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Raul Morin started life under difficult circumstances; he was born in a simple farmhouse in Lockhart, Texas and survival came through hard work and fortitude. He was fond of boasting that he had picked cotton at the age of six years. His natural father died when Raul was three years old and his mother remarried a man who didn’t care for Raul or his older brother. |
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The marriage of his mother resulted in three new sisters added to the clan. Raul was a natural artist and his mother arranged for him to be apprenticed to a sign painter in order for him to learn a marketable skill. He also attended art school but two things changed his plans: the great depression and the death of his youngest sister. He left home as a teenager and joined Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps. When that ended he made his way west through a series of odd jobs to join his older brother Eddie in Santa Barbara, California. |
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Raul Morin participating in Santa Barbara's Old Mission Days Festival. He regularly set up a booth and drew caricatures of beach visitors. (Circa 1935) |
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Self Portrait: Raul Morin |
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Raul gravitated to Los Angeles, California where he met and fell in love with Ramona Tijerina. They married and began their life together. This is a picture of them on their honeymoon when they journeyed to San Antonio to visit his mother. |
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They resided in the new government-housing tract known as the Ramona Gardens. Raul worked painting signs and the family began to grow. That’s the Morin children, left to right, Eddie, Olivia and David. |
