Photo was taken shortly before the violence of the Mexican revolution drove the family to flee Mexico for El Paso, Texas. The couple later had three children: Vicente Cisneros Munoz, Refugio (Cuca) Cisneros Munoz and Aurora (Chata) Cisneros Munoz. They first lived at 104 W. 4th street and later at 701 West Main. Vicente worked for 50 years at the Popular Department Store.
Vicente Cisneros, Aurora Munoz .Jimenez, MX. . Circa 1910
Vicente at top of photo and Aurora in white blouse were soon to become refugees. The family loaded their belongings into a horse-drawn wagon and fled in the middle of the night, along with Aurora's father and uncle, Carlos and Eduardo Munoz.
Refugio (Cuca) Cisneros, Vicente Cisneros and Aurora (Chata) Cisneros grew up in Sunset Heights. Cuca would later marry Luis Raul Flores, a heart surgeon and director of the medical school in Chihuahua, MX. Vicente later attended the College of Mines and would become owner of one of the largest mining companies in Mexico. Aurora married Francisco (Joe) Lewels, reporter for the Herald Post, Associated Press and United Press International.
The Lewels family in downtown El Paso in 1948. On the left is Francisco Jose (Joe) Lewels (age 4), Aurora Lewels Cisneros, Helen Lewels (age 7) and Francisco Jose (Joe)Lewels. The Lewels and Cisneros families fled Mexico during the revolution. Joe was born in Nogalez, AZ. Aurora was born in El Paso. Both families resided in Sunset Heights. Joe Sr. was a reporter for the El Paso Herald Post.
Joe Lewels at age 16 (1931) was featured in a story in the El Paso Post (later the Herald Post). Joe had just landed a job as a copy boy at the newspaper when he made the front page. The room he lived in, above an old hotel, burned down. Joe called in the fire alarm and assisted women and children out of a window and across the roof to another building. The editor asked him to write the front page story for the next day. This began a long career as perhaps the first Mexican-American reporters in the U.S.
Photo taken in upper valley of El Paso in 2000. Marisa attended New York University, Tisch School of the Arts and received a degree in film. She subsequently became a story producer for television reality shows in New York and Los Angeles. In college, she met a fellow student, Dan Marocco, and were married at St. Patrick Cathedral in El Paso in 2011.
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