Bautista Martinez
Bautista Martinez was born in Spain in 1914. He came to the United States by way of Cuba, “as a baby in arms,” when his family settled in Tampa, Florida. Martinez was diagnosed with Hansen’s Disease (leprosy) in 1934 after noticing numbness in his left hand while working as a cigar maker. Shortly thereafter, he was forced to leave his family and young wife in Tampa and was sent to live under quarantine at the National Leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana. The uncertain nature of his confinement and the potential severity of his disease caused him to divorce his first wife. He later married a fellow patient at Carville, Elvira. He and Elvira left, and returned willingly, to Carville several times after their initial discharge, living at times in San Francisco and Waco, Texas. Martinez died in 1993 at age 79 and is buried in the patients’ cemetery in Carville.
Martinez’s interview is housed in the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History at LSU Libraries Special Collections. Martinez, Bautista, interview by Cindy Gould, audio recording, 1991, 4700.0074. Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections, LSU Libraries, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.