In loving memory of Sue Reid, Jan 26, 2007

Sue Reid, 74, a longtime San Miguel resident, passed away in Houston on January 11, 2007. A native Houstonian, Sue moved to Mexico to pursue her career as an artist and spent the last 25 years in San Miguel de Allende. Sue was known by all for her many efforts to develop parks, plant trees in neighborhoods and raise funds for schools and local orphanages in San Miguel through her work as a member and president of the Garden Club of San Miguel and other charities.

Donations can be made in Sue’s name to The Garden Club of San Miguel. To make a donation, please make checks out to Jeananne Mitchell, the new Garden Club president, and leave the checks at Border Crossings, Box 10-B, in care of Jeananne Mitchell. Be sure to put “Sue Reid” on the memo line of the check.

I learned this afternoon that I have Stage 4 cancer and it has spread to my bones and liver, so not much time is left. I am run down and emotionally drained. I hope you will pray that I do not suffer too much and it will be quick instead of a long, drawn-out process for my family.I am ready to face whatever and want you to know you will be in my thoughts and prayers.  Remember me with humor and love and know that God put me here with my family at this time..... Sue, from an email on Dec. 28, 2006

Here, Sue is remembered by some of her family members and many friends:

Starting in 1990, Mother decided that it was time for another change. She decided to live her life “One Day at a Time” by turning her will and life over to the care of God. This would prove to be a big event in Mother’s life, giving her a new way to share her wisdom and hope to others.

Eventually, Sue Reid’s name was listed by the worldwide office in New York of an anonymous organization as the contact for people in San Miguel looking for help. She remained a “friend of Bill W.” until her death.

Son, Mark Reid 

I met Sue Reid through a blind referral from friends in 1994 and called her number. I was received like a daughter. I have ever since thought of her as my “Fairy Godmother.”

It was her very presence, it was the fun of running into her almost anywhere and hear her shout some warm but challenging greeting, reminding me of how lucky I was to have an ally such as her, reminding me also to step up to the task of being myself. She helped me on every level, supported my endeavours and even bragged about me like a true mother. I miss her so much. 

Nancy Clarke

At the Botanical Garden, we’ll remember Sue Reid, her unconditional and generous support, her high spirit and terrific sense of humor. Thank you, Sue! 

César Arias




One thing that everyone remembers about Sue was her willingness to work long and hard on anything that she felt would benefit San Miguel. An improvement that was dear to her heart was the drinking fountain for Parque Juárez, donated by the Garden Club. When I see the children rush to it between games, I think, “Sue helped make this possible.”

She also loved the Charco del Ingenio and once said, “It’s been good to be a part of seeing this become a community treasure. We’ve got to keep it that way.” 

Beverly Gandy



Aside from adopting my sister Gigi and me as her daughters and fiercely protecting and counseling us with love and generosity, Sue was made from the principles that America was once famous for and we as Canadians had read so much about. She was generous with her time, her knowledge and her love and always wanted the best for everyone. We met her 18 years ago and loved her instantly. Sue was cut from the same cloth as her great friends who have now also left us, Phil Roettinger, Don Griffen and Rosa Davidson. All of them spent their time looking for who they could help ... highly moral and wise and with a sense of humour that never left them! A better friend you cannot find!

Marina D. von Anrep

I will always remember Sue Reid as one of the last of the truly great ladies. She had a grace about her that added her own inimitable style to anything she undertook to accomplish. I knew her primarily from Garden Club, which became a true passion for her.

She was a great contributor, always striving to make it better. Those of us who knew her are blessed that she touched our lives and made them better.

Sherry McFarlane



Sue was diligent and spontaneous, a rare combination that makes for fun on the job, and the job got done, and done right. She asked to be remembered “with humor,” and that humor will live on in those of us who knew her. She will be missed.

Jeananne Mitchell



I first met Sue around 1985. She was always laughing about something with her special “Big as Texas” laugh. Sue was a good buddy and has always supported all of my projects. A wonderful neighbor, she included us in all her parties and introduced us to all of her many friends. Sue had more energy than anyone half her age and was always on the go with one project or another. I will miss Sue very much. 

Bob Haas



She was just such a kind and thoughtful person, we immediately bonded and became fast friends. I know Sue had come through several personal tragedies in her lifetime and yet she faced any adversity with an attitude of humility but yet with determination. That was one of the things that made Sue so admirable. 

Bob and Carol Latta



Well, dear Sue is gone—a charmed life, a great spirit—life, like the fine cloth being woven, is finally complete. She lived her life nobly, with that wonderful raconteur nature we all adored. What a grand privilege it was to know her.

We can mourn her life, or choose to celebrate a life very well lived. Let us choose the latter. God bless Sue! 

Tom Strickland

Sue was loyal, smart, funny, strong, and courageous—all the attributes you’d want in a friend. And we had the most wonderful friendship. Every morning we’d call each other and have breakfast together over the phone, chatting and drinking coffee. What a great way to start the day!

There was no slowing Sue down. In her last couple of years she started a business and was president of the Garden Club. In spite of this, she always found the time to support and inspire her friends. When I finally started to paint again after decades of doing other things, she was the first one to buy one of my works, saying that she wanted to make sure that she had “an early Jane Sallis!” I’m not sure what I’ll do without her.… 

Jane Sallis



We all loved Sue. We will all miss this most generous, wise (and wily, too) woman. 

Camie Sands



Sue was always willing to lend a hand to help in this community. We have never known SMA without Sue. She was a person of great faith. God, family and friends, about sums it up. She loved her adopted Mexico and had the spirit of a true Texas woman! 

Janice Edison



Sue was the matriarch of our San Miguel family. We’ve lost a dear one. We will miss her. 

Faye Guidry



We were at a party for the opening of Casa Papel, the card store in town. Sue and some others were sitting at a table with a strikingly beautiful blonde named Nancy. It seems she was divorcing her super-rich but ancient husband after many years. I believe she mentioned that his family would try to prevent her from getting any of his assets. Sue’s comment and contribution to the conversation in her loud, Texas-accented voice was, “Are you crazy? Just put a pillow over his face.” She was very funny. More than that, though, her words were representative of her personality—she said what she thought even if it meant advocating the murder of her friend’s spouse. I have never forgotten it.

Sharon Conklin



Sue gave me the encouragement to launch my business and always took the time to give me advice. She was a sincere and honest friend to many young women bringing a new idea or needed service to San Miguel. She was a loyal and honest friend. I will miss her. 

Robin Fell 



Sue was a very lovely, compassionate person, and I shall miss her very much. 

Patricia Whitlock



She has always been a woman to admire, working in various charities for the good of San Miguel and its people. I will remember Sue for her input and work in bringing these projects to fruition. 

Bea Wood

I often would say to friends that three people in my life love me unequivocally—my Dallas maid of 25 years, my mother, and Sue Reid. How I will miss her. 

Nancy Martínez



Pragmatic, right to the point and a loyal friend, Sue focused on the best in people and situations and created a win-win situation working with groups. When she was involved in a project, you knew that you would accomplish something you would be proud of.

It will be hard to ever see a silver-tipped cane again and not think of Sue. We hope her family keeps one, just to look at and smile from time to time. 

Sarah and Ed Clancy



Sue was loyal to family and friends—a devoted mother and grandmother and a wonderful citizen of San Miguel de Allende. This is not adiós Sue, but rather, hasta la vista.... You will always be here in memories of all our yesterdays. 

Joan and Forrest Stevens



Sue always had an ear to listen to what was happening in our lives, and provide a little advice when we asked for it. She had that wonderful chuckle that I will never forget! It started with a big grin, went to her shoulders, then worked its way down her whole body until she was bobbing, almost uncontrollably, up and down in her chair. It was a treat to make her laugh, and she laughed often.

We are all proud of our families, but I know of no one who showed that pride as much as Sue. Her children will never know how much she bragged about all of their accomplishments, or how many prayers she had us say for a grandchild that was ill. Sue believed in prayer, and I know that she hears all of the prayers that her many friends in San Miguel are sending her way. Sue was very spiritual, and had no fear of dying. We know she is at peace. 

Mary and Tom Ambrose



Sue was a woman of forthright opinions who dared you to be yourself and stand up for your convictions. She was an exemplary woman of substance who loved and cared for San Miguel.

Suzanne Ludekens

Global Justice travels to Cieneguilla and Peñón de los Baños
By Betsy Bowman and Cliff DuRand

Global Justice Trip to Cieneguilla Saturday, February 3 300 pesos, 150-0025

Global Justice Trip to Peñón de los Baños

Sunday, February 4, 9am–4pm

300 pesos, 150-0025

Many positive effects of neoliberal globalization are visible around us: foreign restaurants, English-language newspapers, shopping and even donuts. San Miguel is prosperous and cosmopolitan—if you have the money for such items. But for the most visible negative side of globalization, you need to go to the countryside.

On a visit to Cieneguilla, a community 1.5 hours northeast of San Miguel by bus, you will see globalization’s other side. The town is full of old people, women and children; most working-age men have gone to the United States to work.

“Families want to stay together. Our men do not go out of love for the US, but out of need,” explained one of our hosts. Emigration from Mexico is even more of a problem than immigration is for the US—though no policy is being envisioned for raising up the underclass thereby created. 

Some positive solutions are reinvigorating such economies and keeping families intact. Yolanda Millan has helped organize a sellers’ cooperative of 104 women from different villages. She seeks out groups of women who make saleable items. 

San Miguel’s first exclusively “fair trade” shop, the Mujeras Productoras store, is located at Calzada de la Luz 42 (near the corner of Loreto) in the Center for Global Justice. Mayra Julieta Huerta Camargo will be there to serve you with a smile Monday through Saturday from 10am to 5pm.



Peñón de los Baños

Mexico’s agriculture is a study in contrasts. On the one hand, you can see large, irrigated fields producing vegetables for export to the United States. On the other hand, you can see small family plots growing food mainly for domestic consumption. Favored by government policies, agribusiness is prospering, while campesino agriculture is left largely to itself as it struggles to survive. 

This contrast is dramatically illustrated in the area near the town of Los Rodríguez, northeast of San Miguel de Allende. There, on the flat, fertile land, you will find vast fields cultivated by mechanized agribusiness methods. And in the midst of it lies the village of Peñón de los Baños, a community of 60 families engaged in dairy farming on their own land. If you ask them, they are likely to tell you they are better off than those people who work on the commercial fields around them. And you’ll have that chance to ask them when the Center for Global Justice visits the community.

The primary reason for their well-being is that they still own their ejido land—communally owned land that was protected by Mexico’s 1917 constitution. Since whole portions of the ejido land would be assigned to individual members of the community to cultivate, under Article 27 of the constitution, they did not own it and could not sell it. For the campesinos of Mexico, that protection was the crowning achievement of the Revolution.

However, as a condition for entering NAFTA, in 1992 the Salinas government amended Article 27 to allow the privatization of ejido land and the sale of it by individual ejidatarios.

So far, the people of Peñón de los Baños have resisted privatization, holding on to their communally owned land. But all around them, former ejidatarios have sold their land to agribusiness and they now are wage laborers working from sunup to sundown in the fields that were once theirs. 

The people of Peñón de los Baños are highly critical of NAFTA and former President Salinas for having sold them out. They are also critical of the wealthy family that now owns the nearly eight square miles of prime farmland surrounding them and whose chemicals they think are poisoning them. They are determined to hold on to their land and their way of life. 

One of the things that keeps them afloat economically are the remittances they receive from family members working in the US. An average of two persons per family are working abroad. The community would like to be able to bring them all home. “We don’t want to export our children,” they say. 

Even at that, the rate of migration is probably higher in the surrounding communities. Nationally, it is the forcing of campesinos off their land through its privatization that is a major factor driving migration. For now, the campesinos of Peñón de los Baños have been able to resist that. 

Advance registration for these trips is required at Calzada de la Luz 42 (phone 150-0025).

Three Kings party at Mexiquito
By Nelly Lorenzo

We at Border Crossings want to thank everyone for the support they gave us to bring such happiness to the children who live at Hogares Don Bosco, Santa Julia and Mexiquito.

Many thanks to all of you who sponsored the children. The children’s smiles and their bright eyes lit up the courtyard at Mexiquito, and watching them open their presents was a gift in return to those who provided them.

Special thanks go to Alice Stark, who once again lent us the three kings costumes, and to the manager of Domino’s Pizza, Alejandro Ortiz, for his generous gift of pizzas, which everyone enjoyed. Also, we want to acknowledge the special care and loving attention the Sisters give the children all year round.

To experience the happiness, you are invited to come see photos on the wall at Border Crossings. Thank you, and we look forward to doing this again next year.

Angels remember the children of Hogar de los Angeles
By Rosie Richards

The children of Hogar de los Angeles celebrated the Day of the Kings with applause and cheers as the kings arrived in shining robes and crowns, ready to call the children up to receive their gifts. But how is it that 80 children wound up with boxes full of presents?

In June, Hogar de los Angeles welcomed volunteers from Chaminade College Preparatory School in St. Louis, Missouri. After their stay, the students decided to continue to support the children. One student, D. J. Weich, organized a massive project—supplying every child at Hogar de los Angeles with gifts for January 6. Weich requested the details of every child at the center. Students at Chaminade were given the responsibility of buying a box of gifts, such as clothing and toys, for one child. No child was left out or forgotten. 

Hogar de los Angeles thanks Weich and the other students of Chaminade College Prepatory School for their generosity.

Hogar de los Angeles began as a free daycare center in San Miguel. It is a safe haven for children whose mothers come to town to work or sell their wares at the local mercados. These children were often left home alone before this center was established. 


It has grown to become a community center that now provides daycare, medical care, home and bathroom construction, transitional housing, summer camp, a food bank—in a manner that respects the dignity of each individual. You are invited to visit Hogar de los Angeles at Prolongación Pila Seca 18, Colonia San Antonio.