Farmers petition patron saint

David Pellerin/Caller-Times

Isidro Garza Jr. and his wife, Olga, say they like to leave a lighted candle when they go to San Isidro Labrador, the patron saint of farmers. The monument was erected 48 years ago in a field off Farm-to-Market Road 1329.

There may not be much rain these days in Rios, but there's one downpour this Duval County community can count on. Every summer, San Isidro Labrador, the patron saint of farmers, gets inundated with prayers for rain.
   Farmers' faith in the saint never seems to trickle thin despite the withering weather, said Isidro Garza of Alice, who inherited the Rios property where a granite monument to the saint was erected 48 years ago in a field off Farm-to-Market Road 1329.
   "I always have people asking permission to go to the monument," said Garza, 61. "I tell them of course they can, whenever they want to. Some leave flowers for San Isidro. As for my wife and I, we like to leave a lighted candle there when we go to pray for rain."
   Normal precipitation in the area is nearly 2 inches in July, according to Intellicast, a private forecasting company. So far this month parts of Duval County have recorded only 0.1 of an inch of rain. And the National Weather Service predicts highs in the upper 90s through Saturday with a 20 percent chance of rain that will decrease to a slight chance by Saturday
   It was Garza's late father, Isidro Garza Sr., who in 1953 had the monument built in San Antonio and put in the middle of his property, a field that in those days yielded everything from watermelons to corn, grain and cotton.
   From the start, Garza Sr. had a connection to San Isidro, having been born May 15, 1901, the feast day of San Isidro. His devotion to the saint he was named after grew stronger through the years, particularly after he and his family had a near-death experience while transporting the monument from San Antonio to Rios.
   Because U.S. Highway 281 was a rough road at the time, Garza recalled, his father had a relative drive the family's '52 Dodge pickup back to Rios. Garza and his mother rode in the roofed bed with the monument, while Garza's father and cousin were in the front seat.

David Pellerin/Caller-Times

The San Isidro Labrador monument was originally built in 1953.

   During the drive back, Garza's cousin fell asleep at the wheel and the pickup swerved off the road and flipped. Garza, then 10, was thrown from the vehicle; his father's nose was broken on the dashboard.
   Miraculously, no one was seriously injured, and the monument, still tethered to the bed, was as pristine as when they loaded it.
   "Mother said it was the saint who saved us," Garza said.
   Since then, farmers and ranchers from Rios, Concepcion, Premont, Ramirez, Realitos, Benavides, San Diego and surrounding communities have had processions to the monument seeking relief for parched fields.
   Heavy rainfalls
   The most memorable procession to San Isidro was in 1967, Garza said, recalling that it was prompted by a particularly brutal yearlong drought.
   After a week or so of the communal prayer to San Isidro, 18 inches of rain fell, followed by Hurricane Beulah, which dumped another 18 inches.
   The most recent procession was in 1999; 50 people prayed the rosary as they walked from St. Francis de Assisi Catholic Church in Rios to the monument, where they petitioned for rain and celebrated Mass.

David Pellerin/Caller-Times

Isidro Garza Jr. and his wife, Olga, own the property in Rios, in Duval County, where the San Isidro Labrador monument was erected 48 years ago.

   About 3 inches of rain fell within three weeks, said Victor Vera, who runs Victor's Farmers and Ranchers Supply in Rios and was a procession organizer in 1999.
   'A beautiful custom'
   At one time such processions were fairly common among landowners in the area, but the custom is slowly fading as old-timers die, said Jose Noe Martinez, a retired U.S. Department of Agriculture soil conservation service worker who lives on a 200-acre farm north of Rios.
   "What a beautiful custom our forefathers left us," Martinez said. "It was a way of getting our people together in prayer. It's sad to see this dying out."
   These days, many believers in San Isidro pray to the patron saint of farmers on their own, Vera said.
   "When I do my own praying at night, I never forget San Isidro," he said. "And as good believers we always get an answer."