Favorite Friday Foto - Our Little New Zealand Cousin

This is one of my favorite photos because some days are like this.....you just run around chasing that elusive chicken. Little Ryan is the son of Mike Goodman. Mike's Robles connection is his mum Annette Booth Goodman, whose mother was the lovely Jeannette Provencio Booth-Castanon, whose mother was Ida Buttner Provencio, whose well loved mother was Gertrudis (Tula) Robles Buttner, whose parents Francisco and Rita Luna Robles are our common ancestors.

Whew! That's a long 'genealogy road' for little Ryan who lives with his family on their farm in New Zealand to his gggggrandmother Tula who was born and raised in Ures, Sonora, Mexico.

Wonder if little Ryan ever caught that chicken?

Tango Nuevo - Sam Robles, Jr.

Each of the Robles family lines has their talented individuals. Some were high school musicians like Augie and Tibo Munoz from Gertrudis' line playing with the Douglas High School band back in the '50's. Today, Tibo's grandsons are attending Arizona State University on musical scholarships earned from their musical talent. Jose Honne Robles, an attorney from the Rafael line is an artist who had a showing at La Pilita Museum in Tucson in 2009. Roberto Figueroa from the Miguel line creates heirloom wooden pieces in the form of spoons and rolling pins. And the list goes on.

But the Plutarco line......well, they are chock full of musical talent. The most well known musician in this line is Eduardo (Lalo) Robles who had an orchestra for decades in Tucson and played throughout Arizona. He played the saxaphone. Skipped a generation, but his grandson Sam Robles, Jr. also plays the saxaphone in a group he founded called Tango Nuevo. Here is an excerpt from their My Space page describing the group: "Tango Nuevo is a Los Angeles based instrumental group. They all met while studing at the California Institute of the Arts. By combining elements of Tango, Jazz, and modern classical music, Tango Nuevo has created a unique yet recognizable sound."

Who doesn't love the Tango? Fiery, passionate, evocative and so is the music that compliments the dance. As Sam says, this is Tango Nuevo, nuevo being the operative word. Theirs is a fresh take on an ancient form of dance/music. Embrace it.

Not surprisingly, Sam's day gig is a music teacher with the Los Angeles School District.

The more genealogy research I do, the more I am convinced it really is all about the genes. Think Lalo's musical genes are alive and well in many of his descendants and most especially in his grandson Sam. Viva Lalo, Viva Sam!


It's interesting when you go to Tango Nuevo's site just to scroll down their list of visitors/followers and see the people from around the world who have listened and commented on their music. You can listen to their musical collection by visiting http://www.myspace.com/tangonuevo.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sREN9HrTsU&feature=player_embedded

Favorite Friday Foto-Oscar's Pottery

Beat up and weathered, Oscar Juan Buttner is holding pottery made by the hands of his father, Oscar Robles Buttner probably 40-50 years ago. Miracle that it's survived. Was amazing for me to see this piece because my imagination goes into high gear and I can only imagine Oscar, Sr, who I have always thought resembles Clark Gable, sitting at a pottery wheel molding a lump of clay into this pot, then painting his design on it, then glazing it, then baking it in a kiln and finally admiring his creation. Oscar worked in the smelters in Douglas and Morenci, but in his heart of hearts he was a renaissance man. He learned the art of cooking, embraced his love of art and learned to paint, taught himself to play the guitar and on and on. In the end he bought himself and his wife motorcycles, grew his hair long and wore leather vests. Totally original, cool guy in my book. He fascinates me.

Margarita Robles Calvillo- 1921-2010 Sinceras Condolencias

Margarita 'Maggie' Robles Calvillo joined the ancestors on Monday, April 26th, 2010 in Globe, Arizona. She was preceded in death by her husband Joe Calvillo and two of her four children Caroline and Ray Calvillo. She is survived by her son Joe and her daughter Helen. Maggie was a strong, out spoken woman who had seen her share of joys and sorrows who loved to work in her yard. She suffered a stroke in late 2008 and just never rebounded.


Maggie was born October 31, 1921 in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico to Arnulfo Lopez & Loretta Peraza Robles.

Favorite Friday Foto -Chicano Gothic

Love it. Sarah Robles Oton & her husband Paul Fausto Velasco posing ala the American Gothic couple in the painting by Grant Wood. I see a similarity, don't you? Except that Sarah and Paul look alot happier. Wood painted this piece in 1930; think Sarah and Paul have been married for about 70 years. That's pretty close to 1930. Sarah's son Robert aka Danny took this photo and it's in his album in Tucson. Woods artwork hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago. By the way, the couple who posed for Woods was his sister and his dentist.

Robert Velasco & his dog Fred

Tucson, Arizona, robert.velasco@hotmail.com, United States

"Welcome to my blogs. Within these pages are the elements of my life that I love and want to share with you. As a retired person I now have time to pursue my lifelong interest in Photography, Music and Writing. I hope that you enjoy your visit here and I am looking forward to your comments and observations."

I have to confess that I lifted the above passage directly from Robert's blogspot. So mea culpa Robert. If anyone is perusing this blog, you have got to go directly from here to Robert's blog and check it out. It is rich with, well, I hardly know where to start.

Let me start by saying that Robert is a Robles on his mother Sarah's side. Sarah was the daughter of Rita Robles, who was the daugter of Plutarco Robles. His father is Paul Velasco.
He was born and raised in that wonderful little town of Pirtleville, Arizona.

Robert has written of his antics and those of his fellow vatos in a book of 31 short chapters on his blog entitled: Meet Me at the All Star Club: A Story about How Los Vatitos Ravaged and Pillaged the Little Village of Pirtleville Arizona. Great reminiscing on his part of a rich time from his childhood memory of a cast of characters, both family and friends, that left this reader wanting to read more and more of their follies and hear the stories they had to tell.

To visit Pirtleville is to fall in love with Pirtleville if you are a member of this family and have an ounce of imagination. No, it's no metropolis. No, it's not an artsy place like Bisbee (and I love Bisbee, also). It's just a place on this planet where our family ghosts roam. You'll see them come to life in Robert's blog.

Not to be remiss, I need to mention that Robert is a highly accomplished photographer who has posted lots of gorgeous photos for us to feast our eyes upon. Enjoy his blog http://rdvelasco.blogspot.com/.

Favorite Friday Foto-Harvey Buttner

Photo courtesy of his grandson (and namesake) Harvey Provencio.


Harvey, on the right, and his buddy Black Jack send my imagination spinning and romanticizing, I must admit, about what the men of the Old West must have looked and been like. No, I'm not romanticizing about Harvey.....he's family. He was Gertrudis "Tula" Robles' husband.

But just look at them. This is a terrific family photo from 100 years ago that clearly shows us how the cowboys of the day were really outfitted. Lassos, six shooters, a horse for transportation, the cool vests and those sun shielding hats were what you'd get together if you were a cowboy heading out on your horse. Hollywood depicts cowboys, cowpokes, lawmen accurately for the most part, I'm sure, but here's a photo of the real McCoys.

This photo tells us so much more as we study it. About the terrain, buildings (see the outhouse in the back), the weather that day (notice the rain puddles), roads or lack thereof and leaves us to imagine what they were up to on that day in the Arizona Territory. So we can date the photo as a snapshot in time before Arizona became a state on February 14, 1912. And given that Harvey was born in 1878 he would be somewhere around his mid to late 20's in this photo.

Great photos spark our natural curiosity. Hope this one sparks yours.

Flipbook

It gives me great gratification to have figured out a way to present the flipbook to everyone on line. An idea that I have been pondering the hows of since I developed the first one in July 2008. Came by the solution idea, as usual, by observing. Was perusing one of my favorite blogs, Shades of the Departed and was blown away by the on line magazine she has developed. Thought it was brilliant. Well, that got me curious to figure out a way to be able to do the same with our flipbook. Long story short, I backtracked her source,
and started reading. This was around midnight when I got started. If you guys just knew me a little better, you would know that there is no one LESS tech saavy then me. It all has to do with desire and pure tenaciousness to get something accomplished when it comes to the computer for me. Just ask the men I worked with at Burton's for years if I ever did anything more than just turn a computer 'on' or 'off'. Steve, Alex, Bruce, Jason would give you an emphatic, "No".

It probably took a few hours for me to change the format in Office Publisher from landscape to portrait view to be able to download the file to Issuu. And voila! After a few corrections and redownloads (is that a word?) here it is for all to see.

That's the pro of it; anyone can see it. The con is, the hard copy of the flipbook contains more photos and stories and as Vivian remarked, something to hold in your hands to refer to when you don't happen to have a computer in your lap. I can print a hard copy for you if you would like one.

And as of this moment, my plans are to update the online version only once a year. Probably after the family reunion in July when I gather more family photos and information.

Now I'm thinking that since I have started this easily accessible blog and have this magazine making ability that I may use this format to put our photos into albums because the presentation of the photos will be optimum. Just hope the idea to do this doesn't come to me at midnight.

Jenny Provencio Booth Castanon-1933-2010 Always In Our Hearts