AUSTIN – For decades, Lois Villaseor had helped Latin Americans cope with the deaths of their loved ones.
Recently, the East Austin funeral home she and her late husband founded in the 1950s has been more crowded as the coronavirus pandemic spread across the network it serves. The company has followed the funeral rites: limited and masked facilities with funerals that are noticed through the windows of cars.
Last July, at the age of 87, Villaseor herself died of headaches from COVID, one of dozens of coronavirus deaths last month in Travis County at the height, to date, of the Texas pandemic. Its service, like so many others today in this time of remote duel, is broadcast live.
Villaseor had long since retired from Mission Funeral Home; He lived in his home, suffering from dementia at the time of his death, according to his son, Charles Villaseor II, who now runs the company; however, his death not only means the long diversity of the virus, especially among Latinos, but some other rupture in East Austin’s converter tissue.
“When they arrived in Austin, he was very isolated,” Charles Villaseor II said of his parents.
There is no funeral home for Latinos, he said, and his parents “filled the void” by building a funeral home on East Cesar Chavez Street, then known as East First Street.
“They provided a position where other people came here in combination as a network and showed respect, a position that gave the network a dignity, a position in which other people can come in combination,” he said.
At last week’s funeral at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church on East Ninth Street, State Senator Carol Alvarado, a Houston Democrat whose circle of relatives is friends with the Villaseor, said the funeral home is the key to the area’s fabric.
“Long before the arrival of scooters in Austin, or hipsters or manbuns, Charles and Lois were building a net here on the East Side,” Alvarado said. “The foundations they laid, the genuine property they bought, the businesses they helped build, why this component component of Austin can grow and thrive.”
“They’re here because they’re willing to help our people,” he continued.
More than 4,500 others died in Texas in July from COVID-19, more than the share of the total number of deaths in the state since the first Texan died from the virus in March, and the disease disproportionately affected Latinos.
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Statewide, Hispanics account for 39.7% of COVID-19 instances, according to their percentage of the state population. But they account for 51.4% of COVID-19 deaths, according to the most recent statistics from the Texas Department of State Health Services.
In Travis County, which has 33.6% Hispanic, 51% of cases are Hispanic and 48% of deaths are Hispanic, according to Austin Public Health figures.
(African Americans account for 15.1% of deaths nationwide and 12.8%. The state is made up of 12.3% black).
The infection rate among Latinos underestimates the amount of other people inflamed for a variety of reasons.
In particular, control sites are less likely to be in poorer communities of color. Check prices, the stigma of a positive check, and, among others living illegally in the country, concern about deportation are also contributing factors, said Jamboor Vishwanatha, director of the Texas Center for Health Disparities at North Texas University of Health Sciences. Focus. Fort Worth.
When asked last July at Telemundo McAllen about others who fear being screened because of their citizenship status, Gov. Greg Abbott encouraged others to take the test. “The biggest fear is everyone’s health,” he said. “No questions about the status of Array …”.
“The mortality rate exposes social disorders: access to fitness care, lack of fitness insurance, concern about wasting the source of income, and concern that if you’re diagnosed you will lose your job,” he said. “This leads others not to seek medical attention. It also exposes other disparities in fitness, there are more cardiovascular diseases, more hypertension, cancer.”
Lois Villaseor well cared for through her circle of family members and medical workers in the house, her son said.
He was born in Leather, Texas, in a circle of relatives of migrant farmers, collecting cotton in his early years.
When she was a teenager, national news about the Latino remedy in funeral homes took place an hour’s drive from Leather in the small town of Three Rivers.
When the painting of Private Felix Longoria, who had been killed in the Philippines in World War II, was taken to Three Rivers in the 1940s, the local funeral home refused to hold a vigil, saying: “Other white people would not like Longoria can only be buried in the Separate Mexican segment of the cemetery. Finally, after a crusade through his widow, freshman Senator Lyndon B. Johnson became involved, organizing a funeral for Longoria with full army honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
Lois and her husband, Charles L. Villaseor, who had completed their funeral education in Houston, retired to Austin in the 1950s.
“We came here to Austin and looked around, and chose East Austin because we seek to be a component of the Hispanic community.” told the Austin Chronicle in 2004.
She continued: “We saw that there was a gap in the funeral for the families here. It was a long time ago that the bodies lay at home. Mission Funeral Home was the first to build a “living room” so that Latin America families can gather in a funeral chapel to pay homage to their loved ones.
She was the first Latin American woman to serve on the Texas Funeral Services Commission as a user appointed in 1989 through Gov. Bill Clements. She also participated in forums of Catholic charities and Latin American political groups, and at some point was president of the local LulaC board.
Matriarch of the family, known for her impeccable attire and her pioneering sense of adventure, obtained a pilot’s license at one point. He enjoyed day trips to San Antonio to make a stop at the market square and dine in My Land, while carrying the books in business.
Her 37-year-old husband, Charles Villaseor, died in 1991 and she remained in charge until her son succeeded her in 1992. The company now has 4 sites.
In addition to his son, he is survived by his daughters, Rebecca Villaseor Burrisk and Melissa Villase-or-Dye; two grandchildren, Charles Douglas Dye and Spencer Keith Dye; brother, Adam Pea; and many other members of the family and friends circle.
Today, demanding situations of COVID19-related deaths are unfolding.
“Funerals for families whose loved ones suffered from COVID-19 were exhausting, yet my mother would have sought Mission funeral homes to continue providing the same compassionate point of attention to others that we now give to our own happy mother,” she said. he told me.
Follow Asher Price on Twitter: @asherprice