Some Came Alone

Some Came Alone

Del Ruiz

Del Ruiz

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My father, Domingo Ruiz, Sr., was 12 when in 1915 he walked completely alone
from San Luiz Potosi, Mexico, then a small village, and now the capital of a
state in Mexico by the same name, to San Antonio, Texas. The trip was dangerous
from many aspects: There was hardly any infrastructure to speak of at the time,
the area was full of bandits robbing the various mines in the region, and the
Mexican Revolution was in full force. My father inadvertently went northeast,
instead of due north, and had to cross first the treacherous Panuco river that
traverses a deep tropical valley at the edge of the plateau on which the state
sits, and then the formidable Sierra Madre. He had no money on his journey, and
he knew no one in San Antonio when he arrived. My father died in an automobile accident at a relatively young age, but not before leaving a family firmly established in this country.