Hardware store owners helped build La Villita
MAGDA CASTILLEJA | 1942-2022 JOSE CASTILLEJA | 1936-2022
When the Mexican Independence Day Parade promenaded past their El Tornillo hardware store in Little Village, Jose and Magdalena Castilleja smiled as the crowd cheered them.
¡Viva México!
¡Viva Don José!
¡Viva El Tornillo!
“He truly enjoyed that,” said U.S. Rep. Jesús G. “Chuy” García, DIllinois. “They were beloved folks in the neighborhood.”
Mr. and Mrs. Castilleja were part of the generation of Mexican immigrants who arrived in La Villita in the early 1970s. They lived above El Tornillo at 3735 W. 26th St.
Married for more than half a century, they died four days apart, according to their son Juan Castilleja and daughter Sofia Marin. Mr. Castilleja, 85, died Jan. 30 at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn from COVID-19 and pneumonia. Mrs. Castilleja, 79, tested positive for the coronavirus two weeks before she died at home of complications from Alzheimer’s disease.
Their children had hoped to reunite them, but the pandemic didn’t permit it.
“We wanted him to see my mom — maybe they would lift each other up,” Juan Castilleja said.
After father had died, the son said the children spoke with their mother: “We said, ‘It’s OK if you’d like to go with him.’
“Maybe they passed away from being heartbroken because they were away from each other for a month.”
The Castillejas’ deaths mark “the passing of an era on 26th Street,” García said, a time before “big box” stores, easy access to cars and migration to the suburbs.
“Whenever you’d go in the store, you’d hear them talking to their customers about their families — about their trips to Mexico, about how their town or village were doing, whether they were fixing up the school or church or putting up a little monument in the town,” García said. “They would ask people about their parents or their children or whether somebody’d had an accident or surgery. You’d see them at funerals, at wakes.
“They were emblematic of families staying together, keeping their traditions alive,” he said.
They met and married in Monterrey, Mexico, where young Jose learned bricklaying and contracting while working for his father’s construction company.
He came to Chicago first. While awaiting his wife, somebody approached the new arrival to offer him a “deal” on a television set.
“He got all excited,” their daughter said. “He went home and said, ‘I got a TV.’ And he opened the box — and it was full of bricks.”
Over the years, the Castillejas also operated the Aguascalientes bar and Los Laureles restaurant near 26th Street and Kedzie Avenue.
“Work, work, work they instilled in us,” their son said.
If Mrs. Castilleja spotted teenagers hanging out on the street, “She would just get out and yell at the kids, ‘Hey, get to work!’ ” Juan Castilleja said. “Those gang-bangers knew who she was, and they didn’t want to mess with her.”
In the mid-1970s, they bought El Tornillo — “the screw.”
Customers sought out Mr. Castilleja’s expertise for help remodeling their homes — and undoing their failed do-it-yourself projects.
“So many people visited their store for advice, to problem-solve,” García said.
If people were short of cash, their son said, “Maestro Pepe” would tell them, “Just pay me whenever you can.”
One of the couple’s proudest moments was when Mexico President Carlos Salinas de Gortari toured La Villita and its welcome arch in 1991.
Mr. Castilleja “had come here as an immigrant,” García said, “and to see a sitting Mexican president talk about the hard work of immigrants here, he said this was a really good idea that this arch was built.”
“Doña Magda” Castilleja made El Tornillo a cozy place. It was her idea to sell nachos, pop and ice cream. They also had a popcorn machine.
She was loyal to Lancome products and had beautiful skin. And she believed in always being “presentable.” If their daughter was in a hurry getting ready to go out, Mrs. Castilleja would ask her: “You’re not going to put lipstick on?”
Her husband was loyal to Florsheim shoes, which he wore “95% of the time,” their son said.
After retiring, he liked to meet friends for coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts at 28th and Kedzie or 55th and Pulaski.
Even in his final years, Mr. Castilleja worked hard. His daughter could see what he was up to via a phone app linked to his home security cameras. She’d spot him sweeping or shoveling show. She’d phone or scold him via the camera mic: “Stop that, Papi!” Or: “You have a snowblower!” Or: “Go inside!”
The Castillejas also are survived by their son Jose, four granddaughters, one grandson and one greatgranddaughter. Services have been held.