DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Rio Vista Farm, out in El Paso County. Now, most folks rolling through El Paso are thinking about the border, the mountains, the Rio Grande. They're not thinking about a poor farm.
But there was one here — the county's second, in fact — and the story of what it became is something worth slowing down for. It was established in 1915, known simply as the El Paso Poor Farm. A wealthy farmer and businessman named John O'Shea, whose own farm sat nearby, assumed operation of the place.
His wife, Agnes O'Shea, was in charge of the residents. That's a detail worth holding onto — a woman running the day-to-day lives of the poor and destitute in 1915. That takes a particular kind of person.
John O'Shea died in 1929. And right around that same time, the farm was scheduled to be closed. Done.
Finished. You might think that's where the story ends. It was not where the story ended.
Because 1929, as you may recall, was not exactly a year of smooth sailing for the American economy. The Depression era arrived, and with troubled times came troubled people — more of them, not fewer. The population of the poor farm grew.
It was renamed Rio Vista Farm, and instead of closing its doors, it opened them wider. John O'Shea's daughter, Helen O'Shea Keleher, came up from her home in San Antonio to help her mother Agnes operate the farm. And Rio Vista began hosting a variety of public welfare programs beginning in the 1930s.
It operated under the Texas Transient Bureau. Later, it came under the federal Works Progress Administration. In 1936, it served as a temporary base for a Civilian Conservation Corps unit.
Through all of it, Rio Vista kept sheltering hundreds of homeless and destitute adults and children. Then came a new chapter entirely. From 1951 to 1964, Rio Vista Farm was used as a reception and processing center for the Bracero program — the program that brought Mexican laborers to work in the lower valley of El Paso and other agricultural areas across the United States.
A place that had started as a county poor farm was now a gateway for workers crossing into a new country, a new life, new work. Eventually, new federal welfare programs and state law did what the Depression never could. They reduced the population of the poor farm — down to four — and in 1964, Rio Vista was finally closed.
But here's what sets Rio Vista apart from every other county poor farm in Texas. The marker says so plainly: unlike the others, Rio Vista followed a familial rather than institutional model. It accepted neglected and abandoned children alongside the adult indigent population.
It wasn't run like a warehouse. It was run like something closer to a home. And in later life, Helen O'Shea Keleher — who had left San Antonio to help her mother and never really left — looked back on fifty years spent at Rio Vista.
Fifty years. More than four thousand orphans and neglected children passed through that place under her watch. And she called it her proudest accomplishment.
Four thousand children. One woman. Fifty years on a poor farm in El Paso County that was supposed to close in 1929.
Some things, it turns out, don't close when they're supposed to — because the need doesn't close, and neither do the people willing to meet it.
What the marker says
El Paso County's second poor farm, known as the El Paso Poor Farm, was established here in 1915. John O'Shea, a wealthy farmer and businessman whose farm was nearby, assumed operation of the farm. His wife, Agnes O'Shea, was in charge of the residents. John O'Shea died in 1929, and the couple's daughter, Helen O'Shea Keleher, came from her home in San Antonio to operate the farm with her mother. The farm was scheduled to be closed in 1929, but, with the troubled times of the Depression era, its population grew. Renamed "Rio Vista Farm," the poor farm hosted a variety of public welfare programs beginning in the 1930s. It operated under the Texas Transient Bureau and later the federal Works Progress Administration. A temporary base for a Civilian Conservation Corps unit in 1936, the farm continued to shelter hundreds of homeless and destitute adults and children. From 1951 to 1964, the farm was used as a reception and processing center for the Bracero program, which brought Mexican laborers to work in the lower valley of El Paso and other agricultural areas in the U.S. New federal welfare programs and state law reduced the population of the poor farm to four, and it was closed in 1964. Unlike other Texas county poor farms, Rio Vista followed a familial rather than institutional model, accepting neglected and abandoned children in addition to the adult indigent population. In later life, Helen O'Shea Keleher cited the fifty years she spent with the more than four thousand orphans and neglected children of the Rio Vista Poor Farm as her proudest accomplishment. (2000)