Irene

 

Irene and I. Los Angeles, 23 Sep 2016.

Last month I received some text messages from Irene, a cousin on our extended Campuzano side, letting me know she had been in declining health, that she wanted to reach out and hear how I was doing. We had a nice back and forth of messages, and I closed our exchange by letting her know to take care and best wishes on recovery in hospice. I said it was good she still had her phone and can hear from family. Irene passed away this week, a few months short of her 99th birthday. 

In February 2016, I reached out over Ancestry's Messages feature to a Campuzano DNA connection from my Aunt Patty's results. About a month later, I received a reply from Irene, kicking off a long exchange of messages, visits and calls over the past nine years. We met in person for the first time in September 2016, and I last saw Irene and some of her family in January 2025 during the terrible fires in LA.

Irene shared many stories and photos from her side of the Campuzano family, including memories of my great-grandfather and his siblings. Irene's grandfather Jose Jesus was the brother of my 2nd-great-grandfather, Vicente Plutarco Campuzano. She filled in quite a bit of gaps, and shared a lot of a information. 

Irene was born in Tucson, a few months after my Granny. They grew up in the same part of town. She remembered my great-grandfather Plutarco painted a ceiling at their home in Tucson. Irene's father worked for various newspapers in Tucson. She told me he took a job with a small newspaper in Taft, California and they moved there in the summer of 1935. They next moved to Culver City (Los Angeles) in 1944, and her father worked for the Culver City newspaper until 1961. She thought it was funny that my office is only a few miles from where she lived growing up in Culver City.

Irene. 1947 in Los Angeles.

Irene and Tommie married in 1946, and they had a long life together until his passing in 2008. She told me her husband had been a crew chief in the Army Air Corp (now the Air Force) from December 1941 to 1945. He was an airplane mechanic, similar to my Dad's role in the Air Force during the Vietnam War. Irene said "we met in Culver City while I was on a double date...and we were never apart for 61 happy years...we invested in real estate and had four homes built. Thank heaven because we didn't expect to live so long."

Irene and Tommy. 1947.

She told me she "worked in retail, waited tables and at Mattel's toy factory. [I] decided to let my husband take care of me after 1955. But it must be in the genes as I was a political rabble rouser in the 1970s and was appointed by the Ventura Board of Supervisors to a four year service on the Architectural review board and several other superficial committees...It taught me that nobody knows much but had lots of fun."

After our initial visit in 2016, she sent me the note below:

"Patrick, thank you and the children for a very pleasant visit and the lovely sunflowers. That is my first bouquet of sunflowers and they reminded me so much of Tucson. As you know, Tucson had very few native flowers, sunflowers and oleanders were the most abundant. Maybe that's why I love oleanders and sunflowers. You may have noticed we planted several oleanders on this property, they will probably be the favorite now in California because of the drought, I never water mine and they just grow and bloom. Hope your drive to the beach wasn't too stressful, the freeway looked terrible."

Irene sent me regular texts and email to check in on my travels, on the family and to let me know how she was doing in Los Angeles. I am grateful for the time I had to connect with Irene.