By Freda Rumford from the May 2010 Edition
Sra. C. Reynalda Garcia Dominguez (Reina)
Reina is a fully qualified and registered nurse and in her young days, served Mexico as one of 3 nurses in the Marines, stationed on the lonely island in the Pacific, Socorro, for 3 years caring for 200 troops. (See Terry Sovil’s article about these islands in this edition of Manzanillo Sun.) Upon leaving the service, Reina returned to her family in Santiago and was the nurse in charge of delivering the children of her sister, Esperanza Garcia Corey.
Just 15 years ago she was one of the original group of citizens who fought for the district of Santiago to become a separate municipality from Manzanillo, which unfortunately did not happen. More recently she fought for a group of farmers who were facing another group of people trying to usurp their ownership to land and farms. Reina collected all pertinent forms and details, presented them to the State governor and was eventually successful in returning the properties to the rightful owners. Since then she has represented and acted a sort of ombudsman or intermediary for many other people in representing cases to the Government. John Corey referred to her as a modern revolutionary without a pistol.
C. Reynalda Garcia Dominguez was one of 4 women honoured by Manzanillo Mayor Nabor Ochoa on 4th March 2010, “Woman’s Day”, with a certificate of gratitude from the State Governor. She was honoured for her “altruistic work, moral fortitude and service to the Community“.
Reina is #7 in a family of 14 brothers and sisters of which, 13 of the siblings are still living. Their parents taught them that they were not important and to both pay full respect to others and the needs of those less fortunate, a creed by which all of them still live.
Reina stated in our conversation that she is not important and there are many others who do the same work or even more than she does. She does not need a car or fancy things when others are so desperate for the very basic needs of life.
Most of us have met this lovely smiling lady with twinkling eyes, as she works 6 days a week waiting tables at her sister and brother in law’s restaurant, “Juanitos” in Santiago, but none of us knew that in her time off she helps very many charities or organisations. These organisations contact Reina, tell her what they need at any given time and she acts as their co-ordinator. She also distributes money to these organisations as and when donated by individuals or companies and emphasized that receipts for any donations are given for tax purposes.
Download the full edition or view it online
—
Most knew her as Freda Rumford. Freda Anne Vickery was a founder, editor, and contributor of the Manzanillo Sun magazine. She was one of the founders and, took over being President of the Manzamigos, when her husband Nigel, died. When she first came to Manzanillo, she got a job writing for the Guadalajara Reporter and used that as a foundation for her later humanities work. Freda was born in the East side of London in 1934 but grew up in Norwich. Freda’s early life was one of overcoming things. As an example, she was born with a lisp but one of her first jobs was being a telephone operator after some extensive elocution lessons. She met and married a young military man and, like so many others, they and their children moved to Canada for his employment opportunities and she ended up working for the Hudson’s Bay Company in cosmetic sales in Calgary. They moved to BC and then to Manzanillo, for her health, which flourished in the tropical weather. After Nigel died, she later married Kirby Vickery. She later became ill and finally lost the battle with cancer on the 27th of February 2016.
You must be logged in to post a comment.