Tag Archives: centennial

A Year of Centennial Letters

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Sell everything, I’ve found a place where I can breathe and sleep at night.

So began Kelly Murphy Lamb’s submission to the Centennial Letters Project. Hers was among an end-of-the-Centennial-year spurt of letters that has delighted us. Throughout the year, we’ve heard from people in nearly every part of the state, including quite a few schoolchildren. Some have told us how foreign the experience of writing a letter is; one complained that her hand hurt. Enough of them described a New Mexico sunset that we’re pretty darned sure we’ve got it down pat. Almost all of them shared some detail about their life–where they live, where they shop, what worries them, what makes them happy.

If we were of the unyielding sort, today would be a day to cut off all submissions. New Mexico, after all, became an official entrant in the United States of America on Jan. 6, 1912. But who are we to tell a willing writer not to write? Keep those centennial letters coming. We’ll open them, read them, and stash them in our archives so that future historians might know what all of us were up to in New Mexico’s centennial statehood year.

Here are some excerpts from the most recent batch, starting with Kelly Murphy Lamb of Albuquerque:

“Sell everything, I’ve found a place where I can breathe and sleep at night.” My great-grandfather William Murphy telegraphed to his wife, Mary, in Mammoth Spring, Misouri. The year was 1906. He was in Albuquerque, New Mexico Territory, where he spent the night after shipping a boxcar of race horses to El Paso, Texas.

William and Mary, after selling their holdings in Misouri, rode the train to Texico, New Mexico, first stop in the Territory. They established the Murphy Hotel, Dining Room and Saloon, where they served nearly all newcomers to New Mexico Territory. William also established a livery stable and wagon yard to help new homesteaders. …

From Monica Duarte, a student at New Mexico State University:

… I live in a little town called Mesquite; it is 20 minutes (15 miles) away from Las Cruces and 45 minutes (35 miles) to El Paso, Texas. There are lots of dairy farms on the road to my house and lots of planting fields. In the summer everything is green and alive, but in the winter everything looks desolated and withering. My neighborhood consists of 22 houses and one empty lot. … Every house has a basketball hoop, many have trampolines, and almost every family has some sort of pet. During the summer afternoons you can always hear children playing outside, screaming, yelling, and laughing for no reason at all. Many families have cookouts and they invite the neighbors. The day before school starts in August, most of the older kids get together around a camp fire to make s’mores and just have a nice time together. …

From Joshua S. Johnson, another student at New Mexico State University:

This fall semester will be my last semester as an undergraduate student. In a month from now, I find out whether or not I get active duty in the Army once I graduate and commission as an officer. It has been really hard just waiting to see if I will have a full-time career or not in the Army. It is crazy to think that in just one year from now I could be over in Afghanistan or wherever else the U.S. will be fighting overseas. … All I can do now is to enjoy this last semester with friends that I will probably not see for a long time and to make the best of it. …Thank you, New Mexico, for letting me be a part of this great state.

From Alyssa Ruben, a student at the Santa Fe Indian School:

I am from the pueblo of Laguna. I am currently 14 years old. … One thing that our leaders and elders are very worried about right now is preserving our language. The only fluent speakers are the elders of the pueblo. My grandpa is a fluent speaker and my younger brother is learning a lot from him but is not a fluent speaker. My ba-ba is very passionate about preserving our language. One thing that he is doing to keep the language alive is he got permission to start a language program at Laguna Elementary School. This is his first year working with the kids. … We still have our traditional practices that still go on but it is very sad because when you go into the kiva, you don’t hear very many people that speak the language in there, you mostly hear English. …

And finally, just a snippet from a lovely and haunting letter by Napoleon Garcia of Abiquiu:

Dear Future Grandchildren,

Today we celebrated our Indian heritage here in Abiquiu by honoring our patron saint St. Tomás de Apostle. The event started with eight newly trained children dancing our traditional dances dressed brightly in shades of red festooned by multi-colored ribbons. I proudly watched as two of my great-grandchildren danced with this group. My girls danced this fiesta as did some of my grandchildren. I was always an able dancer but now I’m on the sidelines with my drum to keep the beat going as they twirl around.

They danced into church where we had a special Mass for St. Tomás and then the dancers led the congregation next door to the Joe Ferran Gym for a festive meal of posole, beans and biscochitos—what else? Are you still honoring our traditions in this way in 2112? Is the church, dedicated to St. Tomás, built in 1938, still standing? Are you still feasting in the Joe Ferran Gym next door? Are you still dancing?

 

 

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.

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.”

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:

 

 

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.”

The 2012 Statehood History Conference

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Outlaws, Rough Riders, classic restaurants and a possible spy will come to life at the 2012 New Mexico Statehood History Conference, May 3-5, in Santa Fe. Presented by the Historical Society of New Mexico and the New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors, this Centennial version of the Society’s annual conference includes a special treat: A daylong free symposium, open to the public, plus free admission to the History Museum on May 3.

The conference, May 4 and 5 at the Santa Fe Convention and Visitors Center, is held in collaboration with the New Mexico Heritage Preservation Alliance, which is having its annual conference at La Posada that weekend. Details, including special hotel rates and how to register for all or part of the Statehood History Conference, are at the Historical Society’s web site.

“Whether you’re interested in the Centennial or New Mexico history in general, we’re gathering writers and historians you’ll enjoy meeting and whose research is sure to enlighten you,” said Mike Stevenson, president of the Historical Society. “Holding this year’s event in the capital city, where lawmakers worked so hard to move the Territory toward statehood, means we’ll be surrounded by history indoors at the sessions and outdoors strolling the streets of Santa Fe.”

The symposium’s keynote address, “New Mexico Statehood, An Earlier Perception,” will be given by Dr. Robert W. Larson, author of the authoritative and classic New Mexico‘s Quest for Statehood, 1846-1912.  Other speakers include Dr. David Van Holtby, “New Mexico’s Rough Road to Statehood,” Robert Torrez, “Law and Order and the Quest for New Mexico Statehood,” and Henrietta Martinez Christmas, “New Mexico’s Icons.”  Dr. Richard Melzer will introduce and moderate the symposium. (Seating in the museum’s auditorium is limited; first-come first-served.)

The statehood theme continues May 4 and 5 at the Society’s conference, with topics ranging from traditional foods in Native American communities, 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.

Society members who register for the conference by April 23 will get a specially discounted rate of $95, which includes the Thursday evening opening reception at the History Museum, lunch on Friday, and the Statehood Centennial Banquet on Friday evening at the Convention Center (a total value of $125).  The closing Cinco de Mayo reception at the Governor’s Mansion will feature the annual Historical Society of New Mexico Awards presentations.

The conference includes a silent auction as well as a book auction. Items will include artwork, jewelry, historical maps, rare books, and statehood memorabilia. If you’d like to donate an item, e-mail Mike Stevenson at mgsalp@newmexico.com.

Do Something Radical for New Mexico’s Centennial: Write a Letter

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By Dr. Frances Levine, Director, New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors

This morning, January 6, the New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors will host a First-Day-of-Issue event on behalf of the U.S. Postal Service and its New Mexico Centennial stamp. That we’re kicking off a year of Centennial activities at the History Museum with a stamp-related event delights my historian sensibilities by inviting New Mexico’s citizens to take part in a letter-writing project.

To tell the stories of our past, historians gather information from many sources. They use photographs, documents, and artifacts, like the 47-star flag now on display downstairs in the New Mexico History Museum. But what they treasure more than anything are journals and letters – written accounts of what was happening just as it was happening and told by participants in the events.

As we prepared to mark the Centennial in our exhibitions with an installation called 47 Stars, we discovered that the historians who preceded us had left out some of the accounts we would have loved to use. That got us wondering about what we’re leaving for the people who will one day mark New Mexico’s 200th year as a state.

These days, hand-written accounts of our lives are in short supply. We all rely on e-mails to communicate, but I bet few of us print them out and save them in a box under the bed. Many of us mark the mileposts of our lives with short Facebook updates that go – where? Who knows?

Some historians say all this electronic communication will provide a bounty of material for future historians. Others say something will be sorely missing, that holding a letter written by a person who participated in the historic events as they happened and reading the thoughts they considered important enough to put on paper is truly what makes people connect across generations and throughout history.

Lew Wallace finished writing the novel Ben Hur while he was a Territorial governor in New Mexico, and he left this account of what it was like to work on the book inside the Palace of the Governor’s thick adobe walls.

My custom when night came was to lock the doors and bolt the windows of the office proper, and with a student’s lamp, bury myself in the four soundless walls of the forbidding annex. Once there, at my rough pine table, the Count of Monte Cristo in his dungeon of stone was not more lost to the world.

The ghosts, if they were ever about, did not disturb me; yet in the hush of that gloomy harborage, I beheld the Crucifixion, and strove to write what I beheld.

I can feel the surface of his rough pine table. I can imagine the chill of a supposed ghost when a viga creaked or loose page fell to the floor. Those are special details to historians and help us bring the past to life.

Each of us has a gift to leave for tomorrow’s historians: A written account of our lives today. So all of us at the New Mexico History Museum have a radical proposal: Write us a letter. That’s it. Just a letter. Tell us a bit about what your life in the year 2012 is like.

Update: The letter need not be hand-written if you’d rather print it out.

Describe your house, your neighborhood, the businesses you like to visit and why. What games do you play? Where do you go to enjoy the outdoors and what does it look like today? What kind of job do you have and what’s the status of that industry? What do you worry about? What gives you hope? What is it about New Mexico that makes it your home place and heart place?

Fold it up, put it in an envelope, address it, and then mail it – maybe using one of those beautiful Centennial stamps. We’ll collect them and share them throughout the year but, most important, we’ll put them into a safe place to spend a few decades gaining perspective. When 2112 rolls around, New Mexico’s historians will delight in the treasure trove you helped create.

Send your letters to: Centennial Letter Writing Project, New Mexico History Museum, 113 Lincoln Ave., Santa Fe, NM, 87501.