Speaking with the Spirits

 

Hitting the brick wall" Stella and I hit the wall early and often in finding our Latino origins. WHERE did our great grand parents come from? It’s so frustrating to have a burning question…. with no answer and no apparent way to get an answer.

What we knew about our mother's Maltos family was almost nothing.  We knew our mother's father was named Juan Maltos.  Sometimes he was called Jack.  Sometimes he was called was John. We were told he was from Almaden near San Jose.  He was a miner in Calaveras County. He was a store keeper in Stockton. He cooked "Mexican" food. He was a "good cook" unlike our mother's mother Lillian Zoa Dionne who was French Canadian and didn't care about food

Lillian spoke French. Juan spoke Spanish, but mostly English. Our mother, Marie, spoke neither and understood both. Marie was a Californian.  

“But WHERE did the Maltos come from?” I would ask Marie. 

"I don't really know.” she would answer.

"How can you not know?" I demanded, over and over.    

Her response :"You have to remember our father died when we were girls. Just 15 and 16.  He wasn't around to ask.  My mother didn't … well, we didn't talk about those things." 

For decades…. no clues.  The brick wall. 

Starting with what little we knew,  we collected addresses, certificates, voter registrations, grave markers.  Our cousin Janice joined in the search. Actually Janice may have been the one who nudged us into the search.  We discovered the names of our great grandparents:  Jose Maria Maltos and Senona Diaz. 

We have shreds of evidence on which we build the stories of their lives.  But the big question remained…. WHERE did they come from? And WHY?

Still the brick wall. 

We sisters were discouraged. We had lists. We had consulted, collected, gone online, emailed, researched and still we were stuck. 

"Let’s ask the ancestors to speak to us. Direct.

They are Mexicans probably (though some suggested they came from Chile or Malta.)  El Dia De Los Muertos is coming.

Let's send a message to them and ask for their help. “Speak to us.... make yourselves known."   
"Ah, ok. How do we do that?" Stella wondered.

"...an altar. You're good at building altars....like they do for Day of the Dead in Mexico," suggested Linda.

"OK. Lets do it and see what happens,"  Stella replies.

So we have.

We made our request.

And now we wait for their replies.

At least, now we don't feel so stuck.

Linda and Stella Allison 

October 2013