A Mother’s Determination (Teotitlán del Valle 1792)

The small village of Teotitlán del Valle was unusually quiet that summer. A sickness had come. Smallpox. Fear followed close behind. Those who showed signs of fever and rash were taken to an infirmary hastily set up beyond the edge of town. The officials called it necessary. Families were told to stay away. No visits. No goodbyes.

María was told her daughter, only eight, had been taken there. No one told her more. For days she waited near the path leading to the infirmary, hoping for word, a message, even a glance. Nothing came.

Then one evening, just as the sun dropped behind the mountains, María could wait no longer. She spoke with other mothers and fathers who were just as afraid, just as tired of silence. Together, they walked—quietly at first, then faster—toward the infirmary.

They passed the guards. Some pushed open the doors. Inside, they found their children and siblings, frail but alive. Others wept beside the still forms of those too late to save.

That night, the families did what their hearts told them: they brought their loved ones home. They tended to the sick. They laid to rest the ones they’d lost, burying them with dignity in the churchyard.

María’s daughter survived.

And though the officials condemned what had happened, the people of Teotitlán remembered it differently: as a night when love overcame rules, and fear gave way to courage.