The Rivera Family
For the Descendants of Florencio Rivera Maldonado

Learning about our family history has been something that has intrigued me all my life. I remember as a young child asking my parents, Oscar and Anita Garcia, what it was like when they were children growing up in Puerto Rico. They would share their memories with me and, recently, I discovered an old composition book with my name written on the front where I had taken notes from their stories. I would like to share with you some excerpts from that notebook.

My father’s maternal grandparents were Máximo “Maximiliano” Cruz and Engracia García. Maximiliano was of medium height, about 5’5″, heavyset, white, and had straight hair. They had five children: Nicolasa, Jesús, Emiliano, Alcisclo, and Ana. Nicolasa was white, had dark hair, was of average height, and was slender. Emiliano had reddish-blond hair. Alcisclo was taller, slender, and looked Spanish.

After Engracia died, my father’s grandfather married Genara and they had six children: Agripino, Jesús (yes, another one), Angelito, Carmela, Gilberto and Ambrosio. Ambrosio was the youngest and he was the first one to die of all of his siblings. Carmela had two children who died as adults, long before she did. (Cousin Annie Meléndez, who hosted the 2009 family reunion in Peñuelas is one of her granddaughters. The Feliciano cousins from Chicago are Carmela’s grandchildren through her daughter.)

(more…)

My mother was born in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, but moved to Ponce with her family when she was seven or eight years old. I regret so much that I never got to visit Adjuntas with Mom during the years that we were both living in Puerto Rico and she was still healthy.  I have so many questions!

In my genealogical research, I discovered that my mother’s maternal grandmother, Luisa Torres Torres, was living in barrio Juan González. In the 1910 census, Luisa was living with her family in Sendero Palmieri (see left margin of census record below). I asked around on a Facebook genealogy page that I belong to, to see if anyone could tell me where that path was located. (more…)

In my last article, which was about the Ponce Aqueduct and our family members that lived in that area, I related how my mother’s family had moved to the nearby barrio of Mameyes. My father’s brother, Sinforiano (known to all as “Guar”, short for guareto, meaning twin, since he and Auntie Helen were twins), also moved to Mameyes with his wife, Elena Sevilla. That little house was the first home of René Rivera Sevilla. When little René was about two years old, Guar paid $50 for a plot of land next to the aqueduct and built the house in which his eight children were raised. There were actually nine children, but Reinaldo died in 1949 at the age of three. The little house was remodeled and added on to over the years, and eventually became the home of Guar’s second to the youngest son, Heriberto “Papo” Rivera, his wife Ada Pacheco Arroyo, and their children. (more…)