La Luz, God, Gold, and Glory - Part I

There is some debate over the founding of La Luz, New Mexico. Some historians claim it was first established as a mission by Spanish Franciscan friars in the 1700s and called Nuestra Señora De La Luz (Our Lady of the Light). It seems plausible; Fray Diego de Santander was 110 miles north of La Luz in 1659 at the pueblo of Gran Quivira. The mission and pueblo dispersed in 1672 due to disease, drought, and Apache raids.

The Franciscans were diligent record-keepers and their archives are a dependable and important resource for historians; the friars documented their travels, geography, interactions between Spanish and Natives, births, baptisms, sacramental records of marriage, conversions, epidemics and deaths. No written evidence has been found that there was ever a mission at La Luz Canyon in the 1700s.

It can be argued that some of the first steps to establish the unincorporated village of La Luz may have begun with Juan Vázquez de Coronado, born as the second son into a noble family in Salamanca, Spain. The first noble son’s job was to preserve the wealth of the family; the second and following sons needed to either join the military, become priests, or seek their fortunes.

Coronado sought his fortune in New Spain (modern Mexico), and immediately found it on arrival by marrying the Governor’s twelve year old daughter.  His mother-in-law was from a Converso Jewish family.  During the Inquisition in Spain, Jews had three options: leave Spain, convert to Christianity, or be burned at the stake.

Coronado’s wife’s dowry was a large encomienda - a grand estate staffed with native workers who involuntarily labored for protection, food, and religious instruction. But the glory of being a wealthy landowner was not enough for Coronado.  

Spain had become the richest nation in the world by forcefully taking gold and silver from the Americas. Coronado mortgaged his encomienda to hunt for the gold that was rumored to be in the north.  

After encounters with the Zuni and Hopi pueblos, Coronado met a community of people in what is now the panhandle of Texas.  They were nomadic Apache buffalo hunters and gatherers. They were not awed nor impressed by the Spanish, their guns, nor their "big dogs" (horses). 

The hunters came out of their tipis to look at the men wrapped and hatted in metal sitting high on their “big dogs" and asked the Conquistadors who they were. The Apache encampment held several hundred tipis with more than a thousand people gathering together for at least this time of the year. 

Plains Tipis

Spanish Conquistadors

Coronado left the hunters and continued toward the Seven Cities of Gold in the geographic center of what is now the United States. The big cows (buffalos) were never out of their sight.  

The seven cities were straw-thatched villages with about two hundred houses near fields containing the Holy Trinity of corn, beans, and squash. A copper pendant was the only evidence of a precious metal the conquerors found.

Fray Francisco Juan de Padilla stayed in what is modern day Kansas to save souls and was eventually killed.  Two other men who stayed with the priest hightailed it back to Mexico City and told the story of the Father’s murder.  Fray Padilla became the first Catholic American protomartyr.  Fray Juan de la Cruz, who stayed behind at Tiguex Pueblo near modern day Bernalillo, New Mexico, suffered the same fateful end. 

Coronado traveled back to Mexico City where the royally titled and entitled “conqueror” continued to bankrupt his wife’s encomienda, the third largest in New Spain. He was the Governor of Nueva Galicia - present day states of Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Colima, Jalisco, Nayarit and Zacatecas.

Coronado encouraged others to go north by writing his own travel brochure about New Mexico: “The soil itself is the most suitable that has been found for growing all the products of Spain, for, besides being rich and black, it is well watered by arroyos, springs, and rivers. I found plums like those of Spain, roses, nuts, fine sweet grapes, and mulberries.”

Meanwhile, the people of the Great Plains began to see the value of those “big dogs” who had been making their way north without their Spanish riders. Bison could be hunted on horseback on a larger scale and feed more people. Horse technology allowed for raiding farming tribes quickly and efficiently - riders could swoop in at 30 mph and steal away with the ubiquitous corn, beans, and squash and perhaps a few women and children to serve as slaves until they integrated into the band. 

Horses also took on a military role: nomads could carry more gear, transport more food, and travois bigger tipis. The Apache, Navajo, Ute, Comanche and northern Plain tribes took to equines like teenagers to telephones.  While the Conquistadors were back in New Spain after their “failed” expedition, the Natives spent the next few years perfecting their hunting, raiding, and warring equestrian techniques. 

Alternately, King Phillip II was idly considering more ways to wring mass wealth out of the Americas.  Too much gold and silver, apparently, wasn’t enough for the richest monarch in the world. He appointed Don Juan de Oñate as the governor, captain general, caudillo, discoverer, and pacifier of New Mexico, a territory that had not yet been conquered. Oñate understood he must pay for this endeavor himself. 

 

Oñate Crest

Juan de Oñate was the affluent son of the Noble House of Haro, a Spanish-Basque Conquistador who had received a silver mine encomienda from the King. Oñate's mother, Doña Catalina Salazar y de la Cadena, was from a family of Jewish Conversos. 

Don Juan de Oñate married the granddaughter of Moctezuma, the Aztec ruler of Mexico, Isabel de Tolosa Cortés de Moctezuma, , who was also the granddaughter of Herán Cortés, conqueror of Mexico. Ironically, the etymology of the origin of the name Oñate is derived from the Basque word "oña" which originally meant “foot.”

Twenty-two years before the Mayflower left England, the entrada left for New Mexico to find riches for the Crown; 20% of any profits (the royal quinto) would be sent back to their blessed King.   The promise of titles, encomiendas, land grants to settle New Mexico, and adventure enticed Oñate to finance 400 soldiers, 130 families, 1000 head of cattle, 1000 head of sheep, and 150 mares on a quest across the Chihuahuan Desert dunes and up the trail by the Rio Bravo River. Franciscan Friars accompanied the settlers to peacefully convert the Natives to Christianity.

The first capital of New Mexico spanning two years was San Juan de Los Caballeros near Ohkay Owingeh at the fork of the Rio Grande and the Chama Rivers, but in 1610, the capital became La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asisi. Oñate sent out scouting parties in all directions to search for gold and silver, but they returned empty-handed. 

Without the gold or silver booty, the soldiers began to demand tribute from the Pueblos. 

The Acoma pueblo refused to contribute the food they had stored for winter and Oñate’s hungry army, armed with steel swords and armor, guns and horses, killed over 800 Acoma people, enslaved 500, and cut the left foot off of all men over the age of 25. 

Acoma Pueblo

Acoma Pueblo - Edward Curtis photo

    

The Franciscan friars got busy. By 1630 there were 25 Pueblo missions and 50 priests serving more than 60,000 Christianized Puebloans in 90 pueblos. Some of the outlying  pueblos were abandoned because of Apache and Navajo raids.  The conquistadors found the raiders on horseback difficult to control or capture to work on the encomiendas. 

Around 1675, there were signs that revolt against the Spanish was impending.  There was discord and quarreling between the missionaries and the military.  The priests believed the soldiers were there to protect the missions and they weren’t doing their jobs because missionaries and whole pueblos were being wiped out by the Apache and Navajo.

The military believed its jobs was to encourage laborers to labor when they were reluctant, inspire Puebloans to feed them and provide them with female company, to search for their own gold or silver, and to look for new workers who would involuntarily enjoy the encomiendas’  protection and religious instruction.

The friars and the medicine men also became quite contentious with each other.  It seems that most people were quite attached to their own native ceremonies and religion and not at all happy to see missionaries destroy sacred Pueblo objects and ceremonial sites. Medicine men were arrested, punished and sometimes killed for practicing “sorcery.”

The encomienda system seemed counter-productive.Brutal forced labor, exploitation, suffering, and pressuring Pueblos to work on their own lands to provide sustenance to their captors did not entice people to work well.  There were crop failures and food shortages and the Pueblo people believed their misfortune was a result of not practicing their own religion. 

It was becoming evident to the Governor that a conspiracy was afoot and he sent an appeal to Mexico to send more troops. Help did not arrive and the storm broke on August 10, 1680; the Pueblo Revolt was organized and led by Popé, a medicine man from San Juan Pueblo.

Pope' with knotted rope

Knotted ropes had been sent out to each Pueblo with instructions to untie one knot each day. When the last knot was untied, it was the day to exterminate the Spaniards, sparing no one - except a few women and girls who were kept as captives.

The Spanish settlers south of Santa Fe were warned in time to escape, but those in the north-east and west perished to the tune of over 400 people and 21 missionaries. Santa Fe, with its population of 1000, was besieged for nearly a week by 3000 Puebloans. 

The Spaniards evacuated New Mexico and headed south to the Mission Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe del Rio del Norte de los Mansos in present-day Juárez near Paso del Norte, the pass between the mountains that led into New Spain.

On their way south, the fleeing Spanish took refuge at the Isleta Tiguan Pueblo near Albuquerque. The Tiguans had not participated in the revolution and many joined with the survivors on their journey to El Paso del Norte. Some historians argue that the Isleta Tiguans were hostages taken to insure the Spanish wouldn’t be attacked.

They stopped again in Socorro to regroup - the mixed entourage now included Spanish, Isleta Tigua, Piro, Tompiro, Tano, and Jemez  Pueblo refugees and hostages. 

Almost two thousand people were escorted down the trail that followed alongside  the Rio Bravo by a Spanish supply train. Rebels shadowed the retreat from the north but did not attack the escapees. 

The King of Spain gave the Tiguas a new home beside the Rio Grande, Ysleta del Sur Pueblo. They were under the charge of friars of the Church of Corpus Christi de los Tiguas en el Reino de la Nueva Mexico de el Distrito de el Paso Canton Bravos. 

Likewise, the  Piro, Tanos, and Jemez Indians fleeing the Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico were given a land grant at Socorro del Sur under priests at the Nuestra Señora de la Limpia Concepción de los Piros de Socorro del Sur.

The missions at Ysleta, San Antonio de Senecú, San Elizario, San Lorenzo, and Socorro were established for the pueblos and can be visited today.  Although the tribe is federally recognized, the State of Texas has been contentious with the pueblo, removing their gambling license and implying they were more of a community than a tribe (for the last 300 years after moving to their present location).

Twelve years after the Pueblo Revolt, the King of Spain worried that the French might be encroaching on New Mexico and sent Diego de Vargas back in to re-conquer the Pueblos and re-settle the Spanish settlers.  It was messy, people died on both sides, but concessions were made.

Spain’s best accidental weaponry was infectious disease; 95% of the indigenous population died or would die from smallpox, measles or influenza because of the lack of immunity in Native populations. The catastrophic death rates led to societal chaos and many tribes were completely wiped out. 

The pueblos were also consistently raided by the Apache, Ute, and Navajos; the Spaniards and Puebloans developed an uneasy truce with each other to allow the Spanish soldiers to keep them safe. Most of the missions were reestablished; some of the people from the missions in the south went back north to their original homelands. 

The presidio system began and individual citizens and territorial militias known as "vecinos," or neighbors, were common on the frontier. Locals armed themselves however they could with rocks,  bows and arrows, lances, spears, or if they were lucky, a firearm. Their personal dwellings or a community building often incorporated some type of fortification. 

Meanwhile, the King of Spain noticed that declining output and increased smuggling of gold and silver were affecting his bottom line.  The price of goods from the colonies were cheap and goods made in Spain began to be heavily taxed to make up the difference. 

Industries were not being  developed since cheap imports were available.  Entrepreneurs who became successful in New Spain returned and bought their way up the social ladder by buying titles from the King.  They became wealthy enough to remove themselves from the productive sector of the economy.

Wages of craftsmen, builders, and food producers were at a stable low level causing the middle class in Spain to diminish. Their tax burden to keep the King flush led to the decrease of living standards and marriage rates decreased in Spain. Support for the safety and infrastructure of the New Spain colony was minimal. 

Spain restricted New Mexico’s ability to do business with the neighboring United States and only allowed trade internally and with Spain.  Smuggling was persistent. New Spain became tired of the Crown’s abuses and launched the Mexican War of Independence. In 1821, 300 years of Spanish rule ended and New Mexico became a territory of Mexico. 

Farming communities developed along the Camino Real and Rio Grande and when populations grew too large, or when there were conflicts and disagreements, or there were ecological factors like flooding, drought, land or water scarcity, groups could petition the alcalde (mayor) to open new farmland for the spin-off group. This dynamic, known as "fission-fusion," is a flexible social strategy that helps balance cooperation with competition. 

Some of the settlers were feeling the fission-fusion pressure and received permission to establish a community about six miles north of Socorro. Word of the good farm land spread and several families from Albuquerque, Belen and Tomé joined the new village of Lemitar. They were pioneer and conquistador descendants of Armijo, Chavez, Gonzales, Vigil, Lopez, Sanchez, Romero, and the Santillañes families.  

Lemitar’s population in 1846 was a little over 400 residents.  Governor Manuel Armijo was the last Mexican governor of New Mexico.  After surrendering New Mexico to Gen. Kearny in 1846 during the Mexican-American war,  when the United State stole 55% of Mexico fair and square, Armijo was arrested and sent to Mexico City for cowardice and deserting in the face of the enemy. 

Lemitar Church

     He was acquitted of the charges after proving his 400 Mexican soldiers  were no match against the 1,500 well-armed Americans that entered Santa Fe. He said he surrendered to spare the bloodshed of the Santa Feans. After his acquittal, Manuel Armijo returned to his family farm and ranch in Lemitar east of the church. He farmed and ranched on his property east of the Lemitar church. 

Governor Manuel Armijo

There is a strong local legend of buried treasure related to the governor. One version states that upon his return from Mexico, Manuel Armijo buried a chest of gold Mexican coins somewhere on his property. It was reported that he did not retrieve the buried treasure before he died and his brother looked for years for the buried Mexican gold coins. Another version of the story is that his brother, Juan, found the gold and reburied it across the Rio Grande near his home in Sabino.

In 1860, Lemitar’s population of nearly 800 people outnumbered Socorro's 523 residents.  Persistent flooding convinced a group of families to try their luck across the San Andres Mountains south of the new settlement of Tularosa. The families traveled across the Tularosa Basin to the mouth of a canyon where figs and fruits and black walnuts grew.  

Jose Manuel Gutierrez was one of the men who led the families south and east.  They built a defensive wall, La Muralla, to defend against the Apache who hunted in the mountains that shadowed them from thousands of feet above.  The people who founded La Luz took 400 years to get there.  Their DNA is a roadmap from Spain - thousands of miles traveled for God, Glory and Gold.

(note: I recently worked with a friend from Dona Ana, New Mexico on her ancestry.  The twenty some generations we traced to Spain was a history lesson that included Spanish royalty, Jewish Conversos, conquistadors, ranchers, farmers, Lipan Apache, and Pueblo).

To be continued…

Lessons in School Bus Safety

as told by Barbara McDonald

Barbara is 3 rows up on the left

Anyone who will drive an enclosed metal container with a passel of children ranging from four year old preschoolers to eighteen year old “adults” seated behind them has superhero powers beyond those of ordinary people.  School bus drivers vigilantly negotiate 20 to 30 tons of steel through traffic and weather while arbitrating low grade crimes from seat stealing to snack theft, consoling sad or sick children, waiting for late-comers, and sometimes pulling over and walking down the aisle like Moses parting the sea - to break apart a ruckus.

The bus driver is often the first adult to greet a child whose parents have departed early for work; their smiles and greetings frame many children’s days.  The school bus driver’s skills are similar to those of referees, therapists, comedians and detectives, i.e., overhearing  “Uh oh - what’s that smell?” coming from a rider a few rows down the aisle. The patience and kindness of the adult dealing with the chaos of children’s lives can affect them for a lifetime.

My mother, Barbara, had such a memorable bus driver. During the 1940’s, the country was in the middle of World War II and it was difficult to find someone to drive the bus. Most of the men who were old enough to drive had been drafted or joined the service. 

Seventeen year old males could sign up with parental consent; some young boys had no birth certificates and lied about their ages to lenient recruiters.  Men as old as 45 were drafted depending on the skills the military needed to fight the fascists in Europe and the Far East.

Farmers and ranchers who lived in the Sacramento Mountains were exempt from the draft - they had a nation and warriors to feed; these men worked from dawn to dark and had no time left to drive a bus through the mountains twice a day.  Many women did not drive at the time and they had families and field work to take care of at home.

The community population was depleted to women, children, boys too young and men too old to serve, and farmers and ranchers.  The bus driver who was hired to take the mountain children to school was exempt from the war because he had Strabismus - his eyes were crossed - one eye looked toward his nose and one eye looked straight ahead. His name was Burr Polson and he always had a big, big, cigar clamped in his mouth.  

Burr was one of the most respected men in the Sacramento Mountains. The remote, narrow, canyon dirt roads near Cloudcroft had very little traffic, so no one worried that his slightly imperfect vision would cause a problem.  The children liked Burr - his children were grown and gone and he had the patience of a saint with his new young charges. He combined his bus driving job with delivering the U.S. Mail - the routes were the same.

My mother told me Burr had a funny way of laughing; it was a process of silent chuckles.  His face would light up; a broad grin would appear around his cigar; his fat belly would jiggle like Jello but he made no chuckling sounds.  

The school bus was not really a bus but an old delivery truck with two wooden benches attached length-wise along each side that the children sat upon. Seatbelts were unheard of in those days so they bounced along the rough, potholed roads, the truck sometimes having to back up or down if they met another vehicle that needed to pass. The bus route went through the upper Rio Peňasco Canyon, Wills Canyon, then to Cloucroft via Cox Canyon.  At any given time, no more than a dozen children were on the bus.  

Delivery Truck/School Bus

There was a saw mill in Wills Canyon.  Employees of the mill provided the bus with a few young passengers, but their population was transient and the children did not often last a school year before their families moved on.  Most of the bus riders were children from farm and ranch families that had lived in the area for several generations.

Burr Polson was also the U.S. Mail Carrier for that same route, and sorting mail would always be the chore of one of the older children. Barbara loved that job.  She sat importantly in the big front bench seat and at each stop she would get out of the bus and fold the seat forward so her school mates could enter or exit.  There were only two exits, the passenger and driver side doors. 

There were two big doors at the rear of the bus that could be opened from the inside but they were tied together with a rope on the outside handles because they had a tendency to fly open.  The opportunity to sort mail, see who and where the neighbors’ letters were coming from, to spot an envelope rimmed in black which was a death notice, or to read the postcards from far off places made the job of getting in and out of the bus a small price to pay for Barbara to know what was going on in the entire world.

Riding this bus was a great adventure; it was a microcosm with its own social hierarchy, drama, giggling, gossiping, and occasional outbreaks of romance.  Barbara first experienced puppy love on the bus. Sitting next to a boy on the bench near the back of the bus was a great place to hold hands discretely under a folded jacket and to exchange whispered secrets. She also experienced her first heartbreak and betrayal when her best friend sat beside her sweetheart in the back of the bus with a folded jacket over their knees.

Burr’s vision problems did at times have its drawbacks.  One morning as the bus neared the road at Cloudcroft, a log train approached very slowly down the tracks.  Burr stopped the bus to wait for the train to pass.  The train chugged along in front of the bus and caught the bumper and part of the truck hood on the side of the engine. 

The vehicle was dragged in slow motion down the track until the old “bus” gave up and turned loose of its front end. Burr’s depth perception did not work very well and he had mistakenly parked the front of the bus on the train tracks. No one was injured but they were somewhat shaken up from being tossed around like ping pong balls inside the truck.

The incident happened only a short distance from the schoolhouse so the students walked the rest of the way hoping they would be dismissed for the day because of the collision.  They sat at their desks and discovered it would require something much more serious than a train/bus wreck to get a day off from school.

 

It was not always driver’s vision errors that caused bus incidents. One extremely cold, snowy morning, Burr stuffed rags in all the cracks and openings in the bus to help the tiny, overworked heater to keep them warm. They were warm and toasty, so much so that they became drowsy and by the time the bus arrived at school, all of the children were asleep. 

They were actually not sleeping but were slowly being asphyxiated by exhaust leaks of carbon monoxide which the heater was drawing into the vents. When Barbara awoke, she was being rolled in the snow by the school superintendent. Cold air and snow finally revived everyone, but they were dizzy and had terrible headaches.  They were allowed to lay their heads on their desks for the rest of the school day and discovered it would require something much more serious than CO2 poisoning to get a day off from school.

 

One morning on the first curve just east of Carrie and Leon Green's house in Cox Canyon, the bus slid off the icy road and became stuck on the side of the road.  A dump truck was headed up the canyon so Burr got out of the bus anticipating help from the truck driver who was struggling his way up the slick road and he did not see Burr standing beside the bus. 

The driver didn't stop hoping to make it to the top of the hill, and as the truck passed by, Burr slipped on the ice and slid under the truck's back wheels. The truck driver was unaware he had run over Burr's legs and he kept going. His legs were badly broken; the students managed to get him in the back doors of the bus and he lay on the delivery truck slats while one of the older boys ran to a nearby ranch for help. 

Burr was taken to the hospital. The children were driven on to school and discovered it would require something much more serious than the trauma of watching your bus driver getting run over by a dump truck, hefting him into the back of the truck, and running several miles for help to get a day off from school.

  On another occasion a car had stopped and in the shady bend of the road; the driver was changing a flat tire. The early morning sun was shining through a dirty windshield into Burr's one crossed and one uncrossed eyes. He didn't see the car and ran head on into it. As usual, Barbara was sitting in the front seat. The impact threw her into the instrument panel; the car rolled and she was upside down on the floor with the folding front seat over her. She had a huge knot on her head, a split lip, and bruises.

The only way out was through a side window because the back door was tied together with a rope. A small boy who had a pocket knife was hoisted through the window and told to cut the rope on the back door so it could be opened.  The smell of gas and the sound of gas splashing out of the old truck caused Burr to yell at the boy to “Hurry it up.”  

The boy came back to the window and calmly told Burr that he was trying to untie the knot because it was a “new rope.”  He was commanded to “cut it now!”  He cut the new rope, they opened the doors and the students and driver made their way out of the bus.

The crash happened near the beginning of the school route so there were only a few students on the bus at the time. No one was seriously injured but Barbara’s face looked a bit like a train wreck.  The bus was hauled off and needed serious repairs. They happened to be near Barbara’s grandparent’s house and her grandfather came up, loaded up the children and Burr, and took them back to their homes, then he went back to his farm work.

Barbara spent the rest of the day with her grandmother; as the day wore on her bruises became more visible. Her recounting of the day’s adventure grew more grave and graphic and Little Grandma (as she was known due to her height) nursed Barbara’s wounds better than the Mayo Clinic and provided much sympathy and made all of her tragic patient’s favorite foods for her. There was much drama and commiseration and tending after wounds.

Apparently, the way to get a day off school was to be in the front seat of a head on crash, roll the vehicle into a ditch, cut a brand new rope, nearly total the mail truck/school bus, and be rescued by your grandparents who thought you should probably just spend the rest of the day on their farm instead of sitting in your desk with a cut lip.

The school bus was put back together and Burr started his mail/school children delivery service back up.  Sometimes he would let two kids crowd into the coveted front seat. It was really special when Barbara and her friend, Billy Peek, got to share the front bench seat.  

Burr never interrupted their serious and silly conversations as they discussed secrets about the boys they liked or the mean girls they didn't like at the moment. They fussed and experimented with each other's makeup and hair as they were being chauffeured around the bouncy mountain roads of their kingdom.

Billy was staying the night at Barbara’s the night her brother Toby was killed. along with two seniors, in a car accident. Billy’s parents came to fetch her and told them all the horrifying news.

Toby had ridden the bus with the ranch and farming children all those years.  It felt like a giant chasm opened up in the earth when Billy left what was supposed to be an evening of staying up all night, popping pop corn, talking and giggling, just two friends like peas in a pod. 

The next morning Billy was not at her bus stop by the mail box but her father was waiting there. He asked Burr if he could ride the school bus to town. Mr Peek explained that his car was not in running condition and he needed to make funeral arrangements for his son. Barbara opened the door, folded the seat forward and sat in the back on one of the wooden benches with the other students. The grieving man sat in the coveted front seat beside Burr. 

Not a word was spoken by the children that morning. They strained to hear the conversation between Burr and Mr. Peek. The men discussed the particulars about the accident, spoke about Toby, too young, just getting started, they talked about better places and God, tears streaming down their faces. 

Barbara learned that day the extent of Burr's compassion and wisdom. They were all desperately seeking answers about the tragic deaths of the older boys that they so admired.  It was the conversation between the father of a dead boy and a bus driver that settled the fears Barbara had experienced the night before. 

Burr dropped the children off at school and took Mr. Peek on to do the overwhelming task he needed to do. The students sat in their desks and glanced painfully around at the desks that sat empty. 

The long bus ride to Cloudcroft and back each day was an education in itself. During World War II, bubblegum was almost impossible to come by. If by rare chance someone acquired a piece of gum, everyone would share it. Each person would have an allotted amount of time to chew and Burr would be the timekeeper. His big belly jiggled and he silently chuckled behind his big cigar as he timed the children on his watch. 

Another time, the older boys stealthily passed around very risque postcards that one of them had acquired in Juarez. The El Paso warehouses and cattle market were near the border and after trucking vegetables or cows to the sale barn, it was easy to take the street car over to Mexico and back. 

They were sneaking peeks of the cards in the back of the bus and trying to shock the girls (who had apparently never seen females scantily clad in underwear before). It was quite raunchy and the girls were dramatically disgusted with the salacious behavior of the boys! Burr was unaware of the immoral activity in the bus but no one told on the boys.

Cloudcroft School

One day on the way home from school, Burr complained of an upset stomach and stopped several times to get out of the bus and throw up at the side of the road. He finally said he couldn't drive because he was in too much pain. He asked one of the older boys to drive the bus to his son's house several miles away. He went inside his son’s home and the son finished the bus route that day. The next morning the children learned that Burr had died from a heart attack that he had suffered the day before.

They would have other bus drivers, but the gentle kindness of Burr Polson would define every mile into a memory for Barbara on the school bus/mail route where she had dutifully sorted correspondence from soldiers and sailors serving in Europe or East Asia, readable post cards from travelers visiting far away places, and sometimes letters sorrowfully written and mailed in envelopes sealed and rimmed in black.

Cloudcroft, NM  1940s