SSN:
460-36-3403BORN:
March 15, 1903 in Atoyac, Jalisco (Mexico). Died December 9, 1969 in Crowell, Texas.RESIDENCE:
Interred at the Crowell Cemetery, Crowell, Texas.EARLY CHILDHOOD:
Jose was born in Atoyac, Jalisco (Mexico). He was the son of Bonifacio Rios and Atilana Jimenez. He was apparently born to a single mother, Atilana JImenez, who named him Longinos. He was baptized the next day, March 16, 1903 at the Atoyac Parochial Catholic Church where he was renamed Jose Longinos Jimenez Rios. It is unclear whether his parents ever married or whom he lived with or how many siblings he had. He came to the U.S. at an early age. By 1920, when he was 18, he was in Texas, in Borden County (according to the 1920 census). He supposedly traveled around the U.S going up as far as Chicago, Illinois and Detroit, Michigan. Later moving to San Antonio where he met up with Abraham Morales and his wife Juanita. After Abraham's wife died, he married Maria Delgadillo Garza, a widow who had lost her husband and had one daughter, Consuelo. Abraham and Maria later had a son, Ysaias in November 1925 and they moved to Taft, Texas. Jose was still with them at this time. While in Taft he lived and worked mostly at the Rincon Ranch, a few miles outside the town of Taft. Sometime after 1930, Jose got in trouble with the law in Corpus Christi so he decided it was best to leave the area. He went back to Mexico and came over through Eagle Pass, Texas obtaining his passport as a permanent legal alien. He never returned to Mexico. He always used April 23, 1902 as his legal birth date.EDUCATION:
Jose attended school in Mexico for a while, and also in Corpus Christi. He spoke and wrote English fairly fluent.MILITARY:
Jose did not serve in the Military. He tried to volunteer for World War II, but was denied entry due to his being involved in a critical vocation, farming.CAREER:
He came to the United States sometime before 1920 (possibly 1918) obtained his passport in March 3, 1932 at the age of 29, but used 1902 as his date of birth. He started using Brown as his last name sometime after having lived in the United States for a while. He left his home and family in Mexico sometime before 1920, went up north, came back, got his passport and moved to the Rhineland/Knox City Texas area sometime after that, and started boarding with the Valladares family. This is where he met and married Josefina Valladares He spent most of his life working as a farm laborer. Soon after marriage, he lived at the Pitchfork ranch where he worked grubbing mesquite tress/shrubs to clear the land for either grazing or cultivating. Sometime around 1942, he worked in Borger, Texas in some capacity in the tire manufacturing industry, making tires for the war effort. In the late 1940's and 1950's he worked for Bill Erwin at their farm/ranch southeast of Crowell. He helped with the cattle and did some plowing and sowing wheat, sometimes cotton. After the kids were old enough to work, they worked as a family unit, hoeing cotton in the summer and picking cotton in the fall and winters.. During the summer of 1952, he took the family on a migrant trip to work in Wisconsin picking cherries, then coming down towards Illinois to work in the fields picking tomatoes. Then in 1955, and for the next five years through 1961, he took his family to work in the beet fields in the Greeley, Colorado area from about May to September/October of each year, returning to Crowell and pulling cotton in the fall and winter of those years. In the mid to late 1960's he worked as a carpenter's helper building and remodeling houses in Crowell. He became a United States citizen in October 15, 1965. Also during this time, he got his Minister's license in the Assemblies of God, and was the pastor of the Templo Getsemani de las Assambleas de Dios until his death in 1969.OTHER ACTIVITIES:
He was not much into sports, but he did speak of enjoying and playing polo in his younger days.MARRIAGE:
Jose met Josefina Valladares when he arrived in Rhineland in late 1932. He eventually got married on October 30, 1937, in Benjamin, Texas.CHILDREN: Jose and Josefina had nine children:
