From Paul Cardon: [Louis Sanders Cardon was born in Colonia Dublan, Mexico, on Aug 10, 1901. His father, Louis Paul Cardon, had moved there with his three wives after being called on a mission to teach school in the colonies. They left Mexico during the revolution of 1911-1912 and eventually settled near Mesa, Arizona. Louis S. Cardon later served as a bishop and patriarch in Grand Junction, Colorado. He died in Orem, Utah, in 1988. As a young boy, Louis witnessed events at the time of the Mexican revolution. The following are excerpts from an oral history interview of Louis S. Cardon by Kimberly James. It was submitted by Paul Cardon a grandson of Louis S. Cardon.]

In Mexico we had two organs, one upstairs and one downstairs in the parlor. The one upstairs was ordinary size and looked much like a roll top desk. The one in the parlor was much larger and looked much like a modern-day, upright piano in shape and size. The parlor was quite an elaborate affair. Most of the rooms in the house had carpets, but the floor in the parlor was a beautiful quarter-sawed wood and was kept highly polished all the time. There was a regular sized door which led into the parlor from the entrance hall, but the doorway that led into the parlor from the sitting room consisted of two sliding doors that, when opened, would join the two rooms. Those doors matched the floor. When the doors were open a portiere could be drawn. The portiere was made of large glass beads and elongated glass pendants that sparkled with various colors in the light. There was a large chandelier also with pendants that sparkled. My father had a large roll top desk in the parlor. The desk and the organ matched the floor. The doors to the parlor were always kept locked with a key so the children could not get in on their own.

When the colonists got ready to come out, the Mexicans were requiring that they submit their guns; they insisted on this. They turned guns in; but they didn't turn them all in. They would bring their best guns to our house. We had a room, an attic, that was big enough for another floor, to have a three story house with higher ceilings that they made in those days. The only access to the attic was a little door in the hallway. The stairs came up about in the middle of the hall. There were three rooms on this end. Then there was just this small hole that we could crawl up through. The colonists would come with the guns, and my father would boost me up. I would get there, and they would bring me guns. I would lay the guns on the floor up there.

The Mexicans got suspicious. Two or three times the soldiers came in. One time we were just in the act of putting the guns up. The soldiers broke into the house and they didn't even stop at all; they came right up the stairs and up the hallway. I was going to put the lid down. My father said, "Don't put it down." They would see this movement. They came in, and there was a room on that side, a room on this side and a room on the end. I just stood up there over them and saw them there. They came right up under the trap door and one went in all these rooms, but they never looked up.

[Brother Cardon also recalled witnessing the battle for the town of Casas Grandes, in 1910.]

On this day we saw the soldiers from Casas Grandes Nuevo. It was only a few miles apart there. They came with blue suits trimmed with red, red banners and drums beating etc.; just like a row of tin soldiers. They kept their order and marched right up to the town. Rebels who were in there deployed themselves out all around generally so they could shoot them from the outside. The soldiers were so disciplined that they would just come marching. They would drop down. We had field glasses. We could see the battle. They did take the place though. They brought the captured out and just lined them against the wall and shot them.