Yesterday I was working on my Ancestry family tree. Looking back at family history makes me feel different emotions every time I read it. Kind of like listening to my favorite songs from high school. I react differently, depending on my age or mental state of mind. I was rearranging photos of my grandma, Doña Rosita Valdez Padilla and I found an endearing photo of her taken shortly before she died at the age of 92 in 1976. The photo had been published in a book by Samuel Leo Gonzales called "The Days of Old." I had forgotten that there was an entire chapter about my grandma in the book and the importance of that chapter to my family history.
"Doña Rosita Valdez de Padilla lived in Puerto de Luna in the home of one of her sons, José. At 92 years of age, she had an excellent remote memory. She spoke of those people who had long since passed away, as if she had visited with them recently. Our conversations were conducted in "good ole" New Mexico Spanish. She shared information concerning her family, friends, and old customs and traditions that some of us wish were still with us today. Her humble home was one of the most hospitable places this writer has ever visited."
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| Painting Of My Grandma's House By Christina Fajardo |
My grandma's adobe house, across the road from the Puerto de Luna mountain was in fact hospitable. It was insightful and sweet to read the subject matter that was important enough for her to mention when interviewed by Mr. Gonzales. She spoke of her younger years when her grandfather was good friends with Lorenzo Labadie. I found this to be extremely interesting because Lorenzo was my father's maternal great-grandfather. Lorenzo had been a Lieutenant Colonel, then a sheriff, an Indian Agent and then a census taker in his 70's. When I first started doing ancestry research, I learned so much from Lorenzo Labadie's excellent record keeping on the census of the late 1800's and 1900. For months late at night as I researched my ancestry, I felt that Lorenzo and I became best friends because I would go down these rabbit holes of his record keeping.
Then Grandma Rosita spoke of the time her husband, Ascención Padilla, came to ask for her hand in marriage. I never meet my grandpa, he died in 1949, at the age of 73 of a stroke. I've only seen photos of him when he was an old man. But my mom used to describe her beloved father as a big, handsome, kind man with blue eyes. I imagine him looking and acting like my son, Christian. They're both Aries. My grandma was a sweet, tiny woman, barely 5 foot tall and 100 pounds, soaking wet.
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| My Grandpa Ascencion Padilla |
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| Nita, Christina and Grandma Rosita At Thompson Park, Amarillo, Texas |
Now that I am older, I regret that I wasn't able to spend more time with grandma after I graduated high school in 1973. I wanted to live in New Mexico, but my parents had other plans. In 1976, at the time of her death, I was living on a farm in Manchaca, Texas with my soon to be husband, Davis. It was next to impossible to take trips to New Mexico because Davis and I had a horse, cows, chickens and a garden. I'm pretty sure I felt drawn to that lifestyle because of the memorable time I spent on grandma's farm in Puerto de Luna. Grandma's farm on the Pecos River held an indescribable magic and I obviously wasn't the only one that felt it.
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| My Dad riding my horse, Carmen Manchaca, Texas |
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| My horse, Carmen, my dad and my cousin Wayne Manchaca, Texas |
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| Obviously Before Selfies, I took a photo of Phillip and Deborah having dinner at our house. Look at all the cool posters on our wall. |
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| Phillip and Deborah Fajardo's Wedding Summer Tree Farm Manchaca, Texas |
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| Phillip and Deborah Fajardo's wedding August 1976 Summer Tree Farm, Manchaca, Texas |
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| My Brother Phillip with the black vest on and a whole bunch of cousins At Grandma Rosita's Funeral Puerto de Luna, New Mexico |
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| Nuestra Senora del Refugio Catholic Church Puerto de Luna, New Mexico |
The writer, Samuel Leo Gonzales said Grandma's home was hospitable, not knowing that it was in fact my grandma's heart and soul that he connected with. I can only imagine how she was as a young woman. My mom told me that her favorite flowers were geraniums and hollyhocks. My favorites! I use to dream about having a living room dedicated to my grandma like the one she had. The walls were painted blushing pink with a deep red velvet couch and a matching rug on a dark wooden floor. The glass paneled French door to the living room was always closed because it was reserved for visitors. I never created that room but I have always had a chair like the one she sat in by the cast iron, pot belly, wood burning stove. When I lived with her during my junior year at Santa Rosa High, I had no idea that she was such a wealth of information. I took her at face value. A blind grandma who sat quietly waiting for her daily flow of neighbors. I should have known there was a steady stream of visitors because she was a wealth of information with amazing healing energy. Sort of like sitting with a purring cat. She and I didn't communicate easily due to our language barrier. She spoke mostly Spanish and I spoke mostly English. One of my older cousins told me later in life that she'd told him she used to feed Billy the Kid on the ranch in Ojitos. Years later, after many hours of research, as I was reading the list of people on the 1880 census in Ojitos, I discovered that Billy the Kid was in fact listed as a ranch hand on the neighboring ranch that belonged to my great Uncle Hilario Valdez's father-in-law, John Gerhardt. In high school, I didn't understand the magnitude of the family history and knowledge grandma held. The crazy thing is that one of my all time favorite movies and sound track "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" was being filmed in 1972 when I was living right where it took place and I am a descendant of some of the characters in the movie.
When I think about it now, nearing the age of 70 and grasping the fact that I have fewer days ahead of me than behind me, I see the magnitude of having 8 generations of the Valdez branch of my family tree born in New Mexico. Most of them in Santa Fe, the oldest capital city in the US, established in 1607, making it both the oldest capital city in the country and the oldest European settlement west of the Mississippi.
Below I have attached 5 jpegs of the chapter in the book by Samuel Leo Gonzales called "The Days of Old."
