Lauro Cavazos, First Hispanic Cabinet Member, Dies at 95

Months after Dr. Cavazos’ departure, the Justice Division mentioned it was investigating his spouse’s use of frequent-flier mileage that he had accrued as secretary. His spouse, Peggy Ann Cavazos, a former nurse, had held no official place however had gone along with her husband to work day by day, attended conferences, helped edit his speeches and coverage papers, and accompanied him on journeys. Officers later mentioned that no costs had been filed and that the investigation had been quietly dropped.

Lauro Fred Cavazos Jr. was born on Jan. 4, 1927, the oldest of 5 kids of Lauro Sr. and Tomasa (Quintanilla) Cavazos, whose ancestors settled in Texas lengthy earlier than it turned a state in 1845. Lauro and his siblings had been born on the King Ranch, the state’s largest unfold, close to Kingsville. It’s now a Nationwide Historic Landmark.

His father was the foreman for the ranch’s showcase Santa Gertrudis cattle, and his mom was descended from Francita Alavez, the “Angel of Goliad,” who saved the lives of many Texas prisoners within the Texas Revolution, a riot towards Mexico in 1835-36.

The siblings spoke English to their father and Spanish to their mom, and attended a two-room schoolhouse on the ranch for the youngsters of King laborers. Beginning in 1935, they went to public faculties in Kingsville. After commencement from highschool in 1945, Lauro joined the Military and served within the stateside infantry within the final days of World Struggle II. One in all his brothers, Richard E. Cavazos, who died in 2017, turned the primary Hispanic four-star common of the Military.

At Texas Tech College in Lubbock, Lauro Cavazos earned a bachelor’s diploma in zoology in 1949 and a grasp’s in zoological cytology, the examine of cells, in 1951. He earned a doctorate in physiology in 1954 at Iowa State College.

In 1954, he married Peggy Ann Murdock. They’d 10 kids: Lauro III, Sarita, Ricardo, Alicia, Victoria, Roberto, Rachel, Veronica, Tomas and Daniel. Data on his survivors was not instantly out there.

Dr. Cavazos taught anatomy for a decade on the Medical School of Virginia (now a part of Virginia Commonwealth College), rising to affiliate professor and serving on the editorial board of the school’s medical quarterly. In 1964, he joined Tufts College College of Drugs in Boston as a professor and because the chairman of the anatomy division. He was additionally dean of the medical faculty from 1975 to 1980.