When Zelmira Ran The Store

Neto’s mother, Zelmira Esther Aguillar Rodriguez, grew up forty miles south of Mazatlan, in La Hacienda del Tamarindo, a small land-grant village new Rosario. She was the only girl in a family of all boys. 

Zelmira’s mother, Maria Aguillar, died in childbirth when Zelmira was seven years old. According to family legend, the doctor told her father, Ignacio Rodriguez, “I can save your wife or your son. I can’t save both. What should I do?”

“Save the boy,” Ignacio answered. Zelmira’s youngest brother, Antonio, lived but all six of the children were left without a mother. Ignacio remarried soon after his wife died, which infuriated his older sons. 

Soon after his wife died, Ignacio showed up with his new wife who was already pregnant. Gerardo, his oldest son, was fuming. He hated his father and refused to let him in the door.

“This house isn’t yours any more. It is our house and it belongs to our mother. You stepped on her when she was alive. You’ll never step on her again.” From that day forward, Ignacio was never allowed inside the house. 

Zelmira was raised by Ignacio’s sister, her Aunt Petra. She grew up to be fiercely independent. With blazing black eyes and a wild head of black curly hair, she was known as “the commander.” It was a role that suited Zelmira when she was young and later, when she married sweet Jesús Flores, who grew up the only boy in a family of three sisters.

Once they were married, Jesús allowed Zelmira be in charge. She was a shrewd businesswoman with high expectations for her children, most of which spiraled downward into disappointment.

Neto was twelve years old, working nights cleaning a downtown bakery, when Zelmira began selling groceries out of their house to earn extra money. It started when Neto’s boss, a good-hearted man named Memo, asked him,  “How would you like to take some bread home for your mother to sell? I can give it to you for half price.” 

Zelmira liked the idea right away. Nothing was better then a piece of bread from the bakery to go with her morning coffee. Pretty soon she was happily selling delicious, day-old bread to her neighbors along with tomatoes, avocados, bananas and fresh mangoes from the neighborhood market.

Soon there was no stopping her. Zelmira greeted Neto at 5:00 a.m each morning, as he walked in the door after work. She was in a hurry, on her way to the big Pino Suaréz market downtown. The market opened early to accommodate retailers and restaurants. She rode the bus to the Pino Suarez market and came home in a taxi loaded with pineapples, apples and guavas, celery and carrots, onions and garlic and chiles, rice, potatoes, beans, milk, cheese, and eggs. Dozens and dozens of eggs.

Zelmira continued to buy day-old bread from Memo and enlarged the store in what was once the family’s living room. She started taking orders from her neighbors, adding meat and poultry delivery to them for an extra charge. 

Soon she was also cooking, making tortas, molletes and juices to sell for breakfast. The house became a neighborhood grocery store and small restaurant. Zelmira was the store-keeper and the cook. Jesús didn’t like what Zelmira was doing but she was a woman with a mission and she was the boss.

Not content with running the store, in 1975 Zelmira started crossing the border into the United States to buy boxes of clothes to sell out of her house. Four times a year Zelmira transported two huge boxes home on the bus. Neto remembers that “some of the boxes were as big as a baby’s crib.” Boxes full of footwear and clothing. Zelmira sold half the clothes and saved the other half for Neto and his six brothers and sisters to wear. 

Zelmira’s biggest trip to the U.S. was always the trip before Christmas. She obtained a valid visa and bribed officials when she needed to, in order to meet the demand for American-made goods. 

“I put something for your little girl in the pocket of the red coat on top,” she would tell the guard at the border. He checked the pocket of the red coat, pulled out a $20 bill, and let her pass.