AC Hill

The A.C. in AC Hill stood for Arizona Copper, one of the early mining companies in Morenci. For me, it meant home. That's where my family and friends lived. Family for me was my mother's large extended family, the Díaz family. Mis abuelitos, Wenseslado y Teresa Díaz had seven daughters and two sons and they all had children. I grew up very close to my twenty-eight first cousins and my twenty-nine second cousins.

Our family tradition on Sundays after Mass, was to go to Mama Teresita's house. The entire extended family met there every week and along with holidays, baptisms, weddings, and funerals this was the time for the whole clan to get together. Except for two aunts who lived in Plantsite, a suburb of Morenci, all the rest lived on AC Hill and during the week there was a lot of visiting back and forth among the aunts and uncles and of course Mama Teresita's house. The dirt paths that traversed the hilly neighborhood were well worn.

Sundays at Mama Teresita's meant the smell of good Mexican food being prepared by my aunts and supervised by my grandmother as they talked and laughed as if they hadn't seen each all week; the sound of men's gruff voices on the porch where they gathered to drink beer and smoke; and the exuberant shrieks of the children as we played in the yard. One of our favorite games was to slide down the hill above the house on cardboards. Our mothers finally wised up to us and made sure we changed our Sunday clothes before going out to play.

Holy Cross Catholic Churchy extended my family further. It was the center of many social activities and I knew all the parishioners.