Mexican revolutionary period

The Mexican revolutionary period enters the family’s life as both a material threat to the ranch and a force that carries Gertrudis into public power. Its effects are registered not only in soldiers and military orders, but also in the family’s efforts to preserve food, in separations and returns, and in the uneasy persistence of revolution as a possible renewed danger.

The Revolution at the Ranch

Several days after the Mexican Revolutionary Army visited the ranch, the household was making sausage from one of the few pigs left alive. The family had also prepared salt pork, ham, bacon, and lard, trying to make the most of scarce livestock. Earlier shortages had forced the killing of animals the ranch depended on, and the manager, Nicholas, had gone to buy replacement cattle. The political conflict thus reaches the family through immediate questions of food and survival, not as distant public history.

When Rosalio reported that soldiers were approaching, Mama Elena took up her shotgun and ordered Tita, Chencha, and the pig into the cellar. Her fears rested on accounts she had heard from Father Ignacio and the mayor of Piedras Negras, which described rebels destroying homes and endangering women. She met the arriving troops at the entrance with Rosalio and Guadalupe beside her and the weapon concealed beneath her petticoats. The captain recognized her resolve; after speaking with her, he ordered his men not to enter the house.

The soldiers nevertheless searched elsewhere on the property. Three climbed a twenty-foot ladder to the roof’s enormous dovecote, shut its door and windows, and trapped the birds. They gathered enough pigeons and doves to feed the battalion for a week. The encounter therefore ends with the house itself protected by Mama Elena’s authority, but with the family’s resources still exposed to military requisition.

Gertrudis’s Military Life

For Gertrudis, the revolutionary period is not merely a threat pressing in from outside the household. She returns as a general in the Mexican Revolutionary Army, a rank she earned through hard work and fighting in the field. Her rapid rise through positions of authority makes military command part of her own life story. She comes back married to Juan Alejandrez, hoping to show Mama Elena how far she has risen, but learns from Tita that her mother has died. Her achievement is consequently shadowed by the lost chance to have her mother witness it.

During her return, Gertrudis shares a quiet moment with Tita over chocolate prepared according to the family’s way. She grieves for Mama Elena and remembers that she had wanted even a small sign of maternal correction from her. Later, at the family gathering, she speaks to admirers about her experience in battle and the authority she exercised there. Her military identity is visible in the contrast between the questions she fields as a commander and her place among family recipes and customs that Tita alone knows how to preserve.

Gertrudis cannot remain at the ranch. While Tita tends to Pedro’s recovery, Gertrudis explains that her orders are to attack Zacatecas and that she must leave. Before departing, she urges Tita not to abandon her struggle for Pedro and offers practical advice. Juan Alejandrez then calls her away to join the departing troop. The separation is affectionate but governed by military duty: Gertrudis and Tita embrace, and Gertrudis rides off with her childhood represented by the cream fritters packed in her saddlebag.

Return, Aftermath, and Memory

The revolution’s chronology remains active even when fighting is not occurring in the foreground. When Pedro hears a prolonged noise and feels the floor shake, he briefly wonders whether cannon fire means the revolution has begun again, though he rejects that explanation. The moment shows how recent political violence has made renewed conflict imaginable, even in a domestic scene whose immediate cause lies elsewhere.

By the time Gertrudis arrives for Esperanza and Alex’s wedding, she is accompanied by Sergeant Trevino, whom she hired as a personal bodyguard after the revolution. Her military past has therefore left a continuing mark on her public life. Across these episodes, the revolutionary period rearranges the boundaries between home and battlefield: Mama Elena defends the household with a hidden weapon, Gertrudis leaves it under orders and returns with the standing of a commander, while food, family memory, and the fear of renewed violence keep the conflict present in daily life.