SAN ANTONIO — Rita Vidaurri's booth was intermittently empty at Flor De Chiapas Restaurant. She held court in that corner booth with friends and fans, and it's also where she'd join in for the biweekly concert of musicians fighting to keep the music of their heritage from fading away.
On Thursday the table concert played on without one of its most familiar songbirds. The 94-year-old singer died Wednesday night following a bout with an illness.
"The last days of her coming over, here she could barely make it," Guadalupe Olguin said. "But she had to come and sing."
Olguin and wife Aurora were fans. They said it was common knowledge to clear out of the songstress's booth by 9 a.m. The throwback singalongs start about an hour later.
Then, it was showtime.
Born in 1924, the west San Antonio native's path to stardom started with singing contests and crooning in her father's saloons. Later, after she and her talent were discovered, Vidaurri performed in Mexico, Cuba, Central and South America.
Her powerful voice was known to cover culturally unique to Hispanics. She would become known as La Calandria, or the lark.
"She sang rancheras, boleros. She could sing them all," Guadalupe said.
Viduarri's talent made room for her in the '40s and '50s alongside the likes of Nat King Cole, Pedro Infante, Jorge Negrete and Eva Garza. Of course, she never ignored the stage in her San Antonio.
"She sang from the heart," Guadalupe said. "Everybody was a friend to her, and she was a friend to everybody."
Margarita Vasquez met Vidaurri at the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, and the two remained friends until the emotional end. She came to Flor De Chiapas to have a taco and grieve in her friend's booth Thursday.
"I still feel her presence and I always will because she was a beautiful lady," Vasquez said.
She recalls Vidaurri in her pickup truck singing to the music on the radio. The last piece of advice from her friend: Be nice to people, especially the elderly.
Linda Alvarado came to the Flor De Chiapas Thursday, too. She said she wanted to be in a place dear to her mom.
"This was her favorite place to come," Alvarado said.
Alvarado is Vidaurri's only surviving child. The mother and singer had three sons who preceded her in death.
"It's just so hard. I'm waiting for the phone to ring so she can say I need to go to the store," Alvarado said. "I need to go to Flor De Chiapas."
Her mother did get a chance to come to the restaurant for one last visit before her death, at which time the customers gave her a standing ovation. They remembered her unforgettable jokes that were always the segway into her singing.
"She said, 'I had to see my family again,'" Aurora Olguin recalled. "'This is my second family here.'"
Alvardo said her mother refused to stop performing, even when some urged her to slow down.
"She said, 'When I die, I'm going to die singing,'" Alvarado remembered.
La Calandria nearly got her wish. The musicians from the restaurant serenaded her as she neared death's door.
"She moved her mouth like she wanted to sing along with them," Alvarado said. "And everybody just started crying."
Alvarado said that in the last moments of her mother's life she convinced Vidaurri to join her brothers.
Visitation for Rita Vidaurri Eden will take place at Castillo Funeral Home at 520 North Gen. McMullen on Jan. 24 from 3 p.m. to 9 pm. A rosary service will follow at 7 p.m. Her funeral is set for the following day at San Amrtin de Porres Church at 1730 Dalgreen, which services scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. The interment follows at San Fernando Cemetery II.