Approaching Archie (&) Vallance

Somewhere near here, someone by the name of Archie Vallance or two people by the names of Archie and Vallance lived.

 

Helen Seargeant, San Antonio Nexapa, New York: Vantage Press, 1952. 

This lovely map is from the memoir-ish San Antonio Nexapa by Helen Seargeant, published in 1952.  I have yet to read it, but I am anticipating a quiet day or two, somewhere vaguely tropical, perhaps a hammock or a palapa, a good cup of cafe con leche, and a nice breeze.  Maybe between the lemon tree and the orange tree, sitting on the wash rock.  I can't imagine the wash rock to be terribly comfortable, though.

The book is based on the letters and memories of '...a pioneer American family' on a coffee plantation near Tapachula, and, as is insisted upon in the introduction, none of the characters are fiction.  Why, then, does Archie Vallance appear '...early, bringing a lead horse' (p. 26)  for Christmas, or as 'that other Scotsman' making 'a joke on Stevenson that made him lose his wig' (p. 78) or 'come to tell him about the English company' (113) in this book while Archie & Vallance are listed as a foreign company invested in the state in the Sección de Estadística of 1911?

I'll tell more as I find it.