How to Save a Life
By Helen Cordes
“I really wish I had asked her more about her life! And now it’s too late.”
You’ve probably heard these regrets when a loved one passes, or becomes no longer capable of recalling life memories. Maybe you’ve expressed your sorrow and frustration this way yourself.
Author Helen wishes she had asked her parents Dorothy and Ben more questions about their lives. Luckily for their family, her sister Ruth did an awesome job of documenting family histories!
A loved one’s death often brings deep emotions to the fore. Suddenly, our treasured memories of times together become much more meaningful—because death spells the end of these. We long to share with family and others why this particular human was so wonderful. We want to have details and photos to pass on to children and grandchildren, so that they don’t forget someone who was so important to us, to the family, and to the community.
The good news is that it’s never too late. Even when your loved one has died, you can gather and pass on your memories and stories from others who knew them well. And you can begin saving memories NOW from those who are still alive, so that death or illness doesn’t close that first-person door.
And it’s easy. Too often, people perceive that gathering a history of a person or a family is a dauntingly huge project. But it doesn’t have to be a big time-intensive project. Simply start now with documenting small chunks of memories, and keep adding as time and opportunity allows. Be sure to share those memories with family as you go—they’ll love these sweet slices of history! Soon you’ll compile a storehouse of memories that will always be there for you, the descendants of your loved ones, and their friends.
Your key tool is a cell phone or computer. Either one has a recording device in it. You can also get a recorder as well—digital recorders are inexpensive. You could get video memories with your phone or a digital camera.
Borrow a recorder or photo scanner and get family history resources from the Georgetown Library. You can also use your phone or an inexpensive recorder to capture stories.
You can get wonderful free resources from the Georgetown Library. Two high-quality audio recorders are available for checkout, along with how-to info including a great list of questions to ask to get the memories flowing.
The Library also has a scanner available to borrow, so you can scan family photos to store and send to others digitally. You can also use a scanner for free in the Library’s history room. Just bring in your library card and your photos; scan and then send the scanned images to your phone or email.
The Library would like to collect family histories to share with the public, particularly from neighborhoods where histories are underrepresented, such as the Tracks-Ridge-Grasshopper neighborhood west and southwest of downtown, and the San José neighborhood southeast of downtown. You can choose to share your family’s history—or parts of it—with the Library so that community members can learn more about our neighbors. Or you can use Library resources to capture your family memories that’s just for your family to keep.
Learn more below about the family of Georgetown’s Jovita and Emilio Richarte.
Use the tips below to get started saving the lives of someone dear to you, including gathering memories of someone who has passed. And keep reading to see how one Georgetown family got started preserving some family history. You’ll also learn some cool stories about the family of Jovita and Emilio Richarte.
💙 Tell your loved one about your desire to gather some stories. Most people are eager to tell about their lives, but sometimes a person might initially say that there’s nothing remarkable about their stories, or they might be reluctant to jump in for some other reason. They’ll likely change their minds when you remind them that every life has amazing, unique stories and that the younger generation needs to know those stories so they can pass them on.
💛 Have some specific questions ready. It’s fine to ask someone the same questions you might ask a new friend as you get to know them: Where did you grow up? What did your parents do for a living? Where did you go to school? But you can often get more detail and a better sense of a person if you ask your dear one to give you details about specific things as well as some thoughts on how they felt as they went through life.
For example, try these sample questions from the Library’s loaner recorder kits. “Tell me about how you met your partner. Do you have stories about how your family survived the Great Depression? How did your family celebrate holidays? What would you say were the greatest challenges you’ve faced?” Find other great question lists here and here.
💚 Take it slow. For the elderly, it’s sometimes hard to recall a lot of life detail all at once. Try doing the project in small chunks. Give them a few questions at a time. Or give them the questions in advance, so they can spend a little time on their own going down memory lane. They could even jot down some details to tell you when you meet (or Zoom, if they live elsewhere) to talk. For instance, you could give them some questions that just focuses on their grade school years. Who were their friends? What were the favorite (or not-favorite) classes? What did they do for lunch? What games did they play?
💜 Assure them that exact facts aren’t the priority. If they can’t recall the names of childhood friends or the dates that things happened, that’s fine! What’s important is capturing the things that were meaningful to them so that others know and appreciate their lives more.
💗 Setting a time and date to record or video memories is sensible, but also be prepared for the spontaneous. Brandun Richarte (see family memories below) was out taking his grandfather Emilio on an errand when they passed by the location of the old Bell Gin northeast of Georgetown. Emilio worked the cotton crop locally and throughout central Texas and knew that gin well and he told Brandun all about it as they passed nearby. When these spontaneous remembrances happen, get out your cell phone right away and open the recorder app so you can capture those great memories.
Spark some stories by showing your interviewee old photos of well-known community spots.
💙 Be sneaky if you need to be! Emilio’s daughter Lisa comes by often to check on Emilio. As they sit and chat and Emilio starts off with a great family story, she subtly gets her phone video pointed toward him and recording.
💛 If your dear one is mobile and can get out, take them to an important place, such as their old neighborhood or a place they often went for fun. Being at the location—even if the family home or gathering place is long gone—can jog good stories. Be ready to capture them with your phone or recorder.
💚 Try different interview situations. Sometimes it’s easier to focus and keep the background quieter when you and your interviewee are the only people in the room. But if another relative or good friend is also in the room, their memories can help your interviewee remember other things. Try doing both. Remind the other guests to let one person speak at a time so that their words are captured more clearly and background noise is reduced.
Do a test before your video memory sessions to make sure you’ll hear and see your person.
💜 Test your recording setup before live sessions. Go to the room you’ll be in—optimally a room with a door where it can be quiet—and put your equipment where it will be for the interview. If you’re using your phone or recorder, place it on a table close to your subject. Sit where your subject will and say things in a normal volume, and make sure the recorder is picking up your words well. If not, adjust recorder placement as needed.
💗 If your interviewee speaks softly, adjust for that. Or consider buying an inexpensive “lavalier” microphone (the little ones that clip onto a person’s shirt) to pick up quiet voices. It’ll plug into your phone or computer, or you can get wireless Bluetooth mikes.
💙 If you’re doing video using a phone or other camera, set it up, preferably with a tripod. Tripods are cheap these days, and that allows you to focus on your person instead of paying attention to a camera. Make sure the location of the phone or camera will keep your subject visible and also pick up her words well. Test it out by talking as if you were the subject, and adjust to get the ideal setup.
Keeping the equipment unobtrusive often makes an interviewee feel more comfortable because they are less conscious of being recorded and can speak without feeling the pressure of being “on.” By testing your equipment out in advance and not having to pay attention to it during the interview, you’ll be able to put your subject at ease and get great candid memories.
💛 Video or audio—or combo? Videos are great to see and hear the person, but sometimes people don’t feel comfortable with that much appearance time. Plus, video files can take a lot of storage space. You could consider a combo of using video and just audio, which takes up less storage space. Sometimes people are more comfortable with a video when they’re part of a group, say a family holiday. Taking a video of Grandma laughing and talking with people at a gathering could be more impactful than lots of “talking head” videos of her recounting memories.
If you use video for an interview, be mindful of lighting and use natural light or a lamp to illuminate your subject’s face. And tell them to look at you as they speak and not the camera, which keeps the conversation normal and keeps them less conscious of the camera.
Don’t get overwhelmed by trying to digitize all the photos at once. Just do a few when you have time, and share these cool mementos.
💚 Gather and upload old photos. Make print photos more accessible by digitizing them so they can be texted or emailed. The simplest way is to take a photo of the old photo with your phone. To avoid glare or dark photos, experiment with taking a photo in different lighting situations around your house. Getting away from bright windows or bright overhead lights can reduce glare. If the photo is in an album with plastic covers or if it’s in a picture frame, remove the photo if you can to avoid glare.
Scanning a photo provides a great image. You can borrow a scanner from the Georgetown library, or use the scanner there for free. You could also ask around to see if a friend has one. Scanners are getting cheaper—you could go in with friends to buy a shared scanner and inspire them to preserve their own family history!
💜 Share the memories as you go with family and friends. Texting these tidbits of memories to others keeps that person “present” in the lives of family and close friends. And it’s a delightful and easy gift to keep passing on. Plus, the texts can prompt someone to recall a specific event or interaction that they experienced with the dear one. That could prompt a good question or two for them or you to ask.
💗 Keep all the memories in one place. Use a free storage service such as Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud or OneDrive. That way, you’ll be able to find and browse through memories, and you can share the memory treasure chest with family and friends to visit as often as they like. Plus, others can upload their own memories to the storage area.
Meet Jovita and Emilio Richarte and family
Jovita and Emilio Richarte
Jovita and Emilio Richarte have long lived in the San José neighborhood, and Emilio remains there after Jovita’s death in February, 2023. And the Richarte and Bracamontez family has been in Georgetown for six generations, contributing to making Georgetown thrive with their work in healthcare, education, agriculture, and local businesses.
Richarte High School is named after Chip Richarte.
You may recognize the Richarte family name, because one of Georgetown’s high schools is named for Sipriana “Chip” Richarte!
Chip was the school nurse at the former McCoy Middle School who also devoted herself to encouraging at-risk students to stay in school. Chip was Emilio’s sister, one of 10 children.
And both Jovita and Chip also made history as early graduates of the groundbreaking nursing program begun by local doctors Doug Benold and Hal Gaddy in 1961. These doctors opened up their nursing training program to Hispanic and African-American applicants along with white students, a risky move at a time when the local schools were years away from desegregation and some white patients were resistant to nurses of color. Jovita and her sister-in-law Chip Richarte graduated in the 1963 class.
Chip (third from left) and Jovita (second from right) broke barriers.
When Jovita died in 2023, one of her grandsons, Brandun Richarte, became interested in preserving the mark his beloved grandmother made on Georgetown, along with capturing other family history. Brandun is proud that his middle name is Fidencio, the name of Jovita’s father. After a session of recording Emilio’s stories, Brandun says he regrets not asking his grandma more about her life during the endless hours they spent together and before she became affected in her last years by dementia.
Brandun says his prom night a few years ago HAD to start with dropping by to see Emilio and Jovita.
Brandun summarized some of his best memories of time spent with Jovita in a talk he gave at Jovita’s funeral. Read his talk at the end of this post. He also collaborated with me (Helen Cordes, website creator) to record memories from Emilio; Norma, Brandun’s mother and the family’s eldest child; younger daughter Lisa; grandson Scott; and himself. He hopes to get other memories from family members and friends. He gathered old photos and other possessions that evoked memories, such as notes Jovita kept for nursing school as she tended the children during the day and studied at night. Many thanks to Brandun and the Richarte family for sharing memories and photos!
Jovita (center back) and her team, the Redwings, were big winners in the early 1970s.
Doing the family research, reading about Jovita and Chip in this website, and eliciting memories from family members brought Brandun some surprises. Jovita had never told him about her volleyball expertise—“I never thought of Grandma as the sporty type,” he says. He’s glad that she kept the trophy from her team, the Redwings.
Some highlights from family history
Jovita was born in 1937 to Fidencio Bracamontez and Maria Soccorro Mena Bracamontez of Andice. Her parents and the children moved to Georgetown in the 1940s after working in Andice for a farmer.
Jovita (lower row, middle) with her siblings and parents Fidencio and Maria Socorro (top row, second and third from left)
Emilio was born in 1939 to Cruz Richarte and Matilde Betancourt Richarte of Jonah. His father did farmwork for an Anglo farmer near Weir. When Emilio was a few years old, the Richarte family moved to west 10th street in the Grasshopper neighborhood.
Richarte family gathering with siblings and spouses including Mathilde and Cruz (far left) and Jovita and Emilio (5th and 6th from left)
The family also left Georgetown twice a year, traveling to Montana so the whole family could work the sugar beet crop. Emilio remembers working in freezing cold temperatures in the late fall. In the spring, he savored a treat they’d sometimes do on their one day off, Sunday: escape for the day to the cool mountain streams of Montana. See more about other Georgetown families who traveled yearly to plant and harvest the nation’s food.
Former City Councilmember Mary Calixtro remembers that her aunt Gloria Dominguez (on left) and other family members worked the cotton crop around Georgetown and central Texas.
The Richarte family would also work the cotton harvest in the Georgetown area and throughout Texas, as did other local families.
Emilio has great family memories, such as making cascarones as a boy with his siblings, cutting and putting confetti in eggshells that had been emptied and colored. At Easter time, the kids would bop each other on the head with the cascarones so the confetti would fall all over them.
Georgetown Grammar School, later named after dedicated principal Annie Purl
Emilio went to what became the original Annie Purl, then Georgetown’s only grade school, then located at University and Austin. His older brothers went to what was called the Mexican School, a segregated school at 10th Street and Bridge, Emilio recalls. Learn more about the Mexican School and its dedicated principal and teacher, Othelia Giron.
Emilio went on to what became Williams Middle School, now the Hammerlun Leadership Academy on University and Ash streets. After school, he’d work at the Conoco gas station downtown, filling gas, checking oil and tires, and washing windshields. When his brother-in-law opened a Mobil gas station across the street, he worked there.
Emilio met Jovita when she was in fifth grade, and the two married in 1957 at St. Helen’s Catholic Church. The first home of St. Helen’s was at University and Martin Luther King Jr. on the northwest side. They settled in their new home on San José Street in the San José neighborhood. It was a tiny two-room house. As the family grew, Emilio added on rooms.
Jovita took care of the four children as they arrived, and she also worked toward her dream of becoming a nurse. She and her sister-in-law Chip enrolled in the local LVN (Licensed Vocational Nurse) training program.
Jovita would do her studying at night after children and home duties were done. After her death, Brandun came across her study notes and noticed a bittersweet coincidence.
Jovita worked as a nurse at Georgetown’s small hospital, then at University and College streets. After a few years there, she applied for a job as the office nurse for Dr. Richard Pearce, who had moved to Georgetown in 1972 with spouse Barbara Pearce, a nurse specializing in infectious disease.
Out of the four applicants, Dr. Pearce chose Jovita, and she worked as his nurse for some 25 years. Brandun met recently with Dr. Pearce, who recounted memories of working with Jovita. Brandun was proud to learn more about Jovita’s career and to find out more about how his grandmother excelled.
Learn more about Dr. Richard Pearce (above) and the nurses in the LVN program and Georgetown’s healthcare history in Caring for Georgetown, an excellent book and documentary.
Norma and son Brandun
While Jovita provided healthcare, Emilio was working as a longtime truck driver for Serta Mattress and later as an engineer’s helper for Georgetown Railroad Company.
Older daughter Norma Richarte remembers she and her sibs catching a ride with Dad on his trucking journeys to go visit relatives in Lubbock and Houston. She also liked to help him keep his trucking logbook current.
Norma and the other siblings remember a San José that had grocery stores where neighbors gathered to chat and pick up supplies. Norma would take the younger kids to Nat Lopez’s grocery (see more about the Lopez grocery and other Hispanic-owned businesses here) to get after-school snacks. Her grandmother, Jovita’s mother, would wait each day to greet the children as they got off the bus.
Emilio enjoyed volunteering with Boy Scout Troop 150, assisting his brother-in-law Henry Vasquez, an electrician and troop leader. He remembers camping with his sons and the other boys in the troop, often at the large ranch off Leander Road owned by Esther and “Doc” Weir. “They’d let us camp there anytime,” Emilio recalled. “It was really nice for the kids.”
Lisa and grandson R. J.
Lisa Richarte, the family’s younger daughter, remembers lots of family camping and fishing, too. They’d camp at Lake Georgetown or go over to Burnet or Llano. Lisa particularly remembers her family and relatives driving to group camp in Colorado.
And the family get-togethers were fun and frequent, with lots of relatives nearby and kids galore. Lisa remembers fun traditions like making tamales with “little Grandma” (Jovita’s mother who lived just down the block) and their other grandmother Matilde, Emilio’s mother.
The kids felt well loved, but they also felt loving discipline when needed. Scott Richarte is a grandson who grew up in Jovita and Emilio’s house. He jokes that he gave his grandparents plenty of mischievous behavior. He recalls when his idea to NOT walk across the high school stage for graduation met up with Jovita’s decision that he would indeed walk.
Scott with Emilio to the right and eldest Richarte son Steve on the left
And when Scott took off his cast too early so he could play football again, Jovita hauled him into her doctor’s office and got that cast right back on. But Scott always knew that she and Emilio wanted the best for him. And Jovita was devoted to his passion for sports, cheering him on at every football and baseball game.
Jovita and Emilio would get away to go dancing once in a while, heading over to Big G’s in Round Rock or out to Taylor where “we’d dance to polkas and Mexican music,” Emilio says. Brandun was surprised to learn this. “I never knew you liked dancing, Grandpa!” he exclaimed.
St. Helen’s Catholic Church when it was at University and MLK
Both Jovita and Emilio were involved with activities at St. Helen’s and with the Los Unidos club. That group formed in 1979 to preserve Hispanic history and do service projects: organize the San José Fiesta that was celebrated for many years; plant trees; build restrooms at San José Park; raise money for scholarships; and more.
Learn more about Los Unidos in Recuerdos Mexicanos, a history and stories of Hispanic people in Georgetown. Read all the Recuerdos here.
The kids threw a 50th wedding anniversary bash for Jovita and Emilio.
Lisa’s granddaughter Valencia learns tamale-making along with Lisa’s husband Roy
The years went by, full of fun and work and life. The house filled with children and then grandchildren and then great-grandchildren and everyone gathered for holiday fun. The family put on a big party for Jovita and Emilio’s wedding anniversary.
Jovita and Emilio’s kids carry on their beloved traditions with their own children and grandchildren. For example, Lisa makes tamales with her grandkids as they gather together around Christmas time. She makes menudo, too, just the way she and Emilio liked it when she was younger.
Scott and Bryson (right) and friend catch a BIG one!
And Lisa played volleyball just like Jovita did, and so do her granddaughters. All the sibs go camping with kids and grandkids.
Scott teaches his kids Bryson and Aubrey all about fishing.
Brandun was inspired by his aunt Chip Richarte when he worked at the Jarrell schools, helping kids who got in trouble in class to calm down and not leave school.
After Jovita and Emilio retired, they took a celebratory trip to Cancun. Emilio kept working, with weekends full of gatherings with a houseful of noisy kids and adults.
Jovita enjoyed her retirement years spoiling the grandkids and great-grandkids. Lisa remembers that even as her mind eventually faded with Alzheimer’s, Jovita was always very proud of being a Georgetown nurse.
When Jovita died after years of suffering from dementia, it was a blow to the family. At her funeral, Brandun wanted to let everyone know what a treasure she was to him. Here’s what he said.
Brandun speaking at Jovita’s funeral
I came up here today to tell y’all how great my Grandma was to me and my immediate family. About 97% of my weekends, holidays, summers, and even some school days, I would be at Grandma’s. Our mornings always started out with Grandma getting me up to go walk at the school track with her beautiful friend Miss Ramona.
When we got home, she’d make a delicious five-star breakfast with eggs, ham, sausage, bacon, beans, and especially our favorite Tia Rosa Tortillas from HEB. Usually while she cooked, I'd be watching my novellas, aka Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network. My favorite part is next: Eat till you can't no more.
Brandun blissfully hanging out at Grandma’s
After a couple hours of resting from our food comas, she would say, "I’m gonna go put my face on so we can go," aka do her makeup and hair. When she was done, she would always ask: "Do I look like a million bucks?" The answer was always “Yes ma'am.”
We'd get in her truck and head on down to her absolute favorite store, the Caring Place. Back then it was like paradise walking in. They had food next door and a big toy section. And I assume grandma thought it was paradise, too, because we went religiously and spent hours on end.
Our next hot spot would be HEB and oh man, we'd love to take our sweet time. We'd usually start from the right side of the store and work our way all the way to the left. We’d load up on our cookies, cakes, salty snacks, and my favorite still to this day, chocolate milk. We'd then head home and she'd get an amazing dinner going early for grandpa because he worked hard all day.
While she would cook, we'd dance our lives away to this plant that sings and dances. It played In The Mood, a Glenn Miller Orchestra song from 1941. We'd play it over and over and over and dance until dinner was done or Grandpa got home and said to turn it off. Then it would be time to grub once again with of course more delicious tortillas.
Brandun with the dancing flowers
After dinner we'd go to the back room and watch our favorite police show, NCIS with Detective Hiratio. And while we'd watch, you best believe we would dig into our stash and have a few sweets before bed. She would always say, “Don't be too loud because Grandpa may hear us!” We'd get caught a few times, but she'd usually give Grandpa one or two treats to pay him off.
Jovita loved to take care of her kids, grandkids, and most importantly, her family. She treated everyone the same, and that is what we loved about her more than anything.
When my Grandma was at the hospital, I had something very special happen to me. I had gone to the chapel to pray. God came in the room with Grandma to be there with me, because it felt like someone was there but no one was. I cried; I prayed; I cried and I prayed. I happened to notice the lights hanging from a wire from the ceiling slowly swaying, and I said aloud, Grandma or God or whoever is there, please stop swaying the lights if you’re here with me. They stopped swaying.
I decided to lay down because I was exhausted and stressed. I could feel someone was holding me tight. I asked the same question over and over: Why did Grandma have to go? Finally, I cried myself to a deep slumber and started to dream. God opened my dream and stated he knew the answer to my question. He said that her having dementia was his way of slowly taking her home, giving us time to get closer to Grandma like she had asked for. But now He wanted Grandpa to not have to suffer anymore. Because Grandpa was feeding, cleaning, and watching over Grandma every day. God said we were all breaking our backs, keeping her company at the house and helping take care of her. He wanted us all to be more at rest, especially my Grandma.
This was the first time I could remember talking to our Lord and Savior. Grandma and I often prayed, but this was the first encounter I've had with Him. It was an absolutely glorious moment and I shall cherish it the rest of my life.
Grandma taught me many lessons about life, and just about being a kind person in general. I'll never forget the loving memories we cherished together through the years. She will always be my guardian angel and I will always love her more than anything in the universe. Including more than my favorite, chocolate milk. Thank you all for coming to celebrate such a beautiful soul and a beautiful life. We love you, Grandma. We know you’re still dancing up there. We will do our part and dance with you down here. Thank you and God bless.
