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Editor's Preface

SEVERAL THOUSAND persons who now have connections with or roots in Colonia Juarez will be grateful to Nelle Spilsbury Hatch for preparing this account of a unique pioneer endeavor. The story is seen through a woman's eyes-a woman of superior intelligence and wide experience; of courage and patience. Not only was the material often difficult to secure or verify but the author faces the sure and natural reaction of some persons who will consider the account inadequate insofar as doing justice to their own relatives or family. It is not as they themselves remember or always thought. The editor urges all readers to appreciate the great problem that faced the author in keeping the work down to a publishable volume.

Any account of Colonia Juarez falls quite naturally into four parts-the visissitudes of founding and settling, the prosperous times before the Exodus, difficult revolutionary days, and the Colonia Juarez of today. The first three phases of the town's history urgently required writing before primary source materials became impossibly scarce and memories completely faded. The major part of the book, therefore, is devoted to the first three periods. The author has, however, given us an exciting glimpse of the conditions and promise of the town as of today. Colonia Juarez does seem to be entering on a new phase of its history.

This promise together with the accelerated tempo of life in the town invite some reflection on the quality of living in Colonia Juarez as it was, particularly during the first two periods when the reputation of the town was being built, and as it is at present or may be in the future.

The excellence of both community life and individual living attained in the town at the height of its prosperity just before the Exodus were remarkable for such an isolated small place. Those physical comforts and spiritual satisfactions most needed by man to give him contentment, security, and happiness were in evidence and fully enjoyed. There was a maximum of human association of the kind needed by people to give a sense of belonging and of spiritual fulfillment. There was well-distributed ownership of land and property with few power-centered individuals; general participation in community activities of a cultural and intellectual kind and creative reliance on home-grown ideas for entertainment. Great pleasure and satisfaction came from things that did not cost much-in the simple and plain whether of food, or clothing or entertainment.