The Life of Rosa Miranda Ramirez: A Glimpse into East Texas Logging Camps (1913–2000)

Rosa Miranda Ramirez, a homemaker whose oral history provided insight into life in East Texas logging camps during the 1930s and 1940s, was born on August 30, 1913, to Cirilo Miranda and Maria Sebastiana de la Luz Moreno. Her place of birth is unclear. Although census records in 1920 listed her as born in Mexico and immigrating to Texas in 1919, her delayed birth certificate, filed in 1974, listed her place of birth as San Augustine County, Texas, and in her 1994 interview, she stated that she was born in White City, Texas, in San Augustine County. According to the 1920 census, the family, consisting of the parents (both native of Mexico), Rosa, and her two younger brothers, lived in San Augustine County, where Cirilo Miranda worked as a laborer for a sawmill, most likely the Southern Pine Lumber Company. Rosa spent her childhood in White City, which was a Southern Pine Lumber Company camp. She later recalled that she had limited schooling and largely taught herself to speak, read, and write English through books and newspapers.

By the time of the Great Depression, Rosa Miranda had married Jose “Joe” Jesus Miranda, and they moved to Fastrill, Texas, a logging community established by the Southern Pine Lumber Company, where her husband worked as a sniper in a logging camp. The couple had eleven children: Marina, Alfred, Isadore, Joe, Rose Marie, Matilda, Carmen, Frances, Marie, John, and Frank. Census records indicate that Joe Miranda brought three children—Sofia, Jose, and Virginia—into the marriage.

Fastrill consisted of Mexican American, White, and Black families that worked in the logging camp, and in her 1994 interview Rosa Miranda Ramirez remembered, “The colored lived across the road, the Spanish on one side and the Whites lived in another section. I think all of the people spoke English at Fastrill.” The camp boss gave Miranda and her husband three acres of land to farm, and her husband planted different crops, including sugar cane for syrup. She recalled how the family’s food production, including growing various crops and killing hogs, and their self-sufficient approach carried them through the Depression. “I did all the cooking, canning and raising children,” she recalled. She also sewed children’s clothing out of cattle feed sacks. In addition to farming, Joe Miranda was part of a team that “put out ties and rails,” essentially constructing the railroad for the logging camp. For recreation families took their children to the nearby Neches River to go swimming, fishing, and hold fish fries. Miranda remembered a favorite swimming hole called Rocky Hole on the Neches where “they all splashed water” while the men went fishing.

By the 1940s much of the timber had been harvested and residents and workers left the logging community of Fastrill. In 1941 the Miranda family moved to Diboll in Angelina County, where Southern Pine Lumber Company had major lumber operations. Eventually members of the community established a small Methodist church, which Rosa Miranda attended with her children. They later joined First Baptist Church in Diboll. Miranda was enlisted by a member of the church to speak with Mexican immigrant and Mexican American recruits coming from the Rio Grande Valley to work in the town. Fluent in both Spanish and English, she translated for the prospective workers and provided assistance to help them transition to a new job and community.” She and her husband formed close relationships with other Mexican American families in town. During World War II her stepdaughter Sofia served in the Women’s Army Corps.

The 1950 census listed the Miranda family with nine children still living in the household. Joe Miranda’s occupation was listed as firing boilers in the lumber mill. With the encouragement of a man named “Mr. Anthony,” possibly a property manager for the lumber company, Rosa Miranda was able to purchase a house with money she had saved and arrange a payment plan.

In 1966 Joe Miranda died, and in 1975 their daughter, Rose Marie, died. Rosa Miranda married Jilberto (or Gilberto) Ramirez on November 11, 1976; he died in 1985. Rosa Miranda Ramirez remained in Diboll and lived in the house that she had purchased. Several of her children attended college. She remained active in the local Baptist church. She died in a Lufkin hospital on December 9, 2000, and was buried in Garden of Memories Memorial Park in Lufkin.