Joaquin Salcedo Aldrete was born on March 2, 1936 in Mexico City and died on May 4, 2023 in Rochester, MN. His parents, Carmen and Joaquin Aldrete, owned a travel agency. In his teens, Joaquin worked there as a guide and this is how he met his future wife, Melinda Luz Santoyo, since, although she was from Los Angeles, her family vacationed in Mexico. Their relationship developed when she spent a semester abroad in Mexico City in 1956. From an early age, Joaquin had aspired to be a doctor, and after attending the Central University of Mexico, he went to medical school at the School of Medicine of the National University of Mexico, earning his degree in 1959. He did six months of public service as the doctor for the small, isolated jungle town of Palizada, where he tended the indigenous peoples and a team of engineers searching for oil. He and Melinda were married in 1960 and he did his medical internship in Rochester, NY. The couple then moved to Rochester, MN where he did his medical r