A decorated businessman, devoted community servant and proud family man, Jose C. Montemayor was destined to make an impact on everyone he met. Beginning his restaurant journey young, Jose found work as a bus boy at Felix Mexican Restaurant in Houston before being drafted into the United States Army.
After his time in service, he returned to Felix’s Mexican Restaurant and climbed the ranks, where he ended up as the administrator of the entire restaurant and then it was time for a big jump — it was time to open his own.
Taking everything, he learned over the years, Jose chose the Brazos Valley as the perfect place to open his fine Mexican dining restaurant, Zarape’s on University Drive, at the time surrounded by pastures, which later moved to Downtown Bryan. In 1978, he opened his namesake, Jose’s Restaurant, which is located on Texas Avenue today and continues as a family owned and operated restaurant.
More than just owning restaurants, Jose took time to influence people in the industry and in the community through selfless acts of service including serving as a mentor for many current successful restaurateurs in the community like his nephew and owner of Taco Crave, David Posadas.
He also was very active in community affairs including serving as a member of the College Station Rotary Club, College Station Lions Club, or as an advisory director at First Federal Savings Bank and a vital member of the BCS Chamber of Commerce board, where he focused on the revitalization of Downtown Bryan. He also was deeply committed to aiding Latin students at Texas A&M University, and actively raising money for scholarships as a member of the Hispanic Forum.
“He was a hardworking person who was very successful in life, his businesses, and his personal life, and he was very respected by the community in many aspects,” David says. “He was a jewel for Bryan and College Station who supported all these departments for government and many local foundations.”
And then one day everything changed.
Jose’s family began to see a shift in his actions — the once very thorough and meticulously planned businessman began to forget important matters like simple directions, taking medications, important dates such as when to pay taxes, insurance and other regulatory filings.
“When the sickness starts, you don't notice anything because you can still have a lucid conversation with the person. He would talk about things past and present, but that was the only thing he talked about because if you changed the conversation, he would get lost,” his nephew Javier Posadas says. “He was a very organized person and had all his retirement and his personal affairs in order but when he started to forget important things and regularly become disoriented, things started to change around him both personally and on his businesses."
Soon, others noticed as well, and some unfortunately began to take advantage of Jose as his memory was not doing well. Whether it be $100 here or convincing him to give away precious pieces of jewelry, Jose began to lose many things he held dear personally and in his professional life. “He had contractors and friends who began to give him the same invoice two or three times even though he had already paid,” Javier says. “When he would remember something, he loaned to someone, they would just tell him they had already paid him back and in good graces, he believed them.”
This became unbearable for his personal health and his business very quickly. Though Jose could not remember and was not knowledgeable of said transactions, Texas law has little to no protections for those with Alzheimer’s or dementia so in most cases juries will rule that transactions are valid, which can directly hurt the person affected and their families.
“It’s important for Texas because Texas is very behind compared to other states in laws and regulations for those affected by Alzheimer’s,” David says. “Other states have laws that protect people in these types of situations, where there is abundant legislation available and is constantly being introduced in some cases. East coast and other north states have more specific guidance on how to treat all these types of situations.”
To help protect Jose, his family worked to get guardianship over him to help handle his affairs but there was still the tangled mess of things that happened before they were able to intervene. “We decided as a family that we had to go to court because he needs protection from himself, so we went and filed for guardianship, which they approved right away with all the evidence that we had of his mental state,” Javier says.
“Then, the lawsuits started — his friends and contractors who had taken advantage of him began to come back to say that he had willingly signed contracts, invoices etc. But he actually, had no idea about the particularized content of the agreements due to his memory. It’s like doing business with a child, he was able to write his name on paper, but he wouldn’t know what he was signing.”
“Jose was someone who was protected, who was very careful with his planning when he did his own estate planning, and who has a close family — and all of these protections were broken,” David says. “I'm always thinking about what happens to other people that don’t have the support system around them, because I'm sure there's people out there that don't know what to do, who to ask for help, and they are at the mercy of predators and opportunists."
The Posadas family has continued to fight for the morally unjust outcome of Jose’s properties and his estate and have taken their case all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, where they await a ruling to see if documents signed by Jose, while he was under a declining and incompetent mental estate, before the guardianship occurred, still hold their weight. And they continue to hope and expect Texas legislators to come up with clear laws to protect Alzheimer patients from being taken advantage of.
An estimated 12% of Texas adults ages 65 and older have Alzheimer disease. For the families of patients with this disease, is going to be one of the hardest diseases to care for on a family member, as the patient forgets who their family is, forgets how to dress, how to eat, becomes aggressive, rude and on most situations unrecognizable.
If others see family or friends diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the Posadas family urges them to take precautionary measures early to help protect, care, support and guide personal, financial, medical, and legal decisions along this sometimes painful and difficult process.
If anyone needs assistance with Alzheimer’s please do not hesitate, reach out to the Alzheimer Association. They have considerable information on their website and a 24/7 helpline available for assistance, their number is 1-800-272-3900.
