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Dance instructor Berta Almaguer, right, teaches the folkloric tradition to twin sisters Marcia, left, and Marcile Howe, circa 1946. Not a performer but an educator, Almaguer kept interest in Mexican cultural traditions alive through her classes with the Parks and Recreation Department.

The Berta Almaguer Dance Studio at 138 S. Josephine Tobin Drive, shown here in 2019, was designed by notable local architect Reginald Roberts in the midcentury modern style. Built in 1955 as the Angler's Club Center, funded in part by the city as a Woodlawn Lake park structure, it was used for recreational fishing, civic meetings and dance classes.

Rosita Fernandez, shown here before a 1944 performance, was a beloved performer and broadcast pioneer. Like dance instructor Berta Almaguer, she was one of the group first identified with folkloric performances of music and dance in the Arneson River Theatre.

A photo of Berta Almaguer hangs on the wall at the original Berta Almaguer Dance Studio near Woodlawn Lake. A plaque commemorates Almaguer as founder of the city’s Folkloric Dance Program, which she headed for the Parks and Recreation Department from 1934 to 1970.

I’m doing research on Berta Almaguer and was hoping you might share what you have on her. A new dance studio honoring her is opening soon, but sadly there is very little information documented on her. She was definitely a significant person, putting San Antonio on the map and in our tourism industry. I’m also looking for information on a dance group called Las Adelitas who were killed in a horrible bus crash when they collided with an 18-wheeler. There was a big group going to a gig — likely with the Eddie Martinez Orchestra — and (singer) Rosita Fernandez was one of those injured. I’m looking for the names of Carmen Moore and Adela Hidalgo, who were Almaguer’s dance teachers. Can you guide me?

Berta Almaguer and Rosita Fernandez both had long careers as exemplars of traditional Mexican arts and culture, but they were in some ways as different as night and day. Almaguer (1901-1971), who never married, was multitalented; she danced, sang and played the violin but preferred to teach rather than perform. Fernandez (1918-2006), married to Almaguer’s brother Raul, was named “San Antonio’s First Lady of Song” by Lady Bird Johnson and was a multimedia star, with regular spots on early radio and television programs and later movie appearances among her many credits, all while bringing up two children.

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Both were involved in the creation of what became the long-running Fiesta Noche del Rio shows at the Arneson River Theatre But while Fernandez was onstage and eventually had “Rosita’s Bridge” there named after her, Almaguer was training generations of San Antonio’s best folkloric dancers through her classes for the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, a program she led from 1934 until 1970. Both women played a major role in defining the summer evening spectaculars, whose colorful authenticity has long drawn tourists to the rustic River Walk amphitheater.

Fernandez was among the “party of San Antonio entertainers,” as described by the San Antonio Light, June 3, 1938, on board the ill-fated bus that collided on that date with a truck near Stephenville.

The troupe, on their way to present “A Night in Old Mexico” in Oklahoma City, had stopped for lunch in Stephenville and were just 13 miles east of town when the truck driver attempted to pass another truck on a curve and didn’t see the bus coming. The two heavy vehicles “met head-on with a roar heard a mile away, reared in the air and then settled back.” The impact exploded the truck’s 25-gallon auxiliary gas tank, and “an instant later, both machines were raging infernos.” Black smoke from oil that ignited on the pavement further hampered rescue efforts as passing motorists and “all available ambulances” from the area found their way to the scene. From grisly accident-scene photographs, the truck appears to have been a large flatbed with wooden slats around the trailer.

Fernandez is listed as injured, with a “broken left arm and cut(s) about the face”; bandleader Eduardo Martinez was said to have a “crushed face, broken nose and multiple bruises and cuts over the body.” The vehicles’ drivers were killed, as were two dancers from San Antonio, Flora Garcia, 20, and Frances Valdez, 19. Ironically, the story says, they lost their lives because of the gallantry of two of the men, who had been sitting up front but switched seats with the women so they would have a less bumpy ride. Four people were killed, and 22 bus passengers were injured, including the “slightly hurt.” But Almaguer, Carmen Moore and Adela Hidalgo weren’t among them, although Alec Moore was.

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Billed as “Don Eduardo Martinez,” the orchestra director had been considered one of the most critically injured but was well enough to serve as master of ceremonies for “Tropic Serenade,” an Aug. 28, 1938, variety show in Municipal Auditorium to benefit crash victims, as announced in the Light, Aug. 21, 1938. As a frequent vocalist with Martinez’s radio band, Fernandez also was featured, this time for “tropical songs” with the Rumba Kings. A “lovely dancing lady,” Rosa Elida, was to appear with a chorus of unnamed dancers she trained as “Las Eliditas” — maybe the Adelitas you’ve heard of? — to perform “precision dances” in the Mexican and Spanish traditions, including a “bullfighter’s cape dance.” Finally Alec Moore, “one of the leading exponents of folklore dances,” would present an unnamed “group of girls he has trained … in two Mexican dances of genuine beauty.”

Almaguer is not named in any of the crash accounts nor as one of the plaintiffs in the several lawsuits brought against owners of the truck. Alec Moore, who also went by Alec Ortiz Moore, was born in Mexico, according to the 1930 U.S. Census, and had a sister named Carmen, so she may have been among the dancers he worked with … but at 21 as of 1938, probably more likely to have been a student than a teacher of Almaguer, then 37.

To share photos, information or memories about Almaguer, contact this column. All responses will be forwarded and might appear in a future column.

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Paula Allen writes about history for the Express-News.