Jose and Angelina de Anda in 1960.

Angelina’s friend was getting a group together to go dancing over in Oakland at Sweet’s Ballroom. Spring, 1953.

 Her friend’s brother, Jose, home on leave from the army, was visiting his family at their house on 25th  and Rhode Island streets.  (He’s a good dancer.)

 Angelina remembers that day when she met her future husband of almost 70 years.

 “He was wearing a dazzling aquamarine blue suit and a sharp tie.  He was driving  a brand-new Chevrolet, and I looked and I looked at him and I said to myself,  ‘Ah, hello, here is my destiny!’ ”

Jose grins at the memory. “That was a Bel-Air I had, one of the first, a gold-colored Bel Air!”

The Mission District nonagenarians, (both completely bilingual), laugh when asked: Well, how do you do nearly 70 years of marriage? 

“Perdon. Perdon. Perdon, FORGIVE.”

Angelina’s eyes gleam as she recalls being married with two kids and her husband paid on Fridays. “He began going to that Italian bar, there on 16th Street, after work with his friends .”

“It was just to pass a few happy hours relaxing and laughing with coworkers,” Jose explains.

Too much of both, Angelina decided, and she told him that if he wasn’t home by midnight, the door would be locked. 

“There were nights I slept in the Chevy,” Jose says. 

The de Andas look at each other with unspeakable grace.

“But I forgave him.”

“And I apologized.”

“I made 85 cents an hour, and then I got a raise to 90 cents. That wasn’t for me.”

Jose De Anda

Angelina Garcia was born in 1927 in Bramin, Oklahoma, after her father came from Mexico to work on the railroad.  She was the last of four kids born in the United States, but later they returned to Mexico to be with her grandmother, and she was raised in Juarez. “I left school after the fifth grade and, at 16, I began crossing the bridge into El Paso, Texas, every day to work in a sewing factory. I learned all the machines: the industrial ones, the button hole machines. I made shirts and pants all day, clocked in at 8 and left at 5.  I was quick and accurate.”

Angelina Garcia, the last of four children born in the United States.

When she came to visit her brothers in Fresno and San Francisco in 1952, the 25-year-old Angelina found a job sewing curtains and drapes at a factory at Second and Mission streets. “My rent was $10 a week for a room in the Ojeda family’s house, and Senora Ojeda fed me, too. I had enough money for everything, including going dancing at Sweets Ballroom in Oakland, where visiting orchestras came from Mexico. Las tardeadas! I had soooo many dance partners!”

Times were good, she said; work was plentiful, and if a boss treated her badly in one place, she could always find another job.  

Jose De Anda was born in Kermit, Texas, where his dad, also from Mexico, had come to work in the fields. 

His parents returned to Mexico when he was still a baby, but at 15 he returned to his uncle in Sacramento, to work. “In 1945  there weren’t enough men. It was wartime, so I worked in the sugar beets, and the carrots, then came to San Francisco and worked for Levi Strauss as a Bundle Boy on the sewing floor.” 

There, he bundled up pieces of fabric and ran them from table to table. “I made 85 cents an hour, and then I got a raise to 90 cents. That wasn’t for me.”

Next, he worked in a cannery in Hayward, and then he was drafted during the Korean War and sent to Alaska for two years. “They said we were protecting our borders.,” he explains. 

Angelina and Jose married in 1955 in Fresno, and moved into a flat on San Carlos Street between 20th and 21st streets in the Mission, where their rent was $35 a month.

“I really wanted to be a firefighter, it was my dream, so I went down to apply, but they told me I was too short,” Jose recalled. You had to be five feet eight inches. He was only five foot seven inches.

“Now I am even shorter,” he says. 

With his wife pregnant with their daughter, he found work with the Hostess Wonder Bread Bakery, (Continental Bakery), at 16th and Bryant streets. “It was a union job, great benefits. And we bought our house on Folsom Street in 1979,” he says. He worked there for 40 years and retired in 1993.

They raised a son, Gilberto, and a daughter, Alicia, and have eight grandkids and seven great-grandkids.

 Angelina also worked as her kids were growing up, volunteering at St. Charles Catholic school on the corner of 18th Street and South Van Ness Avenue, which closed in 2017. “I sewed costumes, I answered phones in the office, and I represented St. Charles at the meetings of all the Catholic schools,” she said. At the time, she worked as a file clerk in the financial district and retired in 1994. 

Before Covid-19, they traveled to Barcelona and Toledo annually, where they have four grandsons and great-grandkids (their daughter Alicia, who died of cancer in 2013, married a Spaniard).  

“Another place we loved to go is to El Bosque de la Primavera, outside of Guadalajara, to take the thermal waters, two weeks every year,” Angelina adds. But these are not those times.

Though not wandering in Spain or Mexico, they are out every day, walking and talking in their neighborhood, avid and engaged, often counseling and offering advice at Martha Brothers’ coffee shop on Cortland Avenue. That’s across the street from their parish church, St. Kevin’s, where Angelina, 94, volunteers regularly. 

“Some weekends, I make 100  to 200 tamales in the church basement kitchen,” said Angelina. “We feed the parishioners after mass, and we also feed the homeless. Whatever they need,  I can make down there:  enchiladas, tacos, tamales.  Also, I regularly help out counting the money, (the donations)  because they trust me, I think.”

Jose and Angelina de Anda in front of St. Kevin’s where Angelina still makes tamales and counts the money. Photo by Colin Campbell

“People start conversations with us all the time,” says Angelina.

And she gives an example of three young girls in a café complaining about their job and a boss who wasn’t treating them right. “They asked me if that  ever happened to me, so I suggested they SPEAK UP!”

Jose says he walks every day, taking the bus to the Embarcadero, where it is flat. “My knees are too old for the hills around here,” he says. “I lubricate my knees at the Embarcadero.”

On a mild winter morning, they sat outside the café, greeted constantly, “Saludos, Comadre!” as they sipped small coffees. 

“Abuelita,” said a burly, tattooed young man as he climbed back into his pickup truck with his takeout coffee, “ I bought you a pan dulce,” and proffers a paper bag with smiling eyes over his mask.

“Gracias, mi hijo, just a little piece,” and Angelina delicately tears off a corner of a jam-filled pastelito and offers it to Jose.

Was that their grandson?

“No, I just always see him at the cafe,” Angelina shrugs, “ but they all call us Abuela and Abuelo around here. And that’s ok with us.”

Jose and Angelina de Anda. Photo by Colin Campbell.

Follow Us

Join the Conversation

27 Comments

  1. Very touching story of a long marriage against the backdrop of a vibrant community,

    0
    0
    votes. Sign in to vote
  2. Oh my God! I so remember the De Andas! Growing up in San Francisco, and being enrolled at Saint Charles, from 1966 to 1971 , I remember their influence on our school and it’s activities and fund raisers. I so envied their kids, you see my mother worked full time and step father were not inclined to voluteer for what ever reason. Their presence was so reassuring to my latino identity in a predominantly Irish and German faculty and neighbourhood at that time. I remember marvelling at that fact that they spoke English with no accent at all , unlike my mother who spoke very little English and my dad who spoke with a heavy accent. I remember the respect they garnered when ever present. How they helped coordinating huge fun raising events at San Carlos hall. In those days our school along with other catholic schools held a big picnic in Golden Gate park. It was there in the late 60’s that a naked “hippie” crashed our picnic rolling around and sending shock waves to the kids, the parents, the nuns, and the priests. Mr. DeAnda and a few other fathers ushered the naked reveller away with out incident. I miss those days and the people who were instrumental in forming a big part of my identity as a man, as a latino and as one of San Francisco’s native sons. Many heartfelt cheers to the De Andas and their family, we need this kind of examples more than ever.

    0
    0
    votes. Sign in to vote
  3. I would be lost without these two special people in my life. They have carried me through many an ordeal. They educate us through example. Thank you to my aunt and uncle for being such a great example to us all. I love you both. God Bless you.

    0
    0
    votes. Sign in to vote
  4. Thanks for sharing the delightful story of Jose and Angelina. They are a lovely couple, and their honesty about married life should encourage all of us to see that although marriage takes work, it is possible to have a long and happy marriage when couples are willing to apologize for mistakes and forgive one another. Angelina would be too humble to mention this, but she probably should have been a nurse or social worker because she has regularly gone out of her way to visit neighbors and friends who were hospitalized or homebound. The De Andas are a neighborhood treasure.

    0
    0
    votes. Sign in to vote
  5. A wonderful recounting of days past for this lovely couple Angelina and Jose de Anda. Seeing them in the Bernal community, on Cortland, and elsewhere is special to many. Their son Gilberto carries their pride in family, fun, hard work and community. Thanks for telling their story. Zelda

    0
    0
    votes. Sign in to vote
  6. My Godparents from my quincenera. They have known me since I was but a seedling. The are beloved to us Reyes and we love their entire family. This made me cry because I miss seeing them and reading about them just reminds me how much ch we’ve shared and how much ❤️ They represent. Maybe time for another weekend trip with the DeAnda’s. Beautiful share about beautiful people💕

    0
    0
    votes. Sign in to vote
  7. What a wonderful story, reminds me of my parents and many others who grew up in Mission.

    0
    0
    votes. Sign in to vote
  8. Our dearest friends! Abuelita Angelina y José. It is always a pleasure to sit and chat with them, whenever we are in Martha’s. A great sense of humor. I am grateful that they let me tell so many stories and jokes…some of them a little racy! Les queremos, ¡mucho!

    0
    0
    votes. Sign in to vote
  9. Beautiful tribute for a beautiful couple! Great example of lives well lived (together). It has been a privilege and honor to know this family for almost 50 years!💖

    0
    0
    votes. Sign in to vote
  10. I am begging Mission Local to continue to publish these love stories. We can all learn from our elders. They look good. I want to eat and drink what they are.

    0
    0
    votes. Sign in to vote
  11. That’s my aunt and uncle, sister of my mother, known them all my life!! I am her namesake Laura Angelina. They are quite the characters and a very cute couple. Con carino tios♥️

    0
    0
    votes. Sign in to vote
  12. So happy to read this beautiful story about two very special people that I have known all my life. Mrs. DeAnda was my mom’s best friend to her dying day. They have always been a wonderful and handsome couple. Love them to pieces!

    0
    0
    votes. Sign in to vote
  13. Two of my favorite and beloved aunt & uncle. Years of fond memories. Hope to go visit them very soon.

    0
    0
    votes. Sign in to vote
  14. A other story to fall in love with the Mission, and to understand why we should support Mission Local, locos.

    0
    0
    votes. Sign in to vote
  15. I LOVE this story–two people connected for so long, throughout so much!
    Keep these heartwarming profiles coming, please:)

    0
    0
    votes. Sign in to vote
  16. Seventy years together – and still the handsomest couple on the dance floor. Great story.

    0
    0
    votes. Sign in to vote
Leave a comment
Please keep your comments short and civil. Do not leave multiple comments under multiple names on one article. We will zap comments that fail to adhere to these short and very easy-to-follow rules.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *