DUANE
Duane's take
Here's the story as the official marker tells it, and friend, this one is worth every mile to hear. Alejo de la Encarnacion Perez came into this world on March 23, 1835. That date alone ought to stop you cold.
Run the calendar in your head. The Battle of the Alamo — that February and March of 1836 — was still a year away. Which means when the walls of the Alamo fell and the guns finally went quiet, Alejo de la Encarnacion Perez was an infant.
A baby. The youngest known survivor of the whole terrible affair. His mother was Maria Juana Navarro Perez, and whatever she endured inside those walls, she carried her boy through it.
The marker doesn't linger on those details, and maybe that silence says enough. Now, Alejo grew up. Of course he did — though the weight of what he'd survived before he could even speak is something to sit with for a moment.
By 1861 he was old enough to serve, and serve he did, enlisting in the Confederate Army. He saw that through to 1864. Three years of war on top of the war he'd already, unknowingly, survived as an infant.
When the Civil War was done, Alejo came home to San Antonio and got to work. He served the city in a number of offices — police officer, city marshal among them. A man who had outlasted so much, now keeping the peace.
He married twice — first Maria Antonia Rodriguez, then Florencia Sappo Valdez — and between those two unions he and his families brought eleven children into the world. Alejo de la Encarnacion Perez died on October 10, 1918. And here is where the marker sets down the full weight of the thing: at the time of his death, he was the last known survivor of the Battle of the Alamo.
The very last. That little infant, carried out of the smoke and the silence in 1836, was the final living thread connecting the world to that day. When he was gone, that thread was gone too.
What the marker says
(March 23, 1835 - October 10, 1918) Alejo de la Encarnacio Perez, infant son of Maria Juana Navarro Perez, was the youngest known survivor of the 1836 Battle of the Alamo. From 1861 to 1864 Alejo served in the Confederate Army. After the Civil War he served the city of San Antonio in a number of offices, including those of police officer and city marshal. Alejo's marriages, to Maria Antonia Rodriguez and Florencia Sappo Valdez, produced 11 children. At the time of his death he was the last known Alamo survivor. Recorded - 1998