Mrs Maria Socorro Daugherty

July 5, 1924 – July 30, 2015

Maria Socorro Hernandez Daugherty was one of San Antonio's first bilingual female deejay's for radio stations KIWW and KCOR, and an exclusive pianist of the Alameda Theater when it opened its doors in 1949, the largest movie palace in the country dedicated to Spanish language films and performances.

Maria transcended to God's Divine light on Thursday, July 30, 2015 in San Antonio. She was 91. Maria was a native of San Antonio but frequently travelled throughout Mexico where both her parents originated. Her parents, Everardo Charles Hernandez and Epifania de la Fuente Hernandez, came to San Antonio in the early 1920's. Everardo, a renowned musician in the arts community, travelled throughout the United States and Canada, performing in the silent movie theater orchestra pits. He would soon recruit his dear friends and fellow talented musicians Don Cenobio and his brother to play alongside him before the advent of the “Talkies.” The two family's would remain dear friends and fellow musicians to this very day.

In the mid-1950's, Maria became a popular fixture in Spanish radio. She recorded bilingual voice-overs and wrote and performed a popular weekly comedic novella radio show. Over a twenty-year span in radio, Maria became popularly known as MaLu, Cuchirila, and “Chencha”. Years later, she would go on to become a bilingual translator in the Bexar County Courts. As President of El Club Cultural de Hispanas Mujeras Scholarship program, Maria founded a modeling scholarship program to young women of Latin descent with aspirations toward a college education. She influenced a new generation of enthusiastic musicians, teaching piano with the same unwavering determination and disciplined vigor to which her father had once taught her.

Maria set the precedence for future generations of Hispanic women. She was a force to be reckoned with. Stunningly stylish, a hyperbole of bold wit, she had what the French call that certain, je ne sais quoi. Maria became as iconic a fixture as Gloria Steinem in local circles as a woman before her time, unabashed to step outside the conventions of a subdued era and elicit the kind of raw ingenuity that made her into the icon she would become.

Maria studied at the Conservatorio Nacional de Musica in Mexico City in the late 1940's. As a pianist, she played an eclectic, broad repertoire of classical, jazz, modern, Spanish ballads, and more. She was always the life of the party, and brought inspiration to all who knew her. Her music and energy sparked light in a world often shrouded in darkness. To her students, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, her music provided a beacon of hope to not only who they were but who they might become. She was the music she played; playful, comedic, energetic, sarcastic, light, dark, exuberant and everlasting.

Maria married the love of her life, Malcolm Leroy Daugherty in January 1958. A man, ten years her junior, he gave his whole heart to the woman he adored and together raised their two beautiful children, Norma and Kirk. They were married for over fifty years. Music became ingrained in their children's soul from the very beginning, having learned piano from a young age. That passion unfolded from one generation to the next.

Maria was an extraordinary woman with extraordinary talents, who loved her family with all of her being. Her most important role on earth was as a daughter, a mother, a wife, a grandmother, a great-grandmother, and a true friend.

It was by the very virtue of unyielding love, that through the deepest of triumphs and the deepest of sorrows, we pay homage to the woman who always believed in us even when we doubted ourselves. She loved with every intensity of a genuine heart. And she lived with a passion for the possibilities of every new day. She sparkles above, a luminous star twinkling in the midnight sky reminding us all that our potential soars. She can see it even if, and when, we can't. That was, and will always be, the essence of our great love, our family's beloved Matriarch.

Maria is survived by her two children and their spouses, seven grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. She is preceded in death by Leroy, her husband, and Michael, her grandson. She remains in the hearts of all who loved her. Her music, like the effervescent winds of time, reminds us that our bond will not ever, nor can it ever, be broken, for as the poet Rumi once wrote, “Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.”