What Shakes the Bed?: Recollections of Life in Mexico City

By John E. Huegel

“ When one moves to Mexico City, it doesn’t take long to find out what makes the bed shake. The author relates this and other stories about growing up in Mexico City in the thirties, forties and fifties and invites the reader into the world of a boy navigating between his American heritage and the wonders of his adopted city.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781796087642

John E. Huegel

John E. Huegel was born in the city of Aguascalientes, Mexico, the son of missionary parents. He also served as a missionary of The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Mexico for forty-two years. During that time, he served as pastor of various churches, as professor in Union Evangelical Seminary in Mexico City, and director of the Center for Theological Studies in San Luis Potosí. After he retired, he moved to Texas, where he served briefly as professor in the Edinburg Theological Seminary and as interim pastor of various congregations. He is married to Yvonne and they live in EdenHill communities in New Braunfels, Texas.

Book preview

WHAT SHAKES

THE BED?

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Recollections of Life in Mexico City

John E. Huegel

Copyright © 2020 by John E. Huegel.

ISBN:                  Softcover                        978-1-7960-8765-9

                            eBook                             978-1-7960-8764-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 03/06/2020

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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Dedicated to

All those Americans who have enjoyed life in Mexico City.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Prologue

1-     What Shakes The Bed?

2-     Waiting On The Sidewalk

3-     A Victory Medal

4-     Unwelcome Tenants

5-     The Shadow Of War

6-     A One Room School

7-     Cows In The City

8-     Suspended!

9-     The Little Brown Church Downtown

10-   Strike Three…You’re Out!

11-   Be Prepared

12-   No Desert – No Lions

13-   A Cherished Friendship

14-   A Remarkable Lady And Her Special Husband

15-   Sinners, Saints And Others

16-   Pen And Paper

17-   The Wright Brothers

18-   An Army Without Guns

19-   Las Groserías Americanas

20-   Milk For Contented Customers

21-   Tres Marías

22-   High Class Bedbugs

23-   War And Peace

Epilogue

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to acknowledge the following people whose help has made this book possible:

My son David, who first suggested the topic;

Jeancarol Crump for the information on her parents;

Roger, Emily and Tor McCann for the information on their family and La Patera;

Maureen McCann Sánchez de Tagle for additional information on the McCann family;

Suzan Eubank for reading and correcting the manuscript;

And Lani Martin of Xlibris who set up the format for the book.

PROLOGUE

Americans have lived in Mexico City for numerous reasons, some representing the U.S. Government or American companies, others founding their own businesses. The children of some of them were born and raised there. Some have made a fortune while others have lived modestly. The writers, researchers, scientists, artists, educators, athletes, business people, missionaries and others who have made Mexico City their home away from home for long or short periods of time have enjoyed its delightful climate, its wide range of cultural activities and the friendliness of its people. Over the years they have formed a vibrant expatriate community with its own cultural expressions and activities.

When my parents moved to Mexico City in 1932, I was almost two years old and I lived there until I finished high school in 1947 and went away to college. I returned during summer vacations and other short periods and resided there again from 1965 to 1981.

During the formative years of my adolescence and youth, Mexico City and the American community that lived there provided the setting for a wide range of memorable experiences some of which I would like to share with my readers.

Along with my recollections and reflections gathered from a few diaries and the hard drive of my memory, various friends have graciously shared information pertaining to their families. For some of the chapters, I have transcribed information from the book, Bits and Pieces, (2015) I wrote for my grandchildren. I have also selected pertinent historical information from the internet to add to some of the chapters.

I recognize that my perspective on life in Mexico City is colored by a privileged position of comfort and stability. Though not affluent, my parents provided me with a safe home and a rich cultural and religious background which may be very different from what others experienced.

Perhaps as I share my recollections and reflections on life in Mexico City during the years from 1935 to 1950, this may prompt others who lived there during the same period to recall their pleasant experiences in a city very different from the world class megalopolis we know today.

John E. Huegel

New Braunfels, Texas, February 2020

1

WHAT SHAKES THE BED?

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Early one morning in 1932, shortly after my parents had moved into their first house in Mexico City on Tokyo # 34 in the Colonia Juárez, my mother was suddenly awakened by the violent shaking of her bed. She could not figure out what was causing the bed to shake, so she woke my father. They called my sister, Mildred, and rushed out onto the street. Once in the street my mother asked, Where is the baby? The baby was me, and in their fear and excitement they had left me in the house, so my father ran in and got me out of my crib. They finally realized they were experiencing an earthquake, and the next morning they discovered that you could put your hand through a large crack in the front wall of the house that faced the street. This earthquake was my family’s ritual of initiation into the circle of bona fide residents of Mexico City.

My parents were missionaries of the Disciples of Christ under appointment by the United Christian Missionary Society of Indianapolis to serve in Mexico. They arrived in Mexico in 1920, assigned to Colegio Morelos in the city of Aguascalientes, and one year later they moved to San Luis Potosí where they lived for eight years.

In 1932, after a short period again in Aguascalientes where I was born in 1930, they were assigned to Mexico City and lived there until 1970. My father was appointed to teach in the Union Evangelical Seminary and became deeply involved in the life of the Mexican protestant community of the city. My mother, though she developed close ties with Mexican friends, centered her social activities around the American community.

During the formative years of my childhood, adolescence and youth, from 1932 to 1950, I enjoyed life in Mexico City and participated in many activities of the American community.

* * * * *

The Colonia Juárez where we first lived is located between Bucareli Avenue on the east, Chapultepec Avenue on the south, Chapultepec park on the west, and Paseo de la Reforma Blvd. on the north. Insurgentes Avenue splits the subdivision in half.

In 1904, a group of American business men formed a company that began to develop the lands of the Hacienda de la Vega which bordered the western limits of the city and created the residential area known as Colonia Juárez that became one of the most exclusive in the city. Elegant homes of European style were built on streets that bore the names of important cities in Europe, London, Liverpool, Rome, Berlin and others. Sometime later, more modest homes were built in the western sector beyond Sevilla Avenue. The sector between Insurgentes and Sevilla is today the famous Zona Rosa.

Thomas Braniff, an Irishman born in the United States, came to Mexico to work on the construction of the Mexican Railway and made his fortune during the years when Porfirio Díaz was president. He and his descendants probably invested in the development of the Colonia Juárez for Mrs. Braniff, who was married to one of Thomas’ descendants, was either the administrator or owner of all the houses my parents rented in the neighborhood, and she lived in a beautiful home on Reforma where my parents regularly went to pay their rent.

Shortly after the earthquake I mentioned above, my mother felt the need to move, perhaps because of the damage to the house. My father had a trip to Aguascalientes and San Luis Potosí and he asked her not to move until he returned, but when she found a house around the corner on Hamburgo Street, she moved. You can imagine my father’s surprise and displeasure when he arrived at Tokyo # 34 only to find that his family no longer lived there.

The house on Hamburgo proved to be a disaster for there was a vacant lot next to it filled with garbage and rats and the unhealthy environment affected us all. My mother came down with pneumonia and was so sick that Florine Cantrell, a colleague and missionary nurse from Aguascalientes, had to come and care for her.

So, we moved back to Tokyo, this time to # 64, a small one-story house where we experienced our first robbery. One Sunday evening when my mother and I returned home after visiting some friends, she opened the door of the house, went in to her bedroom and found all her clothes piled on the floor. She knew somebody had been in the house, and had the strange feeling that someone was watching her, so she went next door and asked the neighbor to come. He brought his big German shepherd dog that growled when he went in the house, but the neighbor did not find anyone, only a ladder in the back the thief must have used to get in and out of the patio. My mother discovered that the few jewels she had been given on her wedding were gone, but she was thankful the thief hadn’t stolen her sterling silver service.

* * * * *

Since there was no church of our denomination in the city, my father worshipped at Holy Trinity Methodist Church on Gante Street in the historic center of the city and for a time he took me there to Sunday School. Since I hated it and he had to carry me kicking and screaming all the way, he feared I might grow up to be an infidel, but there were reasons for my rebellious reaction. I was the only blonde kid in the Sunday School class and when I, with the other children, went into the sanctuary for the closing exercises everybody would ooh and ah over the little blonde boy and comment, ¡Mira que bonito güerito! (Look at the cute little blonde boy.) I hated being singled out. Furthermore, the seats in sanctuary were like old wooden movie theater seats, when you stood the seat folded up and left such a big space between the back rest and seat that I feared the space would swallow me up.

Finally, after church we had to take the bus home and it was always so full we had to stand in the front near the motor. That particular company had a fleet of busses manufactured by the White Motor Company that had a gear box that sounded like a siren. Whenever the driver shifted into high gear there was such a piercing sound that it hurt my ears, and every Sunday I had to endure the same thing. It is strange but I never told my parents the reasons for my rebellious reaction. Eventually, my mother decided to take me back to the Sunday School at Union Church and the kicking and screaming ceased.

* * * * *

After my little sister, Esther, arrived in 1935, my mother felt we needed a larger house so we moved across the street to # 65, and it was there I learned a painful lesson and had one of my most embarrassing childhood experiences. During those years, beautiful silver twenty, fifty cent and one peso coins were common currency. There were also counterfeit coins made of lead, and you could easily tell the difference between the two because the silver coins had a particular ring to them, while those made of lead did not. One day I found a lead fifty cent coin, took it to my mother and said, Look what I found!

Is it real, or counterfeit? she asked.

It’s not real. You can tell because it doesn’t ring. I struck it with a penny to show her, and then added, I’m going to take it to the store and exchange it for a real one.

No, you better not do that, she said, That would not be honest.

I didn’t pay any attention to her and went off down the street and around the corner to a little store.

I said to the lady behind the counter, "Cámbieme este tostón por otro. (Give me another fifty cent piece for this one." Tostón was the name given to the fifty cent pieces.)

She asked me, Why do you want another tostón? and then added, Wouldn’t you rather have change?

I thought about this for a bit and finally, after making some mental calculations, (remember I was only five or six) decided it was ok, so she gave me two twenty cent pieces and a dime.

I walked back to the house exultant over my transaction and showed my mother the fruit of my deceit.

Then she said to me: Now you take those coins back to the store and tell the lady that you gave her a counterfeit coin and want it back and give her these three coins.

I knew it was useless to argue with her, so asked, Will you go with me?

No, she responded, and then said firmly, "You went by