Mary Torres

Mary Almendarez Torres; loving mother, grandmother and great grandmother went to meet our Lord Sunday May 17th 2015. Mary lived a full and rich 91 years and was surrounded by a home full of her loved ones at the time her journey to Heaven began. Mary was born in 1924 in the city of San Luis Portosi to the late Nicasio and Maria Almendarez. At the age of 40 days Mary, her older sister Inez, and parents immigrated to America. Mary and the family settled in, and she lived in the South San area of San Antonio through most of her formative years.

As the little family grew, they relied on their own labor to survive. Starting as early as 8 years old, Mary would regularly be pulled out of school and the family would travel to various locations throughout the state and the country, to work as migrant farm laborers. Life in the fields and during the Depression was very hard, and the stories she would tell her children years later, of the work itself, the harsh conditions they often dealt with and that no matter how bad it got, they always worked sunrise to sunset. But Mary was never bitter or saddened about this time in her life when she recounted it. In fact she looked back on the time fondly, with her memories of being able to work so hard and so fast….often besting her younger and beloved brother Santos to the end of a row of cotton, or beets, or potatoes.

As the years of migrant labor work ended for the family, Mary met a young man and was married for a short time. However, not before she was blessed with the birth of her first daughter…Mary Olga. While divorce was almost unheard of at the time, Mary was determined to make a good life for herself and her new baby girl. Like so many other women at the time, she focused on contributing to the war effort. This was WWII and Mary found work at the Friedrich’s plant assembling and painting bombs.

In 1947, Mary moved to Wisconsin with her older sister and brother-in-law and began work at the Nash Auto Plant in Racine…As it turned out, all these miles from home…it was here that she met another South Texan, that she fell in love with, and would eventually marry. She and Eliodoro Torres were wed in March 1948. They moved back to Texas, and in December 1948 they added their second child, Linda Sue, to the family. Mr. Torres joined the Army National Guard, and was activated when the Korean War broke out. For the next few years, due to various deployments and station assignments, Mary would be alone off and on again, but now she had two young children to raise. Living at home with her parents in San Antonio, Mary waited patiently for her husband to return.

In 1956, Mary and her husband moved from South San, to the newly developed area by St. Mary’s University. They purchased a small three bedroom home, and in June 1956, they welcomed twin girls, Mary Jane and Mary Ann, to the family. The service would eventually call and Sgt. Torres was stationed in various locations. His assignment in Germany however, was an opportunity for the entire family to move and live overseas. In 1963 Mary and her three youngest children moved to Germany to join Sgt. Torres. It was here that they were able to bring their last child into the family, by adopting their son Terry in 1963. In 1966, their tour in Germany was completed, and the family moved back to San Antonio. Tragically within 9 months of arriving home, Sgt. Torres passed away at the age of 37. Now Mary would also be preceded in death by her husband, SFC Eliodoro Torres, whom she loved very deeply and was devoted to, for the rest of her life. She never remarried and lived for the next 48 years in the home that she and Sgt. Torres bought together in 1956.

Mary always shared the value of hard work with her family, and being a widow at 43 with 4 minor children still at home was no easy feat. But Mary was diligent and thrifty…and she especially imparted the value of education on all of her children, and on herself too. In 1972 she earned her GED and then followed that up with two years of college at both San Antonio College and St. Mary’s University. She also went back to work for a while at Finesilver Mfg, the Dixie Flag company, and then in later years at Kelly AFB working Civil Service.

But Mary’s focus on her family, and on providing a warm and safe home to her children was her ultimate goal…so she made do with the little she had…and always gravitated to working at home and almost single handedly raising her three youngest daughters and her son.

Mary was also preceded in death by her siblings Santos Almendarez, Inez Lopez, Angelita Garces, Nora Sanchez and Catarino Almendarez.

She is survived by a large, loving family that miss her deeply and owe her so very much. Her children are Mary Olga (Neal) DeGeus, Linda Sue Guajardo (Alfredo Padilla), Mary Jane (Michael) Lewis, Mary Ann (Daniel) Felix, and Terry (Vicky) Torres …She also leaves nine Grandchildren, Larry (Anna) DeGeus, Jennifer (Jason) Bohannon, Lara (Tony) Duranti, Anna (Homer) Uribe, Katy (Austin) Stout, Danielle (AJ) Gamboa, Ryan Felix, and Dylan and Sarah Torres…and six Great Grandchildren; Matt DeGeus, Amanda (Omar) Vasquez, Bayleigh and Guliana Duranti, and Audrey and Nolan Gamboa. She is also survived by three brothers; Nicasio Jr, Julian and Augustino Almendarez.

The family would like to extend its sincere gratitude and appreciation to Dr. Augen Batou, Sarah with Meals on Wheels, Rae Simpson with Vitas Hospice, Nurse Jenny and Julie with Girling Healthcare and her very special home health aide Juanita Salazar.