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Why celebrate Founders Day?

San Antonio is noted for its love of celebrations. Such joyous events are marked in its history, beginning in the 1700s. Fiesta, a Latin-based word meaning “feast day” is in a long tradition harking back to Christianity throughout Europe. On feast days, the people celebrated the birthdays of saints they admired. In some cases -- as with the feast of San Antonio (Saint Anthony) on June 13 – they celebrated the day that revered person departed the Earth.  But festive gatherings even preceded Christianity. The idea of “festivals,” purposeful “festivity,” civic events, and holidays is rooted in many hearts.

With so many saints for whom to hold annual tribute, and with other noteworthy events to recall each year, the people of San Antonio have celebrated often and happily for nearly three centuries. And as each new cultural group has arrived in the town, they have brought their unique celebrations of historic events, legends and heroes. And they have joined in all the established festivities while the earlier settlers have joined them in theirs.

So it’s not surprising that San Antonio is widely known for its inter-communal harmony – for its traditional spirit of different kinds of people getting along well together – for its convivencia.

History shows there is a yearning inherent in people and institutions to go back in memory to early beginnings and to celebrate the good things they want to keep alive in their hearts and their minds.  Friends recall old times.  In every family, anniversaries are part of living. As the essayist Lance Morrow wrote in Civilization: “Memory is one of those laminations that give to civilization its richness, its identity, its sense of context. There is such a thing as civilized memory (which is more than merely a synonym for tradition).”

A Tribute to all who shaped our Heritage