In honor of Women’s History Month, the Museum of South Texas History in Edinburg has set up an exhibit titled “Women on the Warfront,” which depicts the innovative and central role South Texas women played in the war effort during World War II.
The exhibit centers around a La Joya native named Angelica Gonzalez Garcia, who insisted on serving after her two brothers enlisted in the Army once they received news of the attacks on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
“When war broke out, [Garcia] was then dispatched to Marfa, Texas, where she would essentially become part of the Rosie the Riveter Brigade women who participated in the war effort,” MOSTHistory Chief Executive Director Dr. Francisco Guajardo said. “We fortunately conducted an oral history with Mrs. Garcia in October of 2021 and she would sadly and unfortunately pass away in December, so we feel blessed to have captured her voice and her stories.”
Garcia’s voice echoed in the museum lobby, which came from a television set playing a shortened version of the hour-long video interview conducted by Guajardo as part of the exhibit.
The full interview can be requested for those interested in hearing Garcia’s stories of her time in the brigade.
In Marfa, Garcia, along with eight other women from across the Rio Grande Valley, built airplanes, created uniforms and other munitions for the American and Allied forces.
Part of the exhibit includes an enormous plane engine of the kind used in the war as an example of the work the women did during the war effort.
“[The engine] was actually donated to use by a man who crop dusted, but is an engine from a plane that would have been flown in World War II,” Exhibit Coordinator Melissa Peña said.
A photo blown-up by Peña stands in the middle of the museum’s lobby of Garcia and her fellow brigadiers working on an airplane, which Garcia had revealed only a few years ago at one of her birthday parties.
Her family was taken aback when they saw the photo and were amazed at the fact that she was a Rosie. Garcia was humble and never called attention to herself though she might have been the most important person in the family at the time.
“It’s actually a very compelling story and imagine if she hadn’t pulled out that picture,” Guajardo said. “Imagine how many women have not pulled out that picture … it just so happened that with [Garcia], the family paid attention to her and celebrated her.
“And our role is to jump all over that and to tell the story around that in the most honest way possible and that’s what you see here at the museum.”
The La Joya native isn’t the only woman to be featured in the exhibit.
A section is dedicated to Emma Jones, the founder of the first Navy Mothers Club based in McAllen with the official citation on display.
Another portion features the history and accomplishments of the Women Airforce Service Pilots who stepped up when the United States was facing a shortage of pilots.
These and many other stories can be experienced at MOSTHistory.
The public can look forward to future exhibits featuring a collection of Sgt. Alfredo “Freddy” Cantu Gonzalez’s letters to his mother, some of which she received after his death, for Memorial Day and another marking the two-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic for this month.
MOST History’s goal with the latter project is to put faces on the anonymous deaths of those who have fallen victim to the disease as many have become desensitized to the catastrophic event.
“What I’m trying to do is to tell stories,” Peña said. “It’s not the object that’s important, it’s the story behind the object. It’s the story behind the photo.”
The Museum of South Texas History is located at 200 N. Closner Blvd. in Edinburg, and opens Tuesday through Sunday.
