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``Valdez Fimbres Family Day'' November 2023

Floor Speech

Date: May 7, 2024
Location: Washington, DC

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Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of the Valdez Fimbres family who have been members of the Tucson community for generations. They held a family reunion on November 23, 2023 at the KayCee Club in Tucson, Arizona to celebrate their shared heritage, strengthen family ties, recognize marriages, and births, and honor those who have passed on.

The Valdez Fimbres family currently enjoys nine generations, many living across the country, but most of them reside in Tucson, Arizona.

Feliciano Fimbres, born in 1895, and Aurelia Valdez, born in 1899, were both first generation U.S. Citizens. They married on May 20, 1921, in Tucson, AZ and raised their eight children, Ernesto, Gilberto, Manuel, Carlos, Rudolfo, Maria del Carmen, Federico, and Gloria in Tucson, Arizona.

The Historic American Buildings Survey of the U.S. Interior Department conducted two studies in 1980 which are registered with the Library of Congress as Fimbres House No. 1 and Fimbres House No. 2. The summary states: ``The name Fimbres has been associated with this section of South Meyer Avenue since 1881, when the City Directory lists a Santos Fimbres. The builder of this house, Feliciano Fimbres, Sr., (probably related to Santos), lived here with his family until the late 1930's Fimbres, a laborer and wagon driver, lived across the street until he built this dwelling (Fimbres House No. 1), around 1905. Feliciano and Julia Fimbres had seven children. Two of them, Julia and Gabriel, lived in the apartments that Feliciano added at Meyer Avenue in Barrio Historico/Barrio Libre.''

Julia Fimbres (the daughter), married Jesus Sanchez and lived next door at Meyer Avenue, also constructed by Feliciano Fimbres, Sr. in 1926. Jesus and Julia Sanchez died in 1959 and 1974, but their daughter, Evangelina Cota, still occupies that space with her family. The property at Meyer passed out of the Fimbres family in 1939, and has been rented by a succession of short-term tenants since that time. The dwellings were converted for commercial use after 1974 by a service agency for the handicapped.

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