Written by Sara Phalen, Director of West Chicago City Museum; edited by Sarah Davis, Illinois State Museum Educator of Public Programs

Emeteria Blanco Zarate came to West Chicago, Illinois in the 1920s with her husband Jacob and their four children. Born and raised in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, her husband, Jacob, first immigrated to Louisiana to work in 1922.  Zarate and their oldest son, Leon, joined him in Louisiana the next year. Jacob found work as part of the growing Chicago & Northwestern Railroad crew that was based in West Chicago.

Raising a family in the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad boxcar camp was not easy. Their home was made from two boxcars, one for the women and one for the men. The boxcars, which lay on the ground with no wheels, were hot in the summer and cold in the winter. During the winters, rags were used to plug the cracks and keep out the snow. The boxcar house had a potbelly stove for heat and a separate cooking stove.  A yearly ration of coal never lasted the winter, so more was gathered from pieces that fell off the trains.  From salvaged lumber, wire and nails, the family built a chicken coop and pig house to help provide an extra source of food.  An outside pump supplied their water.  

By the 1930s the Zarates’ wanted to ensure that their children received a good education, so Jacob switched jobs and began working for the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railroad. This meant a move to the boxcar camp closer to town at the west end of Grand Lake Boulevard. This was closer to St. Mary’s Catholic Grade School.  The Zarate children were among the first Mexican students to graduate from St. Mary’s.

During their time at St. Mary’s, Zarate paid for her children's tuition. She supplemented the family’s income by selling flowers and food from her large garden to local railway workers and at Chicago’s Water Street Market. The family would take a trip into Chicago on the weekends to sell their produce and purchase items that they could not find in the suburbs. 

Zarate managed the family’s finances and saved money by sewing it into a pillow. With her inventive ways of making and saving money, she was able to buy a family car and put $2000 as a down payment on their first home on Stimmel Street in the 1940s. It was the first home purchased by a Mexican American family in West Chicago. Her daughter, Jane lived in the home until 2015. Emeteria passed away in 1994 at the age of 91.