Montalvo House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna do my best to honor every word. Now, there are some men who carry two names through this world, and Yldefonso Montalvo was one of them. You might've known him as Obed Woods; same man, two names, one life, and what a life it was.

Born in 1855, he'd still be walking this earth until 1941, which ought to tell you something about the kind of constitution a man builds when he's put together from good stock on both sides. His mother was English, his father was Mexican, and somewhere in that combination they produced a man who could read and write and think. Educated, the marker says, and out here in Kinney County around 1887, that was no small thing.

Around that year, Montalvo set his hands to building a dwelling, and he didn't wait on materials that weren't already under his boots. Cedar pickets. Caliche plaster.

Whatever the land around him had to offer. You work with what the country gives you, and this country gave him enough. Originally, a kitchen and several outbuildings stood nearby; a whole little compound taking shape out of the brush and rock of southwest Texas.

He wasn't just a builder, either. Montalvo was a rancher, and he put in time as an employee of Fort Clark and a local mercantile store; a man with range enough to move between the open pasture and the ledger book. And he didn't live in that cedar-and-caliche house alone.

His wife Guadalupe (born Reschman, in 1868, and she'd outlast them all the way to 1953) was right there with him. And together, the two of them raised nine children inside those walls. Nine.

Count 'em. That house built from local materials, from whatever the hill country of Kinney County would spare, held a family that size and held it for decades. Some houses are just structures.

This one was something else entirely.

What the marker says

Yldefonso Montalvo (1855-1941), also known by the name Obed Woods, built this dwelling about 1887. He used cedar pickets, caliche plaster, and other materials available in the area. Originally the kitchen and several outbuildings stood nearby. The educated son of an English mother and Mexican father, Montalvo was a rancher and an employee of Fort Clark and a local mercantile store. He and his wife Guadalupe (Reschman) (1868-1953) and their nine children lived here. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1979