Magnón’s family was fairly wealthy because her father, Joaquin Villegas, was a businessman involved in ranching, mining, and the import-export business.
When Nuevo Laredo was attacked again on January 1, 1914, Magnón eventually transformed her home, garage, and school into a makeshift hospital for her all-volunteer medical team, La Cruz Blanca.
[1][9] When American army officials were stationed outside the makeshift hospital to arrest the Mexican soldier-patients, Magnón organized several ways to help soldiers escape as soon as they were well enough.
For Magnón, The White Cross was a symbol of integrity and patriotism for the Mexican people and envisioned it expanding and continuing even after the revolution.
[2] The most notable example is her book, La Rebelde (The Rebel), but she also saved many photographs and documents from the revolution which was eventually passed down to her granddaughter.
This dramatized account of Magnón’s life reveals much about her operation of La Cruz Blanca as well as networks of female spies.
Clara Lomas, in her preface to The Rebel, writes about the importance of preserving a novel that self-documents the contributions of women during the Revolution, citing the second version of her autobiography all in English which was also rejected by American publishers.
[1] Despite the novel being autobiographical, Magnón writes in third person and refers to herself by the titular epithet, “The Rebel.”[1][8] Currently, The Rebel contains a preface and introduction by Clara Lomas, nineteen chapters, and five appendices.
[5] In recognition of Magnón's work, a monument was erected in Nuevo Laredo in 2010, ninety years after the end of the Mexican Revolution.