Coni and Herb Martinez

The Martinez family donated many items to the Southeast Chicago Historical Museum. This picture shows Coni and Herb Martinez. They were the children of Lucio and Pasquala Martinez, who emigrated to the United States from the Zacatecas region of Mexico in the period during, and just after, World War I. They and their other four siblings lived in South Deering near Wisconsin Steel where Lucio worked. The family originally attended Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and, later, St. Kevin’s in South Deering. The daughters, Carmen, Olga, Faye, Coni, and Martha, along with Carmen’s daughter Rita Jirasek, provided a lively oral history of growing up Mexican-American in South Deering to Dominic Pacyga and the Southeast Chicago Historical Project in 1982.