Women in El Paso History
Women have been essential in the development and reproduction of our history.
Without women, history, and life ceases. Unfortunately, historians and the population at
large often dismiss the important contributions of women. In this short history of women
in El Paso, we will attempt to recover some of the lesser-known women who have
greatly contributed to the founding and expansion of our culture and politics that make
the El Paso borderlands unique. Contrary to popular belief, women have been important
agents in the development of our region. From pre-historic times, using archeological
evidence of women’s labor, without which our ancestors would have never survived past the winter months, and during historical times, throughout the social-political changes
brought about by the changing of our borderland’s flags: from Spain, Mexico, Texas, to
the USA – women have been of the forefront of historical changes.
Some notable (but mostly unknown) El Paso Women are the following:
Teresa “Teresita” Urrea (curandera) – The “Joan of Arc of Mexico,” “The Saint
of Cabora.” Teresa Urrea was the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy Mexican landowner,
Don Tomas de Urrea, and a fifteen-year-old Tehueco Indian girl, Cayetana Chavez.
Born in Ocorini, Sinaloa, on October 15, 1873, Teresita (as she was dearly called)
became a folk heroine from her teenage years until her death on January 11, 1906, not
just for the community along the US-Mexico border, but for Native people such as the
Yaqui and the Mayo as well. In fact, those seeking Teresita for her miraculous cures
spanned all kinds of socioeconomic and racial backgrounds: from local Mexicans,
Mexican Americans, Mexicans from Chihuahua and Sonora, as well as local Euro-
Americans. 1 Known not just for her miracle work as a curandera, but Teresita was also a
feminist and revolutionary. 2 Her role as a curandera allowed Teresita to defy rigid gender
roles of her time. 3 Her supernatural powers were legitimized by her usual 1,200
followers who would camp wherever she would go waiting for her healing hands. 4
Following a couple of rebellions attributed to her name, Teresita was ordered into exile
by then-Mexican President Porfirio Diaz in 1892. They first lived in the border town of
Nogales, Arizona, then in 1895, she moved to Solomonville, AZ, and then landed in El
Paso in 1897. In El Paso, she resided on the corner of Oregon and Third Street. After
surviving at least three different assassination attempts in El Paso, Teresita was forced
to move with her father to Clifton, Arizona, away from the volatile border area. 5 Teresita
died on January 11 th , 1906.
1 Marian Perales, “Curandera and Folk Saint” Latina Legacies: Identity, Biography, and Community
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005),108
2 William Curry Holden, Teresita (Owing Mills, MA: Stemmer House, 1978). Also see, Maria Esquinca,
“Terea Urrea: The Mexican Joan of Arc” Latino USA, https://www.latinousa.org/2021/11/05/teresaurrea/.
Also see, Victor Mendoza Photograph Collection (PH031), UTEP Special Collections
3 Marian Perales, “Curandera and Folk Saint”, 100
4 Maria Esquinca, “Teresa Urrea.”
5 Frances Mayhugh Holden, “Urrea, Teresa,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 13, 2024,
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/urrea-teresa. Also see, David Romo, Ringside Seat to the
Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juárez: 1893-1923 (El Paso: Cinco Puntos
Press, 2017), 21.
Maud Durlin Sullivan (librarian) – Born in Janesville, Wisconsin in December
1870. Came to El Paso in 1908 (moved to the Mogollon Mountains from 1912-1917;
came back to El Paso in April 1917 and died in El Paso on December 28, 1943). Under
her direction, the EL Paso Public Library (downtown) was recognized by the Carnegie
Institute as one of the country’s greatest (out of 35,000 libraries countrywide). 6 In 1919,
the library had 17,453 volumes; ten years later, it had 36,842 volumes, and by 1940, it
had 112,290 books and pamphlets. 7 Sullivan built the library’s excellent mining
reference section, which has been used by engineers from throughout the southwest.
She taught herself Spanish so she could personally pick books in Spanish (which, at the
time of her return to El Paso in 1917, the library had next to zero), but at the time of her
death in 1943, the library had more than 2,000 volumes in Spanish. She established a
working relationship with the Chief of the Ministry of Education, Department of Libraries,
from Mexico, Mr. Rafael Meliodoro Valle, and Rene d’Harnoncourt, wherein she was
able to acquire many of these Spanish volumes. 8 She also built up the library’s widely
respected Southwest Collection, which at the time of her death included 3,481 volumes
on southwestern history. She was sent to Spain by the Carnegie Foundation to
represent them in the International Relations Committee of Libraries and Bibliography.
Without the work that Mrs. Sullivan did for El Paso’s Public Library, El Paso, as a
premier destination for studying US Southwest history, arts, and literature would never
have been possible.
Berenice Love Wiggins (poet) – Berenice Love Wiggins was one of the first
African American female poets to be published in Texas. Born in Austin, TX in 1897 but
raised in El Paso, Wiggins self-published her first book of poetry, Tuneful Tales, in 1925.
Writing with the same intent of the Harlem Renaissance – wherein writers and artists
gave voice, passion, and direction to black Americans who sought a desperate respite
from racism by building their own sense of a unique community. Wiggins, however, was
writing from distant lands: El Paso. Thus, Wiggins, represented how the Harlem
Renaissance was not limited by geography, but was rather rich and mobile in spirit. 9 As
the late Dr. Maceo C. Daily succinctly said: “In exploring human motives and activities in
the Southwest, Wiggins largely eschewed the folkloric frontier history and emphasis on
explores, adventures, gunfighters, and military personnel, to write about the ordinary
black community or, to use her words, ‘wheresover [her] people chanced to dwell.’” 10
Unfortunately, we do not know much about Wiggins after she left El Paso for Los
Angeles during the 1930s. 11 It seems Wiggins simply vanished into history.
6 MS423 Maud Sullivan Papers, Box 1, UTEP Special Collections; Also see Betty Mary Goetting, “Maud
Durlin Sullivan” in MS423 Maud Sullivan Papers, Box 1. Tom Lea Jr., “Maud Durlin Sullivan, 1872-1944:
Pioneer Southwestern Librarian (Printed by Carl Hertzog of El Paso for the Class of 1962, School of
Library Service: University of California, Los Angeles, 1962).
7 Martin Donell Kohout, “Sullivan, Maud Durlin,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 13, 2024,
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/sullivan-maud-durlin.
8 Ibid, Box 2, Letter from Mrs. Maud Sullivan to Mr. Rafael Meliodoro Valle, July 17, 1930. Letter from
Richard F. Burges to Mrs. Maud D. Sullivan, March 11, 1927.
9 Maceo C. Daily, “Introduction” in Tuneful Tales: In the Remote Desert of 1925 El Paso Bloomed a bit of
the Harlem Renaissance (Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 2002), vii
10 Ibid, vii-viii
Margaret “Mago” Gandara (muralist) – Born February 8, 1929, Mago was
known for her monumental mosaic murals throughout El Paso and Juarez. Her first
monumental mural commission was with the construction of El Paso Community
College’s main campus at Valle Verde. This mural would take from 1973 to 1978 to
complete.The title, “Time and Sand,” was derived from Mago’s reflections on the infinite
grains of sand that make up the Chihuahuan desert with the concept of eternity. In her
early days, no one thought of her as an artist. As Mago jokingly stated in her diaries,
she was “artistica… but not an artist.” 12 In the fall of 1946, Mago signed up for Urbici
Soler’s life drawing class and immediately became one of his favorite students. Mago
was inspired by Soler’s knowledge of the human form, which would later be a leitmotif in
her mural work. Soler instilled in Mago the idea of a true artist as an individual who is
creative, disciplined, and open to new possibilities. 13 After graduating from UTEP in
1949 with a BFA in fine arts and education, Mago was hired as an art teacher at Bowie
High School. She then moved to Chicago for a brief time to study art, came back to El
Paso and began to pursue her career as a muralist full-time. Mago Gandara was not
just a muralist, she was also an activist and feminist, always attempting to expand
people’s consciousness in both El Paso and Juárez, MX. Her studios in both cities
attest to the fronteriza lifestyle most of us living on the border embody. Mago even had
an unfortunate encounter with sicarios in her studio in Juárez (Studio Cui) and was
forced into exile back to El Paso. 14 Nonetheless, and up until her very last days, Mago
continued to make art and inspire those around her. Mago died peacefully and
surrounded by loved ones in her studio/home in El Paso on February 18 th , 2017.
Tracing the biographies of these four women (Teresa Urrea, Maud D. Sullivan,
Berenice L. Wiggins, and Margarita “Mago” Gandara) who made a great impact on the
history of El Paso demonstrates how important women were (and still are) for our El
Paso border region and beyond.
11 Maceo C. Daily, “Introduction” in Wheresoever My People Chance to Dwell: Oral Histories with African
American Women of El Paso (Baltimore: Imprint Edition, 2000), xi
12 Quoted in George Vargas, Mago Gandara: A Woman Muralist on the Border (Center for Inter-American
and Border Studies- Border Perspectives – No. 13, August 1995: El Paso: University of Texas at El
Paso), 10
13 Ibid, 12
14 Ramon Rentería, “Muralista huyó de Juárez a causa de la violencia” El Paso y Más (August 27, 2011)
Bibliography
Primary Sources:
Maud Sullivan Papers, MS423, UTEP C.L. Sonnichsen Special Collections
Rentería, Ramon “Muralista huyó de Juárez a causa de la violencia” El Paso y Más.
August 27, 2011
Victor Mendoza Photograph Collection (PH031), UTEP C.L. Sonnichsen Special
Collections
Secondary Sources:
Daily, Maceo C. “Introduction” in Wheresoever My People Chance to Dwell: Oral
Histories with African American Women of El Paso. Baltimore: Imprint Edition,
2000
Daily, Maceo C. “Introduction” in Tuneful Tales: In the Remote Desert of 1925 El Paso
Bloomed a bit of the Harlem Renaissance. Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University
Press, 2002
Esquinca, Maria “Terea Urrea: The Mexican Joan of Arc” Latino USA,
Holden, William Curry. Teresita. Owing Mills, MA: Stemmer House, 1978
Kohout, Martin Donell “Sullivan, Maud Durlin,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed
March 13, 2024, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/sullivan-maud-
durlin
Lea Jr., Tom. “Maud Durlin Sullivan, 1872-1944: Pioneer Southwestern Librarian.
Printed by Carl Hertzog of El Paso for the Class of 1962, School of Library
Service: University of California, Los Angeles, 1962
Perales, Marian. “Curandera and Folk Saint” Latina Legacies: Identity, Biography, and
Community. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005
Romo, David Ringside Seat to the Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El
Paso and Juárez: 1893-1923. El Paso: Cinco Puntos Press, 2017
Vargas, George. Mago Gandara: A Woman Muralist on the Border. Center for Inter-
American and Border Studies- Border Perspectives – No. 13, August 1995: El
Paso: University of Texas at El Paso