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A Family History by Koldo San Sebastián Until 1883 Bedarona was an independent municipality located on the edge of the Cantabrian sea, although its people made their living through agriculture. During the 19th century many young people from Bedarona emigrated to the New World, especially to Uruguay and Argentina. Their reasons for going were many, economic as well as political. Two wars had been lost in the Basque Country (the Carlists Wars in 1839 and 1876). During the 1880s, Bedarona became impoverished, but spirits were lifted by the news of the success of relatives and townsfolk in the territories of the western United States. Since 1796 the Bengoetxea family had lived in the neighborhood of Olabe. The Carlist Wars ruined the family. There was nothing left for the Bengoetxea brothers to do but emigrate. In the United States, they had a cousin who got them jobs. They were hesitant about going, but necessity imposed itself. The emotional pain of their leave-taking was terrible. A mother bade farewell to an adolescent son whom she would surely never see again. The decade had not yet ended when the first of the brothers, Gabriel Bengoetxea Anduiza, left for the New World. He worked very hard as a sheepherder and saved all his money. Soon he had his own flock and sent for his brothers, José and Melitón, to work on his ranch in Owyhee County, Idaho. Later, José became the owner of a hotel in Mountain Home, Idaho, and vice president of a bank. Melitón also acquired his own flock before he reached the age of thirty. Melitón Bengoetxea Anduiza, now the owner of a flock of sheep and a small ranch, began thinking about marriage. He needed a young, strong woman, accustomed to hard work, and hopefully, obedient who would not be afraid to live in isolation and who was not likely to ask for a divorce. In the state of Idaho, there was not an overabundance of such women. However, there were many such ladies in his home town of Bedarona. He left his affairs in the hands of his brothers and returned to the Basque Country in search of a bride. In Bedarona, there was only one topic of conversation. Melitón "the Americano" had come home to marry. The single women in the village put on their best finery. Emigration and the recent wars had depleted the male population of the village. If the girls did not manage to marry, they would have to go into domestic service in Bilbao, Madrid, or Lekeitio. As it turned out, in the very neighborhood of Olabe on a farm called Etxebarri, there lived a young woman whom Melitón had known since childhood. She filled all his requirements, and was pretty and intelligent besides. Her name was Flora Alzola Barainka. Thus the rule-making bachelor Melitón, who had just turned thirty-two, and the barely nineteen-year-old Flora were married. Soon they had to return to the United States. They embarked from Bilbao on the French steamship La Bretagne--Flora wept for most of the voyage--and arrived at the port of New York on June 6, 1900. According to the arrival registry, Melitón brought two hundred dollars with him and Flora had thirty, a small fortune at that time, demonstrating that they were not new emigrants. Flora fulfilled all of Melitón's expectations. She prepared meals for the men and gave maca-maca to the hungry Indians that approached her kitchen. And soon the children began to arrive. Melitón took Flora to Boise to give birth, to the hotel of the Anduizas who were relatives of his. They eventually had three children, Luis, Flora, and Balbina, who were baptized, not just in any church, but in the Boise cathedral. Years passed, and Melitón and Flora began to think about returning to the Basque Country, building a house in Lekeitio, and living on the interest generated by their capital. In Europe World War I had broken out, and someone told Melitón that when it ended, the Europeans were going to need food, and the price of meat was going to rise. Melitón was a good worker and a worthy administrator, but he was no businessman. He was swept up by the idea of immense profits, and in spite of advice to the contrary, he built his flock up so much that, later, he was forced to sell it for less money than he had paid for it. His economic failure killed him. After his death, Flora returned to the Basque Country with her three children. She was going to build a house in Lekeitio with what she had been able to save from their economic disaster. She sent her daughters to a school for girls so that they would receive a meticulous education. Luis, the oldest, cared nothing for books. He preferred hunting and wandering about the mountains. Meanwhile, another war broke out in Spain, the African war, and although, normally, the sons of a widow would be exempt from military service, the mayor of Lekeitio decided that if Flora could send her daughters to a ladies' school, she could make a living without the help of a son who brought very little into the family coffers. Flora, however, did not want to send her son off to kill Moroccans, so she wrote to her brother-in-law José in Boise and sent money to guarantee the boy's passage to Valentín Aguirre in New York. In those days immigration to the United States was subject to very rigid rules, but in the end, Luis managed to reach Mountain Home where he went to work in the Hotel Bengoechea and became involved in adventures during Prohibition. He married a cousin, Ana, and they had a daughter, Luana. Luis's sisters, Flora and Balbina, married two sailors from Lekeitio. The oldest girl had two children, Luis and Esther. The younger had three, Imanol, Nile and Jokin. Then another war broke out (the Spanish Civil War), and once again the Bengoetxea Alzola family was on the losing side. Flora's husband, Miguel San Sebastián, was imprisoned in the Puerto de Santa María jail (in Cádiz). Balbina's husband, José Ordorika, arrived in Mexico on the yacht Vita that was transporting goods from the Republic. His wife returned to America as an exile. At the end of the 1950s, Flora's daughter, Esther, emigrated to Venezuela for financial reasons. Today there are descendents of Melitón and Flora in the United States, Mexico, Spain, and the Basque Country. They speak different languages and have suffered wars, dictatorships, exile, and emigration. And they have written a small history, a history of my family and that of my great-grandparents, Melitón and Flora. |
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