Tradiciones: Raices 2023

PEOPLE THAT HAVE BEEN TO TAOS AGREE — the place feels deep. Deeply rooted. Deeply connected to the earth and the sky and the wonders in between.

That’s because people have been living here for thousands of years. Is it the landscape — or us — that grows these roots? Maybe it’s both.

Taos News loves to bring you these deeply rooted stories from the land each year in Tradiciones: Raices (Roots). Look for our Artes special sections next week, and a salute to our Unsung Heroes the

week after.

Vargas Tile Company began as a momand-pop cabinet shop in Taos. It’s been handed down to the next generation, along with some sage advice on how to do well by doing good. Andrew Stuart has that story on page 4.

Emily Mendez gets the incontrovertible truth about who lit the fire that burned

down the old Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in 1961, according to Larry Martinez. Her story begins on page 6.

And in Arroyo Seco, La Paroquia de la Santisima Trinidad has seen its fair share of miraculous stories since it was erected in 1834. Roger Martinez gets a tour and writes about it on page 8.

Thank you for reading this year’s issue of Tradiciones: Raices. I hope these stories inspire you to dig further into the history of our unique community in Taos.

VARGAS TILE COMPANY

The family-owned business ‘does well by doing good’

THERE ARE THE EXUBERANT COLORS of the hand-painted Talavera, in mosaics, mirrors and sinks. There are the gentle earth-tones of the Saltillo and Travertine. A customer at Vargas Tile Company has the sense of a sunlit garden in bloom.

But the real charm of this enduring Taos business are the bonds of family. Sisters Christine Vargas, Vivianna Gonzales and Patricia Vargas bring a personal touch to every aspect of Vargas Tile. In that, they’re carrying on the legacy of their parents, Robert and Martha Vargas, who launched the store in 1961.

“Some people say, ‘Wow — I could never work with my parents!’ And I didn’t just work with my parents, I work with my sisters” Christine said. “We’ve had our spats, but we’ve always gotten along. You just forgive and get over it.” “And get back to work,” Vivi added.

Robert and Martha met while ice skating in San Luis, Colo. — Martha long-joked that her snugly-fitted snow pants had something to do with their initial connection. They married, and Robert tried his hand at farming, and auto sales, in San Luis, before the couple relocated to Taos, Robert’s hometown.

Robert was a craftsperson, and when the couple rented a storefront, next to the present-day Taos Fly Shop, he planned it as a cabinet-making outlet. But with the central location, Martha suggested they offer other prod-

ucts. The couple opened their paint store with a $700 loan, and soon added Mexican tile to their offerings.

At first, margins were thin, and they relied on credit at the Packard family’s Plaza Super Market for groceries. But soon, Christine said, “it started picking up, and mom said they noticed a difference, because they had cash in their pocket every day.”

One key was thrift. Martha sewed and baked — she had her sewing machine in the store. And Robert was a natural businessperson, with a gift for numbers. But fairness, and a human touch, were the real secrets.

Robert would “tip” customers with his own handcrafted items — and offer free paint to strapped neighbors.

“He wouldn’t do it to get the customers,” Christine said. “He just did it from the bottom of his heart. But what it did is it brought people back — it was word-of-mouth advertising.”

And Robert was nothing if not down-to-earth. One day, Julia Roberts shopped at the store. Robert wasn’t familiar with the actress, but his daughters explained that she was world-famous.

“After she left, dad said, ‘She’s pretty,’” Christine

recalled, “pero más bonitas ustedes [you girls are prettier].”

“Spoken like a true dad,” Vivi said.

The sisters grew up in the store, but in 1981, Robert called Christine, the oldest, to say he was going to sell the business — unless she wanted to take over. Robert’s subsequent retirement didn’t quite stick — he loved work too much — but he gave the sisters “free rein,” Vivi said. Robert passed away in 2001, Martha in 2007.

The sisters discovered they had all the skills they needed to run a successful business. “We learned so much from mom and dad,” Christine said, “without even realizing we had learned.”

The business moved to its current Ranchos de Taos location in 2007. Vargas Tile is thriving — with “huge room for expansion,” Vivi said — though it’s unclear whether a third generation will continue it.

Vivi said they’ve succeeded by finding a distinctive niche. “We have unique Mexican tile,” she said, “that you can’t find in the big-box stores, and we have really good customer service.”

That’s no doubt true. But it’s also clear that it’s the connections of family and community that have allowed this Taos touchstone to flourish for 62 years.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

The June 29, 1961 front page of the Taos News was the first time the public-at-large saw the shocking images of the fire that destroyed the old Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church. The film negatives from our photo archive have been dusted off — along with a few rumors that have accompanied the legendary event — and with new testimonial from a trusted town figure, we can finally know the truth of how the church fire started.

The Church Fire

The incontrovertible truth, according to Larry Martinez

SMALL TOWNS ARE KNOWN FOR THE POWER OF THEIR RUMORS turned urban legends and Taos is no exception. With endless versions of this story having made their rounds, this account is very simply what happened the day Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church set fire, as best as Larry can recall. Martinez is purposeful in his silence on the boys’ names in the story and maybe it’s best to not stir up more rumors.

It was 1961 and Larry was just a 13-year-old boy that had somehow acquired a pigeon raising hobby with a group of friends. The boys even ordered birds from the Montgomery Wards catalog and were gifted others by local artist Leon Gaspard. The Cordoba and Montoya Lane boys grew up together, raising pigeons and serving as altar boys in the church.

Our Lady of Guadalupe was a different building then, in a different location. Mostly made of adobe, it had elaborate embossed metal sheets that served as a ceiling below large wooden rafters. During Sunday Mass, the wild pigeons would make so much noise on the ceiling that it got to be too much for Father Chavez. To be an altar boy is to serve the church and that one fateful Saturday there were four boys volun-

teering, Larry and three others — an older boy about Larry’s age, his younger brother, and another young boy. Now none of those other boys at the church were part of the pigeon crew, but Larry had the experience that led to Father Chavez asking them to get up there under the roof and try to get rid of the pigeons.

So, these four boys climbed up through the belfry and tried to push the pigeons to exit through the roof canals and rushed to close the holes after them. It was cramped, chaotic work and Larry remembers they maybe caught a couple. It wasn’t going well for the boys. Around lunchtime, a muchneeded break, the older duo left the church and ran over to the Stakehouse Café in the plaza for a few Coca-Colas. Not wanting to leave their work for too

long, they came right back to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Climbing upstairs, they discovered someone had lit a small pile of cardboard on fire that had spread a little farther than they liked. As only teenage boys can reason, the fire obviously served to try to smoke out the pigeons. In watching the fire grow, however, the group realized that the fire might not be serving its intended purpose any longer. They all rushed to put it out, stomping at the smoldering cardboard until they couldn’t see fire anymore. These boys thought they had extinguished the flames; they had put out the fire with no harm done. The group closed it up for the day, put away their mess, and went home.

About 4 p.m. that same afternoon, the neighbor Mrs. Romero came

running up Montoya Lane announcing to everyone that could hear that the church was on fire. Larry recalls his mom instantly giving him ‘the look’ and he knew he was in trouble. In retelling the story, it’s clear that Larry still feels for the aftermath of the guilt and embarrassment for his mom and her devout faith.

They moved the church services the very next day to the gym at Central Catholic, with Father Chavez only telling the boys, “Look what you did to our church.” Considering the entirety of the church didn’t burn down, Larry is left to wonder why the original church wasn’t refurbished. Instead, the old building was demolished, and the church was moved into a new building, where it stands now. Martinez simply wants everyone to know that this wasn't on purpose. The entire wild story of kids lighting the church on fire is really as simple as community service gone awry.

Holy Trinity Parish La Paroquia de la Santisima Trinidad

“Years ago, someone asked me where Holy Trinity Parish was; I sent them downtown to Taos,” Mr. Manuel Medina said as we drove up to the historic church. Prior to leaving his home just down the road, his lovely Señora Doña Veva asked me to say hello to the church. I most assuredly did.

The beauty of many things within the Holy Catholic Church is that seemingly inanimate objects — in this case of this adobe structure — things take on a life of their own. And more than that, a part of the family. To the Medina family, and I am sure many other families, this parish is an active part of their lives. This closeness to the church makes it comfortable to not so much enter it, but to greet it like a dear friend. Mr. Medina grew up in this parish, his mother was the caretaker from early on, then he eventually took over in 1968 when his mother could no longer serve.

Completed in 1834 — the parish incorporated in 1946 — this adobe structure has been the center of the community of Arroyo Seco ever since. “This ground is Sacred Ground,” Medina said.

Aside from the church making it holy ground, there are many priests buried under the church, and many families buried in the yard — most from the Spanish Flu of 1918. The families are still remembered. The trees in the front corner are planted for the many in the Montaño family.

On the other corner, Manuel came one day several years ago to plant a tree for his wife Veva. It happened that this was on Nov. 11, and Veva had come over to tell him the breaking news. This tree is now the 9-11 Tree, possibly the only tree dedicated to 9-11, and Veva — her birthday is September 12.

Interestingly, Manuel was here at church on both 9-11 and on Dec. 7, 1941. How humbling and special. Walking to church, as was the family custom, meeting with neighbors on the way to holy mass, this particular day when he was just 9 years old, the teens standing in back, the priest walked in late, crying. We knew his mother was ill, but not this, he had been listening to President Roosevelt report on the news about Pearl Harbor. First, he said there will be no Mass today. Then he said to the boys standing in back, “by next week, most of you young men won’t be here,” and many never came back.

He told me of a Native man who had been searching for this church from his dreams. Manuel pointed to the iron cross on the way to the front of the old church. This cross was brought here by a Native man who had been searching for this church that’s been in his dreams for years. He fashioned a metal cross to put up if he ever found the church. He would have passed it by if not for that detour; interestingly, there was a detour today that brought us in from behind the church. The man got out of his truck, seemingly in a trance, and went to the front doors, knelt to pray, cried and danced while he was there.

Both Medina and Fr. Vince were on the grounds at the time. The man asked Manuel if he could plant the cross there — Medina referred it back to the priest and the priest back to Medina. This man of small stature, maybe 80 pounds, shared his story of he and

his four brothers — who were now all deceased. He planted the cross where it is now and has been since.

There are a handful of interesting, if not miraculous stories that live with this church. When the church was first approved to be constructed, it was important to name the church. There were two unknown men who came around saying they were neighbors, but no one recognized them. They said they lived further down the road, where a white dove circled often. Curiosity took over and they went to find this location: sure enough, there was a white dove and these two men, which turned out to be the Trinity themselves, a small statue of the Holy Trinity was found there. The church was built on this very spot.

Another miraculous moment was the return of the Crucifix, which guards the inside of the church. It had been created by Rafael and José Aragon — brothers who have skillfully carved and painted many retablos and bultos around the churches and moradas of New Mexico.

They came to the parish and asked them what they wanted. The community thought hard: a St. Anthony, a St. Francis, no, a lady stood up and asked for a life size crucifix. So it was, they came back after loving, hard work with this beautiful crucifix with both John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene at Christ’s feet, both who had washed the feet of Jesus.

The hermanos were ready to put it up, but the community said “Not yet.” From there, it took 23 years for the adobe church to be built. During that time, the crucifix went missing.

Meanwhile, no matter how many times the wall where the crucifix would be had been re-mudded, the wall kept a secret. This is where the crucifix would eventually hang, and where cross images would always be — if you look closely.

Many years later, when Manuel was young and his mother the mayordomo, two Native women walked in while he and his mother were cleaning the church, preparing for a Mass with the Bishop. His mother, seeing a carved hand sticking out from the sheet covering the crucifix, knew immediately what it was: El Manuelito! It had been missing for 50 years. They all knelt to pray and cry with the Stations of the Cross.

Early on, many families had their own viga which they would sit under. The Medina viga was the fourth behind the crucifix. Families would sit first in their pews, then everyone else would find a seat after. This added to the close connection to the church.

The windows are of Belgium glass and show a beautiful light inside, more beautiful depending on the season and/ or time. Manuel went on to show me more of this church, including the statues. In the middle of the church sits a beautiful Trinity statue on an altar.

There was a point of mild beautification; some wanted to take the French lattice work down, as this was a memory which many would choose to forget, if not be reminded of every time they walked into the church. It was a French priest who had put it up, to remind him of his native France. The Spanish pastor said “No, we will not take the lattice work down, as it will remind us of how bad the French were.”

“ THIS IS THE ONLY PARISH IN THE ARCHDIO CESE NAMED AFTER GOD, IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, SON AND HOLY SPIRIT, ALTHOUGH WE NEVER KNEW IT BY ITS ENGLISH NAME, WE ONLY KNEW IT AS LA SANTISIMA TRINIDAD. ”

We acknowledge the land that we live and work on is unceded land belonging to the Taos Pueblo, Ute, Lipan Apache, and Tiwa people, who have served as the original stewards of this land for millennia, and who continue to inhabit this land today. These are our roots.

We acknowledge the violent and painful legacy of colonization against the original inhabitants of Taos, and the cascading effects of this harm, which continue to this day.

With this acknowledgement, we pay respect to local indigenous peoples, and commit ourselves to learning the true history of the land we reside on. We affirm tribal sovereignty, and will dedicate ourselves to creating meaningful relationships with the indigenous communities of Taos, honoring their ongoing traditions and legacy.

Tradition is the Heartbeat of Our Culture

Taos County’s establishment was a significant step in the development of governance and legal institutions in the newly acquired territories of the American Southwest. taoscounty.org

The statues have much interest. The Holy Trinity statue in the middle of the church is unusual in itself, Medina said. He recalled a conversation with his mother when he was a young boy.

“Mom, what’s going on there?” Manuel asked. His mom responded, “You figure that out.” Yes, Fr. Son, Holy Spirit, la Santisima Trinidad. God the Father is telling Jesus what He will have to do here on earth. Meanwhile, the angels are ready to escort Him here. Jesus sadly responded to God the Father, pointing to the cross, “This is how I want to die.”

The altar screen was painted by José de García in 1861 on the altar space itself, as it was too big to bring in through the doors. Top center is the Holy Trinity, tied together as one. Below this is the child Jesus, preaching to all the world.

There are two trees at his sides; thus, the two main trees planted outside the church. Both St. Francis and St. Anthony are at each side at the bottom, both in azurite blue, like Mother Mary would wear — thus, the earth symbolizing Mother Mary as well. St. Francis is holding the skull, symbolizing that there is life after this, as both he and St. Anthony are facing center, St. Anthony facing the Child Jesus, St. Francis facing the crucified Christ.

Making Positive Change, Together!

Community Rewards® in Action

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Recovery is Possible

Discover Your Path to Wellness

Rio Grande ATP, Inc. is celebrating 45 years helping your family members and friends find recovery from substance use disorder. We offer intensive outpatient programs, medically assisted treatment and peer support. There are many Paths to Recovery in our strong and resilient communities.

Rio Grande has been and continues to be there for all those seeking a new way of life. | continues on

Rio Grande ATP, Inc. is celebrating 45 years helping your family members and friends find recovery from substance use disorder. We offer intensive outpatient programs, medically assisted treatment and peer support. There are many Paths to Recovery in our strong and resilient communities.

Rio Grande has been and continues to be there for all those seeking a new way of life.

Medina stopped every now and then and asked me what I noticed: the blue that the Franciscans wore, and the eyes facing to these two Christ images, he mentioned he never realized it was the crucifix, but a cross. His amazement shined brightly over seeing something he had never noticed. He asked me also what I saw unusual about the statue of Our Lady, the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I stated she is pregnant, like our Lady of Guadalupe — it was to his surprise that I saw that, as nearly no one has ever noticed this, even a visiting French priest who said he has seen this same image countless times.

“This church was built to last forever.”

Thank you

QUESTA & LATIR VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS YOU ARE ALL HEROS!

JONA OLSSON

is the chief of the Latir Volunteer Fire Department, and was the first woman president of the national Fire Chiefs Association. Olsson retired from her post but recently returned to continue serving her community.

Nominator David Elliott said, “She really changed the game in Taos County on firefighter safety.“

Roots: A civilization that’s dwelled in the same buildings for more than 1,000 years.