalized. A later article on the trial of Basso helps make the situation a bit clearer.

Basso remained in jail while awaiting trial. On 19 May 1916, a jury found Basso guilty on two of three counts in his case. Jesus Anaya was a witness in the trial, and her testimony also got her into the press. The article below is from the Arizona Daily Star (20 May 1916), via Newspapers.com. I find the description of the jail house marriage to be pretty amusing. 

This is only the beginning of the story on Jesus Anaya. After the trial of Louis Basso, her new husband escaped from Pima County Jail in early June 1916 and fled the country. Perhaps the prosecutor wanted to make an example of Jesus as Basso had escaped justice. She was charged with perjury, and sentenced to jail for a year in federal prison in Colorado. She was 21 years old at the time.

Arizona Daily Star, 15 Nov 1916

Arizona Daily Star, 21 Nov 1916.

The next post will look at the jail break from Tucson.