Only now do I learn of the existence of the Salvador Commercial Co., a construction company based in Oakland, Calif., and its wrangles with the Salvadoran government in about 1902. After bankruptcy was forced upon them by the government, the plan to build a port apparently having been found unworkable, the contractors were awarded a half-million dollars in compensation for the loss of the contract. After the Tribunal of Arbitrators ruled in favor of the contractor, the Salvadoran government issued bonds representing a half-million dollars to the company directors who distributed the bonds among their employees. J.B. Hays sued in 1906 for a share of bonds although I am not sure how that lawsuit turned out. The bonds were payable over eight years. Given that the bonds would have been paid out a century ago we fail to see any reason why we should a hundred years later still be exchanging stupid jokes about the Salvadoran Commercial Co. In fact, I seriously doubt that anyone in our family owns a share of said bonds. No, I am not Minnie Strickland, the black maid from Tennessee whose name appears on the 1930 census, that I should have any intimate knowledge of the Burrell family, the heirs of Alfred W. Burrell, the contractor, and his brother Henry. I am not amused.
Just because Tempky, in his Mitla, waxes rhapsodic on the beauty of the Bay of Fonseca as the terminus of ocean waves rolling across the Pacific from China, that does not mean there is any connection to our own family's mysterious paperwork of uncertain value.
Why is everyone packing on the Caluori's? Someone ought to straighten out that busybody Tony Caluori because this is not how our lives were supposed to be.
