The wife of Augustine Narcho, and mother of Raymond Narcho Sr., died January 2, 2005 in the town of Sells according to the Social Security Death Index. Locating Isabel's parents, Jose and Felicitas Montana, turned out to be simple thanks to the attention to detail exhibited by a Bureau of Indian Affairs agent. In the 1933 BIA census, she is listed twice: once with her parents and once with her new husband. An annotation beside her listing with her parents indicates she was now married to Augustine Narcho. The same record states that Jose died in 1931 and Felicitas remarried to Ramon Padilla.1
However, what at first seemed to be a cut and dry matter of parentage turned out to be far more complicated after the United States federal censuses were examined. The BIA census records rarely indicate which children were born to both parents and which were stepchildren. But according to the 1920 and 1930 federal censuses, Isabel and six of her siblings were the children of Felicitas by a previous marriage. Their original surname was Robles and they were born in Mexico. The 1930 census also lists an immigration year for Felicitas and her children as 1915.2
When the United States purchased Southern Arizona from Mexico, it drew its new border through traditional Tohono O'odham lands. However, it was still common for Tohono O'odham to cross the border without much fanfare until recent years, when border security and drug trafficking became a concern.
Isabel was about four years old when her mother married Jose Montana and, like the rest of her siblings, adopted his name. On BIA records and her children's birth certificates, she is listed with the surname Montana. This turns out to have been a common practice even up to the middle of the twentieth century when Dr. Robert Heckenberg noted in the Papago Population Study that, “A child generally takes the surname of the family in which he resides, regardless of true paternity or the legality of the union from which he was born.”3
More information on Isabel's father was not forthcoming from the information available online at this time, however, a search of the records of the Mexican state of Sonora may prove useful. After 1933, Felicitas also vanishes from the available records. There is no death certificate on file with the state of Arizona for her. A search of Tohono O'odham cemeteries is not possible at this time, even in person, as many of the cemeteries, including the San Xavier cemetery, are now closed off with signs prohibiting photography every few feet because of desecration and vandalism.
1 Year: 1933; Roll: M595_485; Page: 314; Line: 13; Agency: Sells Agency.
2 Year: 1930; Census Place: Llano, Pima, Arizona; Roll: 61; Page: 2A; Enumeration District: 73; Image: 235.0; FHL microfilm: 2339796.
3 Robert Hackenberg, Papago Population Study Research Methods and Preliminary Results, (Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona, 1961), 24.
However, what at first seemed to be a cut and dry matter of parentage turned out to be far more complicated after the United States federal censuses were examined. The BIA census records rarely indicate which children were born to both parents and which were stepchildren. But according to the 1920 and 1930 federal censuses, Isabel and six of her siblings were the children of Felicitas by a previous marriage. Their original surname was Robles and they were born in Mexico. The 1930 census also lists an immigration year for Felicitas and her children as 1915.2
When the United States purchased Southern Arizona from Mexico, it drew its new border through traditional Tohono O'odham lands. However, it was still common for Tohono O'odham to cross the border without much fanfare until recent years, when border security and drug trafficking became a concern.
Isabel was about four years old when her mother married Jose Montana and, like the rest of her siblings, adopted his name. On BIA records and her children's birth certificates, she is listed with the surname Montana. This turns out to have been a common practice even up to the middle of the twentieth century when Dr. Robert Heckenberg noted in the Papago Population Study that, “A child generally takes the surname of the family in which he resides, regardless of true paternity or the legality of the union from which he was born.”3
More information on Isabel's father was not forthcoming from the information available online at this time, however, a search of the records of the Mexican state of Sonora may prove useful. After 1933, Felicitas also vanishes from the available records. There is no death certificate on file with the state of Arizona for her. A search of Tohono O'odham cemeteries is not possible at this time, even in person, as many of the cemeteries, including the San Xavier cemetery, are now closed off with signs prohibiting photography every few feet because of desecration and vandalism.
1 Year: 1933; Roll: M595_485; Page: 314; Line: 13; Agency: Sells Agency.
2 Year: 1930; Census Place: Llano, Pima, Arizona; Roll: 61; Page: 2A; Enumeration District: 73; Image: 235.0; FHL microfilm: 2339796.
3 Robert Hackenberg, Papago Population Study Research Methods and Preliminary Results, (Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona, 1961), 24.