Teacher and journalist Irma McCall was a resident of Ajijic during the 1960s, and penned a full-page article about Ajijic for a California newspaper in March 1962 in which she called Ajijic an “unspoiled paradise.” At the time, according to McCall, the village had about 2000 inhabitants, ‘principally fishermen,’ and an estimated 200 Americans.
Irma McCall’s article in Press-Telegram, 11 March 1962, p82. (Credit: Press-Telegram)
McCall reported that maid service was $4 a week and that Neill James rented out “comfortable Mexican-style homes with a gas stove, refrigerator, and fireplace for $65 a month.” She briefly mentions several philanthropic activities (such as Needle Pushers) and recreational pursuits such as duplicate bridge, painting, hunting (‘partridge, quail, pheasant, dove, deer, and even wild boar’), leather work, woodwork, gardening, hiking, golf and horseback riding. For bull fights, symphonies, opera, ballet and ‘legitimate theater,’ Guadalajara was not far away.
Though she makes no direct reference to them in her article, McCall includes two images with the caption: “Silk worm cocoons are sorted by skilled girls in the Ajijic shop of Neill James. The silk is women into beautiful blouses; sale aids local economy.”
Photographer unknown. Reproduced in McCall’s 1962 article in Press-Telegram. Note: this image is from the original negatives, which are in the author’s custody.
Irma McCall (née Taylor) was born in New Berlin, Illinois on 30 November 1899. After gaining her B.A. and M.A. at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Irma arrived in Long Beach in 1923 to teach social studies.
In 1937, Irma and her mother embarked on a round-the-world trip. They had crossed Korea by train and were on a Japanese train for Peking when the Second Sino-Japanese war broke out. They made it to Peking (Beijing) where, “oblivious of danger” they spent seven days visiting all the sights, before Irma fell ill and was treated in the German hospital. When the Japanese ordered the city to surrender or be bombed with poison gas, Irma and her mother sought refuge in the U.S. embassy, with its contingent of 500 Marines. In early August, they were able to leave, and made their way to Kobe, from where they “obtained the last cabin on the Heian Maru bound for Seattle.”
In October 1946, Irma married recently retired U.S. Navy captain Francis Bayard McCall (1901-1965) in California. After leaving the Navy, her husband obtained a masters degree in history and a teaching credential, and taught as a substitute teacher.
After Irma’s retirement from teaching in 1952, she and her husband became regular visitors to Mexico, especially Ajijic. Sadly, tragedy struck in 1965 when her husband died at the age of 63 of cardiac failure while they were visiting friends in Culiacán, Sinaloa. Irma continued to return at least seasonally to Ajijic, where her address in a 1971 directory was listed as Guadalupe Victoria #8.
McCall published another piece dedicated to Ajijic in 1966, about children choosing and buying presents for Día de las Madres (Mother’s Day, 10 May). She explained that “Boys and girls in Ajijic, a fishing village near Guadalajara, earn their presents in a special way — by painting cards which Mississippi-born Miss Neill James sells in her shop. Tourists pay one peso (8 cents) for each card.” Ramón is using golden-orange paint to show the lake at sunset, María is drawing the pink stone church, Arturo is painting a Wise Man’s robe royal blue, and Trina is dabbing golden dots on a butterfly’s turquoise wings.
Her obvious interest in these activities explains why Irma, in 1968, was instrumental in persuading the Studio City Chamber of Commerce to help sponsor a 13-year-old Ajijic artist, Ramón Navarro, to leave Ajijic and live with an aunt in Los Angeles, where he could attend formal art classes. McCall had reported that Navarro, barely a teenager, was “exhibiting his oil paintings and watercolors at an art show in Guadalajara.” The Chamber continued to support Navarro for several years, and its Women’s Division gave him a scholarship in 1973 to complete his education in the U.S.
Irma McCall died in Long Beach, California, on 12 November 1976. Her remains were interred (as were those of her husband) at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego. Her obituary described her as a 50-year resident of Long Beach, who had taught in the Long Beach Unified School District for 25 years, been an active member of the First Congregational Church, and was a Past President of the University Women’s Club.
Irma McCall Taylor (her writing name) wrote Perilous Journeys, published by Scholastic in 1963, and republished as Danger Zone (Perilous Journeys) a few years later. McCall’s name also appears on the inside back cover of the dust jacket of Quilocho and the Dancing Stars, where she simply writes that the book “should be in every library.” Quilocho is the fictionalized autobiography of Zara Alexeyewa (aka La Rusa), the ‘Russian’ ballet dancer who lived for decades in Ajijic.
Several chapters of Foreign Footprints in Ajijic: Decades of Change in a Mexican Village explain more about the history of Ajijic, of Zara Alexeyewa, and of Neill James and her many contributions to Ajijic.
Sources
- Irma McCall. 1962. “Ajijic–Paradise Under the Mexican Sun,” Independent Press-Telegram (Long Beach), 11 March 1962, 82.
- Valley News: 4 Aug 1968, 50.
- Frances de Brundage (pen name of Zara Alexeyewa, aka ‘La Rusa’). 1973. Quilocho and the Dancing Stars. Philadelphia: Dorrance & Co.
- Independent Press-Telegram (Long Beach): 30 Nov 1960, 24; 1 Jul 1965, 32; 16 Sep 1976, 32; 11 Mar 1973, 154-161.
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Tony Burton’s books include “Lake Chapala: A Postcard History” (2022), “Foreign Footprints in Ajijic” (2022), “If Walls Could Talk: Chapala’s historic buildings and their former occupants” (2020), (available in translation as “Si Las Paredes Hablaran”), “Mexican Kaleidoscope” (2016), and “Lake Chapala Through the Ages” (2008).