Raquel Luna spent much of her childhood moving between Mexico and the Midwest as her family searched for jobs during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
In later years, Ms. Luna told her grandchildren how difficult it was being pulled out of school in Monterrey, Mexico, and transferring to Chicago schools whenever her father found work. Often, she was teased and beaten in school for not knowing English, her family said.
Despite those painful moments, Ms. Luna’s fondest memories were of helping feed sailors and pilots stationed at Navy Pier during World War II.
“My grandmother was extremely proud of the volunteer work she did at Navy Pier during the war,” said her granddaughter Laura Garza. “She was friends with an Italian little girl and her mother took them both to help. They made sandwiches for the soldiers.”
Ms. Luna, 80, a member of one of the oldest Mexican-American families in Chicago, died of natural causes Wednesday, March 16, in her Chicago home, her family said.
The Luna family’s history in Chicago began with Adrian and Maria Luna, who arrived in Chicago in November 1927 with their seven children. A story on the Luna family’s long history in the city appeared in the Tribune Magazine in 2001.
The Lunas settled near St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church on Roosevelt Road and Halsted Street. At the time, there were fewer than 20,000 Mexicans in the city.
In 1929, with the Depression looming and jobs scarce, the family moved to Ohio City, Ohio, and found work as migrant laborers harvesting onions, tomatoes and beets. Their eighth child, Raquel, was born in late 1930 in Ohio.
In 1931, the family returned to Chicago. But they didn’t stay long, and instead started a pattern of back-and-forth migration from Chicago to Monterrey that would continue for the next 30 years. The proximity of Mexico made their old homeland a refuge from homesickness, prejudice and a depressed economy.
During the 1930s, Adrian Luna sold fireworks in Mexico. Then, in 1942, the family returned to Chicago, and he landed work at a paint factory. Five years after that, Maria Luna grew homesick, so the family went back to Monterrey.
In Chicago, Ms. Luna attended St. Francis Catholic School and Dante Public School.
In 1947, she married Jose Rodriguez Lopez in Monterrey. They moved to Chicago and settled here for good, on the Near West Side and later in the Little Village neighborhood.
They had 6 children before divorcing in 1966.
In 1967 she met her second husband, Jose De La Torre, while looking for work at Spiegel Jewelry Department Store. They had two daughters and remained together for 36 years until his death in 2004.
Ms. Luna worked briefly at a mattress company and as a punch press machine operator, but family members said she spent most of her life raising her children as a stay-at-home mother.
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“My grandmother loved knitting, reading and cooking,” said Garza. “We’re definitely going to miss her mole sauce, stuffed peppers and her Mexican rice.”
Ms. Luna is survived by two sons, Jose and Ricardo; four daughters, Linda, Blanca and Yolanda Rodriguez and Susana Gaitan; her sister Esperanza Izguerra-Luna; and 45 grandchildren.
Services were held.