After his college graduation, Mauricio was drafted into the Air Force on a ship headed to Japan.  When he returned to Castleford, he married his sweetheart, Marlene Hopkins, in 1954.  The couple opened a sheep ranch, and Marlene and the children soon developed a respect for the Basque culture.

Mauricio has made three trips to the Basque Country, and discusses the many changes he has seen there over the years, as well as his feelings about seeing the ancestral land.  According to Mauricio, there's a spirit in Euskadi that exists nowhere else.  Today, he and Marlene are members of the Gooding Basque Association, and he is proud of his heritage.