When I was 14 years old, my father owned the garden supply store next to the famous grass courts in Newport. RI. called the Newport Casino, and now known as the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

John Riley, the 28-year-old Irishman who is credited with organizing the San Patricio Battalion during the Mexican War, has been the subject of much speculation in recent years. Much of it has come about because of renewed interest in Irish/Mexican relations.

The years 1861-65 were critical ones in the United States, with the country divided and fighting a bloody Civil War.

On September 24, 1923, a millionaire by the name of Guillermo Enrique Eliseo died in the American Hospital in Mexico City.

If one attended the prestigious Iowa Writer’s Workshop in the 1960s as a minority, as did Sandra Cisneros, one would have learned a thing or two about marketing as well as writing.

A close friend of Ulysses S. Grant, a shopping companion to Mary Todd Lincoln, and a brilliant young diplomat who helped save the Mexican Republic, Matías Romero is a little-known figure today.