My Great Grandmother Didn't Ask for Any of This
Her super powers were love and perseverance
Genealogy Matters Storyteller Tuesday Challenge: GREAT GRAND
Due by July 1, 2025.
In 1882, when Maria de Braga was 6, her parents joined the sugar plantation migration from the Azores to Hawaii. She had no choice in the matter.
She lived with her family on the Kealia Sugar Plantation until her parents finished their sugar plantation contracts. She was 9 when they were free and moved to the Kilauea Sugar Plantation.
She fell in love with another Azorean immigrant, Theodoro Pacheco. They married in 1895 and started their family on the same plantation.
Once again, she was thrust into events she had no control over. Around 1906, Theodoro began showing signs of leprosy. At that time, Hawaii had an unforgiving deportation policy. Anyone diagnosed with leprosy was deported to the island of Molokai alone. It was heartbreaking.
Rather than accept this fate, Theodoro paid off a ship’s captain in exchange for safe passage out of Hawaii.
A very pregnant Maria accepted her fate. She and their 4 young children followed Theodoro as they were smuggled to California.
She couldn’t do much about going into labor while at sea. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy somewhere near the port of San Francisco with only her family to assist her.
When the family moved into a house on E. 25th Street in Oakland, they were the Smiths. Maria understood that they’d be living with relatives.
She became Theodoro’s nurse, then did double duty when their son, Willie, came down with influenza. She grieved the loss of Willie in 1913 and Theodoro in 1914.
She was a widow stuck in California and didn’t speak English. The only thing she could do was carry on. For the sake of the children, she moved to Spreckels to be near her brother.
When her children were grown, she moved in with her daughter as she had nowhere else to go. She taught her newest daughter-in-law how to make Portuguese and Hawaiian foods. She savored the role of grandmother.
She died in 1938 at the age of 61 having given all she could give to those she loved.
Historically women had few options. In the US circa 1800s female teachers typically had to resign if they married. So being a wife and mother was one’s lot in life. 😔
I know I have heard parts of this story from you, but, this rendition is very poignant.