Ernesto's other brothers and sisters included Maria Joaquina (born on June 19, 1859), Julia Maria Margarita (born on July 20, 1860), and Pedro.

Their parents were Don Pedro Manuel de Regil y Peón and Dona Julia Fajardo y Pacheco.  They were married in Mérida on June 28, 1858.

At the front of my great-great grandfather's house were the two rooms of my Aunt Carlota. I never went into them till after her death - when I was already a woman grown.

When I was little my mother would tell me to go to the big 'sala' to greet my aunt. This I would do with reluctance because I never felt happy in her presence. - More often than not I would find her sitting in one of the big bentwood American rockers, with which she had replaced Don Pedro's mahogany chairs.

She was a plump woman, her black hair dressed high in a pompadour. I remember her always in a freshly ironed, crisp 'bata' of French lawn - (this garment being something between a negligee and a Mother Hubbard). She was meticulously neat and fine jewelled earrings contrasted strangely with the simplicity of her dress.

She was ill at ease with children, so to submit to her kiss and forced conversation was a great trial to me, and I was always on the look-out for an opportunity to escape. On the other hand she was uncanny in her choice of acceptable birthday presents, which were sent to me by the hand of one of her maids and charmingly arranged with flowers and sweetmeats on a small tray. How she could have guessed that I loved Chinese tea cups or odd bric-a-brac is something I have never fathomed, and to this day I have some of the exotic cups which turned my 'cambric tea' or insipid boiled milk into nectar.

With my mother she was always frigidly polite - and mother in her turn, fulfilled the obligations of their relationship with scrupulous courtesy. Little by little I pieced together the story.

Carlota had been a lovely girl and a gifted pianist. She was very young when my father brought home his English bride; young enough to be strongly influenced by her mother who was intensely jealous of his son's wife. The pattern set up in the household on this account was an unhappy one, my grandmother and Carlota against my Great-aunt Felipa and the eldest daughter, Joaquina, with my grandfather trying to keep the balance with his all-inclusive kindliness.

After his death in 189_, Carlota was cut off from the world for the years prescribed by rigid custom. For over a year her piano remained untouched. When the time of mourning was over she emerged a different being - old beyond her years, neuresthenic and completely withdrawn from the life of the town - and she remained like this till the end of her life. An intelligent business woman and expert manager of her household, she lived aloof from her old friends and from the social life of Mérida. Even her churchgoing was limited to the masses and ceremonies at 'unfashionable' hours. Her eccentricities were numerous. She would buy quantities of inexpensive jewels to give to her many Indian godchildren - and masses of beautifully embroidered house linens - which were never used. We found these, and bolts of fine French lawn, piled in her wardrobes - the lawn so old that it fell to pieces when it was handled.

She must have been very charitable - and she had many friends outside of her own class; dowdy, sad women who ran her errands for her and brought her the gossip of the town.

She died as quietly as she had lived and it was only after her death that we learned she had been suffering from cancer for years. Only her maid and her doctor had been aware of this - and she never thought of bothering the family with the knowledge.