Arizona School Yearbooks by County
Pioneer family honors past
by Carmen Villa Prezelski on Jun 07, 1994
These days, when anyone who has spent more than one summer in Tucson seems to feel entitled to sport a “Semi-Native’ bumper-sticker, it is noteworthy that one of the area’s true pioneer families is planning a reunion to celebrate its long history in the region.
On the weekend preceding Labor Day, the Sosa, sometimes also spelled Soza, family will gather in Tempe to acknowledge its 200-year history in Arizona.
Alférez (Ensign) José María Sosa is listed in the 1797 census of Tucson, compiled by Father Pedro de Arriquibar, the military chaplain of the presidio. Sosa, wife Rita and their four children (a boy and three girls) lived in a household that included five servants, according to the priest’s register.
Research by Edward Soza of Altadena, Calif., and other family members has revealed that the man who was destined to become one of the little Garrison’s most prosperous citizens was born in Jecori, Son., in 1746.
Although there might have been other Sosas in the area earlier, it is from this Spanish officer that today’s Sosas trace their descent.
Soza’s latest research has been devoted to documenting the family’s settlement of the San Pedro River Valley, beginning in the 1870s. Many members of the Soza family homesteaded ranches in that area.
It is at that point that the history of the Sozas and that of my own family converge.
My father also homesteaded a ranch on the San Pedro; so the history of the extended Soza family, surnames such as Munguía, Apodaca and McKenna, are inexorably linked to the history of the Villas.
Things other than bloodlines can bind people together. One of those ties was pointed out to me by my mother.
I was reading aloud from a list of the names connected with the various branches of the Soza family. She stopped me when I got to María Jesús Moreno Soza.
“Oh yes, Doña Chu,’ she said. “I led the rosary at her funeral.’
María Sosa McKenna, granddaughter of the above mentioned Ensign Sosa, was the owner of the land on which the historic Sosa-Carrillo-Fremont House stands.
Located in the heart of the city, completely surrounded by the Tucson Convention Center, this branch of the Arizona Historical Society displays photographs and other artifacts connected with the house’s past.
Arizona State University plans to videotape the upcoming reunion and has asked the Sosa/Soza family to donate photographs to its archives. Sozas were among the first families to settle in the Tempe area.
Anyone wishing more information about the Soza Family Reunion should contact the co-chair of the reunion committee, Virginia Sanchez, in Tempe. Her telephone number is (602) 838-1978.
* Carmen Villa Prezelski a native Tucsonan who works for the Southwest Center at the University of Arizona, writes about Tucson history especially the area’s Hispanic heritage. Write to her at the Tucson Citizen, P.O. Box 26767, Tucson, Ariz. 85726. Or fax her at 573-4569.
