Beatrice “Chickie” Samano, whose grito and indomitable spirit defined Brownsville’s Charro Days Fiesta for her entire life, passed away early Wednesday on the day the 86th annual celebration was just getting underway.
Charro Days President Henry LeVrier announced Samano’s passing at the beginning of the ceremony Wednesday to unveil this year’s Charro Days poster.
On Thursday he paid tribute to Samano’s service on the Charro Days board of directors and organization, and to her acclaimed grito.
“Chickie Samano was such a big part of Charro Days,” LeVrier said Thursday. “She was so good with her grito. Her grito was such a big part of Charro Days. She was always willing and ready to do a grito, and all for the benefit of the festival. That meant so much to us. Her contributions were endless. She was just instrumental to the success of Charro Days.”
Samano was 85, born Dec. 28, 1937, her daughter Celia Galindo said. Charro Days Fiesta dates from 1938.
“My mom has been involved with Brownsville since I was a little girl. I know for her Brownsville Charro Days was the most important event of the year, or holiday of the year. She was always very proud to say that she was 2 years old when my grandmother had taken her to the first Charro Days,” Galindo said.
“She competed in El Grito for 10 years maybe 20 years. She had won every year and they finally had to tell her, hey you’re gonna become a judge because nobody wants to compete against you because you always win. And so she became a judge,” Galindo said, remembering her mom for having “the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever known.”
“If there was somebody that needed her, she was always out there. She was very energetic, she always loved people, she was just an amazing person. I can’t think of anything she wouldn’t do for anybody,” she said.
Galindo said her mother had been involved with Charro Days since she was 14 or 15 years old, serving as parade marshal after her days as an active grito contestant ended. She also loved being in the Charro Days Christmas Parade in recent years.
“Until the last three years before COVID she was always in the fire truck. She would climb all the way up. She was mama Santa Claus and then she would do the routes to go and visit children and adults all over town. She did that, I think, for the last 15 years. She always helped Rotary She was very involved in her community,” Galindo said.
Galindo said her mother had gotten COVID three years ago and has been in and out of the hospital since. “She had ulcers she got dengue and it was just one episode after another,” she said.
“What’s amazing that I’ve noticed since yesterday, I had people call me, saying, ‘Your mom would always call me to check on how I was doing. …How’s your mom she hasn’t called me,’ so she had a net of friends, people she met through Facebook or that she knew from H-E-B. The H-E-B people were ‘Is your mom OK? She hasn’t called me.’”
Galindo said she and her mother started her restaurant together nine years ago, La Escondida at 445 E. 4th St
“At what time she had enough time to do all this? I mean she worked with me for nine years. All the fresh bread that was made in my kitchen was made by her even though she had arthritic hands she would knead it. She would find a way to make it and have all the bread ready for us to sell … I don’t know where she got the energy. She was a powerhouse,” the daughter said.
Galindo has childhood memories of living in Mexico City for a year and waking friends of her mother’s with a happy birthday serenade at 5 a.m. accompanied by Samano on the trumpet.
“I remember she would wake us up at 4 in the morning if it was one of her friends’ birthday. She played the trumpet. We called everyone tias even if they weren’t tias and she would get out the trumpet and my brother and I would sing happy birthday while she played the trumpet at 5 o’clock in the morning waking up all the neighbors so that they could celebrate her birthday. That’s the kind of lady she was. There was never a dull moment with my mom. Never. …God Almighty she was a hurricane in the middle of a storm,” Galindo said.
Longtime friend Sandra Maxwell, a Charro Days board member from back in the day, remembered traveling to Matamoros with her to buy crepe paper to make Charro Days decorations.
“She was like the Energizer bunny. She could go go go. She would brighten the room. There could be a cloud of doom and gloom hanging over and it would dissipate. She had a tremendous energy and always had a good time. I never ever remember Chickie having a bad time,” Maxwell said.
Galindo shared one other thing about her mother.
“We called her ‘chicotito,’ the whip in Spanish, and I’ll tell you why. She had eyes in the back of her head and if there was something wrong she would detect it and everybody started calling her chicotito. and one day she was walking out the door and she came back and she heard ‘ahi viene chicotito,’ and she hears that and she goes what are you calling me? So she goes to Matamoros and buys one and she hangs it and she says alright guys the next time you do something wrong I’m gonna use it. After about a month it disappeared, but she loved her name and she stayed with it.”
I was very fortunate to have her.”
Funeral arrangements are pending.
Survivors include Samano and her brother Manuel Rodero; Samano’s brother Mike Samano, an aunt, Gloria Newell, a cousin, Lydia “Cookie” Wimer, and two grandchildren, Manolo and Karolina.
