Our grandfather was Mario Mendez and our great grandfather was Juanito Mendez. They were from the town of Lares. Our grandmother's name was Porfelia Velez  Montalvo and our great grandmother was Dorotea Montalvo. Our grandmother lost her mother when

she was very young. Her siblings were Juan, Isabel, Ulysses, Virgilio, and Fabian. They were from the town of San Sebastian. Her father remarried and had a daughter named Maria. His grandson, named Luis Velez, was a professor at the University of Puerto Rico. I met him. He was a very intelligent, refined gentleman. I liked him alot. His  daughter was named Maria, who you probably met in San Sebastian. She had around eight or ten children. Her oldest son was (Gigo) Creseciano Gonzalez. They were all professionals, two, I think, were killed in Viet Nam.

Grandfather's side was well to do, though later on he lost his money and life became very hard for him. He had two sisters that never married. They lived in Bayamon and were up in their eighties the last time I spoke to Tio Sixto. He told me they were Jehovah's witnesses. I believe he also had a brother but, I don't know anything about him. The only ones who visited the paternal relatives were Tio Sixto and Virginia. I was told that the reason for this  was that they were the oldest.

Our Grandfather raised 11 children at a time when things were very difficult and did a super job according to his daughter Marcelina. Grandmother's side was not well-to-do, yet, many of them became professionals - teachers, professors, engineers, and diary owners. He used to have a big farm and land.

His children say  the reason he was so exacting was because he had been well off and never quite got used to living so poorly. He married our grandmother  when  she was 15 years old. He was around 15 years older than her.  She was a beautiful loving mother according to all her children.  She died at 54 years old. She was a chain-smoker. For her time that really surprised me.

Our mother [Irma DeJesus] was 17 years old when her mother passed away. Our mother was number 12 of her siblings. Our grandfather a couple of years afterwards met another women  [Josefina] and had two more children with her. Their names are Mario Mendez and Lydia  Esther Mendez. They are now grandparents themselves and live in Boston someplace. Tia Celina saw them not too long ago. I met them myself when I was younger. The boy looked like his father and the girl looks like Janet.

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