Half-Way Store owner has weathered the changes for more than 4 decades

The grandmother of nine who digs into her own pocket to pay for a band to entertain horse riders looking to maintain a tradition that began more than four decades ago has had a front-row seat to the cause that helped the plight of poor Mexican farmworkers living in trailers without running water or electricity.

Leticia Fernández was 16 years old when she began working at the Half-Way Store on Derrick Avenue between Three Rocks and I-5.

A few years later, she met Sigurdur ‘Mexican Segui’ Christopherson on the first horse pilgrimage he organized to force county officials to do something.

“He wanted justice,” said Fernández, who at the time lived in one of those dilapidated trailers with a newborn daughter and not much hope that Christopherson and the original horse riders – including the late Julián Orozco and former Madera County Supervisor Jesse López – could do much.

“It was hard to warm up water for her milk,” said Fernández, who managed to graduate from Tranquillity High School a semester early.

Some residents were being evicted from the rundown housing.

The Fresno County Board of Supervisors rejected Christopherson’s pleas for help. So, the Icelandic admirer of Murrieta started the horse ride.

Television cameras, newspaper reporters and photographers eventually showed up and reported on the living conditions. Selp-Help Enterprises and other organizations pitched in to help families with housing and other services.

“He brought attention,” said Fernández about Christopherson. “After that, we thought we lived in paradise with running water and electricity.”

Fernández – who was born in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, México and became a U.S. citizen in the early 1980s – was happy with the changes the horse ride brought about.

“We were living way better, you know,” said Fernández. “I mean, we were in paradise on the north side of (Cantúa Creek Elementary).”

That was 40 years ago.

Today, Fernández, who celebrated her 60th birthday on Saturday (July 30), wonders why it seems like living conditions haven’t improved much.

The trailers without electricity or running water are inhabited again. A barbecue got out of hand and burned down a couple of those trailers because there was no water to fight the flames, said Fernández.

Monthly rent is $1,000 for those lucky enough to afford a place. In nearby Cantúa Creek, $650 gets you a tiny place. “We do need more housing,” she said.

That awareness that Christopherson and his horse riders raised is but a distant memory for Fernández, who moved out of her tiny trailer into a double-wide mobile home in Cantúa Creek where she still lives.

The tiny grocery store that once sold meats, vegetables and produce today survives on snacks, beer and drinks that the occasional traveler will splurge on.

The farmworkers who bought meats and other non-snack provisions have all but disappeared.

“The trees came in and there was less labor,” said Fernández, referring to growers deciding to plant pistachios and almonds which require less labor than crops like cantaloupes and vegetables.

Fernández has endured other problems with the store, which the former owner sold to her without her knowledge in 1997. “I cried for two hours when he told me, ‘OK, the store’s yours,’” she said.

The store sat on land owned by Southern Pacific, and in 1997 the railroad wanted to sell the land. Fernández convinced the company to let her purchase the property.

So, how did the music for the horse ride start?

One year, her father hired a trío to perform for her at the store. That was when the horse riders showed up and thought the musicians had been hired for them.

“The horse riders told us they really appreciated the music,” recalls Fernández, who shushed away her father’s complaints that the trío was for his daughter.

Ever since, Fernández has made sure the horse riders have music when they show up the last Sunday in July.

By the way, Fernández has never been on a horse.