NPS Photo Brenda Pacheco sharing what this community means to her:"I consider myself extremely fortunate to have lived, breathed, participated in, and been part of San José community for many many years, but my family had of course been part of it for the past 300. We had many baptisms, communions, confirmations, and weddings. We buried our dead down the street at the San Jose cemetery. [...]This is not just a community of Mexicans, Hispanics, Indigenous people and Spaniards, it was a community of Polish, German, and Czech that lived right across the street. Right across Roosevelt. I'd be a liar to say there wasn't a separation of cultures, but when it came to the church and festivals and Sunday community, we were all one. One Community. One Church. [...] So this community has worn many multicolored hats, many heritages, that allowed this church to thrive and survive. Except when it crumbled and the physical structure was no longer there, but that is how it has been and hopefully will always be: a living, breathing church. Because of the community." 
NPS Photo At the end of the night we had a fire and at the end of the night me and my dad were putting out the fire in this can, and we both witnessed the vision of the Virgin Mary in the smoke coming from the can, and it was just beautiful, an unbelievable sight because we saw her as plain as day as the smoke was billowing." 
NPS Photo "At any point, at any evening, I could look out my back bedroom window and I could see the sun setting over the bell tower of the [San José] church. I remember thinking, ‘Wow that’s a great picture, I wish I was a photographer because I would take picture of that so that people could see the significance of watching the sun set over the church tower’. |
Last updated: October 5, 2021