The Carranza family love affair with the State of Montana came to a close on February 3, 2017, when the last child of Anastacio and Brigida Castro Carranza left to walk the “Lindo Camino” and into the sweet, welcoming arms of Jesus.
Margaret was born near Leon Guanajuato, Mexico in a large hacienda village where her father and grandfather worked for the Spanish owners on January 14, 1911. One month after she was born, Mexico was plunged into a revolutionary war that caused tremendous loss of innocent life in the countryside because of the fighting, starvation and disease and that war would change the Carranza family’s destiny.
Her brothers and sisters: Juan, Antonia, Faustino and Conchita had all died due to the ravages of war and the flu epidemic. Anastacio decided that if the rest of his children were to survive, he needed to take his young family north to the safety of the United States because he didn’t want to see any more of his children die. In 1916 Anastacio and Brigida and their children, Juanita, Margaret and Santos crossed the border at El Paso, Texas. At that time all they needed to cross into the United States was a five dollar gold piece, a picture of the individual or family and a certificate that they had been deloused, bathed, vaccinated and their clothing and baggage disinfected, the family still has a copy of the certificate.
Anastacio obtained work with a section crew working with the El Paso Railroad in Palestine, TX where their daughter, Guadalupe was born and a little boy, Jose who died from pneumonia. From El Paso the crew went to work in Madera, Ca and then on to Pueblo, CO where their work ended in 1924. Fortunately, the Holly Sugar Company was recruiting families to go to Montana where they were opening a sugar beet factory and the Carranza family arrived in Montana by train in 1925 along with 400 other Mexican families to work sugar beets in the Yellowstone Valley; thinning the beets in the spring, maintaining the fields from weeds in the summer to harvesting the sugar beets by hand in the fall. Despite working in the fields year-around the four Carranza children completed their eighth grade education. The family worked the fields until 1935 when they purchased their first farm in Fairview, MT. During World War II Margaret and Santos worked for the War Food Administration and Holly Sugar as translators for the Bracero Program that brought Mexican nationals to the United States in 1942 for the sugar beet cultivation and harvest.
Life for the large Mexican community was made lighter by gathering for dances at community centers and homes on weekends with local musicians playing their native music and later at Dreamland, a local dance hall. Celebrating their cultural traditions such as the 16th of September (Mexican Independence Day) the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe were important too, for it gave families a sense of belonging. It was not without controversy because when the first Mexican families arrived there were signs in some local stores saying: No dogs or Mexicans allowed.
Anastacio purchased their second farm in 1949 in Sidney and in 1952 Margaret, Santos and Anastacio all became proud United States citizens with John Marmon of the F.T. Reynolds grocery store sponsoring Margaret and Anastacio in their application because they had been his customers since he opened his first store in 1925.
When Anastacio died in 1953, Margaret took over her father’s dream farming both the Sidney and Fairview farms, learning to drive tractors: planting, cultivating and harvesting sugar beets, plowing and leveling fields and raising cattle and registered Targhee sheep. She became a successful farmer and rancher by sheer determination and will- power.
In 1980 Brigida died without a will, Margaret was forced to seek financing from FmHA to payoff heirs, attorney’s and coupled with financial losses from Margaret’s first brain surgery to retain her family legacy. Almost immediately the disparate treatment begin with repeated late loan funding, refusal to implement rules and regulations that were designed to assist other borrowers but not Mexican, Women farmers all of which was later documented in a federal court in Washington, DC. To try and save the Carranza legacy Margaret traveled by train to Washington, DC at the age of eighty-nine so her daughter, Juanita could testify before the United States Senate Agriculture Committee Hearing that was held on September 12, 2000 to hold USDA accountable for the discrimination nation-wide against Women, Hispanics, Black Farmers and Native Americans. Politicians on both sides of the aisle pledged that day that justice would prevail, it didn’t.
The never give up attitude from 1916 prevailed as Margaret and Juanita started over with rented land at Enid, MT and benefactors who provided cows and sheep; all of which allowed her to continue enjoy the life she led her entire life. A life of hard work in the beautiful, big sky country of Montana and most importantly communing with God, daily thanking him for all of his many blessings.
How else would she have survived colon cancer at ninety-two, gall bladder surgery at one hundred and becoming the oldest surviving cranial surgical patient in the United States at one hundred and four? Despite all of her medical problems she was always active, bouncing back like the Energizer Bunny doing the things she loved: Shoveling snow, chopping weeds, tending to her flowers and later finding mischief to get into with her walker or wheelchair.
Margaret was a member of St. Theresa’s Catholic Church, she loved going to eat at the Lion’s Den, the CQ Bar and the Fox Lake Center in Lambert and grocery shopping at her favorite store, Reynolds Market in Sidney.
Margaret is survived by her daughter, Juanita, her niece, Patricia Paulus that she raised, her niece, Arlene Riggs, nephews, John, Leo and Thomas Carranza and numerous nieces and nephews and her beloved cat, Gata Loca.