Frank Young moved from Chickasha in Grady County, Indian Territory, Oklahoma with Statia, his wife, and their family to Chamal in February 1907. The Youngs came to Mexico with their four children, the oldest was 11 and the youngest was 1. They were Hugh, Dee, Viola, and Olive. Earl and Myrle were born at Chamal in 1908 and 1911.
Frank purchased 20 shares of stock in the Blalock Mexico Colony. By 1909 he owned over 2000 acres (809.72 hectares) of continuous land in the valley plus mountain land where the Boquilla River cuts through the canyon to the south and west of Chamal Viejo. In 1909 they purchased 1,420 acres (600 hectares) from the Colony, 316 acres (128 hectares) from Miss Alsady Holden, and 128.44 acres (52 hectares) from Claude and Willie Blalock. The 128.44 acres (52 hectares) from Blalock was purchased to insure a permanent water supply by giving them ½ mile access to the Boquilla River.
His daughter Viola wrote, "Frank Young was one of the first of the settlers to perceive the value of the well watered marginal lands for live stock farming, and his intention was to dedicate the property to the raising of cattle and hogs."
In a few short years, Frank became one of the larger land owners in the valley. His appraisal of his Mexican assets listed on the State Department inventory at Tampico of 1912 was the 7th largest in Chamal at $9520.
Frank later described his improvements as "Two houses, native construction. These houses were constructed of palm logs and covered with palm leaves, floored with regular tounge (SIC) groved flooring, door and windows were made of native Mexican cedar, the material and labor for construction cost $100 each. Destroyed by fire. One barn native construction, same as houses except not floored. Value $50. 70 acres of farm in cultivation."
Frank Young and his family had many adventures in Chamal. The Chamal Record reported in July 1912 that, "Frank Young and his boys celebrated the 4th of July by killing a large tiger on their place about six miles south of town."
Unfortunately, by the spring of 1913, conditions in the colony had become very bad. Neighbors were murdered and their cattle were being stolen. By August, Frank Young decided to take his family and go to the Tampico oil fields where they might be safer. He hired Penn Nixon, a bachelor, to move to his ranch and to take care of his property and livestock. After loading up his personal possessions in his wagon to leave with his family, he stopped in Chamal and had dinner with his friend George Ingram. While he was still there, a courier arrived from the American Consul with news that President Wilson had ordered that all American Colonists be notified to leave Mexico at once.
They waited until the next day, while other colonists got ready to go and then left with them. Frank took his family to the railroad station at Osorio and put them on the train to Tampico. Statia and the five
youngest children left on President Wilson's train and returned to Alex, Oklahoma, in August 1913. Frank and Hugh stayed to try and protect their property. Frank went to the oil fields at Panuco to work until April 1914, when he returned to Oklahoma.
Hugh Young stayed on and was arrested along with other colonists at Chamal in July 1916. His mother told the story to her grandchildren of Hugh being stood up all night to be shot at dawn. After standing there smoking cigarettes through the night the Mexicans decided he was too brave to die. This story was repeated almost exactly as she told it in the 1940's by a remaining American descendant at Chamal in 2003. After Hugh's release he joined a large group of colonists hiding in the mountains at Lonesome Cove. It is believed he returned to Texas in 1918, with his wife Goldina Reyes.
The Youngs never went back to Chamal. The years ahead were long and painful trying to recover their losses from their investment in Mexico which represented everything they owned. It was ten years later that a claims process was set up between the U.S. and Mexico for U.S. citizens. In 1926, a claim to the Special Mexican Claims Commissions for their losses to their property and possessions from the revolution, was filed for $4025. It was not approved until 1937 and was reduced to only $1400. The Frank Young claim is referred to in almost every Blalock Special Mexican Claim prepared by the Chamal colonists as the "key claim".
The Youngs kept the taxes paid on their land all those years with the help of friends like Seymour Taylor who was still living in Mexico. Everts Storms came to visit Frank in March 1941 while he was seriously ill and living with his daughter Olive in San Antonio. He informed him that 178.14 acres (440 hectares) of his land had been confiscated, under the Agrarian Reform program, by the Mexican government on February 3, 1938, and deeded to the ejido at Chamal Viejo. No notification of any kind was ever received. The land taken was their best land including the river front and their well. The remaining land had little value since there was no access to water.
Frank Young died on May 31, 1941, and his daughter Viola Young White became the administrator of his estate. She hired L. W. Legerts who lived in Mexico over the mountain from the Blalock Colony to represent the family and file a General Claim or Agrarian Claim in 1942, with the US Mexicans Claims Commission for the loss of their land. Viola's determination and attention to detail with the help of Legerts and Storms were instrumental in winning approval of the Young claim. The Agrarian Claim was approved in 1946 for the full amount of $7150 plus interest. Payment was prorated over the next several years and was finally completed about 1952. The balance of the land was sold to Mexicans with the help of remaining friends in Mexico sometime in the 1950's. Viola and Olive with their husbands went to Mexico and brought out the small amount of money in cash and it was divided among the family. Thirty eight years after Frank Young left Mexico and 10 years after he died, the process was concluded.
Frank Young never recovered from his losses in Mexico. He and Statia were divorced in 1923. The family lived in Kyle, TX starting sometime before 1920, when they moved to San Antonio, TX and lived for the rest of their lives. Frank worked in various jobs in the oil fields, highway construction, and in west Texas on a farm. He came to be with his family in San Antonio before he died. He and Statia are buried together "as man and wife" in the Mission Burial Park South in San Antonio along with a large number of their children and family.
