THE TAOS NEWS
LEYENDAS T radiciones 2018
TRADICIONES The subject of legend C O N T E N T S
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BLACK BEARD
Ceran St. Vrain is ‘New Mexico True’ BY CHRISTINE ST. VRAIN-FISCHAHS
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¿PARADISE LOST?
Taos’ 4th culture: The hippies BY JIM LEVY
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In your hands is the 18th annual installment of Tradiciones.
‘ONE OF THE MOST ECCENTRIC OF THEM ALL’ Ralph Waldo Emerson Meyers established Taos’ first trading post BY ROBERTA COURTNEY MEYERS
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TALES OF THE TAOS PLAZA THEATER
BY JIM LEVY
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This special publication continues to be a recognition and ovation of the rulebreakers, tradition holders and historymakers that have molded this special place in the Sangre de Cristo mountains. It is meant to provide a look into some of the area’s fabled places, customs, characters, and environmental and historical movements.This issue of Leyendas (Legends) — the first in a four-part series spanning four consecutive weeks — is followed by Raices (Roots), Artes (Arts) and culminates with the Unsung Heroes/Citizen(s) of the Year publication Oct. 11. Whether mythical or tangible, proven true or still unverified, forever debated or written in stone, Northern New Mexico’s legendary characters and places never quietly fade away into the sunset. Keeping our stories alive is to know of our colorful people, captivating cultural traditions, stunning natural environment and the communities that put us on the map for today and for generations to come. Scott Gerdes
special sections editor
‘DOOMED TO AN ETERNITY OF ANONYMITY’ Tracking down the legend of the three brujas BY KATHY CÓRDOVA S T A F F
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SPECIAL SECTIONS EDITOR SCOTT GERDES
OWNER ROBIN MARTIN
CREATIVE DIRECTOR KARIN EBERHARDT
PUBLISHER CHRIS BAKER
EL HONOR DE SU PATRIA
The legacy of Padre Antonio José Martínez
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR CHRIS WOOD
MANAGING EDITOR STACI MATLOCK
BY LARRY TORRES
PRODUCTION MANAGER WILLARD AVERY II
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PHOTOGRAPHER MORGAN TIMMS CONTRIBUTING WRITERS KATHY CÓRDOVA JIM LEVY ROBERTA COURTNEY MEYERS CHRISTINE ST. VRAIN-FISCHAHS LARRY TORRES
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tradiciones /leyendas 2018
Black Beard Ceran St. Vrain is ‘New Mexico True’ Northern New Mexico pioneer Ceran St. Vrain was a leader of his time. Those who lived and worked with St. Vrain
by christine st. vrain-fischahs
said he was a kind gentleman, a worthy and intelligent commander — polite but, frank and busy. St. Vrain helped introduce America to the New Mexico territory as a mountain man, trader, merchant, soldier and politician. While in Taos in 1830, he formed a partnership with Gov. Charles Bent and helped create the “castle on the plains” beside the Arkansas River known as Bent’s Fort, along with Fort St. Vrain and Fort Adobe. Embracing New Mexico, St. Vrain made it his home for 45 years. He had stores and houses in the plazas of Taos, Las Vegas, Mora and Santa Fe; gristmills in Taos, Talpa and Mora; lumber mills, distilleries; and for a time was editor of the Santa Fe Gazette. He was an entrepreneur possessed with abilities to stay ahead of the times. His birth on May 5, 1802, in Missouri Territory, represented the first generation on his father’s side to be born in America. His ancestors were French. Stories of life in his family’s homeland — including traditional beliefs, the Catholic faith, the rewards of hard work and fairness — were handed down.
A trader is born
But why did St. Vrain leave his family behind to travel the Santa Fe Trail? No other writer has commented on the totality of sudden, devastating losses and change experienced by a young St. Vrain. At 15 years old, his younger sisters died at ages 13 and 14 — likely attributed to malaria. Eight months later in 1818, his father died. Ten months later, his older sister died at the age of 18. His mother, now a grieving widow and bereaved mother, was responsible for six children still at home. She made a fortuitous decision to allow her son to apprentice under good friend Bernard Pratte, a noted fur trader. CONTINUES ON PAGE 4
Mora’s 150-year-old gristmill was built by Ceran St. Vrain, a trader born near St. Louis who became a frontier entrepreneur in Northern New Mexico. The mill produced 100,000 pounds or more of flour per year, some from the wheat grown in fields just north of it. The New Mexican archive photo/Marcella Sandoval
AQUÍ EN TAOS It’s not just a slogan. It’s a way of life.
CONTINUING OUR COMMITMENT For nearly a century the Questa Mine has been a member of the community. Even though operations have ceased and our focus is on final remediation and reclamation, we remain a part of the area.
Since 1971, Taoseños have embraced our
We strive to be a good neighbor, sharing the concerns of our community, upholding safe practices at work and at home, and working to create a viable future through economic development, improving educational opportunities and by developing local talent. We continue our dedication to supporting local nonprofits to fund initiatives that strengthen and invigorate the communities where we work and live.
family and business. You could say the Mountain has accepted us... Thank you Taos, for
With the strength of our non-profit partner organizations, in 2018, we are supporting programs that make a difference. We salute the organizations that represent the traditions that play a role in bettering our community.
47 years and counting!
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From left, Territorial mountain man and trapper Dick Wootton; entrepreneur, soldier and politician Ceran St. Vrain; and Territorial legislator JosĂŠ Maria Valdez, circa 1865. This image is believed to be the only known photo of St. Vrain, a close associate of Territorial Gov. Charles Bent and frontiersman Kit Carson. Photo Archives New Mexico History Museum, Negative No. HP.2015.11.1
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s a clerk in Pratte’s store, St. Vrain heard exciting tales of profit from men like William Becknell. He met Becknell in the spring of 1824, helping supervise the delivery of merchandise to traders. By fall, St. Vrain had grown impatient. He wanted in on the action. Life in Missouri for St. Vrain represented huge losses; his future on the Santa Fe Trail was set. With supplies provided by Pratte, he formed a partnership with Francois Guerin and started the journey southwest. In large numbers, men like St. Vrain headed West to build another pillar in the foundation upon which this nation now stands. It was about March 1825 when he crossed the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and gazed upon Don Fernandez de Taos (as Taos was referred to in his time). Four months later, a homesick St. Vrain wrote his mother that it was a “miserable place.” But he foresaw a business opportunity in Taos, established his headquarters there and was soon respected by the Taos Pueblo Indians for fairtrade deals. They nicknamed him “Black Beard.” Having set up his first store in Taos: • St. Vrain returned to Missouri, visited family, obtained supplies and then organized a trapping expedition to the Gila. • In 1826, a passport was issued for him to pass from Taos to Sonora, Mexico for private trade. • Around 1831, he was granted Mexican citizenship and learned Spanish to expedite trading. • From 1834 to 1838, he served as the American consul to Mexico. St. Vrain also partnered with Cornelio Vigil, a prominent trader and former mayor of Taos. In 1844, Mexico granted the Vigil-St. Vrain Land Grant that spread across southeastern Colorado. The grant was huge, about 4 million acres. It was later disputed and Congress reduced it to 97,000 acres.
In his heart
St. Vrain was a fiercely loyal friend. The Taos Revolt of 1847 would serve to demonstrate that trait. When Bent, the first governor of New Mexico Territory under American rule, was scalped alive and murdered in Taos on Jan. 19, 1847, St. Vrain recruited 65 volunteers in Santa Fe known as “The Avengers.” They joined 300 U.S. troops to respond to the uprising. When the group encountered Jesus de Tafoya wearing Bent’s bloodstained coat and shirt, St. Vrain shot him. In the fighting, St. Vrain nearly lost his life as well. Manuel Chaves and Richens Lacy Wootton came to his rescue. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo would make New Mexico part of the United States. Afterward, St. Vrain was sent as the Taos representative to the New Mexico Territorial Convention to help frame a government for the territory. Away from trapping, trading and politicking, St. Vrain was a family man. Common-law marriages occurred at least three times with local women: Maria Delores Luna, Maria Ignacia Trujillo and Maria Louisa Branch. Between them, he fathered five children between 1827 and 1863. Many descendants live throughout the Southwest.
Grit, gristmills and greenbacks
St. Vrain built the first modern gristmill in Taos around 1850, with the second one in Mora and the third one in Peralta. The Taos mill was located on the west side of the Río Grande del Rancho above Talpa, about 3 miles upstream from the Ranchos Plaza. It continued producing until 1864, when it burned down. Records say he supplied the planned military outpost near Taos with grain in 1851. He was one of the largest New Mexico suppliers to Fort Union. Military contracts helped him become the first self-made millionaire in New Mexico.
He withdrew from the Catholic faith after disputes with Fr. Antonio José Martínez and presented himself for initiation as a Freemason in 1853. Along with Kit Carson and others in 1860, they formed Bent Lodge No. 204 in Taos, in honor of their friend. St. Vrain also commanded a volunteer company in 1855 with regular troops and Indian scouts — no longer enemies — from Taos Pueblo in a successful operation against raiding Jicarilla Apaches and Utes. He served as lieutenant colonel with Carson as his chief of scouts. Because of St. Vrain’s political and economic influence, in 1861 Brig. Gen. Edward Canby chose him to command the 1st New Mexico Volunteer Infantry to counteract the Confederate threat to New Mexico. Carson was St. Vrain’s lieutenant colonel. But on Sept. 17, after he had taken a leave of absence, St. Vrain resigned, saying that “a multiplicity of private business” was preventing him from devoting full attention to military duties. He was 59 and some say he was experiencing ill health. Nevertheless, Carson took command of the 1st New Mexico Infantry and, under orders from Gen. James Henry Carleton, became infamous for ceaseless campaigns against Indians. In 1863, St. Vrain foresaw the need for a road between Taos and Santa Fe. Sending a petition to President Lincoln signed by 138 others, he described the project’s feasibility stating appropriation of $100,000 would suffice. He was successful (although he would not live to see it completed) and the road was opened to travel in 1877.
‘Forgotten and unhonored’
At age 65, St. Vrain retired to his home in Mora and enjoyed a respite from his many endeavors. He suffered a stroke on Oct. 28, 1870. Over 2,000 people attended his funeral in Mora — the most in New Mexico history to that date, which included a full military burial. The Daily New Mexican stated: “In every part of the Territory there are men who will feel that in the death of Col. St. Vrain not only has the country lost one of its best citizens, but they have lost one of their truest and noblest personal friends.” As recognized by New Mexico’s Tourism Department, Ceran St. Vrain is “New Mexico True.” Sadly, however, New Mexico possesses only two standing testimonies to him: a headstone marking his burial place and his gristmill in Mora. Eugene Hanosh wrote: “It is tragic to think that such a famous man who gave so much to the development of New Mexico and of Mora lies forgotten and unhonored.” And Marc Simmons wrote, “Everyone who knew him … had a great respect for him. Ceran St. Vrain was a very sober individual and very solid. Unfortunately, history — especially the history of the frontier West — is more likely to remember the yarn-spinners, the hell-raisers and the gunfighters than it is to remember solid citizens.”
Above: Map showing the extent of the Mexican Land Grants in what is now Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico, as of June 21, 1860. U.S. Geological Survey
The Stars and Stripes had flown from a short flagpole in the Taos Plaza since 1846, but Civil War Southern sympathizers kept tearing it down. Taking a group of men to Taos Canyon, Capt. Smith Simpson selected a tall, slender cottonwood, trimmed it and carried it to the Plaza. With the help of Ceran St. Vrain, Kit Carson, Thomas Boggs and others, the flag was nailed to the pole and raised aloft. Capt. Simpson announced anyone daring to disturb the flag would be shot. Retiring to the Bent-St. Vrain store, they took turns standing guard. Because it was nailed, the flag flew day and night. While not a law, Congress later authorized Taos to display the flag 24/7 to commemorate this event.
The Taos Plaza flag has been flying 24/7 since the end of the Civil War when Ceran St. Vrain, Capt. Smith Simpson, Kit Carson and others nailed it to a pole "daring" any Confederate sympathizers to tear it down. This photo is dated circa 1915. Courtesy of the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA), Negative Number 011469
Christine St. Vrain-Fischahs is the fourth-great niece of Ceran St. Vrain. She is a retired paralegal living in Los Alamos with her husband, dog, cat and two birds. She began public speaking about Ceran St. Vrain in 2016.
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ÂżParadise lost?
Taos’ 4th culture:The hippies by jim levy 6
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tradiciones /leyendas 2018
¿Paradise Lost? is an excerpt of an article that first appeared in Hakol, the news magazine of the Taos Jewish Center.
When my mother brought my two sisters and me to Taos for our vacations — this was five summers between 1948 and 1952 — life here for a boy was a sensuous and joyful paradise. So it was something of a shock when I returned in 1969 and found that paradise had become a community convulsed by the latest wave of newcomers — the dreaded hippies. It was rumored that 5,000 counterculture creatures had already settled in Northern New Mexico and 25,000 more were on their way. The majority of Taoseños wanted to rid the county of the ones already here and stop any others from coming. A resolution by the Taos Municipal Education Association summed up the prevailing sentiment: “Because of their known excesses in drug addiction, sexual and obscene behavior,
personal filth and general exhibitionism, the hippies’ presence among our people poses a real and verifiable danger to the moral health of our youth.” The situation between locals and hippies was best described to me by a pudgy Chicano intellectual one afternoon in La Cocina, where all the prominent deadbeats hung out. After second drinks we discussed the socio-economic history of Taos. I said that Taos had always been based on farming and ranching, and despite the art colony and the ski resort and the curio shops, agriculture still defined it. “Taos is,” I announced, “conservative in the best sense of the word.” He didn’t disagree, but said that what we newcomers didn’t understand is that Taoseños, despite their rural ways, had always consumed a lot of alcohol and marijuana, and New Mexico as a whole always ranked high in teen pregnancy, domestic violence and above all (leading the nation year after year) driving under the influence. He seemed quietly proud of these achievements. The long-hairs, he added, have just joined the back of the parade, adding some new shortcomings like nudity and LSD. “The difference,” he said, “is they do it openly. That’s their mistake.” After a third round he concluded, “Deep down, Native Americans believe that the Hispanics will someday go back to Spain, Hispanics believe that the Anglos will go back to Chicago and Anglos believe that the hippies will get bored and drift back to the Haight. In fact, because this is Taos, no one is going anywhere.” He was right about the hippies; they had definitely thrown a wrench into the Land of Enchantment. Not that anyone really believed the myth of tri-harmonic cultures. In reality, Native Americans, Hispanics and Anglos did business with each other, joked with each other, even played on the same softball teams together, but lived in an uneasy relationship of bedrock mistrust. The hippies added a fourth culture, one slower than the others to recognize the relationship between hard work and survival. They infested
Opposite top: “Taking a Break,” Taos, circa 1967-1971. The hippies and their free-love and drug-heavy lifestyle was not greeted with open arms. Courtesy of Irwin B. Klein Estate
Opposite bottom: Hippies from the Five Star commune soak in the Ponce de Leon Hot Springs in the Ranchos de Taos area, then a “major hangout,” according to photographer Douglas Magnus. Courtesy Douglas Magnus
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the hot springs and clogged the food stamp offices and cluttered the highways in a variety of costumes: the preacher who said there were tunnels from Arroyo Hondo to Los Alamos; the young couple with three filthy children; the old doper-poet who was drinking himself to death; the Ph.D. who had discovered Rumi; the peyote Christian; the tall girl in calico with two dogs. It was a high time in Northern New Mexico, and my wife and I got caught up in it. Over the winter we went to wild hippie dances held in local halls, dancing crazily to a local band playing their versions of Creedence Clearwater and The Who and Janis: “Suzie Q” and “Pinball Wizard” and “Bobby McGee.” Heads spinning, we staggered out of the halls into the winter nights wiped out from dancing and dope and smoke, stumbled out at midnight into 10 degrees below, the stars on top of us, the snow crunching underfoot, dogs barking, pickups cruising by, taunts, shouts … then, back into the dance, the drugs kicking in: “Nights in White Satin,” “Bad Moon Rising,” “Honky Tonk Woman.” I was consumed with lust for the hippie girls, especially the beautiful 22-year-old twins who it was rumored slept with everyone; innocent and pure angels dispersing joy. From my journal:
Sunday afternoon in Arroyo Hondo and nothing to do. Blue sky travels overhead like news-sheet. Marcos Ortiz is fixing the hydraulic lift on his tractor. The dope dealer comes by in his VW. Mrs. Chacón opens the grocery store. Matthew is splitting cedar for his cook-stove. Cave Dave is sitting on a rock in the canyon. Two hawks float over the cottonwoods. Dennis Long’s band is starting a new piece in the shed behind his house. The peyote feast is beginning at New Buffalo. Ida Martínez has her selfhelp women over to sew. Three cars of Chicanos block a pickup full of hippies and beat them on the head with twoby-fours. Village boys shut off the acequia Atalaya and are snatching fish up from the mud. Ruth is kissing Fast Ed in a teepee. Father Prieto is going over parish accounts with Clodoveo Chacón. Morningstar is playing basketball against a Raza team from Arroyo Seco. Tony Garcia has eluded his wife and is headed for Celso’s bar. Three hippie kids sneak into Mrs. Chacón’s store to steal candy. Finley is beating his horse. Tahiti is blow-torching bronze discs together. The bleeding hippies are at Dan and Peggy’s getting bandaged. Albert Christianson is illegally irrigating
his carrots and peas. Justin is repairing his old Mercedes. The Río Hondo is flowing toward the Río Grande. Nick’s dog Spark is sniffing Sandra’s dog Windsock. Toby is pulling tufts of hair out of his own face. The dope dealer has arrived at Reality. Nonnie, Carlos and Ramon are teasing an old cock behind the church. Jackson is laying a Mercy trap for the skunk that has been eating his chicks. Mrs. Ortiz is pulling in white sheets off the line. The winos are returning to Morningstar in triumph — they scored some bourbon! If I were asked to summarize the hippie invasion of Taos, I would say they were far from home and ignorant as dust balls. The first wave, in the ‘60s, tended to be educated and idealistic, more into dope than alcohol. They shared their dope because paying for it was just not cool. Housewives, gurus, poets, trust-babies — they were young Americans who had torn themselves from their roots and came looking for anything authentic, as long as it didn’t resemble their upbringing.
Inspecting a Hog, Taos, circa 1967-1971. ‘The hippie’s presence among our people poses a real and verifiable danger to the moral health of our youth,’ proclaimed the Taos Municipal Education Association. Courtesy of Irwin B. Klein Estate
The next wave, in the early ‘70s, was less educated and thus more apt to be mindless and negligent about cultural differences. They used as much alcohol as drugs, and it was this steady stream of drop-outs, draft-dodgers, nudists and boozers that so alarmed locals. The final wave, which gave the coup de grâce to the movement, was mostly society’s dregs who were more or less criminal or mentally insane. In any case, most hippies moved on because the winter nights dropped below zero and spring winds turned snow to mud, then mud to dust, followed by snow that turned the dust back to mud. The ones who stayed learned from Indians and Hispanics how to survive the winter, how to scavenge the hills for firewood, how to delay planting until the lilacs bloomed, how to avoid the census for either instinctual or good reasons, and much else. The strange thing, which no one predicted, is that many hippies are still here. They (or is it we?) now make art, sell real estate, barter wood and wool, create websites, even run for office. People from the four cultures live in town, on the mesas, in the mountains, everyone keeping their heads down, finding ways to cooperate while still maintaining a healthy distrust. A veil is drawn over past hostilities. All is forgiven or forgotten, and each culture has moments of nostalgia that get organized into festivities to celebrate the paradise of the good old days.
Jim Levy is the author of ‘Corazón (and Merkle)’ about two dogs; ‘Cooler Than October Sunligh’ poems 1959-2014; ‘Joy To Come,’ literary essays; ‘The Poems of Caius Herennius Felix,’ the story of a RomanSpanish poet; ‘The Fifth Season,’ a memoir of growing old; ‘Rowdy’s Boy,’ a memoir of youth; ‘Mar Egeo,’ a book of travel tales; and ‘Monet’s Eyes,’ new and selected poems.
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Relaxing in the Mission Shop circa 1925. Ralph Meyer’s iconic shop was filled with Indian artifacts that he had spent years trading for. Courtesy Roberta Meyers
‘One of the most eccentric of them all’
Ralph Waldo Emerson Meyers established Taos’ first trading post by roberta courtney meyers CONTINUES ON PAGE 10
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Ralph Meyers standing with his horse outside his first shop, the Curio Store, ready to leave on a trip to trade with Plains Indians in 1911.
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he Taos Pueblo Council met to decide what to do with the strange white man who spent so many hours sitting on the bank of the river in their village. What was he doing there? What was he putting on the large paper he held on his knee? Was he planning to steal their women? Thanks to the intervention of an Indian friend and Meyers’ convincing story that he just wanted to learn from them, he was not castrated. His friend suggested the man be given an Indian wife, thereby protecting the virtue of the other young women of the Pueblo. Meyers gratefully thanked them, but said he was not ready for marriage. Meyers packed away his paints and bushes to start a business of trading and collecting fine Indian artifacts. He began mastering jewelry design; silversmithing (he was subsidized by the federal government in the 1930s to teach Indians silversmithing); hide tanning; beading buckskin; building Spanish Colonial furniture with Indian influence; home remodeling; dying; weaving; photography; or was in pursuit of one of the thousand other talents this legendary Taos figure seems to have possessed. Of all the unconventional, artistic people in the history of Taos that have been written about, one of the most eccentric of them all was Meyers, who has been left out of all but one of the books on Taos. That one book is supposedly a work of fiction, “The Man Who Killed the Deer” by Frank Waters, in which much of Meyers’ story is told. In it, Meyers is depicted as the old trader “Rudolpho Byers.” Meyers was born in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan. That same year his father, Joseph Meyers, followed the lure of
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gold to Colorado. The family settled for a while in Denver. There, Meyers’ classmates included future actor Douglas Fairbanks and future band leader Paul Whiteman. Meyers’ mother ran a rooming house. Oscar Wilde, the outrageously colorful British playwright, was a guest there. As a boy, Meyers was regaled by tales of Taos and its Indians told by old mountain men and trappers who stayed at the rooming house.
Early days in Taos The young Meyers was enchanted with what he heard about Taos and the Indians. At age 14 in 1899, he traveled alone on horseback to Taos. He fell in love with the country and its Native people. He admired the Indians — the people of the earth; the Spanish women, dark and mysterious in their black tapalos; and the men leading burros laden with firewood and doing basic, essential tasks. He respected them and wanted to understand the Indian people. He felt an endless fascination with their timelessness. Meyers would go to their centuries-old Pueblo to sit, watch and learn. His first job in Taos was as a fire watch for the Forest Service up on Larkspur Peak. Meyers lived for months in high Blue Lake country in a teepee sketching, painting and working. His only companions were deer, elk and an occasional mountain lion or bear. Once in a while, a visit from a band of Taos Pueblo Indians would look in on their friend. High-spirited fellows, they thought it great fun to drive off Meyers’ horses and purloin various staples from his teepee. In 1903, Meyers leased the Travelers Hotel when he was looking for a place to live. The hotel had once been the home of the famous card dealer Madame La Tules. It still stands on Paseo del Pueblo Norte and is now gift shops. He paid $4 a month rent for the property and rented out rooms for 75 cents a week. Just south of the hotel, Meyers set up his trading post, the first in town. Later, he bought a ruin on Kit Carson Road, remodeled it, built on and made it the Mission Shop (now El Rincón Trading Post). The shop was filled with Indian artifacts, such as
clothing, weavings, pottery, beadwork, moccasin, headdresses, paintings and more.
Courtesy Roberta Meyers
Meyers was a self-taught painter. He painted alone on location in nature, and with famous artists Joseph Sharp and Leon Gaspard. He was commissioned by Wate Phillips to make furniture for the Phillips’ estate near Cimarrón, New Mexico (now the Philmont Scout Ranch) and for Phillips’ Southwestern room at Philbrook in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Later, Meyers helped establish the Karl May Museum in Dresden, Germany. May used Meyers’ work and knowledge to write several books on American Indians.
Becoming Taos Meyers bought several dilapidated properties in Taos, remodeled and sold them to artists. He could see substantial beauty in a humble adobe house, which is part of the very earth on which it stands. He painted them in all seasons.
Opposite top: Meyers, a tepee and his horse in 1911. Meyers had a genuine love and respect for all things American Indian, which led him to becoming Taos' first Indian goods trader. Courtesy Roberta Meyers
In 1911, Meyers began traveling to the Plains by covered wagon to trade with the Indians there. Friends Candido Romero or John Suazo from Taos Pueblo sometimes accompanied him. He would be gone for several months. Meyers photographed the country and teepees that he would later turn into postcards, signing them with a thunderbird.
Opposite bottom: Ralph Meyers outside his Indian Curios shop, his original store, on the west side of Norte Pueblo Road (now Paseo del Pueblo Norte) about 1914. Courtesy Roberta Meyers
On one trip, Meyers took his little dog Wianchee (Four Eyes) with him. Wianchee’s paws became raw from running beside the wagon, so Meyers made four little moccasins for the dog to wear for the rest of the journey. D.H. Lawrence would later entrust his dog to Meyers’ care the last time the famous author and his wife, Frieda, left Taos. In 1932, Meyers wed the lovely Rowena Matteson. Meyers was very successful at this time. He was well-known and respected. He was certainly aware of Rowena, for she was dating a young fellow working for him. The couple broke up and Rowena left for Oakland, California to attend Mills College. Meyers immediately began to write Rowena and court her through his letters. After two years at school, Rowena returned to Taos and Meyers. Oftentimes, the founder artists would
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gather at the Meyers’ home, which was attached to the Mission Shop. They would have dinner and spend a wonderful evening of storytelling. Meyers was a gourmet cook and a good raconteur. One of his most requested tales involved being bit by a rattlesnake. The story goes, an Indian came to the trading post to warn Meyers that the “snake people” had something against him and he’d better be careful. One day Meyers, artist Walter Ufer and two young Eastern ladies were on a tour of Pot Creek ruins. They came upon a dead rattlesnake in the road. Meyers was compelled to jump out of the car and pick it up. It was not quite dead enough. The snake bit him. His friends rushed him back to town. He became very ill. An Indian medicine man pulled him through, but it took weeks. Meyers was sick for three years. Ralph and Rowena had two children, Nina Cristina (1936) and Emerson Ouray (1938).
In the end When Meyers saw the Taos he loved changing and modernizing, he began dying. It was a painful death, for he held onto the past with tenacity. In oils, he captured the spirit of place that was Taos in the early 1900s, a quality that will never be again. Meyers died in 1948. In 2015, the Taos Art Museum held a show of Meyers’ paintings, some of his hand-carved furniture and pictures of his jewelry and weavings. It was the first exhibit of his work — 67 years after his demise. Under the lilac bushes in a corner of Kit Carson Cemetery, there is an ancient petroglyph marking the last resting place of Ralph Meyers. On the rock there are a young child’s footprints with eagle claw prints following them. Meyers loved this rock. Some of his Pueblo friends brought it down from the mountain for use as his gravestone. Perhaps it is the story of a missing boy that was taken to an enchanted land to soar forever with the eagles.
Roberta Courtney Meyers is a Taos playwright and composer. She is also a daughter-in-law of Ralph Meyers.
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THE TAOS NEWS
LEYENDAS T radiciones 2018
Tales of the Taos Plaza Theatre by jim levy
Tales of the Taos Plaza Theatre is excerpted from “Those Were the Days,” a memoir by Phaedra Greenwood and Jim Levy about life and love in Taos in the 1970s.
The Taos Plaza Theatre sits on the south side of Taos Plaza, empty. But that is getting ahead of the story. The theater has had two lives. The first was when it opened in the 1930s. I remember it from the late ‘40s. It had a ticket booth that projected into the sidewalk and a dark lobby smelling of popcorn and musty carpet. We pushed through heavy velvet curtains into a cavernous space that held 400 seats and one screen. Its second life was after the interior of the theater burned on Thanksgiving night, Nov. 27, 1969 around 2 in the morning. Earlier that night, two blocks away, the Taos Community Auditorium burned down, too. Everyone remarked on what a strange
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coincidence it was and everyone suspected that it was not a coincidence at all, that an arsonist had lit the fires, perhaps a puritanical citizen who blamed the Plaza Theatre for showing racy movies and the Community Auditorium for staging indecent plays. Another theory was they were torched by teenage boys with a taste for fire. Soon after the fire, Harvey Mudd bought the building and began to resurrect the theater. Sixfoot-one with a head of curly hair, he was gentle, preternaturally generous and often absent. Coming from a wealthy family, he seemed determined to make money and lose it in equal measures. Harvey hired a Taos architect, Bill Mingenbach, to redesign the building as a theater and bar. He then hired me to be his owner’s rep during construction and to manage the theater after it opened. Mingenbach and I did our best to cooperate, but he had never designed a movie theater and didn’t seem to care about movies while I, a movie junkie, knew nothing about architecture and less about construction. You may wonder why Harvey hired us, but that was how things were done in Taos in those days — better to hire the known ignorance than a qualified outsider.
In the 1970s, Harvey Mudd (on left) and Jim Levy were the lifeblood of the Plaza Theatre. Courtesy Jim Levy
The Taos theater on the Plaza saw many movies, cast of regular moviegoers and employees come and go over its lifetime. cinematreasures.com
Mingenbach was sometimes brilliant, as when we went to Denver to buy carpeting and he brought along a bag of dried Taos mud to match the color of it. On the other hand, he was a man who had little control over his own cleverness. He put the theater in the basement with only 202 seats. Worse, the projection booth had to
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be placed above the third row of seats, which meant the throw from the lens to the screen was only 22 feet. This caused both sides of widescreen movies to be cut off, resulting in actors having earnest conversations with the edge of the screen.
Below: Little Margo Gins waits for a movie to start rolling at the Plaza Theatre in 1966. Courtesy Margo Gins The Plaza Theatre when it was still a theater in 1961. Courtesy Margo Gins
The Plaza Theatre reopened on Sept. 3, 1972 with “Sitting Target,” a British thug flick so forgettable that even “VideoHound’s Golden Movie Retriever” doesn’t list it. Only a handful of people showed up and I imagined weeks, months and years of empty seats and bankruptcy and disgrace. In response, we flooded the county every month with 7,000 flyers, putting them in grocery stores and gas stations, taped on windows and stapled on telephone poles. The movies came and went, more and more people attended, and much to my surprise we had a real business going. In those days, we showed movies for only a day or two a week. Christians came to see “The Bible”; cowboys to “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid”; cops to “Magnum Force.”
Some movies, such as ‘Jeremiah Johnson’ and ‘Jaws,’ attracted what felt like the entire population of Taos County. Some people came every week, regardless of what movie was playing. Henry, who was mentally challenged, watched comedies and thrillers and kids’ movies with the same exalted expression on his face. Saki Karavas ambled
down from the Hotel La Fonda de Taos and, without paying, watched 10 or 15 minutes of random films. A Hispanic widow with three children came to any movie that was remotely suitable. Chuck, from New Buffalo, whom everyone called “a beautiful, sweet guy,” drank Scotch from under his coat and fell asleep. Dennis Hopper and his posse swept through, packing and loaded, too wired to watch an entire film. A hairy and incoherent bandito deeply committed to drugs and alcohol, Dennis was in the midst of cutting what he called, “The Last Movie.” The Plaza was still the heart of Taos. It had a barber shop, hardware store, insurance company, Army surplus store, five and dime, drug store, a hotel, restaurants and bars. In fact, there were an improbable number of bars and liquor stores, and starting around 9 in the morning, motley Taosesños of all stripes — artists, ski bums, pilots, bartenders — started drinking in Tano’s or La Cocina or another of the bars. There were drunks on the street, too, who would shake your hand for 30 minutes if you didn’t know how to extract yourself. During the day, the Plaza was for the most part a peaceful place, but come nightfall things sometimes got a little unruly. Drunks were either very happy or very belligerent, and young men and women were bored and restless. Sometimes teens would stand outside the theater taunting patrons as they came out. I saw Indians swinging bicycle chains at each other and hippies panicking on LSD. There was a general feeling of something bad was about to happen. But fortunately, Police Chief Fernando Rivera, all 5-foot-7 of him — who had trained at Quantico — was often on hand to restore order. CONTINUES ON PAGE 16
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A vintage Plaza Theatre flyer from 1974 — oh, to have those ticket prices again. Courtesy Jim Levy
CONTINUES FROM PAGE 15
By February 1973, I was bored with the theater and, being a true Taoseño, wanted to return to doing something serious that didn’t pay, like writing poetry. When Harvey proposed leasing the theater to the very entrepreneur who had sold him the theater, I jumped at the opportunity to be unemployed. Bill Whaley wore a sport jacket and fedora like a costume and hid behind the brim of that hat, a cigar and an ambiguous smile. He was a self-described “dropout, adrenaline junkie, existential entrepreneur,” and I would add, journalist and film critic. He was half business man, half impresario, half bon vivant, which was one half too many, and one of his halves usually got in the way of the other two. Within a year, having written some bad poetry and a worse novel, I was back at the theater. Whaley hired me as lead projectionist. As I soon learned, projecting movies is neither an art nor a science. It simply requires showing up on time and paying attention to details. Projectionists are often lowly, lonely figures who prefer working in the dark, and I admit that I liked it that way watching free movies and eating free popcorn.
The two large Ballantyne projectors, patient as horses, resisted my initial attempts at maintenance, but came to accept me as a wellmeaning if clumsy necessity. I came to love the routine: cleaning film, threading it into the projectors, dimming the lights, showing the movie, then doing everything again in reverse, breaking down the film into smaller reels and shipping them back to the distributor. As silly as it sounds, when I dimmed the lights and projected the first images onto the screen, I felt that I wasn’t a working-class drudge in a small-town movie theater, but part of that great extravaganza called show biz. Many Taoseños worked at the Taos Plaza Theatre, locals and drifters alike — it was a job one passed through on the way to something else. Leo Santistevan was Whaley’s right-hand man and did a little of everything; the LeDoux family — Leonard, Loretta, and Joey — ran the concession stand. Roger (pronounced Ro-jhay) Thomas was the first projectionist and perfected the job and taught me. I, in turn, taught others. At one time or another Bill Hardy, Ernie Ortega, Bob Bishop, Jerry Cardenas, Mike Rodriquez,
Steve Moffit, Frank Giron, Steve Rose, Dave Whitehead, Jeff Bergerson, Hoski Schaafsma, and a young woman named Canti worked as projectionists. Bud Howell and Eddie Burt Howell were in charge of getting the prints to the theater. I know that I am forgetting people and I’m sorry. I left the theater after six years. Remembering it today, I realize that although we were not a family, for Whaley was not that kind of guy and neither was I, we all shared a feeling for the place, which was a small island of escape for both patrons and staff. Saying goodbye to the other projectionists and the young men and women who worked the concession stand, I started to give a speech and much to my surprise, and theirs, I broke into tears. I had not realized how much they and the movies and the building itself had meant to me. The building is still there on the southwest corner, dusty and derelict. I rarely go to the Plaza, but when I do, I try not to look at the empty shell of the theater. Its spirit has flown as thoroughly as the times in which it flourished.
After working at the Plaza Theatre, Jim Levy became the executive director of the Harwood Foundation and went on to a 40-year career working with nonprofits. After a lifetime of writing, he discovered print on demand and has published eight books, which are available in local stores and on Amazon.
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‘Doomed to an eternity of anonymity’
Tracking down the legend of the three brujas by kathy córdova
CONTINUES ON PAGE 18
A darkening sky hovers over the Kit Carson Memorial Park entrance from Dragoon Lane near the unmarked graves of the alleged ‘three bujas.’ M. Elwell Romancito
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f only the tombstones at Kit Carson Cemetery could talk, Taos area residents might be able to solve a mystery that has contributed to the collection of local folklore. Many grandmas and great grandmas in the community say that a final burial place for three unknown Taos brujas (witches) exists in the historic cemetery. For decades, elders have shared the story with their younger family members and those who care to listen. The fabled remains occupy a final resting place beneath adjoining asphalt/concrete-mix blocks of equal size, viewed as a symbolic sealing-off between the women and the physical realm. No one wants the spirits to escape, so part of their punishment for a bad life keeps the community protected. The space is located at the entrance near the wrought iron gate on Dragoon Lane. Three large rock fragments at the head of each grave have been reduced to blown-up rock, minus any text. These jagged, partial blocks offer a semblance of tombstones. The middle mound’s marker includes a rusted, broken metal stake. Legend says that the women performed such deliberate, horrific acts against the residents that they are doomed to an eternity of anonymity and eradication of their memory. The exact acts performed by the brujas remain vague (as do the number of people they allegedly affected), but elder sources list the reasons one would suspect from a “witch.” Did someone become very ill after eating food prepared by the suspect(s)? Witches can spread evil through the preparation of a bowl of chile, you know. Another action told refers to the possession of an article of clothing or other item owned by the target of witchcraft. Even sending bad wishes to a victim without the need to touch or physically see the person could sometimes produce deadly or dreadful results. Like the Salem Witch Trials, women suspected of witchcraft remained in a difficult spot to prove their innocence.
Although witch trials subsided on the East Coast, they became more common here. John H. Vaughan notes in his 1921 book, ‘History and Government of New Mexico,’ that ‘Pagan rites flourished as before the Pueblo Rebellion.’ Medicine men claiming supernatural powers were able to appeal to the fears of the superstitious pueblos. In the effort to deal with these ‘witches’ in the early 18th century, witchcraft trials become somewhat frequent in New Mexico soon after they died out in New England. A favorite punishment for the witches was to make them servants in Spanish families.” The historic cemetery, located in what is now Kit Carson Park, opened in 1847 with “modern” burials beginning in 1957. Originally, the land was donated by Doña Teodora Martínez-Romero as a final resting place for the soldiers killed in the Taos Rebellion of 1847. Locals knew the cemetery as El Cemeterio Militar. In 1852, the cemetery changed names and focus. The American Cemetery allowed non-Catholics burial privileges; a difference in the faith of the departed ones buried on the grounds. May 1969 marked the date of yet another change. With the addition of the burial plots for Kit and Josephine Carson, civic leaders renamed the cemetery Kit Carson Memorial Cemetery. The remains of mainly traders, merchants and members of old Spanish, French and American families were buried on the premises. The cemetery was acquired by the town of Taos from the state in 1988. Today, cemetery officials do not allow burials in an effort to keep the cemetery historical. The legend captured the attention of the Taos High School Cultural Reporter Language Arts class in 1994. Students in the class used the skills learned during a stint as one of two pilot schools in the nation to use investigative techniques under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of American History. One of the investigations the class headed was titled “Descansos — Final Resting Places.” The study examined the burial places and various cemeteries in the Taos area, including the Kit Carson Cemetery. The students’ work resulted in a museum exhibit at the Martínez Hacienda and an accompanying manual for the Taos Public Library. Besides interviews with their elders, the students attempted to learn as much as possible about the cemetery and its occupants. The text of the manual reads as follows: “Kit Carson Park is located on Paseo del Pueblo Norte, about two blocks from the Historic Taos Plaza. The land on which the people were buried was sold in plots to the various families. When one of the family members would pass away, the family was required to produce a proof of purchase for the plot. The land on which the people were buried was sold for $5,000 and a legislative act made the land an official cemetery.” The designation of “official cemetery” automatically creates the expectation of the existence of records. At the time, students attempted to find a list of those buried in the cemetery. Unfortunately, the available information could not leave the premises of Taos Town Hall, but the students read a citation called “Three Taos Women.” The citation did not include names of the graves’ occupants. The young investigators assumed the women to be “the three brujas or La Lloronas” of whom the elders referred because other names on the list appeared familiar to them. In 2018, further attempts to discover the identities of the side-by-side occupants of the graves yielded no results. The town of Taos cemetery list — which was not allowed to be copied, was accompanied by an identical handwritten list on legal pad paper and two maps of the Carson family plots — compared with surveys done in the 1960s by the New Mexico Genealogical Society and by Bill Phillips in 1996-1997 for Kit Carson Historic Museums resulted in no new information for the graves in question. All the lists noted the conjoined plots with “No Names” or “Unknown.” There was no author given on the town’s two lists, although the oldest one was speculated by town of Taos Executive Secretary Cathy Romero to be from the 1950s. Websites offered information on cemetery burials, but required names and date(s) of burial for a search.
THE HISTORIC CEMETERY, LOCATED IN WHAT IS NOW KIT CARSON PARK, OPENED IN 1847 WITH ‘MODERN‘ BURIALS BEGINNING IN 1957.
In the end, attempts to discover the women’s identities was a wash. It is a little curious that the only records handed over to the town from the state were so limited. “There is no documentation in our possession regarding ‘El Cemetery Militar’ or ‘The American Cemetery,’ though these designations may have preceded the ownership by the town and previously by the state of New Mexico,” expressed Romero via email. She added that the town “has no way to verify the source or accuracy” of the records or maps. Only one explanation remains plausible — the three women buried in Kit Carson Cemetery are an important part of Taos lore, and maybe that’s where their story belongs. The ideas of the three brujas stir the imagination and fit the description of the word “folklore.” Maybe not every mystery should be solved, because many people enjoy a tantalizing tale of “double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble.”
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The graves of the ‘three brujas’ as they look today in Kit Carson Memorial Cemetery. Scott Gerdes
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El Honor de su Patria
The legacy of Padre Antonio José Martínez by larry torres
Painting of Padre Martínez by Conrad Cooper. He was the spiritual advisor to Los Hermanos Penitentes. Courtesy Larry Torres
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ASK AN ORDINARY CATHOLIC AROUND THE WORLD TO NAME THE FIRST BOOK OF THE BIBLE AND HE’S LIKELY TO SAY, ‘GENESIS; THE STORY OF CREATION.’ NOW, ASK AN ORDINARY TAOSEÑO TO NAME THE FIRST BOOK OF THE BIBLE AND HE’S LIKELY TO SAY, ’OH, THAT WOULD BE ‘THE BOOK OF MARTÍNEZ; THE STORY OF CREATION‘.’ CONTINUES ON PAGE 22
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e may smile at the discrepancy between the two answers, but the truth of the matter is that if one were to look through the telephone directory of Taos County, one would be struck by the strange fact that Martínezes do seem to outnumber all other last names by a ratio of 17-to-1.
Proudly, local people still tell of how, at the beginning of time, God was lonely and so He created various generations of man to keep Him company. He formed them in His own image, but in alphabetical order. First, He started with the Archuleta, the Baca, the Chávez, the Durán, the Esquibel, the Fernández and the Gutiérrez clans. A little worn out, He continued to form the Herrera, the Ibarra and the Jaramillo families. Since there were no Spanish names that began with the letter “K,” God had to form the Kennedy family next because at least they were Catholic. He went on to create the Lovato family and finally, needing rest, He said, “I’m exhausted; let’s just let the rest of the world be Martínez.” And God rested on the seventh day. This folk story illustrates the legendary founding of the Martínez clan. Historically speaking though, the most notable figure of the Martínez presence in Taos is to be found in the middle of the Plaza where the statue of Fr. Antonio José Martínez is enshrined. He was a popular and often controversial figure even in his own time. Padre Martínez’s paternal grandparents, José Martín and Micaela Valdez, had settled at Santa Rosa de la Capilla in Abiquiú, New Mexico. His maternal grandparents, Juan Antonio Santisteban-Coronel and Francisca de la Luz Trujillo had founded La Cañada de Cochití. His parents were Antonio Severino Martínez and María del Carmel Martínez. The Martínez family name originally descended from Hernán and Luis Serrano-Martín of Zacatecas, México. They had come to this area with the Don Juan de Oñate expedition of 1598. “Martínez,” sometimes spelled with an ‘ez’ or an ‘es’ suffix, has been linked with two
possible origins. The ‘ez’ ending could have been added to indicate a New World or a Crypto-Judaic origin. The ‘es’ ending has been linked with an Hispanic peninsular and Catholic origin. In 1786, Gov. Juan Bautista de Anza had concluded a Comanche-Spanish Alliance and therefore opened the Abiquiú area for settlement. Antonio Severino and María del Carmel Martínez were married in an elaborate ceremony. Following the customs of the day, Don Severino wore his hair parted down the middle of his head and tied into two pony tails that were wrapped in colorful ribbon. Doña María del Carmel wore her hair piled high on her head. Her cheeks were accented with traditional face powder made of crushed eggshells called cáscara and a reddish rouge made of rosemary leaves. Soon, they started their “little” family. Their firstborn was named Antonio José (born Jan. 17, 1793), followed by his sister María Estefana (born Jan. 1, 1797), Juana María (born July 26, 1799), José María, José Santiago and the family was completed with the birth of baby Juan Pascual Bailón (born in 1833). Such a family would eventually need to receive a good education and so Antonio Severino acquired 60 rods of land from Antonio Archuleta of Taos on Oct. 3, 1803. The family moved to Taos in 1804 into the rambling adobe structure that is now called The Martínez Hacienda (Hacienda de los Martínez). They were accompanied by a part-time nanny; a part-time wet nurse fámula (servant) who had been bought from a Navajo tribe. Antonio José was married in Abiquiú at the age of 17, but his wife died in childbirth a few years later. After he was widowed at the age of 22, Antonio José went on to study for the priesthood in Durango, Mexico under the direction of Bishop José Antonio Laureano Zubiría. Having excelled in Latin, rhetoric, mathematics and theology, Antonio José
By decree of Nov. 18, 1801, Bishop Olivares of Durango granted the people of Don Fernando de Taos permission to build a church in honor of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. The Franciscan missionary pastor at the Pueblo was Fray José Benito Pereyro. In this photo is the first church of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It was presumably built before 1802 and was dedicated as a parish on July 4, 1834. It was used until a new church was erected in 1911 on nearly the same site at La Plaza de Don Fernando de Taos. Padre Martínez was first assigned to the Church of San Jerónimo in Taos Pueblo and later sent to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Courtesy Our Lady of Guadalupe Church
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was ordained as a priest. First, Fr. Martínez was sent to the Church of Tomé. Having won a bid to be closer to his childhood home, he was assigned to the Church of San Jerónimo in Taos Pueblo. He was entrusted with the curacy of Taos in 1826. Finally, he was sent to the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Taos. The Catholic church had been built in 1762 and then reconstructed in 1882. The third reconstruction of the church would burn in 1961 during the middle of the Taos Fiestas. The local Spanish people composed a folk riddle based on his life story. It went thusly: ¿Cómo puede ser que un hombre en el servicio de Dios se case con hija y madre, siendo doncellas las dos? This means: “How can a man of the cloth in the service of God verily be wedded to both daughter and mother, though virgins both they be?” The answer, of course, was Padre Martinez of Taos. This man of the cloth had been married first to a daughter of the church and when he was widowed, he married Holy Mother the Church. Among his various accomplishments, he brought the first printing press on this side of the Mississippi in 1835. On it he published his grammar books and catechisms. He began a Spanish-language newspaper called El Crepúsculo, the precursor of The Taos News. He created co-educational schools in Taos, reasoning that girls had souls and brains just as boys did, and they also needed to be cultivated. He also played an important role in the adoption of New Mexico’s first
A photograph of an original pastel drawing of a stern-looking Padre José Antonio Martínez, a major figure in Taos history. Date unknown. Santa Fe New Mexican archive photo/ Museum of New Mexico Photo, Neg. Number 10308
constitution. In 1837, he tried to discourage the farmers of Chimayó from rebelling against the government of Santa Fe. That same year he became spiritual advisor to Los Hermanos Penitentes. He allowed the Hermanos to hold public rites at Santa Cruz de la Cañada. Fr. Martínez educated various youth in the Taos area for the priesthood including Fr. Ramón Medina, who is buried in the Peñasco valley. Fr. Martínez tangled with Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy over civil rights and canonical issues. This part of the story was popularized in Willa Cather’s classic Southwestern novel, “Death Comes for the Archbishop.” The story was later corrected and upended by Fray Angélico Chávez in“But Time and Chance.” When he died on July 27, 1867, Padre Martínez was buried in Kit Carson Park in Taos. The epitaph on his tombstone calls him, “el Honor de su Patria” (the honor of his homeland).
Larry Torres is a local historian and foreign language coordinator at the University of New Mexico-Taos. In 2017, he was honored as a Tradiciones Unsung Hero.
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To visit Taos Pueblo is to walk in a sacred place where life continues from the earliest of human existence.
From left, Taos Pueblo Tribal Secretary Antonio K. Mondragon, Governor Gilbert Suazo Sr., and Lt. Governor Robert Espinosa.
Taos Mountain Casino is proud to honor those who both exemplify the best of the past and who help us weave it into the future. These people are our own links in what continues to be an Taos Pueblo War Chief, Richard Archuleta unbroken circle of tradition at Taos Pueblo. 24
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