Maria America Lopez embarked on her journey to the Lord's dwelling Wednesday, September 4th, 2024, at the age of 89, in the presence of her husband Pascual Lopez, her husband of 73 years, as well as several other family members.  Maria was born on June 27, 1935, in San Antonio, Texas to the late Eluterio Martinez and Maria America Martinez.  She was born in San Antonio, in a home that was next to her grandfather's west side store where many family reunions were to take place over the years.

She attended Our Lady of Perpetual Help San Antonio before marriage at a young age in the year 1951. Prior to her commitment to marriage her family journeyed to Monterrey, Mexico with what could possibly be construed as a distractor from the notion of marriage at such an innocent age.

Nevertheless, she was soon on an adventurous but arduous life as an Air Force military wife.  First stop was at Langley Field where the married couple had to subsist on limited finances but were able to experience the history of Virginia's east coast. Within a year they were back in San Antonio to start their family while her husband was reassigned to Randolph AFB. She then had to manage a couple years without her husband while his orders sent him to Japan and Korea. The mid-1950s had them pack out to Bryan,Texas Air Force Base where they moved to three different residences within two years.  The late 1950s had the family back in San Antono and were blessed with a consistent home life in a relatively new home inside loop 13 on the east side near Covington Park.

The early 1960s had her husband transferred to West Germany.  While he was sent ahead to begin his deployment Maria had to organize her family on this side of the ocean. Maria, at the age of 26, saddled her three young kids onto a Pullman sleeping car on the near track behind the Missouri Pacific Station in the dark of night and headed off to New Jersey via Columbus, Ohio and Detroit, Michigan. She endured the transfer between trains with limited time windows while making sure not to be detached from her three youngsters.  The trek from Trenton, New Jersey to McGuire AFB, was the last leg before boarding a new Boeing 707 jet liner.  Her fear of flying didn't keep her from appreciating the wonderment of modern transportation.

Her three years in West Germany in the early 1960s could be experienced without much of the western influences that are present these days. Europe was still rebuilding from WWII and Maria's generation of European families were wanting to form a cordial acceptance of cultures.  She loved the landscapes of central Luxembourg and western Germany.  Maria always enjoyed the drive from Consdorf, Luxembourg to Bitburg AFB; numerous sunflowers, roadside religious shrines, forest so thick that no sun rays reached the ground covering of pine cones, villages where the farm tractors and milk cows had the right of way.  Maria also experienced the reality of the cold war in this new place along with its beauty. After having spent extended months in the Consdorf Mullerthal Hotel they moved to a small village of Rittersdorf, just outside Bitburg, Germany.  She shared Christmas, spring festivals, and religious holiday experiences with the German family who lived upstairs while Maria's family lived downstairs.  She could watch the melting snow waters run through the aged stone lined stream bed from her kitchen window. Shortly before returning to the states the family journeyed to the southern border of France to the foot of the Pyrenees Mountains to visit the holy shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes.  From there they crossed over to San Sebastian where she enjoyed a sampling of restaurants and consumed her share of tapas and Spanish wines.  A few kilometers south along the Atlantic coast Maria enjoyed lounging on the coastal beach at Deba, Spain.

She followed her husband to stations in Missouri, North Dakota during the mid-1960s and came home to San Antonio when he was deployed to Thailand in the late 1960s.  Upon his return to the states, Maria collected the family for another overseas trip to southern Italy.  In route to and from the overseas destination, the family would take this occasion to visit relatives in Flint, Michigan.  During this two-year period, she would enjoy extensive travel to some of Italy's renowned destinations (Rome, Vatican, Florence, Pisa, Naples, Sorrento, Capri) and also a diversionary camping trip to Munich,Germany and Saltzburg, Austria.

After her husband's military service, the family settled back in San Antonio, Texas, where she enjoyed visiting with numerous relatives and cooking meals for her family.  She always made it a point to prepare German chocolate cake at each of her children's birthdays.  Thanksgiving meals were not complete without her savory turkey dressing.  Maria and her husband made annual and sometimes biannual trips to Branson, Missouri to draw in the air of the Ozark Mountains.  When they preferred a shorter trip, they would spend a week at Canyon Lake or haul the camper to Garner State Park.  Maria would always invite family members to join them on their getaways.   Shortly before her father's passing away, he offered to build her a two-story cabin house near Medina Lake.  With the help of other family members, they would load up the pickup truck and cars and caravan to the work site on numerous weekends.  The cabin was a comfortable out of town gathering location for holiday family gatherings.

Maria America Lopez now joins her family members that preceded her in death; parents, Eluterio Martinez, Maria America Martinez; brothers, Rodolfo Martinez, Gilberto Martinez; granddaughter Rosa Linda.

She is survived by husband, Pascual; son, Ricardo (Amalia); daughter, Theresa (Raul); son, David (Carmina); daughter, Patricia (Edward); sister, Rosa Herlinda Silva. She is also survived by her grandchildren, David, Philip, Valerie (Jason), Edward Lawrence, Juliana, Hector (Elaine), Andrea (Josh), Nicole (Jesse); great-grandchildren: Jacob (Dulce), Mark, Melissa, Joseph; Adam, Anisa; Aiden, Evan, Lorelei; Victoria, Elijah, Nehemiah; Emma, Emilia; Colton, Hannah; great-great-grandchildren: Dominic and Zachariah.

FUNERAL SERVICES

Thursday, September 26, 2024

Visitation will begin at 5:00 P.M.

Rosary to be recited at 7:00 P.M.

The Angelus Funeral Home Chapel

1119 N. St. Mary's St.

Friday, September 27, 2024

Funeral Mass will be offered at 9:30 A.M.

St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church

1314 Fair Ave.

Interment will follow in

Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery