Los Novillos Cemetery 

Hidalgo Co. Cemeteries of Tx

Submitted by Frances Isbell

With Permission  of Hidalgo Co. Historical Commission (2005)

With permission of McAllen Genealogical Society

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LOCATION: 3.75 miles southeast of Puerto Rico on north side of FM 1017.  

SURVEYED:  February 1976 by Virginia G. Stinson.

HISTORY: Martiniano Cantu (1877-1960) was a partner of Sam Lane  in both Hidalgo and Starr Counties. In 1911, when he married Timotea Cavazos, daughter of Amado and Maria Manuela Cardenas Cavazos of La Noria Cardenena Ranch, he purchased a share in Sam Lane Ranch. The couple lived in the big ranchhouse with Mr. Lane.

They adopted Ester G. Cantu, who died of scarlet fever in 1918, and is buried at Los Novillos Ranch, 1 1/2 miles east of Sam Lane Ranch headquarters, and once a part of Sam Lane Ranch.  Their daughter is Eugenia Cantu Guzman.  [Cantu's connection with Los Novillos is not clear, but the site was identified on a soil survey map of 1925 as Santa Timotea Ranch, name of his wife's patron saint.]

     After the death of Sam Lane in 1924, Cantu moved to La Noria Cardenena Ranch as owner (either by bequest or purchase).  He raised and shipped cattle.

The single gravesite is just outside southeast corner of Los Novillos Ranch headquarters dooryard.

ESTER G. CANTU  25 NOV 1908 - 12 JAN 1926 Adoptive parents Martiniano and Timotea C. Cantu.

Inscribed on tombstone (translated from Spanish by Goldsby Goza):                                                        She died peacefully in the cold morning without a complaint, and with her eyes turned to heaven.  But in her family, such desolation since that sad, unforgettable day.  She was the happiness in our  home, a model of all the virtues.  She was our delight and our joy. Why hast thou taken her away, cruel death? Perhaps in heaven they needed a star of great brilliance or a maiden most innocent and pure?  Justice is Thy law, but oh God--star or maiden, Thy judgment is difficult because our grief fills our souls.