Carmen Victoria Arregui De La Torre was born and raised in and around Quito, Ecuador, daughter to a large family of 8 children which included 7 sisters and 1 brother, Enrique. Her father Luis was a medical doctor and mother Ines was a homemaker. The family lived for a time in the capital, Quito and also in the countryside at a farm. Calle Espejo was one location that the family lived in Quito.
Some of Carmen's favorite memories shared were about life on the farm, how they would awaken early to milk the cows and collect the chicken eggs. The family got around by riding horses, at a time when paved roads only existed in town. Young Carmen grew up with her siblings, and became more of a tomboy. She loved spending time with the cows, her favorite animal.
When her oldest brother Enrique earned a scholarship to study engineering in the United States, Carmen was sent with him to take care of him...she cooked, cleaned, pressed his clothes, etc. to help him in his quest to succeed in America. Arriving and living in Kansas CIty, she had to adjust to a new lifestyle. While he went off to school, she studied English and began working as a waitress in a mexican restaurant. It was her first experience outside of Ecuador and she was surprised of the many new strange foods and customs.
She had never seen or tasted a mexican corn tortilla--it was odd to her. It also didn't help that the other mexican ladies she worked with didn't treat her as nicely as one would expect...they saw her as a south american oddity. Carmen pressed on, putting up with their passive-agressive attitudes. Her biggest taste surprise was potatoes, and how awful they tasted in America! She had grown up eating Locro, a cheesy potato soup. She was used to the wide variety of flavors and colors of potatoes that she had grown up with in the Andes...considered the absolute origin of flavorful potatoes on the planet--instead, she found russet potatoes which to her was big, white and bland, yech! . "I need to put something on those awful american potatoes..". However, french fries surprised her; she later understood that those bland fluffy potatoes were perfect for fries. Russet potatoes only made her soup starchy, not flavorful. Que horible! Until later in life when she discovered Yukon Gold potatoes, it was like the heavens opened up and the angels sang! She finally had ended her quest to find a go-to potato that finally had SOME flavor.
It was the mid to late 1950's and when brother Enrique had an opportunity to work and study in Los Angeles, Carmen accompanied him again. A young and vivacious girl, Carmen got a chance to meet while at Venice Beach the famous actor Rock Hudson. A picture was taken, but it was lost in time. She happened to attend a dance contest at UCLA
(University of California at Los Angeles) where she would meet a young man and
together they decided to sign up and try the dance contest. Anthony Hugo
De La Torre was a UCLA student studying languages of central and south american cultures. They won the contest that night by dancing the best Tango and were awarded the King and Queen of the night. They became an item and would later wed and move to a small house on Roseland St in the West Adams/Baldwin Hills area of Los Angeles. Anthony surprised Carmen one day by giving her her a nearly new 1957 Cadillac.
In 1961 their first child Tony Francis (Anthony Francis) was born, followed by their second son Andrew Francis (Paco Andres) in 1962. Their first daughter Carmen Teresa was born in 1964, and in 1965 her 4th child Monique Angela (Monica Angela). Anthony was now a young new professor at UCLA, Professor of Linguistics of Central & South American Culture and wanted a better neighborhood and life for his family--the family had experienced the LA Watts Riots in 1964 and vividly remember the terror in the streets by their old home. It would be better to move to a safer neighborhood.
Working as a team, Carmen had been working as a secretary at Max Factor in Hollywood (the famous celebrity cosmetic company) on Hollywood Blvd; Anthony had been working 4 jobs to save enough money for a down payment on a house. He worked as a truck mechanic, as a gas station attendant, tutored underclassmen in Spanish and taught Spanish to businessmen wanting to converse with their domestic hispanic housekeepers. Finally in late 1964 they put down $3,600.00 on a small starter home built in 1901 in the safer neighborhood of Beverly Hills, CA. The entire family had to tighten their belts for the next 3 years while trying to make enough money to pay the mortgage. Those were the tough years, where a sack of beans and a sack of rice became the staples of food that was affordable. The children complained about having to eat beans and rice day after day after day. Carmen loved the rice, but not the beans--when she had been a waitress, they used to laugh at her for saying that the beans were awful.
Anthony applied for a position at the local High School (Beverly Hills High School) for which over 4,000 applicants had applied and landed the job of professor in Spanish because of his high grades (Summa Cum Laude at UCLA). The new job payed MUCH better than his teaching position at UCLA and placed the family in a good spot to grow in their new neighborhood. Carmen left her job at Max Factor and started working as a School Administrator for Beverly Hills Catholic School, a catholic elementary school attended by her children. Carmen later became the School Librarian at Beverly Hills High School, allowing both of them the chance to eat lunch together.
Life moved forward, with most of their children either went off to college or got married. Fast forward to 2015 Carmen & Anthony sold their BH home of nearly 60 years and moved to Simi Valley, CA in order to stay close to two of their children. They bought a small house and began the task of converting that house to their liking. Both were now retired and enjoying life together. Carmen enjoyed gardening and loved waking 1 mile to church and back nearly every day at the age 94. She never used a cane and still had her driver's license. Walking she said, was freedom.
In early June 2019, her daughter came home from shopping to find Carmen had a stroke which paralyzed one entire side of her body. It was later understood that even though Carmen was taking medicines for her heart's atrial fibrillation, that 1/5 of people with that type of heart disease face the possibility of stroke. Carmen had to be placed on pallative care at a nursing facility, to which her children visited her nearly every day until the dreaded Covid-19 pandemic wouldn't allow them to visit her. Waving through a window was the only contact allowed for more than a year, Carmen grew weaker. Anthony then had a slip and fall in the shower and hit his head hard...he would pass about 10 days later on Nov 6, 2019. Carmen would survive and later pass on Jan 7, 2022.
They are survived by their children Tony, Andrew, Carmen and Monique.
Growing up her brother Enrique would shake his head and say "hay, la wambra!," particularly when Carmen got into trouble or was just silly about something. Wambra is a quetchua word used by the native Ecuadorian indians meaning "young girl, or silly girl". As Carmen used to say, "soy una wambra con aventuras" (I am a wambra who goes on adventures).
- Tony De La Torre
