about that story i alluded to last week…
here we have the noah cox house which sits way down in south texas in the little town of roma along the rio grande. the house is a recorded texas historic landmark.
let’s take a closer look at that balcony shall we?
now let me introduce noah cox. he was my great, great grandfather. he was also commissioner of indian affairs, signer of the texas order of secession of 1861, an officer in the confederate army and county attorney. a real busy fellow and an early pioneer of roma.
my sister dottie the geneologist and holder of family secrets sent me these photos and an old note about an incident involving N.C.
oh and also of course he was married to my great great grandmother rosaura barrera. here she is:
i believe that jailhouse attack ultimately led to the death of N.C. but g.g. grandma rosaura kept him forever more in a locket brooch pinned to her dress. you can see here:
about 100 years after the house was built. our old friend john steinbeck was just wrapping up his screenplay Viva Zapata! if you happen to have steinbeck’s book of letters i was yammering on about a couple of posts back, you can read about him working on the screenplay and everything happening in his life at the time. interesting stuff.
anyway back to the movie…
it was filmed in roma and a few scenes happen right there inside noah & rosaura’s house.
my great great grand pappy noah probably rolled over in his grave a half dozen times when he heard about the idea to take a horse to the upstairs balcony during the filming and have it leap down onto the street. my dearly departed aunty critch was living in rio grande at the time (she moved to LA in the 70’s) and it’s she that relayed this story to me many times over the years. anthony quinn, marlon brando, outlaws, balconies and horses. it’s really a story that’s got all of your bases covered.
then there’s me. minding my own business up in pacific grove and discovering that john steinbeck former owner of the cottage i stayed in wrote VIVA ZAPATA! holy shiz balls! now that’s a good story!
well at least it sure seemed like one last week when i was reading that book of letters up at the old steinbeck property.
so that my friends, is the rest of the story. happy friday. sweet dreams. and all that jazz.
interesting story-your own version of “six degrees of kevin bacon” 🙂 love how it all came full circle
gg grandma rosaura is a stunning woman… love the pic with the locket. xo
Great story!!
I’ve done genealogy, too, and love hearing stories like this. How lucky you are to have those beautiful ancestral photos. That whole Steinbeck connection is eerily awesome. Thanks for sharing. Really look forward to your interesting posts.
Cool story and great old pics. I expect jumping off the balcony didn’t work out real well for the horse. That was back in the days before the ASPCA monitored movie sets. Horses were cheap, so if they went thru a few to get a shot, oh well.
You tell the best tales. I don’t often comment, but I never miss an installment. And I love all things JS.
I knew it was going to be a great story… You actually look like your great great grandmother. I truly loved reading this story.
Love it! Just plain love it!
Wow, that’s some coincidence! Very cool.
I also have an interesting story to tell ~ My maternal grandma was married to Harry Greenberg, who was one of Bugsy Siegel’s cohorts in LA in the 30s. Bugsy had Harry wiped out on the front lawn of their house (my g-ma’s and Harry’s). In the movie Bugsy, Eliot Gould plays Harry. The weirdest part of the story is that my grandma was trying to protect Harry even after he was shot, and she told the media that the thug was her ex-husband, my real grandfather who was alive and well and living in NY at the time. I’ve got copies of the L.A. Times articles to prove it!
Cudos to your family genealogist! What a great story and those awesome photographs. It is so wonderful to be able link to the past, to see where we come from. My family has a book that traces my father’s lineage back to England. Thanks for sharing your story!
geraldine i did not even notice arnold moss!!! it was a little early yet for a moss to appear on the scene, my dad and mom met around 1952 ish in laredo texas at the NCO club. but i am intrigued and naturally must investigate! thanks for pointing that out.
Great story! I had my own connect-the-dots type experience lately (way too long to go into). This kind of stuff just makes me feel like the world is really big and really small at the same time. Carry on….
Amazing story! I see a bit of you in the photo of Rosaura.
What a fantastic story!!
Love those beautiful photos….touched with color, wonderful story…thank heavens for Aunts who know the family histories!
Holy Wow Mary Ann, you share the best stories and I had to wonder too about the whole Arnold Moss name on the poster????? What’s up with that? Hopin’ you have a lovely weekend, keep the home fires burnin and can’t wait to hear the next story up your sleeve.
Wow! Great story. And I couldn’t help but notice on the movie poster the name Arnold Moss. Any relation to Buck Moss and the rest of the Moss clan?
You never disappoint! Love your posts, stories, and photos. I am trying to catch up with your blogging, I have missed a lot, and just ent back and saw your dreamy cottage! How wonderful for you….enjoy!