Petra Vasquez covered more than miles when she went from beet-field worker in Montana to Denver businesswoman.
From age 14, the plucky Vasquez worked first to support her brother, mother and sister and later her four children.
“She had amazing talents,” said her son Robert Vasquez Sr. of Denver, a retired Denver Public Schools music teacher.
Petra Vasquez died in Denver on Aug. 4. She was 95.
Vasquez emigrated from Mexico to Montana when she was 14, following her brother, Esiquio Ledesma, to work in the beet fields. Her grandmother, father and a sister had all died within a year. Her mother, brother and sister also came north for work.
She married, returned to Mexico and had her first two children, but the marriage ended in divorce. She moved back to Montana and then Colorado.
She worked in the beet fields near Brighton and other jobs, including selling tickets at the Mexico Theatre, 21st and Larimer streets, her son said.
Next it was selling clothes door-to-door for a Denver businessman who had a downtown store. She saved enough money to buy a small house, rented out one side of it and opened a small clothing store of her own, which she ran until she opened a grocery store. She had remarried by this time, to Jose Vasquez, and sold his car in order to open the boutique.
“She was always willing to take chances,” said Robert Vasquez, laughing at the car sale.
She, her husband and children all took their shifts in the grocery store, which was open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Always on the lookout for property, she opened another grocery store and bought a 14-unit apartment building in lower downtown Denver.
By the time she retired at 75, she had 25 rental units in various locations and the Curtis Park Creamery, which is now a Mexican restaurant run by her son Lawrence Rod riquez.
“I don’t know how she did it all,” Robert Vasquez said. “She still had time to fix three meals for us and wash and iron our clothes.”
“She was very charming, loved to dress up” and went dancing when she could, he said.
Petra Ledesma was born Sept. 17, 1909, in Valle de Santiago, Mexico. In addition to sons Robert Vasquez and Lawrence Rodriquez, she is survived by another son, Art Rodriquez of Denver; a daughter, Beatrice Juarez of Lakewood; 10 grandchildren; 18 great-grandchildren, eight great-great-grandchildren; and two sisters, Pat Jackson of Littleton and Polly Rod riquez of Denver. She was preceded in death by her husband.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-820-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
