BERNICE STARR
By Barbara Sands

Bernice Starr was painting a picture with words rather than her customary paintbrushes. Oh, it was so lovely, she recalled, the young girls all dressed in their best after finishing their chores at home. No jeans or shorts in the era she was describing. The family daughters were on their way to and from the artesian well on the Isla Rio Cuale that was, more than forty years ago, the source of their pure water. The river’s south side was very shallow then, crossed on little bridges built of rocks and strategically placed sticks. The daily galvanized-bucket parade, Bernice remembered, was made up of some 20 to 30 teenagers each of whom, after filling their buckets, lifted it to their heads and, no hands, joined the group filing home.

Adding even more color to her verbal image, Bernice described the girls picking their way through the multicolored pieces of clothing, bedding and towels drying on the rocks. Doing laundry in the river was, until relatively recent days, a social occasion where gossip was exchanged and at times a sharp word or two concerning proprietary interests in a particular rock or tree branch.

Today a staircase ascends the hillside from Calle Cuauhtemoc to the callejon where Bernice lives. But when she and husband Ed first lived there, it was a steep rocky path. One day, Bernice related, a neighbor was toiling up the hill clutching her small son with one hand, her laundry in the other and carrying a bucket of water on her head. But caray! Down went the water bucket. Bernice anticipated tears or shouts but instead, she watched as her neighbor erupted into helpless laughter and collapsed on the ground, tears running down her face.

She remembers also the Isla Rio Cuale before the city fathers enlarged it into today’s flower-studded, and yes, graffiti-filled park. In constructing the new island two sins were committed that still almost make Bernice weep. The destruction of a gorgeous cuastecomate tree that had provided a shady haven for generations and the dynamiting of a large red rock that served as a slide and play place for kids. These visual memories live on not only in Bernice’s mind or old photos but are still alive in the paintings of her husband, Ed, who died suddenly on October 16, 1971. Bernice’s walls are filled with Ed’s paintings of the Vallarta that was, when he began painting here upon their first arrival here in 1952.

Bernice and Ed Starr were married in 1940 in Las Vegas. Ed was then an artist for Disney doing background illustrations. He had already become acquainted with much of Mexico and immediately began planning Bernice’s introduction to the country. Explorations of Mexico in those days usually meant going either by sea or by train since roads were bad, nonexistent or dangerous. Bernice and Ed’s Mexican adventures went on hold during WWII when they moved to Washington, D.C. where Ed’s skills were employed at the Naval Science Lab.

Returning to North Hollywood in 1945, Bernice and Ed wasted no time resuming their Mexican travels. Bernice completed her bachelor’s degree and became a schoolteacher. As the couple was planning their spring break trip of 1952, they came across a mention in the New York Times of a new destination. This place named Puerto Vallarta struck their fancy and once again they decided to head south. From Mazatlan, which they reached by train, they next were obliged to take a bus to Tepic and from there, flying in a war surplus DC-3 with seats still along the sides of the aircraft, they arrived at the Puerto Vallarta “airport“. The landing strip, Bernice remembers, was near today’s Sheraton Hotel and the pilot had to buzz the field several times before landing to encourage the cows to make way for the aircraft.

From then on, Puerto Vallarta became the Starr’s Mexican destination. Initially they stayed at the then new Rosita Hotel (It celebrated its 50th anniversary last year). When it became clear that Vallarta was going to be home, they rented an apartment where Jan Lavender’s Galeria Uno now is and supervised building of their new home in Gringo Gulch. They moved into the house where Bernice has lived since 1957.

Ed was by now fully occupied with painting life in their beloved new hometown. His gallery was often the Oceana Bar, says Bernice. It was the spot by the lighthouse on the malecon where everybody met for drinks most evenings. Ed’s now nostalgic paintings are not just sunny canvases of smiling faces, flower-bedecked doorways or quaint commonplaces. Many are moody, even somber reminders of a time when life for most was far from easy. They include renderings of rain swept streets and beaches and haunting evocations of people and their everyday lives. It was the custom then when meat was available for the butchers to hang out a red flag and one of Ed’s haunting paintings depicts rebozo-clad women waiting patiently at the butcher’s door. Many of Ed Starr’s paintings are in Vallarta homes but others have found their way to Ed’s native California, to other states and some far away countries.

Bernice was hardly sitting idly by in these early days as will presently be seen but she did not pick up a paintbrush herself until 1995! As a late bloomer, this record beats even Grandma Moses. Her first one-woman showing was held in March of 1999 and featured the paintings that are illustrations for her book “Bartholomew, A Cat of Substance”, now being published in Holland. Her acrylic works are riotous with color and complex, with almost Middle Eastern design elements. The book comprises 25 illustrations of the adventures of the sometimes sorely beset cat, his acquaintances and family. Bernice’s more recent paintings focus on her new interest, carousels. One was entered in the Salon Vallarta 2000 competition. On October 24 another was exhibited at Judith Ewing Morlan’s new JEM gallery in a show dedicated to the Grande Dames of Puerto Vallarta Art, All proceeds that will benefit the Make a Wish Foundation.

But what was Bernice up to while Ed was engrossed at his easel? To cite concrete evidence of her activities, the beautiful and very busy library Los Mangos on Francisco Villa owes an enormous debt of gratitude to Bernice Starr. Bernice was a founding member and long-time president (now emeritus) of the America-Mexico Foundation, the organization that garners support for the extremely successful local Beca (scholarship) program. From the beginning for nearly 40 years she had envisioned building a library for the city. Back then, there were so few schools that a library was not at the top of anyone’s list. It would be a necessity Bernice reasoned, not only so becas, but all students, could expand upon and complement their learning.

The America-Mexico Foundation Comité de Becas Vallarta was founded in 1962, and from supporting a handful of students in the lower grades has expanded into an organization that supports hundreds of promising students each year who could not have realized their potential nor continued their schooling without its aid. The major fund-raising event is the Becas Ball, held each spring. The woman Bernice today calls her daughter, Luz Maria Rodriguez, was one of the Foundation’s deserving recipients some years ago and is today a cardiologist in practice in Maastricht, Holland. Bernice is looking forward to a visit from Luz Maria soon. The two are in nearly daily contact by e-mail.

Through her activities with the becas, Bernice became the linchpin who pulled all the right people together from members of the Foundation, of the International Friendship Club and other organizations with similar ideas for a library. She was an original member of the Comit Pro-Biblioteca de Puerto Vallarta, A.C. established in 1993, and remains an active member.

Vallarta architect Cachi Perez, who donated the design, designed the library. On April 8th, 1995, the Hacienda Cabildo authorized the library’s construction on the city-owned Los Mangos property and its cornerstone was laid on 5 June 1995. The library was dedicated in May 1996 and now, in 2000, is thoroughly integrated into the Mexican library system. Its enthusiastic and dedicated director, Rafael Torres Mayer has seen to it that the library serves the public not only for study and recreational reading, but is also a focal point for cultural events that include art exhibits, concerts and international speakers.

The programs of this past summer saw 100 participants daily in the several activities offered to students and younger children. The library also remains intimately involved with the Beca program. It is the site for Beca award ceremonies and last December celebrated the recipients of last year’s scholarships that were awarded to 275 students in secondary schools, 78 in senior high schools and to 28 university students.

Bernice’s memory is a storehouse of memories of the old days. She describes a facet of the beach life in the 1950s that then was then a daily part of most expatriates and also the visitor’s lives. Concrete bathhouses had been built along the beach for washing off after a swim. The source for the water, however, was a spring far up the hill above the beach whose water ran in an open culvert to the showers. She explained that after a swim, one entered the cubicle, made certain to chase out the spiders, then pulled the plug from the overhead shower pipe allowing enough time to release all the polliwogs that had collected before stepping under the fresh water. It was then the only warm shower in town.

By the way, next time you watch Night of the Iguana, look for Bernice in the back of Richard Burton’s bus. She was one of the long-suffering schoolteachers on that infamous cinematic tour.