Mother of four was saving to finish house
Ivan Moreno, Rocky Mountain News
Published September 25, 2006 at midnight
Sky blue and white. Colors of the Virgin Mary. The colors Luz Maria Franco Fierros told her family she wanted to be wearing when she was buried to symbolize her religious devotion.
Fierros, a 49-year-old Mexican immigrant and mother of four, came to Denver a year ago to work and send her family money to finish building a home that has been a work in progress for about 15 years.
Fierros was killed last week after being dragged behind a car for more than a mile in Douglas County.
A single mother, Fierros wanted most of all to finish building her family's house, said her daughter, Blanca Anel Leyva Franco, 27.
"For us, it wasn't necessary for her to go," Leyva Franco said.
Her mother had planned on returning within the next year, she said.
Born Feb. 17, 1957, in Chilpancingo, Guerrero, Fierros came from a "humble family" and began working when she was 8 years old, Leyva Franco said.
She was a farm worker, a dishwasher and sold candy on the streets, Leyva Franco said.
Because of Fierros light skin, green eyes and chestnut hair, she was known to townspeople as "La Gera" - "the light-skinned one" - said her oldest daughter, Natividad Lopez Franco, 31.
From her early 20s to her late 30s, Fierros waited tables and saved up enough money to buy a parcel of land where she started building a house from adobe, grass, mud, wood and cement.
The concrete has begun to crumble and the mud is now visible in some parts of the house, Leyva Franco said.
Still, the house is evidence of her hard work, Leyva Franco said, adding that every wall and every piece of wood is a testament to her mother's effort.
Fierros mortgaged her house to raise money to come to the U.S.
"If you were here and saw how life is, then you'd know why (she left)," Leyva Franco said. Even so, because her mother always was working, they lacked nothing, she said.
While in Mexico, Fierros rode a tricycle with a basket on the front to sell vegetables at dawn every day. At night, she sold cooked sweet corn. And during the day, for a time she managed a small store out of her house, selling candy, eggs and toiletries.
During her year in Glendale, Fierros worked at two fast-food restaurants and continued to sell sweet corn out of the trunk of her car.
Fierros put the same energy into having fun as she did into working. Lopez Franco said her mother liked going to parties to dance.
"As much as she liked to work, she liked to have fun, yes," Lopez Franco said.
She said her mother called every day, sometimes twice a day, to ask how her family was doing.
Fierros' family is trying to stay true to her mother's spirit and follow her instructions to not be saddened by her death.
She also told them to play music; not just any music, but the music of Mexican pop idol Vicente Fernandez, whom Fierros met when she was young. It was her birthday when she met him and Fernandez sang Las Mañanitas to her.
"She told us that when she died, if we didn't have money to pay for the mariachi, then we should play the music of Vicente Fernandez on the stereo," Lopez Franco said.
So now, in a room in her house, there's an altar with a picture of Fierro, flowers, candles and a boombox playing all of Fernandez's songs that she loved to listen to.
Besides Lopez Franco and Leyva Franco, Fierro is survived by daughter Esmeralda Leyva Franco, 25; son Diego Dionicio Franco, 17; and four granddaughters.
Donations in memory of Luz Maria Franco Fierros can be made at any Wells Fargo bank. The money will go to help her family in Mexico keep their house.
morenoi@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2895
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