While thousands of men fought during the Mexican Revolution, a woman stepped into the middle of the gunfire to save their lives. Her name was Refugio Esteves Reyes, but the soldiers simply knew her as “Mother Cuca.” 🩺🇲🇽
The nickname was born from a kidnapping. In 1914, Carrancista forces took her from the hospital where she worked and brought her to the battlefield. There, she treated a soldier with a mouth injury that prevented him from eating. She designed semi-liquid meals for him so that he would not die of starvation, and the battalion began calling her “Mamá Cuca”, because she cared for the wounded with such dedication and affection that the troops began to see her as a true mother.
She spent a year and a half on the front lines, in charge of the surgical hospital train, traveling more than 10,000 kilometers by rail. She treated wounds, cared for the sick, and remained beside patients when many believed they would not survive.
Refugio Esteves Reyes lived her final four decades with a bullet lodged in the fourth vertebra of her neck, after being wounded on June 4, 1915, on the left side. The projectile did not strike any vital organs; it only prevented her from turning her head properly. Despite this, she continued walking for kilometers to care for the wounded.
She was born in 1881 and became a widow at the age of 25. To support her children, she moved to Guadalajara, where she began working as a seamstress at a hospital. She rose to become a surgical assistant without any prior formal studies, learning solely through observation, until General Urriza appointed her as a nurse and granted her the rank of first sergeant.
Over time, she became one of the great pioneers of Mexican military nursing and is remembered as the first military nurse in the country.
After the Revolution, she also participated in the training of new nurses and helped pass on knowledge that would become fundamental to the professionalization of nursing in Mexico.
At the age of 57, she enrolled in the course taught by physician and surgeon Donato Moreno Muro. She graduated at the age of 59 with the highest grades and registered her professional title in 1940, when she was appointed lieutenant colonel.
The Congress of the Union awarded her the Medal of Honor and a minimum lifetime pension.
While other figures of the Revolution were immortalized in monuments and books, the name “Mother Cuca” remains unknown to millions.
And few people did as much for those returning wounded from the battlefield.
Today, a national award bears her name. In 2016, a decree establishing the Refugio Esteves Reyes Nursing Award was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation. The award is presented each year to a person who provides nursing services in conflict or disaster zones in Mexico.
Source: mexicodailypost
