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August 6, 2023. Dr. Aureliano Urrutia often took on surgeries that no other doctor would attempt. He considered this operation in 1917 to be his most challenging and his most inspired. It was an early success in several fields of surgery and solidified his reputation as a great surgeon; continuing a legacy begun in Mexico as that country’s top physician, and bringing pride to San Antonio as a budding medical city…. Read more >>>
June 11, 2023. On the occasion of Dr. Aureliano Urrutia’s birthday this month, here is a tribute given on the occassion of his 48th birthday, in 1920, by the esteemed writer Nemesio García Naranjo, an attorney, writer, and friend of Urrutia’s both in México and in exile here in San Antonio. Feliz cumpleaños y descanse en paz… Read more >>>
April 26, 2023. Join us Saturday, May 13, JUNE 24, 2023 at 10:30 a.m. for the Conservation Society’s Historic Preservation Month Seminar on Miraflores. With Logan Wagner, PhD, FAIA, Anne Elise Urrutia, and Claudia Guerra. We will explore Miraflores’ cultural and historical significance, and motivations and challenges for the garden’s potential restoration. FREE to the community. Read more >>>
Anne Elise Urrutia is a writer and explorer of family history, especially the life, work, and legacy of her great grandfather, Dr. Aureliano Urrutia, a renowned surgeon who came to San Antonio in 1914 as an exile of the Mexican Revolution.
Her first book, Miraflores: San Antonio’s Mexican Garden of Memory, tells the story of her great grandfather’s powerful message of cultural heritage as communicated through an endangered landscape that was once a marvelous garden.
Now Urrutia continues her journey as she explores other aspects of her family’s legacy in the city’s medical history and how their Mexico City past influences the twists and turns of generations as they build a new life in the United States.
Elise received her English degree from Colorado College, blogs at quintaurrutia.com, and lives in San Antonio, Texas.
Anne Elise Urrutia can be reached at elise@quintaurrutia.com.
Photo of Ms. Urrutia (above left) courtesy of Josh Huskin.
As a teenager in the late 1970s, Elise’s interest in journalism inspired her to venture into Miraflores to photograph Urrutia’s disappearing family garden, which he had created from 1921 to 1962 as an expression of his connection to Mexico. After further traversing the family history through extensive conversations with her father, Elise’s personal journey took her deeper into ancestral territory, and inspired her to recreate, through words and pictures, the doctor’s lost landscape. She was delighted to find herself transported to this beautiful and expressive place, near the headwaters of the San Antonio River, to receive her bisabuelo’s powerful messages of cultural heritage.
Elise’s book, Miraflores: San Antonio’s Mexican Garden of Memory is available through this website, Trinity University Press and your favorite bookseller, in both e-book and printed edition. Published in June 2022.
Welcome to Quinta Urrutia, a blog about the experience of exploring the life of Dr. Aureliano Urrutia and his family, who arrived in San Antonio in 1914 as refugees from the Mexican Revolution. A man of modest origins, Urrutia became a successful surgeon in México. But a brief appointment to the government of one of México's most despised rulers changed everything and Urrutia narrowly escaped the country with his life. He came, with his wife and family, to San Antonio under American military escort, and rebuilt his life here. He called his home Quinta Urrutia. He was a man of México, and a man of the world. He was not perfect, but he was interesting; and his contribution to San Antonio cannot be denied. He set his family afloat here on a challenging, but colorful course, and left a legacy of healthcare and integration into the fabric of San Antonio and beyond.
For more information about the Miraflores symposium >>>
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