Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022
Guillermo Billy Martín Lopez, age 11, was an exchange student to Shakopee in 1967, and then returned the following year and stayed again with Joseph and Rose Weidner Schleper and their seven children.
The seventh-grade student was from Puebla, Mexico. Puebla is the capital and largest city of the state of Puebla, and the fourth largest city in Mexico, after Mexico City, Monterrey, and Guadalajara. A colonial era planned city, it is located in the southern part of Central Mexico on the main route between Mexico City and Mexico’s main Atlantic port, Veracruz, according to Wikipedia. The city was founded in 1531 in an area called Cuetlaxcoapan, which means “where serpents change their skin,” between two of the main indigenous settlements at the time, Tlaxcala and Cholula. The city is also famous for mole poblano, chiles en nogada and Talavera pottery. However, most of its economy is based on industry. Being both the fourth largest city in Mexico and the fourth largest metropolitan area in Mexico, it has a current population of 3,250,000 people, and the city serves as one of the main hubs for eastern Central Mexico.
Guillermo, called Big Bill by the Schleper family as they already have a Little Billy, who was six years old. Big Bill was in Shakopee for two months as part of the International Cultural Exchange Program, according to an article, “Local Families Host Foreign Exchange Boys” in the Shakopee Valley News, Oct. 19, 1967. Big Bill lived with the Schleper family, while the Doherty family hosted Hector Barcenas Barreto, age 12.
The exchange program originated in Mexico and operated under the approval of all Catholic Diocese in Mexico and participating Catholic Diocese in the United States. The program was not limited to Catholic participating, but rather the exchange students are placed in homes where their parents’ religion is practiced. The students used their school vacation period to visit a host family in another country. Guillermo and Hector lived with their host family and attended school with the families’ other children.
The main purpose of the exchange, according to the article, was to acquaint the youth in Mexico, Central America, and the United States with actual values and truths of each other’s cultures by means of living experiences in them as guest members of host family.
The boys arrived at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport on Sept. 19, 1967, along with fifty other 12- to 18-year-old students. According to the paper, the arrangements for their visit and transportation costs are taken care of by the International Cultural Exchange Program, while other expenses are covered by their family and the host families. Guillermo’s brother, who was 14, lived with another family in Kansas City, Missouri, also under the same program.
Both the Schleper and Doherty families were members of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Shakopee, and both Big Bill and Hector went to school at St. Mary’s seventh grade where Joe Schleper, Jr. and Timothy Doherty also attended. Hector wanted to come to the United States to learn English. Though he learned some English in Mexico, Hector wanted to learn English “like the ‘natives’ speak it.”
Big Bill lived with the Schleper family on Seventh and Main, across from Hiawatha Park. Beside his “brother” Joe, Jr., Big Bill also had fun with the rest of the family, including Linda, Jeanne, David, Little Bill, Gary, and Tommy. (One more child, Jen, was born in 1972.) The family enjoyed camping and traveling around the area with their blue station wagon.
At one point, during a friendly scuffle, Big Bill gave Hector a black eye! Rose Schleper, when she saw it, said, “This program has taught us that boys are boys, no matter which country they came from!” She added, “The whole family loves Billy. We will be sorry when it is time for him to go back to his home in Puebla, Mexico.”
In fact, when Big Bill left, the family asked his family in Mexico to return to Shakopee the next year, and sure enough, Big Bill again lived with the family in 1968.
Over the next several years, the Schleper family had several exchange students, both boys and girls, from Mexico and other Central American areas. But they all remember their first exchange student, Big Bill.