Centennial Letter Writers Tell Us of Lovely Times — and Hard Times

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New Mexicans have continued to contribute to the Centennial Letters Project, which now has a home in the window of our front lobby. When you visit, you can read letters that others have contributed and pick up some postcards to leave at your school, library or business to prompt more writers.

We like sharing bits and pieces of the letters with you on this blog, so here are a few of our more recent writers.

Sharon in Santa Fe told us about some of the great outdoor experiences she and her husband have had …

…We moved into an adobe house without electricity above Cochiti Pueblo in 1965. sadly, that area with historic Civilian Conservation Corps-built adobes and magnificent views over the Caja del Rio was burned and flooded in New Mexico’s largest wildfire last summer. We have lived in several small villages and had some exciting adventures. I have cooked on wood stoves, ironed with flat irons, pumped water, backpacked extensively in the Pecos Wilderness, raised three children, taught remedial reading, and met many fascinating people of various backgrounds. My husband Mike had an interesting career with the Forest Service, almost entirely on the Santa Fe National Forest. He fought over 200 wildfires in ten states, managed the recreation lands, marked timber sales, and his favorite, designed and built trails. He retired early and started his own business, Pecos Baldy Enterprises. He has designed and built many trails in Northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. …

We have always loved hiking. Mike designed and built the Dale Ball Trail System in the foothills. I hope it is still being used. Maybe our children will have scattered our ashes by our favorite part of the trail. …

Paul in Rio Rancho recalled some of the good times of his childhood in Hurley, New Mexico …..

… I grew up in Hurley, New Mexico, which is a copper-mining town about 15 miles southeast of Silver City. My father was William Earl Morton, and he worked for Kennecott Copper Corporation in Hurley as a refinery tapper for some 28 years. …

Growing up in Hurley was a bit “different.” It was a small town, and still is, of about 3 to 5 thousand people. What made it different growing up was that Hurley was a “company town”—totally owned and operated by Kennecott Copper Corporation, and surrounded by a barbed wire fence no less. There was a 500 ft. smokestack as part of the refinery, which became quite a local landmark. I can still hear the company whistles signaling start of shift, lunchtime, quitting time, etc. …

I can still remember playing stick ball and steal-the-bacon on the streets close to my home. It was a good town for kids, quiet with a very low crime rate. There was a swimming pool, tennis courts, clubhouse with a small bowling alley and library. The town was clean and well maintained. Being a company town, many of the houses looked the same with only a few different styles and sizes available. …

On December 1, 1055, the entire town of Hurley was sold to a developer (John W. Galbreath) and the houses sold to either the occupants or realtors seeking rental homes. My parents eventually owned their own home at 212 Aztec Street in Hurley. …

Michael in Los Alamos brought us back to the earth — and the economy — of today ….

…Last May I graduated with a Master’s degree from UNM. I have been looking for a real job ever since. Work has been hard to find, and I was forced to move back to my parents’ home. It used to be an anomaly for someone in their thirties like myself to move back into the home of their youth. Now it seems more common. Unfortunately the best work I have found of late is as an extra in a movie that is being filmed here. It is kind of funny, spending so much time and energy in getting a graduate degree only to get a job whose only qualification is the ability to grow lots of facial hair (the movie’s a Western).

Lately I have been looking for work out of state. I would love to be able to stay here, but I am not sure I can afford to do so. If I leave I will probably be drawn back again. There is so much I would miss, but I would likely come back just to smell the ponderosa trees after a summer rain. …

I hope that we have done enough to ensure that they (the ponderosas) and the rest of the amazing landscape of New Mexico remain to be enjoyed. I also hope that you will do what it takes to ensure that it remains for those that come one hundred years after you.

Smile, breath deeply, be happy, and take care of yourself.

A Mother’s Day (or Father’s Day) Gift They’ll Always Remember

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Maybe you haven’t heard: Mother’s Day is this Sunday, and Father’s Day isn’t far behind.

You can probably come up with plenty of other reasons to shower Mom and Dad with thanks—not the least of them being how well they put up with your teenage taste in music, cars and hairstyles. If you’re anything like us, you’ve already received reminders to buy flowers, choose a cologne, or order up a boxful of oranges. Nothing against those gifts (we happen to say “yes” anytime someone offers us ripe oranges), but this might be a year to think a little deeper about where our money goes and what it can accomplish.

At the New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors, we rely on grants and donations to pull together educational programs for our younger visitors, to offer lectures series and other programs, and to put up new and interesting exhibitions. Since we opened in May 2009, some 350,000 people from all over the world have come through our doors to learn more about the enormous role New Mexico played in the shaping of the American West.

We’re hoping you can help us continue generating that kind of enthusiasm—and we promise you’ll get something in return.

A gift of membership in the Museum of New Mexico Foundation entitles recipients to a year’s worth of free admission to all four state museums in Santa Fe, the six monuments throughout the state, a subscription to the award-winning El Palacio magazine, plus discounts in our museum shops. Besides that, members receive regular updates about what’s going on in the museums and invitations to exhibition openings and other special events.

A variety of “friends” groups exist within the foundation’s membership, and those participants get first crack at invitations to archaeological field trips, visits to artists’ houses, bus tours of historical towns, and other activities. Besides building your brain, our museums build friendships.

Membership starts as low as $30 for students and teachers.

If you want to make a bigger splash, consider sponsoring or supporting an upcoming exhibition or a public program. (Gifts of $1,000 or more will place the name of you or a loved one on the wall of an exhibit.) You could pay for a bus to bring your children or grandchildren’s class, Scouting troop, or campmates to the New Mexico History Museum. You could sponsor a special event that brings history to life.

Gifts to the Museum of New Mexico Foundation are tax deductible. We encourage you to consider giving a gift that will last at least a year and help us continue kindling our visitors’ interest in the stories of our lives.

 

 

Learn Your History Thursday (the Governor Says So)

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It’s official: Governor Susana Martinez has declared Thursday, May 3, “New Mexico Statehood History Day.” Thursday, not so coincidentally, happens to be the day the New Mexico History Museum and the Historical Society of New Mexico kick off three days of learning about statehood.

In her proclamation, Governor Martinez said:

Whereas, the year 2012 marks the Centennial of New Mexico becoming the 47th state of the union on January 6, 1912; and

Whereas, New Mexico’s millennia of cultural traditions and centuries of recorded history, beginning with the first Spanish entrada in 1540 and continuing through Spanish Colonial, Mexican, Territorial, and statehood periods, are as rich and deep as any; and

Whereas, New Mexico’s long path to statehood, beginning with being named a territory of the United States in 1850, involved the perseverance oaf many dedicated citizens over many decades; and

Whereas, the study and understanding of our unique history provides a base for New Mexicans to better prepare for the future;

Now, therefore I, Susana Martinez, governor of the state of New Mexico, do hereby proclaim the 3rd day of May 2012 as “New Mexico Statehood History Day” throughout the state of New Mexico.

The best way to honor Statehood History Day, in our eyes, is by visiting the state History Museum. Admission is free to everyone on Thursday and you can pop into any or all of the lectures at our Centennial Symposium. On Friday and Saturday, the Historical Society holds its annual conference at the Santa Fe Convention Center, and this year, the discussions are focused on statehood. (Click on the link for details on how to register.)

Topics will range from traditional foods in Native American communities to land-grant studies, Western characters like Kit Carson and Wyatt Earp, and controversial New Mexico politicos such as Thomas Benton Catron, Bronson Cutting, and New Mexico’s first Territorial Governor (and possible U.S. spy) James S. Calhoun. The conference’s 24 sessions and nearly 70 presentations include:

  • “Juan Dominguez de Mendoza: Soldier and Frontiersman of 17th-Century New Mexico,” by historians Marc Simmons and José Antonio Esquibel.
  • “The Changing Character of New Mexico Statehood as Reflected by the Santa Fe Fiesta Celebration,” by Andrew Lovato, assistant professor of speech communications at Santa Fe Community College.
  • “Butch Cassidy in New Mexico: His Winning Ways, Dancing Feet, and Postmortem Return,” by free-lance writer Nancy Coggeshall.
  • “U.S. Army Nurses at Fort Bayard,” by Cecilia Jensen Bell, a researcher with the Fort Bayard Historical Preservation Society.
  • “La Matanza: Conserving Identity through Food in Los Lunas,” by Daniel Valverde, an anthropology student at New Mexico State University.

“The research that these scholars have accomplished is truly impressive,” said Dr. Frances Levine, director of the New Mexico History Museum. “Visitors can start their weekend history immersion by seeing the maps, paintings, photographs and artifacts that we use in our main exhibit, Telling New Mexico: Stories from Then and Now. If you’re not already a fan of history, the symposium and conference will make you one.”

Founded in 1859, the Historical Society of New Mexico is the oldest historical society in the West. Its collections were incorporated into the original Museum of New Mexico, created in 1909 in the Palace of the Governors, and today represent an important part of the New Mexico History Museum’s holdings. The society’s photographs, documents and books, collected from 1885 on, became the core of the museum’s Fray Angélico Chávez History Library and the Photo Archives at the Palace of the Governors. The Society began its annual conferences in 1974, and also publishes award-winning papers and news of history around the state in La Crónica de Nuevo México.

Image above: Dignitaries join U.S. President William H. Taft as he signs New Mexico into statehood in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 1912. Photo by Harris and Ewing. Palace of the Governors Photo Archives 89760.

Can’t Beat This: Free Admission and a Free Centennial Symposium

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In honor of New Mexico’s 100th birthday, the New Mexico History Museum invites you and your family to enjoy free admission all day Thursday, May 3, when you can also attend all or parts of a daylong Centennial symposium. The symposium, co-hosted by the Historical Society of New Mexico begins at 10:30 am in the auditorium and concludes at 4 pm. The Historical Society picks up the reins Friday and Saturday with its 2012 Centennial Conference at the Santa Fe Convention Center. (Click on the hotlink for information on admission, as well as the conference program.)

The History Museum’s symposium schedule:

10:30 am: Welcome and introductions by Dr. Frances Levine, director of the New Mexico History Museum; and Dr. Richard Melzer, professor of history at the UNM-Valencia campus.

10:45 am: Keynote address, “New Mexico Statehood, an Earlier Pereption,” by Dr. Robert Larson, professor emeritus of history at the University of Northern Colorado and author of the classic book New Mexico’s Quest for Statehood, 1846-1912.

11:30 am:“The Rough Road to Statehood,” by Dr. David Van Holtby, research scholar at the Center for Regional Studies, UNM, and retired associate director and editor-in-chief of UNM Press. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Forth-seventh Star: New MExico’s Struggle for Statehood, 1894-1912.

12:15 pm: Break (lunch on your own).

1:30 pm: “The Quest for Law and Order and New Mexico’s Struggle for Statehood,” by Robert Torrez, independent scholar and former New Mexico state historian. He is the author of more than 100 articles and books on New Mexico history, including the award-winning Rio Arriba, A Nexico County.

2:15 pm: “New Mexico Icons,” by Henrietta Martinez Christmas, noted New Mexico historian and genealogist who has written more than 100 articles and books on New Mexico history, focusing on the history of New Mexico families.

3 pm: Break.

3:30 pm: Open discussion with Dr. Melzer and other presenters.

The event is supported by a grant from the New Mexico Humanities Council. Free admission has been generously donated by the History Museum and the Museum of New Mexico Board of Regents.

Image above: A 1912 parade float in Santa Fe. Palace of the Governors Photo Archives 118354.

The One Thing President Taft Got Right: New Mexico Statehood

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Noel Pugach, a professor emeritus of history at the University of New Mexico, delivered this week’s Centennial Brainpower & Brownbags Lecture in which he explored the story of the man who managed to give New Mexico what it had sought for more than 60 years: statehood. But beyond making New Mexico (and Arizona) a state, President William Howard Taft left a legacy that can best be represented by a shrug of the shoulders.

“Taft had a distinguished career before and after his presidency, yet most historians rate him as an average president–even mediocre,” Pugach said.

(That’s Taft at left, joined by dignitaries as he signs New Mexico into statehood in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 1912. Photo by Harris and Ewing. Palace of the Governors Photo Archives 89760.)

Theodore Roosevelt preceded Taft and helped him win election in 1908; Woodrow Wilson succeeded him four years later. “He was unfortunately sandwiched between two dynamic men who left their marks on history,” Pugach said. “That’s hard to beat, and here you come in the middle. Taft suffers by comparison.”

He also suffers by having been a poor administrator, owning a political tin ear and displaying a knack for choosing the conservative sides of issues in a country that was then moving left. Not to mention that he ate compulsively to cope with whatever inner demons drove him, ending up at something like 340 pounds while in the White House where, yes, he got stuck in a bath tub. More than once. Laugh if you must, but do take a moment to consider what mental and physical agony he must have suffered. (That said, he was an avid golfer and a darned good dancer.)

When Taft took office, some conservative Republicans remained stuck on the idea that a New Mexico-Arizona combo state was the only way to go, despite Teddy’s best efforts to dampen their zeal. Taft did some of his own cajoling and negotiating to quell that plan, then had to engage in some last-minute horse-trading that weakened his ideas for regulating the railways in return for granting New Mexico statehood.

(At left: Noel Pugach with History Museum Director Frances Levine.)

The Cincinnati native had graduated from Yale where he not only scored good grades but had enough social acumen to win an invitation into the secret Skull & Bones Society. He earned a law degree and embarked on a political career of appointed positions–an important distinction, Pugach said, given Taft’s later inability to succeed at the mano a mano of electoral politics. After he served admirably as chief civil administrator in the Philippines, Roosevelt made him his Secretary of War (despite a lack of military experience) and, though he dreamed of being a Supreme Court justice, Teddy and Taft’s wife, Helen, pressured him to run for the presidency against Democrat William Jennings Bryan. He won handily and eventually amassed a record as a better trust-buster than Roosevelt (though Teddy would get the glory).

He didn’t like Washington and spent so much time traveling that he got a reputation of being out of touch.

“He was a lousy politician,” Pugach said. “He had terrible political instincts. He spoke too candidly. He was inept at horse trading. The press called him `The Blunderer.'”

On the upside: “He was a man who was very bright. He had good intentions. He cared for his country. But by and large, he was unsuccessful in his presidency. This is the man who finally brought us statehood.”

By 1912, when Republicans nominated Taft for a second term, Roosevelt had lost so much faith in him that he formed the “Bull Moose” Progressive Party, thereby splitting the GOP vote and handing victory to Wilson. Taft went happily back to Yale, where he served as a law professor until President Harding gave him his dream job, Chief Justice of the United States.

Of his performance in that job, Pugach said, Taft’s record was … “average.”

Yippie-yi-yo: Wrangling Cowboy Artifacts for a New Exhibition

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The legwork is underway to create a 2013 exhibit about one of New Mexico’s favorite subjects: Cowboys. (And, yes, cowgirls.) Guest curators Louise Stiver and Byron Price are sifting through a wealth of material to decide which aspects of cowboy life will be highlighted and how we’ll tell those stories. In the museum’s collections vault, we already have an array of cowboy-related materials, and the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives could make the Marlboro Man weep with the amount of historical photography it holds on ranch life.

Even so, we couldn’t say no to the offer of a clutch of cowboy-related materials from John Egan and the Egan family, who operated Rancho Encantado in Tesuque from 1967 through 1995. Betty Egan, a Cleveland woman who loved Western novels, had a yearning to live in the wide open spaces, and Slim Green told her about Rancho del Monte, a dude ranch owned by Bill and Barbara Hooton. Trivia keepers will want to know this about Rancho del Monte: Barbara Hooton collaborated with Patrick Dennis, the author of Auntie Mame, to create a 1956 novel of city slickers running a dude ranch, which became (briefly) the TV sitcom Guestward Ho!

(Even deeper trivia: The pilot for the TV show, produced by Desilu, starred Vivian Vance, aka Ethel Mertz, but the powers-that-be decided that viewers couldn’t see poor Miss Vance as anything but Ethel. Too bad for Vivian, given that she earned her first acting chops in Albuquerque and would have had a homecoming of sorts with the show.)

The items included in the Egan family’s generous donation have yet to go through our accessioning process, which includes being voted on by the Museums of New Mexico Board of Regents, but we couldn’t resist sharing a glimpse of them with you.

In fact, some of the wise-guys in our office couldn’t resist setting up an exquisite Slim Green saddle as the new desk chair for our director, Frances Levine (at left).

Slim Green is a story unto himself:  Born in 1916 in Oklahoma and soon relocated by his family to Texas in a covered wagon, he showed cowboy know-how from a young age, quickly learning the difference between a good saddle and a bad one. He couldn’t afford the former, so apprenticed himself to Pop Bettis, a renowned saddlemaker in Lubbock.  As his skills advanced, his saddles became hand-tooled works of art that fit every rider’s particular needs.  Cowboys, movie stars and governors have chosen Green’s saddles, and he’s considered a master traditional artist by numerous arts organizations.

Among the other items partially filling up Levine’s office: a Slim Green belt made for John Egan (Betty’s son, and the ranch’s general manager for 18 years); a pair of chaps; spurs; bridles; business ads; two bottles of Rancho Encantado wine; two cattle brands owned by Betty Egan; and photographs from the ranch’s heyday, when it attracted the likes of Robert Redford, Kirk Douglas, Johnny Cash, June Carter, Whoopi Goldberg, Jason Robards, and Frank Capra.

Besides running the Rancho Encantado, Betty Egan financed the construction of the Tesuque Fire Department and was the first female fire chief in the nation.

Rancho Encantado today is the Encantado resort.

As we work on this early stage of the exhibit, set to open in February 2013, we’ve been gratified by the generosity of people like the Egans and the enthusiasm of so many people to share their stories. We promise this: A root-tootin’ good time will be had by all.

 

Learning from Fifth-Graders: The Centennial Letters Project

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We recently received a lovely stack of hand-written letters from fifth-grade students at Piñon Elementary School in Santa Fe. Their teacher had read about our Centennial Letters Project and the effort to collect the thoughts of New Mexicans on this 100th anniversary of statehood — our gift to the historians who will one day document our bicentennial.

Wrote their teacher:”We have had fun trying to imaging what schools will be like in 100 years. We hope there won’t be budget problems and overcrowding in the classrooms like we have now. My hope for the future is that we will all be using clean, renewable energy, that all children will have enough to eat and live in safe homes.  … I know that by being a teacher, I am reaching out to the future and touching lives, hopefully in positive ways. My students learn daily how to resolve conflicts peacefully along with their math, reading, science, and history. I think you (the New Mexicans of 2112) will have very unusual technology from what we use today, but I think 10 and 11 year olds will be very much the same.”

We couldn’t resist sharing some of those 10 and 11 year olds’ thoughts with you. As you’ll see, their young lives are not always easy, but their optimistic outlooks are heartening.

Wrote one: … I live in a cream and tan colored trailer. There are three bedrooms, two bathrooms, one bar, one living room, and one kitchen. … I have a small play room outside. Mostly old people and gangsters live in my neighborhood. There are some kids but they don’t come outside. The park is old and destroyed, so no one can play there. We have lots of goatheads or stickers. …

Another told us of her future hopes and described her absolutely favorite place to eat: … I want to be a fashion designer or an actress. I also really want to become Miss America and Miss Universe. My favorite place to eat at is Golden Corral. They have all sorts of food there. It is a huge buffet that has everything! From Italian to Chinese to steak and mini-hamburgers. Golden Corral even has a huge chocolate fountain. …

One boy spoke of his roots in another nation, one that in 2012 is enduring difficult times that we all hope are resolved by 2112: I am a child of immigrant parents. Life in Mexico is very, very, very, very, very difficult because you don’t live in good conditions. There aren’t a lot of jobs. You can work and barely get paid well. …

On the upside, one girl described life as a fifth-grader in such enthusiastic terms that she kind of makes us want to go back to elementary school: I go to PINON school. I like it there because you learn a lot like Math, Reading, and Spelling. I like homework because you never stop learning, even when you are out of school. I have loved all of my teachers since kindergarten to fifth grade. … I think fifth grade is a great experience. I have to say fifth grade is like being in a place made out of rainbows, and every color in the rainbow means peace. You learn and never stop learning. You can be a smart person thanks to fifth grade.

Want to add your thoughts to our growing stack of letters? Jot down a little or a lot and send them (yes, via snail mail, we’re a history museum, we like old-fashioned things) to this address:

 

 

Pancho Villa’s Raid and the Sombrero Left Behind

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One of the latest artifacts to make its way into the History Museum’s conservation lab: a very well-worn sombrero plucked off the battlefield in Columbus, NM, after Pancho Villa’s raid. Conservation intern Cindy Lee Scott began working on the piece this week, and her efforts show just how different conservation work is from restoration work.

Proof No. 1: If the hat really was part of an infamous battle, then Scott will only clean off the last few years’ worth of dirt.

“If it had been sitting on a battlefield, then that dirt would be part of its history,” she said. “In that case, I will do a minimal cleaning–whatever a low-suction vacuum cleaner can pick up.”

The sombrero was donated to the museum in 2008 by the grandson of a Columbus woman who found it after the raid on her town. It’s relatively simple, with decorations on only the brim and the hatband, and it’s definitely seen better days, with a few holes showing on its brim and near the top. Through her investigation, Scott has already determined that some of what we believed about it isn’t true. For one, it isn’t made of woven straw, but of many tiny braids of straw sewn together. And it might not even be straw, but we’ll have to see whether our equipment can detect a difference between hay, yucca fibers, or some other material. In addition, what appeared to be a leather brim and hatband is in fact a painted woven fabric with leather curlicues stitched onto it.

According to a history of Columbus posted on New Mexico State University’s website, Villa’s raid came suddenly the night of March 9, 1916, as the Mexican Revolution raged to the south. Columbus was “a sleepy little border town,” and about 350 U.S. Army soldiers from the 13th Cavalry were stationed on its outskirts. Despite that seeming defense, Gen. Francisco “Pancho” Villa and up to 600 Mexican revolutionaries stormed into town.

“The Villistas concerned themselves more with raiding than killing, otherwise the town might have been erased. …  Alerted by the gunfire and burning buildings, many Columbus residents fled to the desert, or sought refuge in the school house, the Hoover Hotel, or private homes. The noise and fire sealed the fate of the raiding Mexican Army. U.S. Army officers and soldiers, awakened by the commotion, set up a Benet-Mercier machine gun in front of the Hoover Hotel and produced a murderous rain of bullets. Another machine gun set up on East Boundary Street fired north and caught anyone in the intersection of Broadway and East Boundary in a deadly crossfire.”

The fighting lasted from about 4:20 am to dawn, just 90 minutes. In that time, up to 75 Villistas and 18 Americans, most of them civilians, were killed.

The History Museum has a section about the raid in our main exhibit, Telling New Mexico: Stories from Then and Now. Included in it is the clock that was stopped by a bullet and a death mask of Villa, who was stopped by a hail of bullets fired by a band of assassins in 1923.

While it would be nice to say that Villa once wore the sombrero, we won’t. We can’t prove it. Besides that, it doesn’t say “Hecho in Mexico” or bear any other label that might lead us to a hatmaker or a town of origin. But it could date back as far as 1900, and Scott’s work might put a more definitive date on it.

(That’s Scott at left, examining the ornament on the hat’s chinstrap in hopes of determining what kind of threads were used to make it. One possibility: Horse hair.)

Another proof that this is conservation not restoration work is that the hat’s damaged parts likely won’t be repaired. Instead, as any wise conservator will do, the damage will merely be stabilized so it doesn’t get any worse.

And as for this writer’s wise-guy suggestion that the conservators pull some DNA from the sweat that likely once soaked the hatband and throw it into some kind of microfabricated polymeric nanochannel RTPCR mumbo-jumbo device in order to identify its owner, Scott was firm and clear.

“This isn’t TV,” she said. “It doesn’t work like that.”

 

O, Fair New Mexico’s Hard Road to Statehood

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As New Mexico was hoping, wishing and praying for statehood, 60 years’ worth of forces aligned against it.

The New York Times took the position that the outlaw frontier of New Mexico represented “the heart of our worst civilization.” Former Vice President and pro-slavery Sen. John C. Calhoun said in 1848 that “to incorporate Mexico would be the very first instance of incorporating an Indian race. … Ours, sir, is the government of a white race. The greatest misfortunes of Spanish America are … of placing these colored races on an equality with the white race.” Others considered the state too poor. Or too Catholic. Or too likely to side with northeastern senators than southern senators.

At today’s Centennial Brainpower & Brownbags Lunch Lecture, New Mexico State University History Professor Jon Hunner led a full house of visitors through the hurdles and toward that fateful day, 100 years ago, when President Taft signed the territory into statehood. Along the way, he acquainted the audience with the unsavory characters of the Santa Fe Ring, “an equal-opportunity corrupter” consisting of lawyers, politicians, merchants and railroad men. “Of course,” he added, “corrupt organizations during the Gilded Age were nothing new.”

There was also the tale of New Mexico Sen. Stephen B. Elkins ill-timed handshake of a colleague who had just, unbeknownst to Elkins, given a fiery anti-slavery speech, thereby costing the New Mexico statehood bill every Southern senator’s vote.

He also brought up an old wound: the surveyor mistake that gave a good (and oily) chunk of rightful and proper New Mexico land to the state of Texas–a still simmering matter that we wrote about in this blog post in 2009.

One of his best points is one well worth remembering in this Centennial year: “What New Mexico was in 1912, the United States has become over the past 100 years. We sent the first Hispanic senators to Congress, the first Hispanic representatives. We elected the nation’s first Hispanic governor.” The territory’s melting pot today mirrors a nation that once was ruled by Anglo men of means.

These monthly lectures, organized by Tomas Jaehn of the museum’s Fray Angelico Chavez History Library, are well worth putting on your calendar. (Next up: “Understanding William Howard Taft,” by Noel Pugach, professor emeritus of history at the University of New Mexico, April 18 at noon.) They’re free. The speakers are smart and interesting. And you walk away from a mere hour with enough knowledge to impress your friends, family and coworkers. Who knows, you might even get to sing.

At the end of today’s lecture, Hunner cajoled the crowd into joining him in a decidedly monotonic version of the official state song, “O, Fair New Mexico.” Next time, we’ll do a little warm-up first.

 

Letters, We Get (New Mexico Centennial) Letters

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When we launched the Centennial Letter Writing Project on Jan. 6, 2012 (the 100th anniversary of New Mexico statehood), some of us at the New Mexico History Museum wondered aloud whether we’d eke out even 200 letters over the next 12 months. Well, it’s early March, and we’re about to zoom past that total. The stack at left? That’s just today’s haul.

Students in the Upward Bound college-prep program in Roswell have written by the dozens. So did a class at St. Michael’s High School, members of a creative-writing group in Taos, and individuals of all ages in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and elsewhere.

(We sure could use some voices from western and southern New Mexico — hint, hint.)

Our request was simple enough (though it seemed a bit of a burden to the Twitter generation): Tell us about your life in the year 2012 so that historians in the year 2112 might have some first-person accounts told by rank-and-file residents. We want to hear what your neighborhoods are like, your houses, your career, what you worry about and what gives you hope. Think about what someone 100 years from now might want to know about you. The type of car you drive, its color, what it can and can’t do. The stores you shop at and what you buy there. Do you visit a farmer’s market? Describe the vendors and their produce. Tell us how you make your family’s favorite holiday food and where you get the ingredients. Do you work out? Where? Do you ride bikes or go hiking? Describe the route.

Over the next few months, we’ll post excerpts from some of those letters here on the blog. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we have. And we hope that you, too, will put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard; computer printouts are A-OK) and tell us about your life.

Where, pray tell, might you send your missives? Here:

(Isn’t that handwriting about the prettiest thing you’ve seen all week?)

Onto some samples from a few of our friends in Albuquerque. (We’ll only use first names and leave out writer’s addresses.)

Evelyn wrote:

“In this centennial year for New Mexico, I am 80 years old. I live in the Northeast Heights in a house purchased in 1958 for $10,500. It was built in 1954 … one block from Morris St. There were no buildings at that time from east of Morris St. to the mountains…just a dirt road named Juan Tabo. My house has 3 bedrooms, one bathroom and a one-car garage. Every home then had clotheslines and I still use mine. …As a single mother of four children, I taught sewing classes as my own business in fabric stores for 30 years. Most women work outside the home today so sewing is more of a hobby than a necessity. However, young people are becoming more interested in sewing because of a TV program called Project Runway. Sewing classes have been phased out in schools. …”

Joanne wrote:

“I am a native New Mexican, born in 1940 on North Fourth Street in Albuquerque. My father came to NM in 1907 from Kansas as a homesteader in Edgewood when he was 18 years old. His father and eight brothers each received 160 acres but later most of them lost their land because of drought and moved to Albuquerque. My mother came in 1912 when she was 12 years old because her father had TB. I was a teacher at Grant Jr. High and Manzano High School. …

“In 2010 I decided to remodel my house, the original part of which was built in 1947. it was cold in winter, hot in summer, a typical uninsulated, flat-roofed house. I decided to insulate it by wrapping the entire house with straw bales. With the stucco on the outside it looks like an adobe house. I also wanted to see the mountains so I added a second floor bedroom and bath with a deck. I remodeled the house to make the garage into an art studio and added a solar green house on the south side of the house. I added solar panels that produce more energy than I use, giving me great satisfaction, especially when I get a refund every month from the electric company. It makes me so happy to know that I am producing energy for someone else to use as well without polluting our beautiful earth. I am trying to have a garden for produce, fruit trees, flowers and foliage without using too much water so I installed rain-water collection tanks. I think of my house as a demonstration of what one can do with an old house to make it really energy efficient. …”

Suzanne, a 71-year-old Albuquerquean, included details of a friend’s upcoming surgery that, in 100 years, may seem like a commonplace procedure. Not today:

“Dear friend Emily … announced she will have deep brain surgery Mon. Jan. 9 to harness and correct hand tremors she’s suffered for several years. This is not experimental but cutting edge. She will be in intensive care two nights, then rehab after having a tiny computer implanted in her chest to maybe take the place of the part of her brain that is malfunctioning. She is frightened and excited. I think she is so brave but she needs to reclaim her life so she can paint and sew and make jewelry again.”

We’ll close out today (don’t worry, we’ll share plenty more in the weeks ahead) with Olivia, a fourth-grader from Hubert Humphrey Elementary School, whose optimism just may be catching:

“N.M makes me feel special because everyone is different and no one is mean or disappointed because this is the Land of Enchantment. Special things can happen, and that’s why I love New Mexico. What I worry about is people doing dangerous stuff. What gives me hope is seeing people happy and people encouraging me.”