Petra (Lopez) Villarreal (my mother)

Petra Lopez was born on January 31, 1906, the 11th child to Miguel Lopez and Josefa Fuentes, in los Escobares, birth registered in Roma, Texas. She went to a single room schoolhouse but left with a fifth grade education to work in the fields, picking cotton and as a house maid with some afluent people in Roma, Texas.
In 1930, she married Jose Villarreal from los Garcias. She named her first son Romeo, as suggested by her oldest sister, Maria, who was then reading Romeo and Juliet. he died at 11 months of a possible allergy to peanuts, according to stories told by my mother later.
Six years, she had a daughter, who died three days after birth, due to a problem with her having been born with a hole in her throat. She was named Ninfa(nymth), since her sister was then reading A Midsummer's Night Dream.
Her third child was born six years later, on April 3, 1944, and named Odilia, after the magic swan in Swanlake. I am Odilia and I was the only child who survived. Both my parents are now dead and I am 65 years old and have three sons and one daughter, all in their thirties now.