My Great-Grandfather Found Buried in U.S. Military Cemetery in Mexico City!

Last fall, our seven-year-old grandson in Chicago brought home a school assignment to construct a Family Tree, which prompted his maternal grandmother (maiden name, Kingman; born in Chicago, raised in California) to dig out the Kingman Geneology prepared decades ago by my aunt (father's sister).

I read with interest of the arrival of Henry Kingman and his family, listed as members of the 'Hull Party' that landed in Massachusetts in 1635. Setting aside for the moment the displacement of Native Americans, I noted their settlement of land in what is today the town of Weymouth—after Plymouth, the oldest town in Massachusetts. I read of the successive generations of Kingmans living and farming in Massachusetts and of their eventual relocation to Clifton, a farming community in southern Illinois.

But the next entry simply stopped me in my tracks:

In the 1890's, Charles Henry Kingman worked for Lewis Co., mine operators, in Mexico City; died of pneumonia and buried in Mexico City. Died March 19, 1900. A gentle and good-natured man. 

It is hard enough to take in that I wasn't aware that my great-grandfather is buried in Mexico City, but it turns out that there's more:

Barry Kingman [my grandfather] born March 19, 1875, went to Mexico with his father and worked for Lewis Co. at Zacatecas [famous for its mines of silver, lead, gold, copper, zinc and cadmium]; when he heard of his father's illness, Barry went down to Mexico City to be with him; Charles died on Barry's twenty-fifth birthday.

I wonder what father and son might think of the fact that 118 years later their great-granddaughter and granddaughter would be about to complete ten years of living in Mexico. What greater testimony could be offered of the many links between our two countries than this—the internment in Mexico of a U.S. citizen coupled with the long-term Mexican residency of his great-granddaughter?

Quite naturally, the first question that popped into my head was:

What on earth was great-grandfather Charles Henry doing in Mexico? 

We are familiar with mining's difficult, painful history in Mexico—a business practice still carried on by today's transnational mining companies. But it began five hundred years ago with the Spanish subjugation of the land's indigenous peoples, pressing the men into forced labor in the gold and silver mines. The extracted wealth was sent back to Spain, where the monarchy used it to finance their imperial exploits. It is understandable, then, my first thought was, 'Oh, no—not mining!'

Fortunately, I am married to a real history buff. When I gave Reed the date of Charles Henry's death, he was quick to pinpoint it as taking place during the 35-year dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz—the period known as the 'Porfiriato'. [For more information, see post in Reed's Mexico Ambles blog.]

Díaz got himself "re-elected" president of Mexico over a thirty-five year period (1877-1911). For the upper-class, it was an era of political stability, industrialization and economic growth. For the lower classes, it was a time of exclusion and suppression of protests.

Díaz maintained control through "Pan o palo", "bread or stick", an informal system based on personal loyalty using patronage and repression. His motto was "little politics and plenty of administration."

The epoch was suddenly brought to an end with the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in November 1910, when various forces of social, political and economic opposition exploded. [Emphasis added.]

So it seems that the business activity of the Lewis Mining Co. took place at the invitation of Porfirio Díaz, part of his strategy to bring in foreign expertise to assist in industrializing Mexico for the purpose of promoting economic growth. In yet another historical twist, twenty years ago (1992-1994), I had a two-year consulting project with the Subdirectorate of Natural Gas at Pemex (Mexican Oil Company) that focused on improving work efficiency.

It seems that the more this story unfolds, the more layers are uncovered—even including a certain ironic twist. To wit, I discovered a newspaper article titled 'Ruined by a Wicked Partner', dated November 25, 1889, reporting the filing of a legal action by Charles Henry Kingman in Chicago Superior Court against his business partner. The article gives Charles Henry's account of how the partner defrauded and bankrupted the Kingmans' thriving wholesale grocery business.

Hence, in an ironic reversal of today's dominant reality, it seems that in the wake of the devastating business loss, Charles Henry and his elder son came to Mexico to recoup the family's finances.

A little more digging, and I quickly discovered that great-grandfather is buried in the Mexico City National Cemetery. It should be quickly noted that 'National' is from a U.S. perspective. In Spanish, its name is the Panteón Norteamericano, North American [i.e., U.S.] Cemetery. It is maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission, ABMC, under the Department of Defense of the U.S. government.

A recent visit by our elder daughter, who lives in Chicago, seemed like a perfect time to make a visit.  So on a sunny Sunday morning, we all headed to the cemetery in the San Rafael neighborhood, which is one of the upscale neighborhoods created just west of Mexico City's Historic Center toward the end of the Porfiriato to provide housing for the Mexican and foreign business class. 

Stepping through the gate, visitors are greeted by plants trimmed to spell out the acronym: ABMC.

ABMC
American Battle Monuments Commission

The rectangular one-acre space that makes up the cemetery is beautifully landscaped and meticulously maintained.

The white stone monument at the south end is flanked by two flagpoles, each flying the U.S. flag.

It is forbidden to walk on the grass, so any capture of the monument
flanked by U.S. flags, of necessity, includes the gardener's lawnmower. 

It seems somehow fitting for the lawnmower to be part of the photo. The gardener, a kindly man, turned off the sprinklers so we could walk along the sidewalk, looking for my great-grandfather's crypt. He also tried to help us locate the crypt, but, in the end, it was our elder daughter who found it.

Charles Henry Kingman
Born, January 8, 1845; he spent his childhood on a farm in Southern Illinois.
He served in the Civil War (Illinois Regiment, Union Army),
which made him eligible to be buried in the U.S. military cemetery.
He died on March 19, 1900.

Monument to unidentified U.S. Soldiers killed
During Mexican-American War (1846-1848),
known in Mexico as the American Intervention. 

From the ABMC website:

"The Mexico City National Cemetery was established in 1851 by the U.S. Congress to gather the dead of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) that lay in the nearby fields and to provide burial space for Americans that died in the vicinity. In 1851, the remains of 750 U.S. dead were gathered and buried in a common grave at this cemetery.

Buried at the Mexico City National Cemetery are American servicemen who served either during the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), Civil War or Spanish American War [Cuba]. 

The remains of 813 Americans are bruied in wall crypts lining two sides of the cemetery. The cemetery was closed to further burials in 1923."

East Crypt Wall viewed from West Crypt Wall.

The sidewalks around the park are lined by park benches which invite quiet reflection.

Mexican couple walking slowly along the West Wall,
reading the markers as they go.

Toward the end of our visit, a middle-aged, probably professional Mexican couple arrived and began walking slowly along the sidewalks, taking time to read names on the crypts. After I took this photo, I approached the couple and asked whether they had a relative buried in the cemetery.  When they answered in the negative, I couldn't help blurting out, "My great-grandfather is buried here. He worked in Mexico City near the end of the Porfiriato and died here of pneumonia."

Their gentle acceptance of my information was yet one more reminder of the tremendous amabilidad, kindness the vast majority of Mexicans accord to USians who show respect and demonstrate interest in Mexico's culture, history, and people.

On this note, we concluded our visit to the final resting place of my great-grandfather, our two daughters' great-great-grandfather, and our grandchildren's great-great-great-grandfather. 

We leave the cemetery carrying with us all that the cycle in our family history connotes—a kind of ironic turning of the tables that upends many of the assumptions about the relations between people in the country of our birth and those of our host country.

Related posts in our family of blogs:

• Geography: Ground of Mexico's History and Culture (Voices for Mother Earth);
• Mexico Culture: ex-Convento Churubusco - Part II Military History (Jenny's Journal of Mexican Culture);
• The Porfiriato: French Culture Conquers Mexico City (Mexico City Ambles).