Ghosts along the Texas Coast (27 page)

Many people attest to the fact that when the moon is full one can hear the moans and cries of the woman, searching along the river for her lost children.

A San Antonio friend, Jerry Salazar, who is on the staff at the
San Antonio Express News
, said as a small boy growing up in Laredo he knows that he once saw La Llorona. She was standing on the opposite bank of the river from where Jerry stood with a group of children. “She had on a long white gown. She had masses of dark, long hair and appeared to be very beautiful. She kept reaching out her arms to us, beckoning us to enter the river and cross over to her.” Jerry said the children all had the good sense to turn and run home as fast as their legs could carry them!

Another version of the legend which is prevalent down near La Bahia, outside of Goliad, was printed in the
Texan Express
, October 31, 1984 edition. The story by Sandra Judith Rodriguez, stated:

Don Ramiro de Cortez, a noble soldier of high rank fell in love with Dona Luisa de Gonzala and their courtship resulted in her having a baby out of wedlock. In facing her embarrassment she swore she had rather see her baby dead than in the hands of her former lover. When he sent word he was coming to claim his child she replied that the baby would be ready to go. He knocked on the door and Dona Luisa welcomed him, taking him to the crib where the baby lay. “There is your son,” she said, “which I would rather see dead than in your hands.” He removed his sword from his scabbard and uncovered the veil of the crib. He was shocked by the sight he saw, his baby son all covered with blood.

Don Ramiro immediately called his soldiers to gather wood and to bring a large wooden stake to burn Dona Luisa. It was customary to burn witches and criminals at the stake at that time. As Dona Luisa was burning, everyone watching saw, to their amazement, that Dona Luisa was loosened from her bonds and flew off in the embers and wind of the fire; dressed in a long white tunic, with her long, beautiful hair flowing behind her. She was crying, a very sad noise, as she was crying not for her pain, but for her dead baby. Legend has it that she is still crying and flying along the rivers, looking for her baby son.

Henry Wolff, Jr., who is a columnist for the
Victoria Advocate
, sent me an article he wrote about La Llorona for the Tuesday, November 10, 1992 edition of his paper. He states:

Jim Leos, Jr., saw the ghostly figure while working at night in the old fortress of La Bahia at Goliad as a security guard. Leos described voices of crying children coming from an unmarked grave, with a woman in a white layered wedding dress materializing in front of the grave near the presidio chapel, only later to drift off towards and over the back wall toward the old cemetery behind the presidio.

Crying babies and a woman in white fits the description of La Llorona, and while she usually is said to appear along river banks, the old presidio and its unmarked graves are just a short distance uphill from the nearby San Antonio River.

La Llorona is a popular ghost story in Mexican folklore, and especially in South Texas where the woman in white is said to have appeared along virtually every river. In Victoria, she is sometimes called the Ghost of the Guadalupe, and while I have never actually met anyone who has seen her, I am familiar with many stories of La Llorona and how she comes to the river-banks to cry over her lost children.

I don't know why La Llorona would be at La Bahia, but there is a lot of similarity in Leos' description and everything that's ever been said about La Llorona. I've also heard others speak of hearing babies cry deep in the night at La Bahia, and several years ago in visiting with Victor and Joe Martinez, I heard the story of how an older brother once encountered the lady in white near the presidio.

That was back around the mid-1930s, when the Civilian Conservation Corps was building the Goliad Auditorium across the river, near the reconstructed Mission Espiritu Santos in Goliad State Park, and the brother had been singing with CCC workers who often gathered at night to entertain themselves around an open fire.

The moon was shining pretty that night, they said, when their brother came to a big dip beside a creek called Sparrow Hollow on his way home. There she stood with her long hair, and all dressed in white.

The following night, Joe Martinez went with his brother to where the apparition had appeared, and at the same spot they heard what sounded like a big rock rolling down the steep bank of the creek, but didn't see the lady in white again, or ever afterwards.

Wolff said he didn't know if Jim Leos actually saw La Llorona, or just a look-alike.

Wolff also brought forth the theory that the story has been handed down for generations by mothers bent on keeping their children from playing too close to rivers and streams, and then pointed out that a
researcher at Texas A&M University, Ed Walraven, has tried to modernize the old legend by attempting to document sightings of La Llorona at city dumps! Wolff agrees with Walraven that it is a good thing to keep children away from city dumps since they are also dangerous places to play. Walraven says the ghostly figure has been sighted at least twice in landfills!

And so it goes. There are stories of the crying lady, La Llorona, all over the Southwest. She's been seen crying out from the palm tree shaded resacas of Brownsville, and she's been heard weeping from the banks of the Nueces. She is often mentioned as having been around the San Antonio River as it flows south to empty into the Guadalupe just before it reaches the Gulf of Mexico. She is everywhere, because she is very real to the people who believe in her.

On dark nights, people who have heard the stories since early childhood say that goose bumps still rise on their necks and their skin crawls. They believe that La Llorona wants to get even with those who are happy, and that is why men, the cause of her sorrows, are often driven mad by the very sight of her in the night. You see, she is very beautiful, until she is observed closely. Some say her face is totally blank. Nothing is there at all. Others say she has the long, distorted face of a donkey, or a horse. She wears long, flowing gowns of white, and her long shiny silver fingernails resemble glistening knives in the moonlight.

Whether she actually exists, or whether she is a figment of many vivid, overworked imaginations, La Llorona is very much a part of South Texas folklore. And her legend teaches several good lessons to those who would heed them: “It is best not to mix with those of an entirely different social or cultural class.” And to mothers: “Don't be cruel to your children or you will live to regret it.” And to the children themselves: “Stay close by your mothers. Don't go near the water.”

Numerous writers have related the story of the ghostly lady in black who has been seen by many people as she wanders the area where Highway 281 crosses Highway 141 between the small towns of Ben Bolt and Premont, down in far South Texas. Dr. Juan Sauvageau, former professor at Texas A&I in Kingsville, wrote an interesting book of Texas legends, titled
Stories that Must Not Die
(Pan American Publishing Company), and high on his list of “keepers” is the story of the mysterious lady in black. He cites the strange experience of four men who were driving to work at the Exxon refinery in the middle of the night. Suddenly, a woman, dressed in black, appeared from nowhere and stood right in the pathway of their car. They couldn't avoid hitting her. According to Sauvageau's account, “There was no thud, no bump, but the passengers of the car were sure the lady had been killed.” A thorough search turned up nothing. The men even called the sheriff, and when the lawman and his deputies arrived, not one single sign of the woman, whom all four men swore they had seen, could be found.

Dr. Sauvageau questioned an elderly rancher in the area about the appearance of the strange apparition, and he knew exactly who she was and why she was out there on that lonely stretch of road.

According to the old gentleman, the lady, always clothed in black, is the ghost of the lovely Dona Leonora Rodriguez de Ramos, who lived, and died, many years ago.

The story goes that Leonora, one of Mexico's most beautiful young women, married an influential man named Don Raul Ramos, a wealthy landowner. This was way back when the Rio Grande Valley was then known as a part of the Spanish province of Nuevo Santander.

Soon after the wedding, Don Raul was called away on important business and had to travel far away, back to Spain, leaving his lovely young bride back on his ranch in Texas.

Upon his return, some six months after his departure, he found his young wife was six months pregnant. At first he was overjoyed, but his
joy soon turned to unbridled rage when he was told that the baby was not his, and that his wife had been unfaithful to him. The teller of such an unfounded story was the daughter of a neighbor who had hoped she would be the choice of Don Raul and was enraged when he chose to wed another. In her jealousy, she told this terrible lie to Don Raul, who was known to have a terrible temper. So enraged was the rancher, that he ordered two of his most trusted ranch hands to take his young wife, who had been clothed all in black, out on a day's ride to the north of his estate. There she was to be hanged until dead. This was at the approximate spot where Highways 281 and 141 cross today.

Although Leonora protested her innocence and pled with her executioners to spare her, the ghastly orders were carried out by the vaqueros, who were afraid of going against the wishes of their employer. Before she died, Leonora swore she was innocent, and said she would return, so that all who saw her would know an innocent woman had been sentenced to death.

At the same time the vaqueros were riding north, escorting the lovely Leonora to her death, Don Raul rode south. Just about the time his wife and the unborn child she carried were put to death, he must have had a terrible feeling of guilt. Because when the vaqueros got back to the ranch, they learned that Don Raul had put a bullet through his brain. His ghost has never been seen around. But lovely Leonora continues to carry out her promise to appear, and reappear, over, and over again. Dressed in the long black gown in which she died, she comes once more to proclaim her innocence.

There are several versions of this story around. It's such a haunting tale, it deserves to be told again. Dr. Juan Sauvageau wrote about it in his
Stories that Must Not Die
, and I also saw it in a copy of the
Corpus Christi Caller-Times
(October 31, 1992) written by staff writer Scott Williams.

The story goes back to 1950 when a young man named Manuel got into his pickup truck to drive up to Benavides for a Saturday night dance. As he drove, the lights of his truck picked up a pretty young girl in a pink dress standing by the roadside. He stopped and asked if she needed a lift. She told him, yes, she wanted to go to a dance. He told her he was on his way to a fiesta and she was more than welcome to come along.

The girl told Manuel her name was Maria, and that she didn't know many people in those parts because she had been away for the past ten years.

Manuel had a great time at the party. He couldn't get over his good luck in finding such a pretty date. And could Maria dance! Now, she had a little trouble following the new “cumbia,” but he'd never seen anybody polka like Maria! She was just great; as light as a feather on her feet!

The band stopped playing around midnight. Manuel and Maria were sorry to see the evening end, they'd had such a great time dancing together. As they went out to get into Manuel's pickup, he noticed that Maria was shivering, so he took off his jacket and placed it around her slender shoulders.

When they got to the place where Manuel had picked her up, Maria asked that he let her out. He hated to do this, as the night was very dark and he saw no lights in the vicinity. She assured him it was where she wanted out, and he told her to keep the coat he had loaned her. He would come and get it the next day. (A great excuse to see the pretty girl again!)

The next morning Manuel drove out to the place where he had picked up Maria the night before. Off about a quarter of a mile, down a dirt road, he saw a small white house. He drove up, got out of his truck, and went to the screen door and knocked. A woman came to the door in response to his knock. Manuel asked if he could see Maria. The lady turned deathly pale . . . “My Maria died ten years ago,” she said.

Manuel assured her that he had seen Maria and danced with her the whole evening before. He told the woman Maria had on a pink dress, and that she just loved to dance, especially the polka. The woman told him that Maria had been buried in a pink dress, and that yes, indeed, she had been a wonderful dancer, but she had been tragically killed in an accident ten years before.

Manuel found this very hard to believe. He told the woman he had even loaned his jacket to Maria when the evening had turned a little chilly, and that he had told her he would come back later to get it.

“If you'll just come with me, young man, I will show you my Maria's grave. She is buried in our little family cemetery over there by the road.”

They walked to the little family graveyard. There was a grave marker with the inscription, “Maria Lozano. 1920-1940. RIP.”

On the grave, neatly folded, was Manuel's jacket.

Note: I first read this story in a brief article in the
Port Arthur Times
, October 28, 1992. Since then, I have come across numerous versions in several publications. It's a charming legend.

Around Lake Sabine, close by the Louisiana border, a legend of star-crossed Indian lovers has been told for many a year. It's the story of little Princess Kisselpoo, whose name meant “full moon,” and her lover, Running Bear.

It's usually late at night, when all is calm and quiet on the big lake, and the full moon is shining its beams across the still waters, forming a glittery pathway, that you're apt to see them. There, on the silvery, shimmering waters, a canoe bearing a young Indian couple can be seen, slowly drifting along the moonlit waterway.