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| Oklahoma History |
Mission to the Immigrants:
Establishment of the Order of Discalced Carmelites in Oklahoma
1914 - 1929
By: Michael M. Smith; October 1981
The story of the Discalced Carmelites in Oklahoma properly begins in Mexico, where Spanish fathers established their first missions in the late 1500s. During the next two hundred years, the order built churches, monasteries, and missions throughout the Viceroyalty of New Spain, as Mexico was then called. After Mexico became independent in 1821, however, over fifty years of political chaos, often marked by Hispanophobia and anti-clericalism, virtually extinguished the order throughout the country. Most Spanish Carmelites fled Mexico, but a few remained, often in hiding, and bravely continued the order's work. After Porfirio Diaz gained power in 1877, he initiated a reapproachment with the Catholic Church. In 1899 he requested that the Spanish Carmelites reestablish their former foundations. By 1909, the Discalced Carmelites had returned to many parts of Mexico, including the northern city of Torreon, Coahuila, where four Spanish fathers of the Province of Aragon-Valencia began construction of a church and monastery.
The revolution which ousted Diaz in 1910, however, initiated another period of unbridled violence, xenophobia, and anti-clericalism. Throughout Mexico, revolutionaries desecrated churches, killed clergymen and nuns, and destroyed monasteries and convents. Once again the Carmelites were forced to flee the country or go into hiding. Throughout the violent stage of revolution, many Carmelites in Mexico returned to Spain, fled to Cuba, or sought safety in the United States.
For the first four years of the conflict, the Discalced Carmelites in Torreon, Coahuila, had escaped the violence which rent other areas of the republic, and during the week before Easter, 1914, they quietly prepared for the forthcoming Holy Week solemnities. Four Spanish priests from the Province of Aragon-Valencia staffed the mission and church. The small community included Fr. Cirilio Corbat, the superior; Fr. Luis Benages; Fr. Bernardo Broton; and Fr. Domingo Pitarch, who was in Mexico City at the time. 2
The tranquility of Torreon was shattered in the first days of April, when revolutionary General Franciso "Pancho" Villa and his dreaded Division del Norte attacked the city and drove out the defending federal troops. Villa, who held an intense hatred for Spaniards and clerics, rounded up approximately 1000 Spanish citizens living in and around Torreon and ordered them to leave the country. Villa also arrested Fathers Cirilio, Luis, and Bernardo--doubly jeopardized for being both Spanish and priests. He perfunctorily tried the fathers, sentenced them to death, and placed them under house arrest until their execution by firing squad could be carried out. He spared the priests' lives, however, after the wife of the American Consul, William Carothers, interceded on their behalf. Mrs. Carothers, who was a Roman Catholic and a good friend of the three Carmelites, convinced Villa to allow them to join the other Spaniards, whom he was deporting to the United States. 3
On April 6, Villa's soldiers herded the Spaniards into cattle cars on the special train that he was dispatching to Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, across the border from El Paso, Texas. The Carmelite fathers were not permitted to take their vestments or other items from the mission. With little more than the clothes on their back, a small amount of money, their breviaries, and a miniature copy of Don Quijote, they boarded the train and began the long journey to Juarez. When the train reached Chihuahua City, about 300 miles south of El Paso, the engineer told the Spaniards that he had not been paid enough to complete the trip; he refused to continue until the passengers gave him more money. Fearing that they would be shot if they did not immediately resume the journey, the passengers paid one dollar each so that the trains could continue to the border. They reached El Paso in the evening of April 7, but the American border officials would not allow them to leave the train until the next morning. At first, the immigration authorities would not allow Fr. Luis Benages to enter the country. He was ill, and they considered him incapable of working. After Fr. Cirilio testified that he was a Catholic priest and sufficiently well to exercise his ministry, Luis was admitted without further delay.
Thus, on April 8, 1914, the three Carmelites entered the United States. They had little money and no friends in this country. They did not speak English and had no idea where they would stay. Initially, they did not intend to remain permanently in the United States; they sought only a temporary refuge until they could go on to Spain or perhaps return to Mexico. They spent their first night in El Paso in a hotel, thereby depleting their financial resources. The next day, the Jesuits who had charge of the Church of the Virgin of Guadalupe took them into their house. Hoping to find a place to stay with members of their own order, the three Carmelites decided to go to Chicago, where, they had heard, the Discalced Carmelites had established a house. The Jesuits arranged for their transportation by train, and on April 11 they departed for Chicago.
In Chicago neither the Spanish Consul nor the Catholic Extension Society were able to assist them directly, but the latter directed the trio to St. Cyril's Academy, which was run by the Carmelite Order. Although this was a Calced, rather than Discalced Carmelite school, the young priests there invited them to spend the night. The prior of the house, however, did not want them to stay any longer, fearing that perhaps some of the younger members of his community might decide to join the Discalced group, as had happened recently. As a result, he arranged for them to go on to Milwaukee, where a group of Discalced Carmelites from the Province of the Holy Cross of Bavaria had established a foundation a few years earlier. Because the community house in Milwaukee was very small, Fr. Luis stayed with the Discalced Carmelites in Holy Hill, and Fr. Bernardo assisted the priest at St. Leo's parish. Thus the three remained for over two months.
By the end of June, 1914, the three Spanish Carmelites were growing increasingly unhappy with their precarious circumstances. Accustomed to a much warmer climate, they were distressed by Milwaukee's "cold" weather. More importantly, although they had written to numerous bishops in the United States and requested admission to their diocese, none would allow the fathers to make a foundation. Thoroughly disillusioned, they resolved to go to New York and somehow get third class passage on a ship to Spain. In fact, they were at the station in Milwaukee awaiting the train to New York when one of the Bavarian Carmelites brought Fr. Cirilio a letter which had just arrived from their superiors in Spain. The General Definitories ordered them to remain in the United States and attempt to establish a foundation further south. There, they would be able to keep abreast of affairs in Mexico and be in a better position to oversee their houses and establishments in that country. In addition, because of their common language, they would be able to minister to the spiritual needs of the thousands of Mexicans who were pouring into the United States to escape the ravages of the revolution.
Buoyed by the encouragement and the new challenge, the trio departed for Chicago, where they stayed a few days with a community of Jesuits. One of the Jesuits informed them that there were many Mexicans in Kansas City, Missouri. He suggested that the Bishop of Kansas City might need the assistance of Spanish speaking priests and consequently take them into his diocese. When they reached Kansas City, however, the fathers learned that the bishop was in Rome and that no one in the diocese was empowered to admit them. They then traveled to Leavenworth, Kansas, where there were reportedly even more Mexican immigrants. The Bishop of Leavenworth was also in Europe. While the Carmelites were in Milwaukee, they had requested admission into the Diocese of Oklahoma. Although they had received no reply, they decided to go on to Oklahoma, apparently anticipating a positive response from the bishop. On July 2, 1914, Fathers Cirilio Corbato, Bernardo Brotons, and Luis Benages arrived in Oklahoma City. 4
In many respects, in 1914 the Catholic Church in Oklahoma was still in a missionary stage. Only nine years earlier, in 1905, had the diocese of Oklahoma been created, with Theophile Meerscharet as its first bishop. The new bishop and the Catholic Church faced numerous problems. In 1905 the combined population of Oklahoma's twin territories was 1,500,000. Of that total, only two percent or about 26,500 were Roman Catholic. There were widely scattered over the diocese's 70,000 square miles. The diocese was woefully lacking in priests--in 1907 there were only eighty-eight priests in all of Oklahoma--and those few, of course, had responsibility for enormously expansive territories. Thus, Roman Catholics constituted a small religious minority in a largely rural area and were surrounded by generally conservative Protestant groups who were often openly hostile to them. 5
In 1914, the largest concentration of Roman Catholics was in the coal mining region of the old Choctaw Nation in southeastern Oklahoma. Okmulgee, Pittsburgh, and Coal counties, especially, contained a large number of immigrants who had come to work in the coal fields. Here, thousands of Italians, Poles, Lithuanians, French, Mexicans, and others--principally of Catholic background--predominated. The bleak, often primitive living conditions in the isolated coal towns, the general poverty of the miners, and the multiplicity of languages they spoke placed exacting demand on the few already overtaxed resident priests in the area. 6
The Mexican population of Oklahoma numbered several thousand by the time the Carmelites reached the state. The first Mexican immigrants had come to Oklahoma in the 1890s when they worked on crews constructing the railroads through the mining district. Between 1910 and the Great Depression, many Mexicans found employment on the railroads, in the mines, in the cotton harvest, and on the farms and ranches throughout the state. In 1910 the United States census reported 2645 Mexicans in Oklahoma. By 1920 the Mexican population had risen by more than 250 percent, with the largest concentrations in the Oklahoma City area, in the major railroad centers, and in the coal mining region. This distribution persisted through 1930, when the state's total of first- and second-generation Mexicans was officially reported at nearly 7500. Most of the Mexicans held unskilled jobs, lived near or below the poverty level, spoke no English, were generally unassimilated, and experienced much discrimination on cultural and racial grounds. The presence of the large number of Mexicans sorely taxed the Roman Catholic Church's ability to minister to their spiritual needs, since only a minute fraction of the priests had any knowledge of Spanish. The Discalced Carmelites could, therefore be of great service to this Catholic minority. 7
When the three Carmelites reached Oklahoma City on July 2, 1914, they were disappointed to discover that Bishop Meerschaert was in Europe. Fr. Bernard Mutsaers, pastor at St. Joseph's Cathedral, told them that he did not have the authority to receive them officially into the diocese and suggested that they discuss the matter with the Vicar General, Monsignor Gustave Depreitere, who was pastor at St. Francis Xavier Church in Enid. Monsignor Depreitere told Fr. Cirilio that only the bishop could admit religious to the diocese, but he did give the priest permission to say Mass for two weeks. Depreitere then advised the Carmelites to remain at the Benedictine Abbey in Sacred Heart until Bishop Meerschaert returned. Fr. Leo Gariador, prior of the abbey, cheerfully made them feel at home and arranged for them to begin studying English with one of the retired priests there.
While the three Carmelites were staying at Sacred Heart, Fr. John Davlin, pastor at Hartshorne, visited the abbey and learned of their expulsion from Mexico. Fr. Davlin, who did not speak Spanish, asked that one of the Carmelites go to Hartshorne to give a mission to Mexicans in his parish and at his mission church in Gowen. The Vicar General approved, and Fr. Cirilio Corbato joined Fr. Davlin in Hartshorne, The day after Cirilio's arrival, however, Fr. Gariador received word that the Bishop of Kansas City had returned from Rome. He suggested that Fr. Cirilio go to Kansas City and seek admission to that diocese. Fr. Bernardo Brotons then replaced Cirilio in Harshorne. Fr. Cirilio traveled to Kansas City, Missouri, and worked with the Mexicans there and in Leavenworth, Kansas, until the end of the year. He was unable, however, to establish a foundation.
In the meantime, Fr. Bernardo had completed the mission in Hartshorne and Gowen and had begun another for approximately fifty Mexican families in Pittsburg. The superintendent of the mines in Pittsburg requested that the Carmelites assign a father there to minister to the Mexican miners and their families. He offered to provide the priest a residence, a place to say Mass, and forty dollars a month. On the recommendation of Fr. Davlin and Fr. William Glynn, whom Fr. Bernardo had assisted in Adamson, Vicar General Depreitere granted Bernardo permission to remain in Pittsburg until the bishop returned. On October 13, 1914, after Meerschaert returned from Europe, he admitted the Carmelites into the diocese ad experimentum and designated Pittsburg as their center. The following month, Fr. Eduardo Soler, former superior at the monastery in Aguascalientes, Mexico, and recently in exile in Cuba, joined the Carmelites in Pittsburg. 8
The priests labored under difficult conditions. An old coal company building converted into a small chapel served as their church. That first winter in Pittsburg was so cold that half the time they could not say Mass. On the days they could celebrate, they had to chop the ice from the lumps of coal and sticks of wood to start a fire in their small stove, which hardly took the chill out of the little chapel. Water in the sacristy continually froze, and Fr. Bernardo had to take the sacramental wine back to his room in the hotel to prevent it from freezing as well. Indeed, on one occasion, the wine did freeze in the chalice while Fr. Eduardo was saying Mass. The Carmelites, expanding their area of activity, also served missions and said Mass in numerous surrounding coal towns including Gowen, Adamson, Dow, Savanna, and Brewer. After several other Discalced Carmelite priests and brothers came from Cuba, they worked in parishes in Lehigh, Hartshorne, Langston, and elsewhere. 9
In January, 1915, Fr. William Ketcham, head of the Catholic Indian Bureau, placed Fr. Eduardo Soler in charge of all the Choctaw Catholics in Oklahoma and assigned him the missions at Atoka, Bently, and Boswell. Fr. Eduardo worked among the Choctaws for several years during which time he traveled constantly throughout the area, seldom saying Mass twice in the same place. He established a school at Bently and helped Fr. Ketcham translate the catechism into Choctaw. The primitive conditions in the Piney Woods area severely tested the physical and mental mettle of this energetic priest, who during his tenure in Bentley, founded the Sisters of the Third Order of Mt. Carmel, a teaching order which would staff the schools the order built within their jurisdiction. 10
At the suggestion of Fr. John Davlin, who had been transferred, in June 1916, Bishop Meerschaert assigned the Carmelites to the church at Hartshorne and named Fr. Bernardo Brotons as pastor of the parish. Eight months later, on February 9, 1917, a fire destroyed the church and the priests' residence. Even while the firemen were battling the blaze, however, citizens of Hartshorne began to contribute funds for the construction of a new church and house. Four months later, the fathers dedicated their new church and monastery, and Hartshorne became the center of Carmelite activities for the next five years.
Between 1917 and 1922 they engaged in a wide variety of activities among the Mexicans and other Catholics in the area and oversaw the construction of chapels and parochial schools in several mining towns. In addition, they took charge of the parish at McGehee, Arkansas, and served several missions in the southeastern corner of that state. In 1920 they signed a five-year contract which obligated Carmelites to teach several courses and serve as the spiritual directors of St. John's seminary in Little Rock. In 1920, Fr. Bernardo Brotons founded The Little Flower Magazine, a journal of national circulation which aided the order in numerous ways. The magazine served as an organ to raise money to support the father's missionary work, build and maintain their churches and schools, provide funds so that the Province of Aragon-Valencia could train additional priests for service in Oklahoma, and encourage devotion to the Oklahoma Carmelites' special patron, Blessed (later Saint) Therese of Lisieux--the Little Flower. The magazine began publication in April, 1920, and by the end of the year had 40,000 subscribers; in succeeding years its circulation would reach nearly 100,000. Since Oklahoma did not have a Catholic newspaper at that time, the Carmelites also began to publish a diocesan weekly, The Catholic Home. This publication, now called The Sooner Catholic, remains the weekly newspaper of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma. Both the magazine and the newspaper were published in the order's own print shop, which Fr. Bernardo Brotons established and administered. 11
During these early years, the Carmelites faced numerous challenges in their struggle to adapt to their new environment. among these were their efforts to learn English and become acquainted with the customs of the state. They came to Oklahoma without knowing a word of English. They learned the language remarkably well and in an equally remarkably short time. At first, English-speaking friends wrote notes for them in order to minimize problems at train stations, stores, and restaurants. They often had to resort to complicated pantomimes to make themselves understood. Their unfamiliarity with Oklahoma customs provided humorous and, at times, rather unhappy experiences. On Fr. Eduardo's first night in Hartshorne, he found himself sharing a car with an injured man who was being taken to the hospital. Noting that the man was extremely pale, the priest gave him the only thing he thought might help--a bottle of wine. The injured fellow took a short sip, smiled broadly, and quickly gave it back. Eduardo later understood the man's behavior when he discovered that Oklahoma was a "bone dry" state. Another episode was not so amusing. In November, 1915, Fr. Bernardo Brotons also ran afoul of Oklahoma's anti-liquor laws. The McAlester police had received a tip that a bootlegger was shipping a barrel of whiskey to a man in Pittsburg. By coincidence, a barrel of sacramental wine for Fr. Bernardo was on the same train. The bootlegger, however, was able to retrieve his barrel before the police found it. Thus, when the train reached Pittsburg, the police saw only one barrel--the one sent to Fr. Bernardo. When the priest appeared at the station to collect his shipment, the police placed him under arrest. They paid no attention to his protests and claims of innocence. Finally, the mining superintendent discovered his predicament, secured his release, and chastised the police officers for their behavior. 12
On July 1, 1921, Bishop Meerschaert gave his approval for the permanent foundation of the Discalced Carmelites in the Diocese of Oklahoma. He placed all Mexican people in the state under the care of the Carmelite fathers, who would assist pastors in parishes with Mexican members. In addition, he instructed the Carmelites to establish a central mission in Oklahoma City, with a resident father in full charge. From this headquarters, the Carmelites would then travel throughout the state, establish missions wherever possible, and minister to the spiritual and material needs of those Mexicans who had no fixed abode. The growing number of Mexicans in the state capital and the inability of the resident parish priests to serve them adequately had increased the bishop's dependence on the Spanish Carmelites. In addition, the circulation of the diocesan newspaper had grown to 5000, and the bishop wanted the Carmelites to move their print shop to the see city. They selected a large vacant lot on the corner of Eleventh Street and South Walker as the site of their future home and quickly set about to make their new foundation. 13
Fr. Eduardo Soler was placed in charge of the new mission. He immediately took a census of the Mexican residents of Oklahoma City and found approximately 200 families and over 100 single men. Many Mexican men worked on the section crews of the various railroads--principally the Santa Fe; another large group worked in the meatpacking plants and lived in the Packingtown district of south Oklahoma City. Fr. Eduardo held Masses for his Mexican parishioners in the basement of St. Joseph's Cathedral until the mission chapel was completed. He tirelessly worked throughout the riverside area and on the outskirts of the city, visiting the indigent and the sick and helping them the best he could. On May 14, 1922, he offered the first Mass in the mission--Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Chapel. 14
During the next few years, the Carmelites built an impressive physical plant and offered a broad range of religious, educational, and social services for their Mexican parishioners. Their institutions included the Little Flower Home, a combination church and residence; the Little Flower School; a Motherhouse for the Sisters of the Third Order of Mt. Carmel, who staffed the school and the Little Flower Community House, which served as an instructional and recreational center for the parish. In addition, they opened a free clinic, where once a week a physician and a dentist donated their services for the impoverished Mexicans in the area. 15
Throughout this period, one of the Carmelites principal goals was to build "the most beautiful church in the United States" and dedicate it to their patron--the Little Flower. Their initial design called for a truly magnificent structure which would cost an estimated $500,000 (to be raised principally by an appeal for donations and through the profits derived from The Little Flower Magazine.) The bishop advised them, however, to revise their plans and build a church of much more modest proportions. The bishop deemed such an elegant structure as unsuitable for mission territory and also expressed his concern for the Ku Klux Klan's threat to destroy the church if the original project was carried to completion. In March, 1927, the Shrine of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and St. Therese was dedicated. While the $100,000 structure was impressive, the Carmelites were disappointed that it did not equal the magnificent shrine they had originally envisioned. The Shrine remains to the present, however, as the focus of Mexican culture and activity in Oklahoma City. 16
While the Carmelites' work with the Mexicans in Oklahoma was increasingly centered on the Oklahoma City area, their missionary activities outside the state capital persisted. Bishop Francis C. Kelley, Theophile Meerschaert's successor, further encouraged the Carmelites to missionize Mexicans in the rural areas of the state. In 1924 he placed Fr. Geronimo Castellet in charge of the entire Mexican mission field. By the end of 1925, Fr. Geronimo had ministered to over 2500 Mexicans in thirty-four separate areas, principally in the scattered railroad camps throughout the state. Traveling constantly in his "Ford Express", after his first twelve months on the job he had been able to cover barely one-third of the territory assigned to him. 17
By the end of 1929, the geographical focus of the Carmelites' work was vitally limited. In the early 1920s, the coal mining industry had declined precipitously, and only a fraction of the Mexicans who once lived and worked in the coal towns remained. As the Great Depression approached, the railroads curtailed their employment of Mexicans. Similar reductions occurred in the meatpacking industry, on farms and ranches, and in other areas of employment. A general exodus of Mexicans from Oklahoma ensued. Many moved on to Texas or California or returned to Mexico. A large portion of those who remained in the state, however, moved to Oklahoma City or Tulsa, where the Carmelites continued to serve them. 18
We must mention, however, that while the Carmelites considerably reduced the territory they served in Oklahoma by 1929, they had already expanded their activities outside the state. Between 1926 and 1930, Fathers Cirilio, Bernardo, Luis, Eduardo and others had established additional missions, made new foundations, and erected schools in many parts of central and south Texas, especially in the Dallas and San Antonio areas. While this chapter of the Carmelites' work is outside the scope of this paper, their efforts to serve the burgeoning number of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in Texas merely reflects the dedication and energy they had amply demonstrated during their first fifteen years in Oklahoma. 19
Thus, between 1914 and 1929, this small group of Spanish religious played a profoundly influential role in the Catholic Church of Oklahoma's mission to serve the spiritual and material needs of its immigrant members. Intimately, principally, but not exclusively, associated with the thousands of Mexicans who sought refuge here from the ravages of revolution or the grinding poverty of their native land, the Order of Discalced Carmelites served a unique and important function. They added valuable numbers to the pitifully small and overworked secular clergy in Oklahoma. They overcame physical and cultural barriers to sustain the faith, provide religious instruction, build schools, erect churches, administer the sacraments, comfort the sick, and help the poor. They truly deserve a recognized place in the religious and social history of the state of Oklahoma.
Notes
1. The most complete study of the Order of Discalced Carmelites is Fr. Silverio de Santa Teresa's monumental Historia del Carmen Descalzo en Espana, Portugal y America, 15 Vols. (Burgos: Imprenta y Editorial "El Monte Carmelo," 1949). A fine, single-volume history in English is Peter-Thomas Rohrbach's Journey to Carith: The Story of the Carmelite Order (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1966). Michael M. Smith's The Mexicans in Oklahoma (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980) offers a brief historical survey of that immigrant group in the Sooner State. The order's Little Flower Magazine also contains much specific information concerning its work in Oklahoma.
2. Silverio de Santa Teresa, Historia del Carmen Descalzo, Vol. XIV, pp 54-79; Rohrbach, Journey to Carith, pp. 208, 327-328.
3. Silverio de Santa Teresa, Historia del Carmen Descalzo, Vol., XIV, p. 80. The most valuable accounts of the Discalced Carmelites' expulsion from Mexico and subsequent establishment in Oklahoma may be found in four unpublished accounts -- translated and in the possession of this writer -- generally entitled "History of the Origins of the Carmelite Province of America." They are: "An Account of the Origins of These American Houses, According to the Statement of Father Cirilio do la Virgen Maria," 18 pp. (hereafter cited as "Cirilio"); "Origin and Establishment of Our Order in the United States, According to the Account of Fr. Bernardo," 14 pp. (hereafter cited as "Bernardo"); "A Copy of Fr. Eduardo's Diary," 50 pp. (hereafter cited as "Eduardo"); and "A Brief Historical Sketch of Our Entrance into the Foundation in North America from 1914-1929," 10 pp. by an anonymous author (hereafter cited as "Anonymous").
4. "Cirilio," pp. 1-6; "Bernardo," pp. 1-4; "Anonymous," pp. 1-2.
5. Thomas Elton Brown, "Bible-Belt Catholicism: A History of the Roman Catholic Church in Oklahoma, 1905-1945" (Ph. D. dissertation, Oklahoma State University, 1974), pp. 1-45; David Monahan, One Family: One Century: A Pictographic History of the Catholic Church in Oklahoma 1875-1975 (Oklahoma City: Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, 1977), pp. 2-59.
6. Brown, "Bible-Belt Catholicism," pp. 8-9; U. S. Congress, Senate, Reports of the Immigration Commission, VII: Immigrants in Industries, pt. 1:Bitumious Coal Mining, 61st. Cong., 3rd Sess. (Washington, GPO, 1911) pp. 16-126; Stanley Clark, "Immigrants in the Choctaw Coal Industry," Chronicles of Oklahoma, 33:4 (Winter, 1955-1956): 440-455.
7. Smith, The Mexicans in Oklahoma, pp. 25-30.
8. "Cirilio," pp. 6-10; "Bernardo," pp. 4-5; "Anonymous," p. 2; "Eduardo," pp. 1-2.
9. "Cirilio," pp. 10-11; "Eduardo," p. 3; "Anonymous," p. 3; "Bernardo," pp. 6-7.
10. "Eduardo," pp. 4-19; "Anonymous," p. 6; The Little Flower Magazine, 32:1 (April, 1952): 23.
11. "Cirilio," pp. 14-18; "Bernardo," pp. 7-12; "Eduardo," pp. 7-29; "Anonymous," pp. 3-8.
12. "Anonymous," p. 3; "Eduardo," pp. 2-3, 16.
13. "Cirilio," p. 17; "Bernardo," pp. 12-14; "Anonymous," pp. 7-8; "Eduardo," p. 29; The Little Flower Magazine, 2:6 (September, 1921): 40-41.
14. "Eduardo," pp. 29-30; The Little Flower Magazine, 32:1 (April, 1952): 21.
15. Renier Sevens, "Report of the Vicar for Missions of the Diocese of Oklahoma for the Fiscal Year 1925," The Southwest Courier, March 26, 1927.
16. The Little Flower Magazine, 57:6 (February-March, 1977): 16-18; The Southwest Courier, March 26, 1927.
17. Sevens, "Report of the Vicar for Missions."
18. Smith, The Mexicans in Oklahoma. pp. 46-51.
19. "Cirilio," p. 18; "Anonymous," pp. 9-10; "Eduardo," pp. 36-50; Silverio de Santa Teresa, Historia del Carmen Descalzo, pp. 86-92; The Little Flower Magazine, 57:1 (April-May, 1977): 25-27.