March 28, 2020
Revised 7/6/2023
Greetings Cassidy and Ronan,
I have always intended to share with you both at a future date, but current events compel me to reach out now – information which my mother, Francisca Margarita Catalina Lopez-Ruiz(or her preferred name, Frankie), would surely have wanted her grandchildren to learn, should she have been given a chance to share in her own time and words. I hope by my sharing her life story with you both, Ronan and Cassidy, you will come to know and understand that your grandmother Frankie was a decent, courageous, compassionate, sociable and gregarious person. My intent is simply to offer to you both, Ronan and Cassidy, a true account of Frankie’s life story, so you may better understand one day why Frankie was unable to take a more active role in their lives, as she truly loved you both deeply.
As a preface to my mother’s life story, I must mention the basis of what is to follow. After my mother passed away, I fought in court to be granted the role of Executor of my mother’s estate, as my brothers and relatives have historically proved to be less than reliable. I wanted to ensure my mother’s effects and animals were handled methodically and with due respect to her wishes. As I sorted through my mother’s effects, I learned that what, at first glance, appeared to be someone who “hoarded” possessions was, in fact, a person who was committed to memorialize her own life, both triumphs and tragedies. This was an aspect of my mother I had never imagined, nor even suspected. She was her own historian to her own life story, as she purposively and deliberately saved and wrote documents which tell an altogether different, accurate and moving life’s story than appearances would belie. The traumatic and inspiring details I am to share are self-evident in the documents my mother kept, being all original records and all incontrovertibly authentic. I can best convey who she was, and to my mind, will always be, by narrating a synopsis of her life’s story as I know it, pieced together by original documentation she saved, comments she made throughout her life and by handwritten notes she took careful consideration to both make and save throughout her life.
First and foremost, I have never, nor will I ever, have normal relations with my natural family, excepting my mother Francisca M.C. Lopez-Ruiz and my cousin Alejandro Ruiz, both of whom are no longer living. My natural family have always, continuously and repeatedly, proven themselves to be selfish, self-serving. They were, and are, emotionally and financially abusive to my mother and myself. While they may not be criminally inclined, they are nevertheless persons who impede one’s efforts to lead a prosperous and enriching life. A “family” who have historically taken advantage of my mother’s giving and compassionate nature, which I have witnessed my entire life. I have intentionally distanced myself from them all. If individuals cannot act within the minimum standards of familial decorum, I will not associate with them. I mention this to explain my intentional distance from Joe M. Ruiz, and all other family members, and to offer an explanation why cordial relations do not exist between the Riggins family and Lopez-Ruiz family.
Secondly, as I grew and matured, I came to know my mother as a decent, hard-working single mother who entered the service to provide a stable life for her children and help her extended family. She retired after 20 years in the Air Force with an Honorable Discharge to her small ranch in Arizona. I expected her, as I’m sure she also expected, to live out her life daily caring for her horses, dogs & cats. As after 1997, she withdrew from all meaningful contact with her family, although she remained very connected to her three sons, and eventually also with Ronan and Cassidy. She always spoke of her love, devotion and affection for Ronan and Cassidy and her relationship with them brought her genuine happiness and real joy.
And now I should briefly recount the major events in her life, as a preface and backdrop for a more enlightening and illuminating personal history to follow shortly.
She was born in Florence, Arizona to Joe T. Ruiz and Maria C. Ruiz on Dec. 19, 1948, being the first of seven children, five daughters and two sons. Joe was an authentic cowboy and Maria was a homemaker. She was raised on cattle ranch in Willow Springs, AZ, which was miles from the nearest town and was comprised of only a few families. The cattle ranch afforded them none of the “luxuries” of modern life. Without electricity, running water (let alone hot water), tv, radio or a telephone, ranch life was certainly not the idyllic life depicted in classic westerns. The children entertained themselves in true pioneer fashion by riding horses, playing with rattlesnakes, gila monsters (a poisonous desert salamander) and avoiding coyotes. When she wasn’t performing the daily house chores for her mother, she, as the eldest, continuously chased down her brothers and sisters to in a desperate attempt to “get any work” out of them- but her siblings were as wild as the desert they lived in and more often than not she found herself dutifully helping her mother maintain the household, as the other six children played outside. The ranch chores must have been mundane and exceedingly tough for an adult, let alone a young girl. She often fondly remembered that in school she traded her beef burritos for the “city kids” bologna sandwiches. Beef on a cattle ranch was plentiful and bologna was unheard of on the ranch, just as much as beef was scare in the nearby “city” of Oracle, AZ (which was actually a very small town) and a trade was sought by both parties. Although cowboys are often glamorized by Hollywood, they seldom live up to the mystique of folklore, as Joe divorced Maria and the family moved into Maria’s father’s house in Hayden, AZ. Maria took a custodial position in the local high school of Hayden, AZ and worked her entire life there, becoming the sole provider for herself and her seven children.
After Frankie enrolled in Northern Arizona State University on January the 23rd, 1967. Where, tragically, Frankie’s storybook ranch life collided with the harsh, brutal realities of modern city life. She endured a horror which young women still endure to this day- date rape. Her grades plummeted and she eventually withdrew from NAU. Undoubtably in that era, being a single mother was to be the target of scorn and ridicule. My mother often told me of the small-town ladies, chastising and humiliating her, calling her an “impure” woman and she also recounted how “they married her off” to Henry G. Meeden, which she reluctantly agreed to. Two sons quickly followed, Henry and Carlos. Henry G. Meeden worked construction and was, given all objective indications, not a solid provider. She eventually divorced him in 1973 seeking her independence and was determined to provide a safe, stable home for her children. Throughout her life she sought, through courts, child support, but Henry G. Meeden would simply move after a child support award was granted to Frankie, even when bench warrants were issued for his arrest.
Although she was unemployed, she continued her education in Pima Community College in Tucson, AZ, caring for her three sons without support from her former spouse. Seizing an opportunity and challenge most shy away from, on May 25, 1974, Frankie enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. During her initial basic training and technical school training, her sons lived with her grandmother in Hayden Az, although they eventually re-united in Lockport, NY. Her initial occupation was a diesel mechanic, which was then a misogynistic male-dominated career field. Frankie earned the highest possible performance ratings in her first year in the Air Force and the Outstanding Airman of the Year award in 1978, an accomplishment which was even more astounding and impressive, as she was a single mother of three children in career field, which fought tenaciously to close its ranks to women.
During her 20 year career in the Air Force, she transitioned into other areas in the service, working as a Civil Engineer for the Titan Intercontinental Ballistic Missile System, earning a Certification as a Translator for Portuguese, then moving into an Administrative NCO role for the Strategic Air Command. As an Admin NCO, in a time when PCs where cutting-edge technology, she adapted to the digital future before the private sector knew paper was rapidly becoming obsolete. She eventually retired as a Training NCO for the world’s best jet fighter training unit for the world’s most modern jet fighter, the F16 Falcon. But she never forgot her youthful dreams and, while still serving her country, she earned her B.S. in Management from Park College University and took classes throughout her career pursuing a Masters degree. One notable Performance Report stated “Sgt Ruiz is a leader of the future. Her initiative and drive are limitless.” Clearly, she was a woman of exceptional ability, yet she remained humble throughout her life. Her sons and family were completely unaware of her outstanding abilities and achievements, which were even more impressive in an era when single mothers still struggled for acceptance and sexism was pervasive and often career-ending. She retired Honorably in 1994, purchasing a small ranch in Stanfield, AZ in 1988, with plans to earn her master’s degree and move on into a new challenging private sector career. Frankie never once mentioned her professional or academic achievements in her life, which were truly achievements for a single mother serving in the Armed Forces, before today’s modern principles and goals of gender equality and women empowerment.
My mother Frankie was an extraordinarily hardworking, giving and compassionate person. While she was on deployment to Atu, AK, she even worked in a local restaurant to earn extra money for her family. She often opened her home to her wayward sisters who could not find focus or direction and throughout her life she proved her generosity, time after time, by providing financial support for her sisters when they stumbled, as well as supporting her mother. As the oldest of the siblings and the only child in a stable, admirable profession, she took on the role as the family matriarch, dealing with family crises, offering guidance to her brothers and sisters, acting as safe-haven for her siblings when they weren’t self-supporting and ensuring her mother was cared for in her advancing years. In the last years of her life, in spite of her physical and emotional conditions she endured, she alone, of her 5 siblings, persistently and relentlessly pushed law enforcement to inquire into the health of her mother, who lived with her sister Andrea in Colorado Springs, CO. After innumerable inquires, law enforcement opened a case into the welfare of her mother. Andrea was charged and pleaded guilty to elder neglect. Maria was made a Ward of the State of Arizona and moved to Tucson, AZ to live with her daughter. Irrespective of the physical limitations and the mental health conditions she endured, Frankie, alone of her siblings, took direct and meaningful action to ensure her mother was safe and healthy. The simple fact Frankie took it upon herself, while her siblings ignored, or were completely indifferent to, the plight of their mother, bespeaks of determined person who can be relied upon in times of crisis, even as she suffered from physical disabilities, PTSD and MST.
Sadly, my mother’s life story must now be recast, as it was only after my mother’s passing that I learned the true depth and meaning of her character and of the soul crushing tragedies she endured, as the documentation she saved recounted the numerous rapes, sexual assaults and sexual harassment she endured, as rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment was rampant and deeply ingrained in the Armed Forces and society throughout her life. All of which is documented in Veterans Administration Psychiatric Evaluations, letters she sent, and saved, to her mother and siblings, in official U.S.A.F documents and in personal documents she wrote and saved to memorialize her life struggles.
Before she even formally enlisted in the Air Force, her recruiter raped her. During her Air Force Basic Training, she was raped by one of the Instructor Staff and she was told “you’re living in a dictatorship.” She was raped by Air Force service members again in Texas, New York, Alaska, California and Arizona. The first rape caused Frankie to distrust the Air Force and persons in authority, yet she remained in the Air Force to provide for her children and her extended family. At her first service station in New York, her first performance report was Outstanding, being given a rating of all 9’s out of 9 and recommended for immediate promotion. But given that she had reported the rapes, the Commanding Officer of the Base interfered with her first performance report and she was re-rated as “adequate.” She formally contested this devaluation and her initial stellar performance rating was reinstated, due to an impartial investigation which substantiated the undue interference from the Commanding Officer. When Frankie did report two NCO’s attempting to gain sexual favors in 1977, she was “counseled,” a negative informal performance action taken by the Armed Forces, to the effect that she could be held legally liable, that if the incidents did not occur she could be punished under the UCMJ(the Armed Forces Legal Code) and that other persons could seek to take violent actions against the accuser. Given these benighted, blatantly oppressive and victim-shaming remarks, Frankie dropped the formal complaint. Understandably, the sexual assaults, sexism, victim-shaming and retaliatory behavior negatively influenced her opinion of the Air Force, yet she remained in the Air Force to provide for her children and her extended family. Sadly, Frankie later stated she was raped after she had retired. She understandably stated that she was bothered to recount these events and was bothered by even discussing the rapes. Frankie was diagnosed with Military Sexual Trauma and P.T.S.D. and struggled to cope with the traumas from her past, even as new traumas were inflicted upon her.
I cannot recount the myriad of events wherein her siblings and mother emotionally and financially abused her, rather I shall share two significant events which bespoke of her complete lack of trust and low regard for her mother and siblings: Frankie disowning her mother and siblings and the ruination of Frankie’s serene retirement plans, caused by Julia S. Ruiz.
In a personal letter Frankie sent to her mother on June 16, 1992, my mother disavowed her mother and siblings where Frankie clearly and unequivocally stated…
“I was your maid/slave/financier etc to help you and your siblings, but I was never your own daughter.”
“I do not hate you, I just do not wish to see you again as well as your other children, who have forsaken me for their own reasons. I owe nothing to any of you. Do not consider me in any part of your family in the future.”
After a lifetime of financial and emotional support of her mother and her siblings, my mother clearly came to the reasonable conclusion her continuous support and care was never appreciated or reciprocated and she had the self-awareness to both enunciate her thoughts and feelings, as well as the incredible foresight to save the letter she sent.
Now I turn to the injustices inflicted upon my mother by Julia S. Ruiz, who resided next to my mother’s retirement home in Stanfield, AZ. As my mother approached her retirement date in the Air Force, she took some measures to find additional income and interests. She started a small business venture, “Red Horse Ranch,” with Julia S. Ruiz in June of 1989, focused on raising livestock and horse training. The business was operated out of and on Julia Ruiz’s property while Frankie served in the Air Force in Vandenberg AFB, CA. The business chief interests were raising and selling cattle, while Julia Ruiz and her husband Taco Molina, trained horses and competed in horsemanship contests. As my mother and Julia were raised on a cattle ranch, it seemed a natural fit for them both. While my mother was stationed in Vandenberg AFB, CA, my mother provided 95% of the funds for the business over six years, took out many loans, purchased vast quantities of hay and feed, purchased a horse trailer, purchased 3 vehicles for Julia S. Ruiz and Taco Molina and was the sole obligor to all the expenses. Julia S. Ruiz and Taco Molina were to provide the “labor” and use of their personal land from which to operate the business. Julia S. Ruiz documented the expenses by hand and sent my mother the expense lists and the receipts for the expenses, which my mother dutifully retained. At one time, the small business counted as many as 13 horses in its inventory. However, in the entire 6 years of the business, after seventy-four thousand dollars of expenses charged to Francisca’s business accounts ($180,000.00 in today’s dollar value), Julia S. Ruiz never once recorded a single cent of income from the business- Julia S. Ruiz ruined Frankie’s Retirement Plans.
In mid-1996, Frankie stopped funding the business and stopped depositing funds into the business accounts. Julia S. Ruiz evidently did not take these actions very well, as she reported my mother for equine abandonment to the AZ Dept of Agriculture, without notifying my mother, who lived in Phoenix. My mother’s horses were seized, as Frankie rushed to save the horses from public auction. Upon examination of the business credit card statements, it is clear Julia S. Ruiz ran up expenses, both legitimate business expenses and illegitimate personal expenses, on the business credit cards and was paying the monthly interest payments by charging other business credit cards. My mother sought to right herself by paying down the debt she could, closing the business accounts and attempting to renegotiate the bad business debt she was now accountable for. Incredibly, the Gila Superior Court put out a warrant for Frankie’s and “John Doe” arrest, in connection with a debt collection lawsuit filed by one of the creditors against Frankie and Julia S. Ruiz. “John Doe” was the unnamed person who used the Red Horse Ranch business account.
Francisca M.C. Lopez-Ruiz retired Honorably on May 31st, 1996 after 20 years in the U.S.A.F., to crushing bad business debt. To make matter worse, my mother had purchased the property adjacent to Julia S. Ruiz in 1988 and was now forced to see the same person, day after day, who unapologetically and unconscientiously saddled her with debt, which her modest retirement income could not cover. Frankie later learned Julia S. Ruiz had filed for bankruptcy in 1992, a few years before they started their small business. When my mother attempted to collect her horses from Julia S. Ruiz property, my mother documented that Julia S. Ruiz threatened her life, saying “I will kill you”. Also, my mother told me personally that in February 2013 Julia S. Ruiz stated “it would be easy to take you out to the desert and you would disappear.” Not to be outdone by her past abhorrent behavior, after my mother passed away, Julia S. Ruiz filed a Building and Safety Complaint against my mother’s home, forcing my young brother Carlos Lopez-Ruiz to move and which eventually forced the destruction of my mother’s home.
Now I must relate events which transpired wherein I had first-hand experience. Taking a break from my university studies in CA in 1997, I went on a Thanksgiving Day trip to Az. I learned my mother had no heating, no electricity, no gas and very little food. I was shocked and appalled that, as although my mother was clearly suffering from an episode of depression, that my Aunt who lived next door refused to offer her any assistance, nor did any relatives who lived within an hour drive take any measures to assist her, even though she had always provided her sisters and even her nieces emotional and financial support throughout her life. I resolved to help my mother and told her I would provide financial support for her. As I was a FT student, I had no funds to speak of. When I returned to CA, I reduced my course load from six classes to four classes and started a full-time job working nights. While I was in CA, I called both Joe M. Ruiz and Carlos Lopez-Ruiz explaining our mothers plight and asked for their assistance. Neither showed any real concern and neither offered any financial support. Over the course of the next six months, I would send my mother one half of all of my paychecks. While I was in CA, I engaged contractors to have a new electric pole installed on her property, ensuring she had electricity, and re-established her phone and gas accounts. On a summer visit to her ranch in 1998, I found her happy, well rested, eating regularly and going about her daily routines of caring for her horses, dogs and cats. As I knew she had suffered from rape, sexual assault, sexism and emotional abuse in the service (although she never once mentioned or hinted the extent or frequency of her traumas), I knew she was prone to depression and that she probably suffered from PTSD, but from all appearances which I could surmise, she had gone through a serious depressive phase and she was now fully functional and self-supportive. She confided in me then that her recent financial troubles were caused by her business with Julia S. Ruiz, but she did not divulge to me the extent of the financial despair she was in. She stated she no longer needed my support and I was happy to see her being completely independent and happy again.
In the last winter quarter of my senior year at university in 1999, on a Christmas Day visit to my mother, I saw that she had again fallen into a deep depressive state, that the dogs and cats were running amok in her house and that she was unable to maintain her home in a normal fashion. I withdrew from university and came to live with my mother in January of 2000. For two months I repaired her home, cleaned it thoroughly and worked to re-establish a normal routine for her. It was this second phase of depression which made me realize that my mother required constant emotional support. I resolved to live in AZ to be close to her, should she need my support, as clearly no one in the family, not her other sons, her mother or her other siblings, would take meaningful actions to help a person who had effectively lived her life for them.
Yet the indignities and trauma Frankie suffered did not end in her solitude on her ranch. In 2011 she began to tell me of memories of sexual molestation she endured as a child from her father, and of how her mother ignored the sexual abuse and even told Frankie to go the room where her father would sexually molest her. My mother told me she had repressed these memories all her life, but that they were only recently emerging. I was horrified by these new revelations and I encouraged my mother to seek professional mental health counseling, in an attempt to cope with this new world-shattering sexual trauma.
Frankie suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Military Sexual Trauma, both during and after she retired from the Air Force. No person could suffer such repeated injustices and be unaffected, and it is completely understandable if she said she “wanted to be a hermit for my own protection,” that she suffered from flashbacks from the rapes, that she “doesn’t dream at all,” that “she learned to cry, in the last 5 years of her life.” On some points she was able to make meaningful progress, as she relayed that “I don’t have that displaced aggression towards my kids anymore.” Yet she was happy with her surrogate family; her horses, dogs and cats gave her a reason to get up every day. Given the history and magnitude of the trauma she carried from a lifetime of rapes and sexual assaults, and to add in the callous indifference of her mother and her siblings, she found a four-legged family who cared for her and never reproached her. Her relationship with you, Ronan and Cassidy, was indeed a source of immense joy for her, as she often talked of you both and treasured the precious time she was able to share with you both, as well as the memorabilia she kept. Distance and the daily maintenance of her four-legged family prevented her from frequently seeing the grandchildren she loved and cherished.
Over the course of years, we would talk and discuss matters which concerned or interested her. I was happy to be close at hand should any critical event or crisis occur. Once she declined my proposal to buy a new home for her property and live with her in 2009, I began to seriously consider living in another area for my health, as she had been self-sufficient for over 13 years. But it was my gravest mistake to think that I could move without consequences. In March 2013, I moved to Las Vegas for my health, as I suffered from severe asthma and the Phoenix area was consistently rated as one of the worst cities for air pollution. My health improved dramatically when I moved to Las Vegas. To my everlasting regret, I was not on hand to provide the support my mother needed, but which she could not bring herself to ask for- Frankie passed away on June 13, 2013.
Of course, there are far many more details to share, as my mother had a penchant for documenting everything, both triumphs and tragedies, but I lack the skill and prose to capture her life journey or to do justice to a such an incredible person and wonderful mother.
My hope is that in some day, you both, Ronan and Cassidy, may come to more fully appreciate Frankie, as I have. A woman who was unassuming in affect and appearance, a woman who most people would dismiss without a second thought, as a person lacking in ambition, character, ability or aptitude. In her youth she was ambitious, lively, sharp-minded and gregarious, and she fought throughout her life, in her own way, to recapture the dreams of her youth. Yet a lifetime of trauma would eventually suppress her real personality and nature, and she coped by withdrawing from her family and a world which failed to offer her even a semblance of a normal, happy, rewarding and fulfilling life. She did not live in a culture which encouraged survivors not to be defined by their trauma, nevertheless, the person she was, at her core, will never change; a compassionate, caring, engaging, sociable and devoted woman. A woman, a mother and grandmother, who only wanted the best for her family, as she always thought of others first, and never of herself.
Kind Regards,
Frankie’s Devoted Son
7/6/2023 Revision – As I was documenting all the legal documents my mother saved in her brown metal fireproof box, I found an original Power of Attorney from my mother to myself, dated 6/7/1989. The Power of Attorney, given to me when I was 19, gave me the right to purchase a home and land and purchase animals. In June 1989 I relocated from CA, dropping out of college and my two part time jobs, to move to Frankie’s 34330 W Barnes Rd. land. I totally forgot that she gave me full Power of Attorney in 1989 to establish an AZ Retirement home and ranch for her. I did not mention the fact that I worked on my mother’s property before when I was younger, as it was just one of the many ways I did what I could to help my mother.
7/6/2023 Additional Revision- Sadly, all the personal property of my mother was destroyed in a Storage Unit Fire. How could I possibly foresee this occurring…Now all the personal effects we have of my mother are the documents my mother saved. But she gave us so much to remember her by- My mother was, and is, an incredible woman.
Not Authorized or Financed by Campaign
“Paid for by the Justice for Frankie, LLC Corp (https://www.justiceforfrankie.us/) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.”