A few years after acquiring San Nicolás, Crescencio and Rita decided to get a second plantation, called San Juan. And some time later came the annex hennequen plantations, San Martín and San Joaquín.

The last plantation they added to the family’s rustic lands was Santa Marta, a country estate situated ten kilometers north of the town of Telchac, part of Motul. They bought it from Pedro Pérez Miranda on the second of March, 1900.

And that’s how they found themselves at the beginning of the twentieth century: as an important center of the hennequen industry, with hundreds of workers depending on them. They had many heads of cattle, mares, donkeys, geldings, mules… So many families, so many animals and so many, so many things.

They passed their days administering the properties, thanking God for all the blessings they had received, and planning the next move. They both loved to work hard, and together they celebrated all their triumphs, even the tiny ones.

But the days were not as long as they would have liked, and unfortunately there were other things that were neglected. It’s not possible to have everything in life. If we could have seen through the keyhole into their home, we would have discovered that they both learned this in a most difficult way. The “saints” that were given to them wound up costing more than they ever could have imagined.