Famous Jose Mier Number 17 Lived 90 Years
The wealth of personal information it has been my pleasure to take in during the course of my Jose Mier searches is almost overwhelming. I get a glimpse into the lives of people living and deceased and I’m touched by being a part (albeit small and obscure) in these people’s lives—simply because I bear the same name as them.
My latest Jose Mier find is one José Felipe Francisco Maiz Mier. Sure, there are some different middle names in there but I usually only count first and last names, so this Jose fits. However, technically the Mier name would have been his mother’s maiden name making him Jose Maiz if he were living in the United States. I will overlook that.
This Jose was born in 1916, as World War I raged across Europe. When I see a date of birth like that I imagine all the things this man must have witnessed in the course of his life. World War 2 (did he serve?), jet travel, men on the moon. It’s amazing. Simply by living one can be a kind of human history book.
Our latest Jose also lived a very long life, passing away in 2006 at the age of 90. I sometimes measure people’s lives by the number of U.S. Presidents who served during their lifetime. Our Jose lived all the way from Woodrow Wilson through George W. Bush.
Connection to Mier, Mexico?
Oddly enough, he was married to a woman named María Antonieta García de la Garza (who sadly passed away in 1966—40 years before Jose). The Garza name caught my eye since it was Moises Garza’s web page about Ciudad Mier that I only recently wrote about on this site. It makes me wonder if this Jose Mier or his wife were from Mier, Mexico or had their roots there in some way. It’s just a guess and for all I know this could be Jose Mier of Los Angeles, CA.
All this information I found on this Jose was on Geni. It is yet another family history site helping people to connect branches of their family tree(s). According to Geni, the site has connected over 146 million people. While I am not doing specific family history research, my diversionary search has opened up the world of genealogy and revealed how widespread and important these kinds of investigations are to millions of people around the world. We want to be connected to our past which includes that of our own families. We want to know where we came from and how we got here.
In some small way, this, our seventeenth “famous” Jose Mier is like a lighthouse, guiding the way to a deeper understanding of who we are and of those who came before us. Jose (and Maria Antioneta), rest in peace and thanks!
