Those Places Thursday: Postcards from Mexico, Part 5: The Floating Gardens of Xochimilco

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Phillip C. McCormick (1892 - 1981)

We wrap up our postcard series by visiting one of the loveliest stopovers Phil and Benita made during their 1937 vacation, the famed floating Gardens of Xochimilco, in the southern region of the Federal District (Distrito Federal), about 40 minutes from downtown Mexico City.

A family enjoys their outing in a "trajinera," or flower-decked gondola, as a young
flower vendor poses in her "chalupa," or vendor's barge. Postcard; Mexico, 1937.
From Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's scrapbook.

Vendor-photographer, his camera mounted on a tripod,
pauses on his "chalupa" as he awaits an approaching
gondola of tourists.  Postcard; Mexico, approx. 1930s.
From Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's scrapbook.

Derived from the Náhuatl words xochitl and milli, Xochimilco means "field of flowers."  Over eleven hundred years ago, the city was built on a lake by the Xochimilca tribe as a system of man-made islands, called chinampas, and canals for farming and navigation purposes.  It later was expanded as a waterway to the ancient Tenochtitlán, another city on a lake which would one day become the center of Mexico City.

Back in the 1930s, as today, colorful trajineras, open air wooden gondola-like boats covered with elaborately decorated arches, glided lazily through some 110 miles of canals, offering tourists and Mexican families on weekend outings a chance to convivir, or enjoy one another's company.

Tall and graceful, Juniper trees line waterways in Xochimilco.  Postcard,
1930s, Mexico.  From Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's scrapbook.

Phil and Benita and their friends, John and Mary Coates, probably spent an idyllic afternoon here. Always living in the moment, they would have laughed and told stories, feasting on a picnic lunch and reclining on the long wooden benches of their trajinera. As the hours passed, they would have bought flowers and souvenirs and enjoyed the music coming from passing canoe-like chalupas.  Maybe Phil and John would have even hired a group of mariachis to serenade their wives with a love song such as Agustín Lara's "Veracruz," and the two couples might have found themselves dancing in that carefree way that travelers do when the boundaries of time and language and space melt away into a languid infinity.

A quiet moment on the waters of Xochimilco.  Postcard, 1930s
Mexico.  From Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's scrapbook.

To read the other installments in this series, please click on the links below:

Part One: Postcards from Mexico

Part Two:  Taxco

Part Three:  The Artistry of Taxco

Part Four:  Tracing Phil and Benita's Footsteps through Mexico

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Copyright ©  2014  Linda Huesca Tully

Travel Tuesday: Postcards from Mexico, Part 4: Tracing Phil and Benita's Footsteps through Mexico

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Phillip C. McCormick (1892 - 1981)

Three basket weavers smile obligingly at the photographer in "Tipos
Mexicanos," or "Mexican People."  Photographer and location
unknown, circa mid-1930s.  From Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's
scrapbook.

The black and white photographic postcards my great uncle and great aunt, Phil and Benita ("Aunt Detty") McCormick purchased during their 1937 vacation to Mexico are so many and so artistic that they seemed worthy of their own series here. 

In the absence of a written itinerary of Phil and Benita's travels throughout that country, these postcards have provided us fascinating clues to where they went and the places that were special to them.

Map shows Aunt Detty and Uncle Phil's travels, as
indicated by the postcards they bought.

Man and burro, location unknown.  Mexico, 1930s.
From Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's scrapbook.

And what about the back of the postcards, you might wonder.  Do they contain any writing?  Were they ever sent to anyone, or were they simply kept as artistic souvenirs?  Oh, the stories they might yield, if only...

Ah, yes, if only.  Well, dear reader, for now they will remain unanswered questions - due in part to my own action, or lack thereof.

"Charro and China Poblana" depicts
couple in the typical dress of Puebla.
Location unknown; Mexico, 1930s.
From Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's
scrapbook.

You see, some years ago, Uncle Phil and Aunt Detty's daughter, Jane (McCormick) Olson (my first cousin once removed), loaned me the scrapbook of her mother's memories. Aunt Detty had obtained the book, originally a large salesman's sample album of Christmas cards, from my parents, who sold advertising specialties at the time.  She repurposed the book into a scrapbook in 1982, removing the samples and gluing her photographs, postcards, and memorabilia onto the pages.

Over time, the glue began to disintegrate, loosening some of the items (thankfully for archival purposes) from the pages.  One of the postcards was among the loose items, and I was able to pull it back slightly to examine it further. 

It turned out to be a postcard Aunt Detty had sent to her two children, Phillip "Buddy" and Jane, both of them 10 years old at the time.  On it, she wrote briefly and tenderly that Mother and Dad were having a great time but were looking forward to seeing their darlings soon.

There may have been more correspondence on the back of the postcards. However, out of a combination of respect for Jane's property and a fear of damaging the items in the scrapbook, I resisted the urge to peel back or remove anything else.  Instead, I took photographs of the contents, which we see here. Thank goodness for cameras!

Woman selling clay pots.  "Tipos Mexicanos," or "Mexican People,"
location and photographer unknown, Mexico, 1930s.  From Benita
(McGinnis) McCormick's scrapbook.

The scenes in these miscellaneous postcards could have taken place anywhere in Mexico.  The general descriptions on some of them refer to the subjects as "Tipos Mexicanos," or "Mexican People," but on the face of the photographs there is no other information as to their location.  The exception is the postcard below, captioned "Jefatura de Operaciones, S.L.P.," or the  the operations center of the state capital city of San Luis Potosí.  The north-central city's famed colonial architecture may have been the reason Aunt Detty and Uncle Phil visited there.

Operations Center, City of San Luis Potosí, Mexico,
1930s.  From Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's scrapbook.

To read the other installments in this series, please click on the links below:

Part One: Postcards from Mexico

Part Two:  Taxco

Part Three:  TheArtistry of Taxco

Part Five:  The Floating Gardens of Xochimilco

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Copyright ©  2014  Linda Huesca Tully

Friday's Faces from the Past: Meeting John and Mary Coates

John Coates
Mary (?) Coates

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Phillip C. McCormick (1892 - 1981)


Fun-loving John and Mary Coates, just who were you?

Caption reads, "John and lovely Mary Coates."  1937,
Mexico.  Exact location unknown; possibly Taxco, Guerrero?
From Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's scrapbook.

These photographs, from my great-aunt Benita's scrapbook, tell us you were in Mexico in 1937.  You either already knew my great-uncle and great-aunt, Phil and Benita McCormick, before you traveled there, or you met them while south of the border. 

Mary Coates, 1937, Mexico.  From
Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's
scrapbook.

I have tried to learn more about you, searching the usual genealogy sources, such as Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, and Mocavo.com, but the time frames and names don't match up.  Still, I have a few theories about you, so please bear with me as I share them here.

Based on the note my great-aunt wrote under a photograph in which all of you were seated at a park fountain, you were American, but where were you from? If you knew the McCormicks before your trip, you might have come from either Illinois, Ohio, or Minnesota; otherwise, it's anybody's guess.  Or maybe you were simply expats, living in Mexico.

Whatever the case, it seems you and my relatives enjoyed one another immensely and spent a lot of time together.  You even hired a guide to take you to various places, including the great Aztec pyramids of Teotihuacán, about 30 miles northeast of Mexico's capital city.

As I look at the picture of you and my relatives, I'd guess you were slightly younger than Phil and Benita McCormick.  That would mean you were born sometime after 1900.  

 

John Coates, hamming it up on a park fountain.
 1937, Mexico, exact location unknown. From
Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's scrapbook.

John, you had the looks of a Hollywood movie star, with the character of a successful, self-assured, charismatic, and gregarious man who viewed life as a big adventure.  

Mary, Aunt Detty described you as "lovely," and you must have been that way inside and out. If a picture tells a thousand words, I think these photographs would say you were the counterpoint to your husband's gregariousness. You seem outgoing, yet you also appear to be calm and poised and sweet.  

I'm sure Aunt Detty loved spending time with you, sharing insights and impressions of your sightseeing excursions, and discussing your families back home.

Did you have children?  If so, maybe they or someone else who knew and loved you will find you here one day and enjoy these snippets of happy times shared so many years ago.  Maybe they will even share more with us, about you and your life together.

In any case, if they do find you here, I hope they will be happy to know that your friendship with my wonderful relatives, whether brief or long-lived, was treasured and remembered and treasured long after those serendipitous days south of the border.  

Here's to you, John and Mary Coates.  Whoever you were, you were special to my great-aunt and uncle.  And for now, that's good enough for me.

Left to right: John and Mary Coates, unidentified tour guide,
and Benita and Phil McCormick. Caption reads, "4 Americans & Guide."
1937, Mexico, exact location unknown.
From Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's scrapbook.

Left to right:  John and Mary Coates and Benita and Phil  McCormick.
1937, Teotihuacán, Mexico. From Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's scrapbook.

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Copyright ©  2014  Linda Huesca Tully