FEATURE

Fe Y Familia LAMPASAS CENTENARIAN SHARES SECRETS TO A YOUTHFUL HEART

BY ALEXANDRIA RANDOLPH DISPATCH RECORD

Editor’s note: Beatriz Garza’s first language is Spanish, and some of her responses above were provided by a bilingual translator.

A Lampasas centenarian attributed her long life to faith and the will of God, good family and learning to enjoy the little things.

Beatriz “Beatrice” Garza is 102 years old. She lives at Lily Springs Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center. Garza said she never expected to live such a long life, and her faith is what keeps her going.

“In my thoughts, it’s because, I believe, just God has me here, nothing else,” she said. “I’ve lost my three sons. I want to be with my sons, but it’s not going to be until God decides it. I’ve never thought about it, but I’ve been told God has me here for a purpose – to help my neighbors in some way.”

Daughter Olga Garza said her mother is an example to all around her.

“She’s very verbal about her faith,” Olga Garza said. “She’s constantly witnessing. She goes out of her way to lift people’s spirits.”

Beatriz Garza has a number of friends at the rehabilitation facility, and she regularly participates in social activities, especially when plants are involved, said Angel Norton, center activity director.

“I love plants,” Garza said. “They enchant me.”

Garza keeps looking to God’s purpose and plan, even when life has presented her with great challenges.

“My only wish is that if my sisters are afflicted with illness, that they will trust in the Lord like I did when my legs were amputated,” she said.

Garza’s legs were removed in 2012 due to peripheral artery disease, but it hasn’t weigh on her spirits.

“I never questioned or asked, ‘Why me?’ That’s what the Lord put in my life, and I moved on. I

take it all to the Lord – everything.”

“When they bathe her, sometimes she jokes, ‘Don’t forget to wash my feet!’ She’s very funny,” Olga Garza said.

“I’ve learned to find joy in the little things,” Beatriz Garza said. “Just our Lord Jesus is what gives me strength and courage.”

Garza devoted her life to a loving family, she said. Now, she enjoys time with her greatgranddaughter Jaxi Sanchez, sharing memories and encouraging her to learn Spanish.

“I’m happy to have a Great-Mimi,” Sanchez said. “I like wheeling her around.”

Garza grew up in San Antonio.

“It was kind of like Killeen is now,” she said.

Her early memories are of her six siblings and helping her mother with household chores.

“My mom had very simple things, like a coffee pot and a kettle, and two old-fashioned irons,” Garza recalled. “We used to heat the irons outside on the fire.”

The family also cooked their meals outdoors and slept in cotton sacks.

Garza grew up in a family of nine. She had four sisters and two brothers. Two other siblings died in infancy.

She and her siblings worked alongside their father, harvesting cotton in the fields around San Antonio. In those times, Garza said harvesters walked for miles to the fields where they worked.

“My father would get up at night and whisper to us, ‘You poor children, you worked so hard beside your father,’” Garza said.

She described her parents as strict but said they had “buenos requerdos” – good requirements or intentions.

Garza moved in 1945 to Lampasas, where she married her husband, Zaragosa Garza, and created a family of her own. The couple had five children: three sons and two daughters.

Many Lampasas County families at the time still were affected by the Great Depression and the aftermath of World War II, she said.

“Over the years in Lampasas, there was much change,” Garza said. “When I first came here, people were still struggling.”

She added that many residents, especially Hispanics, struggled socially and economically.

“It was hard for them to get to the [financial] level of people who already had [wealth],” she said. “Their education wasn’t on the same level.”

Garza took a job picking cotton, continuing the work she had done as a youth. Later she took a job at a local bakery and had to walk 12 miles each day to get to work.

Despite the challenges, Garza said her life here in Lampasas has been “very good, because God gave me a very good family.”

Over the course of her many years, Garza has found joy in the simplicities of life. She loves planting and cooking for her family.

“It made me happy to cook for people,” she said.

Photo by Alexandria Randolph Beatriz Garza, 102, attributes her long life to faith, a good family and finding joy in the little things. She is frequently visited by her daughter, Olga Garza, and greatgranddaughter, Jaxi Sanchez, pictured left to right.

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