Santiago (Cito) Lemas

He and his sister Micha were the only Lemas children from Pitiquito to attend schools in the U.S. They attended school in Tucson at Davis Elementary and Safford Middle School to the eighth grade. Santiago completed his eighth grade circa 1916. We believe that following eighth grade he returned to Pitiquito until sometime in 1921 when he left to attend Colegio Palmore. There is also the possibility that following eighth grade he attended the Lydia Patterson Institute (high school) in El Paso before attending Palmore but we haven't data to confirm this.

Santiago entered Colegio Palmore's two-year program circa 1921 and graduated circa 1923. During at least part of this period Santiago and Alejandro boarded with Santos and Julia who had by then purchased a house in El Paso. From events reported in Palmore yearbooks it appears that Santiago continued to take part in the activities at Palmore after his graduation and may even have taught some classes there. The 1925 Palmore yearbook refers to him as co-producer of a play presented at Palmore and as an organizer, with Alejandro Lizarraga, of a Palmore student outing. We do know that after graduating from Palmore Santiago was hired as a teacher of Spanish and Bookkeeping at the Lydia Patterson Institute in El Paso.

Although we know that Emilia and Santiago first met at Palmore we do not know precisely when or the specific circumstances of their first meeting. We know that friends of Santiago knew friends of Emilia and that Emilia caught Santiago’s eye somewhere along the way. He asked his friends to arrange with her friends to be formerly introduced, a prerequisite to any courtship in those days. Similarly, we know very little of the courtship years before Santiago and Emilia were married. Following Emilia’s graduation she worked as a stenographer in El Paso. Santiago was teaching at Lydia Patterson. Santiago would leave Lydia Patterson and wait for Emilia on a street corner next to her place of work. He would then walk her home. Emilia told the family that the lamppost on which he leaned while waiting for her ended up slightly bent from overuse. We have a small Christmas card that Santiago gave Emilia in 1924 that he signed “Muy atentamente le suplica se sirva aceptar este humilde recuerdo del ultimo de sus amigos.” This paraphrases to “With the utmost courtesy it is requested that you accept this humble memento from the last of your (boy) friends.”

Emilia Cepeda and Santiago Lemas were married on March 28, 1926 (see Attachment 8) and honeymooned at the old Amador Hotel in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Although they were both catholic they were not married by the Catholic Church. Reverend Lawrence Reynolds, the founding President of the Lydia Patterson Institute, had "adopted" Santiago, and insisted that they be married in his church. So they were married in the United Methodist Church in El Paso. Much later, they were to renew their vows at Saint Ambrose Catholic Church in Tucson. Emilia used to laugh when she told friends that she married a professor and ended up with a used car dealer. This was perhaps Santiago's most memorable execution of the classic bait-and-switch.

Santiago continued to teach school at the Lydia Patterson Institute until 1929 when he accepted a position as accountant for the Alianza Hispano-Americano in Tucson. The 1930 census for Arizona lists Santiago J. Lemas, wife Emilia, and two children (Jimmy and Mary Jo) as residing in Tucson. Mary Jo was born in El Paso in December 1928. So sometime during the following year, the move was made to Tucson. We do not know whether this job change and move had anything to do with the financial crash in October 1929, or whether the timing was just coincidental.