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diggA Spirit of Generosity
'Our mom was really ahead of her time and probably the most generous woman I know.'
Cruz Moreno, 76, has an extraordinarily giving nature one might think of as being typical of an older generation.
Daughter Suzie Moreno, 51, describes her mother as "incredible woman."
"My sisters and I often talk about how lucky we are to have the mother we have," she explains. "Our mom was really ahead of her time and probably the most generous woman I know."
A native of Mesa, Cruz Moreno married at 18 and raised six children. Although she did not work outside the home, she focused being a good parent.
"I dedicated myself to the kids," she says.
"She was a tough mom, the disciplinarian in the family," Suzie says. Yet there is a gentle side of her mother that has stuck with Suzie and her siblings.
"My mom's friends gave her a bad time about letting us sleep in. We didn't have to learn how to cook. She said, 'They're only young once. One day they're going to grow up, get married, have families and they'll have to do that the rest of their lives.' "
Suzie recalls her mother going through closets, pulling items to pass on to less fortunate kids. Nearly every morning, Cruz would make enough breakfast to feed hungry neighborhood kids on their way to school. ("They would eat whatever Suzie didn't want," Cruz says.) Many times her mother served as an interpreter. More often than not, she would put up someone who was temporarily homeless in the family's backyard cottage. Even relatives who were ill and dying placed themselves in her care.
Her acts of kindness made an indelible impression on her children.
"She did everything by example, like it was the most natural thing in the world," says Suzie, who is manager of national sales and broker relations for Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Arizona.
Married 57 years to husband Rafael ("Ralph"), Cruz laments that younger women today seem to lack the same spirit of generosity her generation displayed.
"They don't want to be like that. They are so selfish, not like us oldies. I'm sure there are some, but overall, I don't know, they won't listen.
"We're 'old-fashioned,' they say."
