Photo: Miguel Sr. 1940.tif

Miguel Vidal Senior was born in Aconchi, Sonora, Mexico. He earned a living as a musician, making bricks and doing farm work. He married Cristina Espinoza, who was from the same area, around 1906. They had four sons and four daughters, including Esperanza (Vidal) Moncivaiz, who was born in Cananea, Sonora. The Vidals came to Chandler in October of 1920, recruited by the government as part of an effort to bring Mexican families to work on farms. They lived in the Goodyear/Ocotillo area, and then, moved to worker’s housing near what is now Hidalgo Street in 1921, where they lived in a big yellow tent.

The Vidals happened upon a one room adobe home on Hidalgo Street with one door and one window. They bought the home for $5 and added a ramada. Later, they moved to another house,   purchased with $250, which Cristina saved from picking cotton. They didn’t have electricity and used a wood burning stove. After a few years, Miguel added another room to the house. That home was near Tino Valenzuela’s pool hall.

As a musician, Miguel organized dances for the neighborhood, playing waltzes and classical music. His Mexican orchestra band also would travel for a month at a time, playing music and making money.

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Esperanza recalls that she and her sister attended church on Sundays at St. Mary’s Catholic Church. In 1926, Cristina started reading the New Testament and became a Christian. This coincided with the arrival of a missionary named Marshall Brewster, who encouraged the Vidals to start a Mexican Methodist group. There was some controversy over this in the neighborhood, as most of the Hispanic families were staunch Catholics and had some reservations about a Protestant church opening in the area. Nevertheless, in 1927, the Vidal family established the Free Methodist Church at the corner of Saragosa and Arizona avenues. Miguel and two of his sons helped make adobe bricks for the building.

Esperanza and her siblings attended the Cleveland School, and then, Chandler High School. When she and her sister Carmen were young, the girls learned to make tortillas. They made everything from scratch, and Mexican ingredients were not easily found at the local stores. She remembers making tamales: “If we were going to make tamales, we would start with the corn. We had to fix the corn, grind it, grind the chili pods, make the chili, and then, make the tamales.”During high school, Esperanza quit school to tend to her mother, who became ill and passed away when Esperanza was fifteen years old. With the help of Mr. Brewster and his new wife, Esperanza moved to Los Angeles to attend Bible school. 

• Esperanza Monciavez.jpg

When she was twenty-two, Esperanza met her husband, Meliton Moncivaiz. They married in 1941 and lived in Mexico doing missionary work. In 1950, the Moncivaiz family moved to Chandler, settling on Saragosa Street. Meliton became a pastor at the Free Methodist Church and Esperanza played piano.

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