Role Model For All, Legendary Attorney Arturo C. Gonzalez passes away at 104 years old
By: DIANA R. FUENTES
Del Rio News-Herald
When attorney Arturo C. Gonzalez died Friday, December 21, 2012, many mourned the loss of the legal community icon.
“He did so much for Del Rio,” said Mayor Bobby Fernandez.
“He was a pacesetter, way ahead of his time — a role model for us all.” Gonzalez turned 104 in October.
And, as always, he was quick to add, “I’m 104 years young.”
“I’m not old,” he would say. “We’re just as good as we think we are, as our mind thinks we are. I’m young.”
Among his many accomplishments, Gonzalez helped start the Housing Authority of the City of Del Rio and secured the construction of the international bridge connecting Del Rio and Acuña.
Housing Authority
In an interview with the Del Rio News-Herald earlier this year, he recalled going to Washington in 1940 to secure a $450,000 federal grant to get the Housing Authority started.
Not everyone supported the cause. “They said, ‘Arturo, just leave it alone. We don’t need it.’ I said, ‘You do need it. You do need housing. These people don’t have any rooms, they don’t have anything to eat. No, no, no – we have to correct the situation between the Anglo people and the Mexican people,” Gonzalez recalled. “So this (the Housing Authority) started it. They’ve done a good job, opening up housing for people that didn’t have any housing.”
His role in getting the international bridge was perhaps not as well known as some of his other deeds, which is the way he wanted it. When talks were breaking down between U.S. and Mexican officials, Gonzalez stepped in. Already well known on both sides of the border, he was able to facilitate the discussion and everything came together.
“We got it done,” he said. Fernandez noted that Gonzalez was one of the first Hispanic attorneys in the Del Rio area. “He gave us opportunities to be successful,” the mayor said. “He was always working behind the scenes to make the community a better place. He was a true leader.”
Madrina’s support
Gonzalez always gave credit to his godmother, Petra Martinez, the woman who raised him after his mother died when he was a young boy. “She didn’t know how to read and she didn’t know how to write,” he said in the interview. “But she had a very bright mind. She taught me a lot of good things. She taught me never to get mad. She
taught me never to fight with other people. “To her, her life was very simple: thinking good and doing good. And that’s what I have done.”
The story of how he started to learn to be a lawyer through a correspondence course is legend. He told it often and gave credit to Judge Brian Montague of the 63rd State Judicial District.
“He asked me, ‘Arthur, do you want to be a good attorney?’ I told him, ‘Judge, the good part is already in my heart … I do want to be an attorney.’ So he appointed me as court interpreter for Del Rio, Eagle Pass, Edwards County and Kinney County.” Montague also allowed him free use of his law library and office to continue his studies.
Gonzalez then took a college entrance exam, which was required by the state because he didn’t have a high school diploma, and passed it. He then took the State Bar in October 1934. In February 1935, he was advised he had passed that test, too. But he had to wait until he could get $20 to actually get his law license.
Judge Montague again came to his rescue, he said, and paid the $20 to get Gonzalez his license.
Fond memories
“It’s beautiful to think about old times,” Gonzalez said during the two-hour interview. In addition to his law career and work creating the Housing Authority and the International Bridge, Gonzalez also was involved in radio and in baseball. At one point, he and his partner Ramon Bosquez owned XERF, based in Acuña, which helped make DJ Wolfman Jack famous as it boomed its airwaves across North America.
Gonzalez also started the Gonzalez Baseball System, which owned five baseball teams. He was particularly proud of his team in Decatur, Ill., because it was among the first to break the color barrier in the minor leagues when it hired Jim Freeman, a black ball player, in 1952.
“Arturo Gonzalez and his wife flew to Decatur on the Gonzalez Baseball plane to attend the game and the Decatur Review featured a photo of the owner and his lovely wife in their box seat on the third base line,” reads an account by baseball historian Stephen Chicoine in the Illinois Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Spring 2003.
“Gonzalez recalls as to prejudice in Decatur, ‘I didn’t notice any difference at all and I didn’t expect any.’ ”
Love at first sight
As much as he enjoyed his professional careers, Gonzalez also spoke frequently about his love for his family, starting with his wife, Blanca.
During the interview earlier this year, he recalled their whirlwind courtship. “I remember the day I met her. It was May 4, 1946,” he said. “A Del Rio rancher told me, ‘Let’s go to Cuba.’ I had just come out of the Army and I said, ‘OK. Let’s go to Cuba.” The woman who would be his wife was working at the Cuban embassy, where Gonzalez and the rancher had gone to get the proper travel permits.
“She was a beautiful woman,” he said. “I fell in love with her immediately. I thought, ‘This one isn’t going to get away.’ ” They had a wonderful life together, he said. She died in March 1988.
“She was watching a Mexican novella, and that was it,” he said. “She was gone. It was peaceful.”
The couple had five children, including County Courtat-Law Judge Sergio Gonzalez and Blanca Larson, manager of Plaza del Sol, who live in Del Rio with their families; and Daisy, Cathy and Arthur, who live out of town with their families.
Services
Gonzalez’s services were under the direction of G.W. Cox Memorial Funeral Home. Visitation was December 23rd at the funeral home, 114 Fletcher Dr., from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. with a rosary at 5 p.m. The funeral Mass was at 10 a.m. December 24th, at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Internment was at Sunset Memorial Oaks Cemetery.
Reprinted by Permission of the Del Rio News-Herald.
