Miss Fertility of 1950

1950 - Miss Fertility

In the late summer of 1950, citizens and state officials gathered at the State Capitol building in Santa Fe to watch a bulldozer rip out nineteen trees shading the west capital lawn. Soon, the six marble pillars supporting the front portico would be taken down. Later, the capitol dome would be removed.

The removal of the trees was the first step by Santa Fe architect W. C. Kruger in preparation for the construction of an addition to the old capitol building, now more than a half century old. Built in 1900 after a fire destroyed the original capitol, the aging building was overcrowded and falling apart. The capitol steps to the grand entrance had been condemned and could not be used. So, in 1949, a weary legislature appropriated almost 3 million dollars for renovation of the building that Life Magazine called the eighth ugliest state capitol in the nation.

The new structures rose rapidly in the summer of 1950. One was a two story building set off by a courtyard across from the grand entrance of the old capitol building. On the north end of the smaller west addition, a 105-foot tower began to rise. Through the scaffolding, machinery and workmen, the new additions could be easily seen by all who passed by.

Over the course of a few days, a wide strip of canvas was laid in a band around the building just underneath the second story windows. What lay underneath the canvas was a mystery until the rough gusts of September tore the canvas free and exposed a sight that would occupy Santa Fe and the nation for the next few weeks.

Months earlier, architect W. C. Kruger had commissioned 27 year old Santa Fe artist William Longley to produce 24 terra cotta panels, called spandrels in the trade, each two feet by four feet, executed in bas-relief. Installed under the second-story windows, the panels were covered with canvas or paper, to be unveiled at the building’s grand opening. There were four panels each of six figures, each representing some aspect of New Mexico – a conquistador, a sun, a mountain lion, an Indian, a priest-builder and the earth. “Earth” was represented by a highly stylized nude woman reclining in a field of corn.

It was this panel whose canvas fig leaf was peeled away by the wind and it was this panel which was glimpsed by a passerby, a member of the Berean Baptist Church who was shocked and offended at the sight of nudity on a public building. He went immediately to the pastor of the Church, Reverend Robert J. Brown, who promptly gathered a small group of the faithful to inspect the sculpture still reclining on the wall of the new capitol building. They, too, were shocked and offended.

The next day, Reverend Brown, acting as pastor of his church and president of the Ministerial Alliance, telephoned Governor Thomas Mabry in his office and lodged a formal protest against the nude sculpture, calling it “extremely suggestive.” Governor Mabry, a lame duck governor in his last few months of office, had enjoyed a reputation for discretion during his term; there was never a fight from which he did not back away, quickly and quietly. Wishing to avoid controversy, Governor Mabry called Willard Kruger and asked him to take “Earth” down.

Longley, the artist, knew nothing about it until the local newspaper, the New Mexican, called for a quote. The piece had been on display at the last Fiesta art show without comment. “It is a stylized nude with the face almost archaic,” said Longley, “There is no sex appeal as far as I can see or as far as I intended. That anyone should take objection to it surprises me. The more I think about the matter and the arbitrary way it was handled, the more provoked I get.” The news swept through the artists community like wildfire and, in no time, a small committee of noted Santa Fe artists formed to protest the removal, including John Sloan, Will Shuster and Randall Davey – all artists of national reputation.

The New Mexican covered the growing controversy with undisguised glee, dubbing the challenged panel “Miss Fertility,” a nickname which quickly became so associated with the sculpture that the disputants, ministers and artists alike, began to use the term regularly.

Governor Mabry, faced with competing protests, seemed at a loss. Fortunately, Willard Kruger announced he had personally commissioned and paid for panels at no cost to the taxpayers. This allowed a grateful Governor Mabry to pass the decision to Kruger. The Governor called for a meeting between representatives of the Ministerial Alliance and members of the newly-formed artists’ delegation to try to work out a solution, with the final decision resting with Kruger.

With “Miss Fertility” propped on one wall of the Governor’s conference room, the amiable Governor opened the meeting by announcing he was no art expert and he could see nothing offensive about the disputed sculpture. At his age (Mabry was 65), the Governor said he was "no longer intrigued by the sight of an undressed woman." He noted that his recent issue of Finland’s national magazine (Finlandia) featured several photos of public parks with nude figures. “We all know the Finns are a moral people,” Mabry pronounced.

The two sides lost no time in squaring off. Artist John Sloan declared the Longley sculpture a fine piece of art, adding that all of us now what morality is, but few of us know about art but ignorance of art is no excuse in demanding the plaque’s removal. Randall Davey argued that if nudity were offensive, than most of the world’s statutes would have to come down as would all of Michaelangelo’s best works.

Reverend Brown, speaking for his own church and as president of the Ministerial Alliance, stated that the panel was “suggestive of immorality and indecency.” While it may be fine in museums, such displays did not belong on a public building paid for by tax dollars and where citizens transacted business. The other ministers present – Evangelist Roy R. Bease, Reverend M. E. Waldrum --quickly agreed

“I’m not an art critic,” Brown said. “The only thing I can interpret is morals. As a minister of God I feel that this thing is repugnant on a public building.” Because the female figure on the panel was reclining, Brown maintained the panel was “extremely suggestive.” He rejected Longley’s explanation of the symbolism of the figure, declaring, “Man is fertile and woman isn’t.” Longley responded to this declaration with an expression which, apparently, was not printable in a family newspaper.

Randall Davey said none of the works of the artists present had ever been attacked for being immoral. Will Shuster spoke up, saying none of the artists was as ignorant of morals as Mr. Brown was of art. “Evil be to him who evil thinketh,” quoted Shuster who opined that there was nothing about the “Earth” figure to cause any sensual excitement. Shuster then asked the minister if he got any erotic stimulus out of the plaque. Brown responded, “It’s repulsive and that’s all.”

Artist John Sloan joined in the fray, saying no jury of artists had ever suggested the sculpture was pornographic. “There are other people in the state besides artists,” Reverend Brown replied. “It’s up to us to educate these people,” responded Sloan. The minister shot back, “It’s up to us to educate you.”

Sloan told the attending ministers, “I can show you things in the Bible that would make this look like lemonade.” But the ministers were having none of it. “I can explain morals and you can’t,” Reverend Brown announced.

Throughout the debate, the architect Kruger sat silently until the end when he announced he would give his decision the next day and so the meeting ended. The photographer for the New Mexican, Pen Wilson, paused on his way out of the Governor’s office to snap a picture of a girly calendar posted prominently in the office of State Purchasing Agent H. H. McDaniel. The risqué calendar appeared in the newspaper the next day along with the editor’s comment that, apparently, no dispute had arisen over this particular decorative addition to the state capitol building.

The following day, Kruger told the press that he had decided to remove the controversial panels. Moreover, the panels would be auctioned off, with the proceeds to go to a state children’s hospital. Workmen set to work immediately. Three of the panels came off without difficulty; the fourth refused to budge and had to be removed in pieces.

Longley expressed his disappointment in the move but the other artists felt more strongly about the action. Meeting in the home of Dr. Rudolph Kieve, a number of Santa Fe artists formed a citizen’s committee. Their first official act was to seek a court injunction to prevent the removal of Miss Fertility on two legal theories: first, the removal was a violation of the artist’s constitutionally protected right of free expression; second, because the panel had become attached to a public building, it was the property of the state and Kruger had no authority to remove it. While the Committee sent the proposed pleadings around for review by committee members, the actual terra cotta subjects of the proposed suit were being transported by truck to a warehouse.

Meanwhile, citizens weighed in with opinions in letters to the editor. J. Robert Jones of Los Alamos disagreed that “theological prudery should be permitted to qualify the bounds of artistic expression.” While Jones personally thought the art work in question “looks like hell,” he maintained that “principles were principles.”

Victor F. Allen, also of Los Alamos, pointed out that classical statues and paintings of nudes were among the most acclaimed in the world, singling out “Venus of Milo” as an example. “Nudity,” wrote Allen, “is a state of fact; lewdity is a state of mind.”

Adelina O. Hill wrote that Miss Fertility might be better suited to placement on Kruger’s own modern building on Palace Avenue, recently completed in 1950, than on the “pueblo architecture” of the new capitol building addition. Actually, the new addition was executed in Territorial Revival style and not Pueblo style at all but Mrs. Hill, formerly Ortiz, was a frequent correspondent in The New Mexican. She was among those self-described descendants of “Spanish” conquistadors, quite common in Santa Fe even today, who appoint themselves guardians of the city’s traditions, notwithstanding that the tradition may have been one created wholly for the tourist trade in the 1920’s.

Artist Ely de V. Whitman wrote to suggest that the ministers might find the reclining Miss Fertility more acceptable if the sculpture were placed upright, thus appearing to place Miss Fertility on her knees, a more suitable pose for females among Berean Baptists.

Meanwhile, the artists’ committee which was temporarily formed to protest the removal of Miss Fertility became permanent after a number of prominent artists and professionals met at the Camino del Monte Sol home of Dr. Walter Taylor. The group, now called the Committee for the Preservation of Cultural Freedom, consisted of Gesha Kurakin, Ely de V. Whitman, William and Bernique Longley, Pierre Menager, photographer Wyatt Davis, Lewis Penner, Mrs. Rafael Alfau, Al Rosenfeld, Martin Beck, Will Shuster and its officers, psychiatrist and writer Dr. Rudolph Kieve as president, Dr. Eliot Porter as vice-president, Mrs. Rohn Hawke as secretary and Rafael Alfau, treasurer.

Will Shuster and Oliver La Farge, both of whom wrote weekly columns in the local paper (ostensibly on art and literature), used their soapboxes to sputter against censorship of Longley’s art. The new artists’ Committee for the Preservation of Cultural Freedom took to the airwaves, appearing on KTRC radio, to state their case. Committee president Rudolph Kieve argued that the artist William Longley’s “right of expression” had been infringed upon, a right which should be regarded “in the same light as free speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion. “Censorship by any self-appointed pressure group,” declared the Committee “is incompatible with the principles of American freedom.” There was no rebuttal as the Reverend Brown declined an offer to join the radio debate.

The New Mexican offered another solution, publishing a photo of the contested Miss Fertility panel, altering it so that Miss Fertility sported a bra and a polka-dot skirt. The photo’s caption asked, “How’s this?” for meeting the objections to Miss Fertility’s appearance.

The debate caught the imagination of the nation, with amused articles on Miss Fertility appearing in such diverse publications as New Hampshire’s Portsmouth Herald and Time magazine. But, after a few weeks, the issue died quietly. No more was heard from either the Berean Baptists or the Committee for the Preservation of Cultural Freedom. Sloan, Shuster and Davey continued to enjoy national reputation. William Longley disappeared into obscurity although his wife, Bernique, kept a studio on Camino De Monte Sol and is today a respected fine artist whose prints are still popular.

Tom Mabry left office in 1951 and returned to Clovis to practice law until his death in 1962. In 1952, the capitol addition was largely completed and an auditorium on the north wing of the new building was dedicated to Governor Mabry. Mabry Hall is part of what is now called the Jerry Apodaca Education Building. Below most of the second story windows on that building one can see terra cotta panels or spandrels depicting five distinct bas-relief figures, repeated four times.

Four panels are absent. The panels of “Earth,” or Miss Fertility as the popular press dubbed the art work, have long since disappeared – all but one. Interestingly, art historian Elaine Bergman found one of the panels set into the wall of a garden courtyard of a house on Camino Del Monte Sol purchased by friends in 2002. They were told that the panel was designed by the home’s original owner, William Longley.

These days, while Miss Fertility does not grace the state’s capitol building, she reclines comfortably in the nude, dreaming amid terra cotta corn stalks in the Santa Fe sun, apparently unaware or unconcerned that she was exiled to her garden for the crime of public immorality.

The Legendary Jack Hardy

1940 - The Legend of Jack Hardy

In 1940, everyone in Santa Fe knew young Jack Hardy from a series of articles in the Santa Fe New Mexican. Hardy, 19 and a Santa Fe High School senior, regularly produced articles covering club news, school dances and various assemblies at the High School as a stringer for the newspaper’s Capital Examiner section.

At Santa Fe High School, Jackson Hardy was an ideal student, collecting academic honors while busy with extracurricular activities. Smart, good-looking and popular, Jack would have made his parents proud except that he had no parents. Jack was an orphan and supported himself all through high school through a variety of odd jobs.

At graduation in May 1940, Jack Hardy was among an elite group of students receiving honors for scholastic achievement but Jack Hardy was the only student to win a grand prize – a full four-year scholarship to Harvard University. Within a few weeks, Jack’s singular achievement would pale when the astonishing truth about Jack Hardy was revealed. As it turned out, Jack Hardy did not exist and never did.

Jack Hardy was really Ernest Harding Jackson, a teen-age runaway whose odyssey began at age 14 in Belleville, Illinois. Young Ernest chafed at the limitations at the family farm run by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. James W. Jackson where Ernest and his younger brother Elmer spent long days in labor. One day, as a “prank,” Ernest decided to leave home and make his own way in the world.

He hitchhiked to Clay County, Arkansas where his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Holcomb, ran a small farm. He stayed over a year until a quarrel with his grandparents pushed him to leave.

Around 1938, Ernest headed to Kent, Texas with the intention of becoming a cowboy, even though he’d never even ridden a horse. He got on at a nearby ranch, giving the name of Jackson Harding but the trail boss, half deaf, heard it as “Jack Hardy” and the name stuck. In Texas, Jackson – now Jack Hardy and not yet 17 – tried to get back into high school, taking a job doing housework to earn room and board. After a while, a growling stomach and an itch to travel led him to abandon that plan and head further west.

In the spring of 1939, Jack Hardy wound up in Santa Fe where he took a job as a yard boy for Santa Fe magazine writer Dorothy Thomas. To make ends meet, Jack also worked odd jobs at various cafés, ranches and farms. Thomas inspired Jack to take up writing and, impressed with his work, Thomas wangled a job for Jack reporting school news at the Santa Fe New Mexican where stories under his byline appeared often during the 1939-1940 school year.

The revelations of Jack Hardy’s true identity first appeared in the St. Louis and Belleville newspapers after Jack wrote to his parents telling them of the scholarship and of his intention to visit them that summer. The Jacksons in Belleville, it was reported, were looking forward to the visit.

In the meantime, Jack was preparing to enter Harvard in the fall of 1940 under the name of Jack Hardy, a name he intended to keep. “I wanted to make my own way,” Jack told the New Mexican, “I think I have but now I am glad that the whole thing is out and I don’t have to pretend anymore. I just hope that they won’t take my scholarship away from me.”

There the record ends. No more is heard of Jack Hardy in Santa Fe or New Mexico. Whatever happened to Jack Hardy? Did he go on to complete his education at Harvard? A search of Harvard alumni discloses no Jack Hardy or Ernest Harding Jackson as a graduate after 1940. Was Jack Hardy caught up in a world war after December 1941? A wide search of military records yields no Jack Hardy or Ernest Harding Jackson, at least not one fitting Jack’s description. What happened to Jack Hardy?

The capacity for reinvention is celebrated in America, a nation created by men and women fleeing the limitations of the past, not once but many times as people pushed on to new frontiers. Recall Pilgrims leaving England for religious freedom, Spanish conversos escaping the Inquisition, Irish peasants seeking relief from famine and on and on. Once in America, pioneers pushed further west. One story claims that the slang word “git” originated in the practice of Midwesterners abandoning the family farm for the Texas frontier and scrawling the initials GIT onto fence posts, meaning “Going Into Texas.” F. Scott Fitzgerald once famously claimed that there are no second acts in American lives, but the truth is there are many. Witness, Mr. Fitzgerald, your own Jay Gatz transformed into Jay Gatsby. So too with Jack Hardy, evolving from prairie farmhand to ivy league scholar, a transformation catalyzed by a name change.

Interestingly, an internet search did turn up an Ernest Harding Jackson. This Ernest is an Illinois compiler of dry census information apparently used for genealogical research: The 1840 Federal Census, Winnebago County, Illinois (1975); Marriages of Union County, Illinois, 1818-1880 (1977); Federal Census Index of Union County, Illinois, 1820-1880 (1978); 1860 Federal Cenusu, Winnebago County, Illinois (1983); Marriages of Alexander County, Illinois (1986) and Combined Atlases of Winnebago County, Illinois, 1871-1892-1905: and Atlas of Boone and Winnebago Counties, Illinois, 1886 (1991). Note that Alexander and Union Counties adjoin St. Claire County whose county seat, Belleville, is the birthplace of Ernest Harding Jackson, our Jack Hardy.

Did Jack Hardy at some time abandon his adventurous youth to return to the more sober persona of Ernest Harding Jackson? Is he even now sitting in a quiet Illinois library, gathering dusty data for yet another meditation on nineteenth century census information? Has he, at last, assumed his true identity? Perhaps, like the title character(s) in Oscar Wilde’s play, Jack Hardy has discovered the importance of being Ernest.

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1949 - Shopping List

It was an advertisement in the newspaper that made me curious. Kaune’s Foodtown – an old time Santa Fe grocery store – claimed to be the last locally owned grocery store in the city. Somehow that didn’t sound true. In my lifetime, I had known a dozen or so little grocery stores in as many Santa Fe neighborhoods. Surely not all of them had gone. So I set out to discover the truth.

My method was not particularly scientific. I just picked a year in the past, within my lifetime, and examined easily available records in the form of newspapers, maps and business directories. Then I did the same for this year, 2008. Here’s what I learned.

In 1949, the Santa Fe City Directory listed 68 grocery stores operating in the city. The largest ones advertised regularly in the Santa Fe New Mexican – Safeway on Grant Avenue, Batrite on Lincoln and Paul’s Market on Agua Fria. These stores offered a variety of groceries, meat and produce, employed multiple cashiers and offered free parking but they were far from the big box store model we see today.

A half dozen smaller stores occasionally advertised in the paper, among them Mansion Market and Theo’s Zigzag Groceteria, both on Galisteo; Martinez Market on Agua Fria; Johnny’s Market on Tesuque Street; Larriba’s on Irvine and Jose E. Roybal Store on Canyon road (then called Cañon). The other 55 or so grocery stores never advertised at all. They didn’t have to. They usually knew their customers by name. Their customers were their neighbors.

Most Santa Fe grocery stores were small family operations, selling staples and snacks from behind a counter in a store posted on a neighborhood corner. Dozens, large and small, were located in the thick of Santa Fe’s many small neighborhoods. For example, Tito’s Market served Acequia Madre residents, Frank Ortiz had two stores on Galisteo, Castellano’s and Larriba’s competed for customers at opposite ends of Irvine Street, Gormley’s, Friently Market and Roybal’s vied for the custom of Canyon Road residents and Johnny’s Market on Tesuque served the Indian School area.

Even smaller ones dotted the city streets, most without proper names, simply known by the name of the proprietor – Pete’s on Fayette Street, Lujan’s (or Papatin’s) on Manhattan and Romero’s on Agua Fria. Some stores, the smallest, were simply someone’s house, just a front room with some shelves and a freezer. Their customers were literally their neighbors.

Most neighborhoods enjoyed more than one store. West Manhattan had three stores within 2 blocks; College Street had four grocery stores within 4 blocks; Galisteo had six stores in 6 blocks; seven stores ran the length of San Francisco Street and nine stores were scattered along Agua Fria Street.

Why were there so many stores? Perhaps, some speculate, Santa Feans demanded many stores conveniently located to their homes, because automobiles were scarce. Research reveals that there were between 11,000 and 12,000 motor vehicles registered in the city that year. So there’s a plausible argument that at least some residents apparently walked to the grocery store out of necessity. In any event, only the biggest stores, Safeway, Paul’s and Batrite offered parking. The typical neighborhood store in Santa Fe had little or no space for cars.

Perhaps it was Santa Fe’s size that made many local stores a more desirable economic model. Santa Fe was a small town in 1949. Santa Fe’s estimated population in 1949 was just over 27,000 and the city’s limits were still set at the traditional one league (about 2.6 miles) in each cardinal direction from the Plaza. The stores were concentrated along the major streets – College, Galisteo, San Francisco, Canyon Road and Agua Fria – precisely where Santa Fe’s population was most dense. It would have been convenient for most Santa Feans to walk to the neighborhood store.

Over time, Santa Fe’s population and city limits have grown considerably. Today Santa Fe has a population considerably north of 75,000 and the city limits reach all the way to Airport Road.Most of the grocery stores of 1949 have long gone. Some – like Tito’s Market on Acequia Madre and several on West San Francisco Street -- have reverted to their origins as family homes. Many, like Rocky’s on Alameda or Gormley’s on Canyon Road – are re-purposed as art galleries, shops and offices. A few – like the Pecos Trail Grocery on old College Street – were razed to build parking lots or other structures.

The small local grocery stores gradually disappeared, giving way to the modern big box supermarket and the ubiquitous standardized convenience store. In 2008, Santa Fe has 32 grocery stores, seventeen of which are convenience stores of the Allsup’s or 7-11 variety. That’s less than half the number of stores operating in Santa in 1949.

All very interesting you might say, but what about Kaune’s claim to be the last locally owned grocery store in Santa Fe? Don’t bet on it. Here are the facts.

As it turns out, of all the 68 grocery stores listed in business in 1949, only two have survived the years. One is Kaune’s Grocery, founded in 1896 by Henry Kaune (the same year he introduced Santa Fe to Coca Cola). Kaune’s Grocery was located on the south side of the Plaza in 1949, between J.C. Penney’s and the Spitz Building. Kaune’s did not appear to be locally owned in 1949, as it regularly advertised itself as a “Richelieu” store.

Today, the store -- now called Kaune’s Foodtown -- operates at 511 Old Santa Fe Trail and is locally owned and operated by Santa Fean Cheryl Pick Sommer, lawyer turned grocer. The store has grown since 1949 – 40 employees in 8800 square feet – still offering quality meats, fresh produce and an excellent selection of specialty foods. Kaune’s is a great Santa Fe store but it is not the last locally owned grocery store in Santa Fe.

As it happens, there’s Johnnie’s Cash Store on Camino Don Miguel, a crooked street winding north from San Acacio to Acequia Madre, just east of Camino del Monte Sol. Johnnie’s Cash Store began as a neighborhood store by Johnny and Bertha Armijo in 1946 and it’s been operating continuously ever since. Johnnie’s Cash Store is still a small family operation, less than 1200 square feet in size, just large enough for two aisles and a counter top. Bertha Armijo, in her nineties, still owns it and you’re likely to find one or another of the grandchildren at the cash register. Today, just as in 1949, Johnnie’s Cash Store stills sells bread, milk and Popsicles to its neighbors from behind a worn wooden counter, one of the last locally owned grocery stores in Santa Fe.

List of Grocery Stores in the City of Santa Fe in 1949

Tito’s Market 512 Acequia Madre

Sanchez Grocery 428 Agua Fria

Quintana, Alejandro 606 Agua Fria

Larragoite Grocery & Liquor Store 803 Agua Fria

Park & Shop Market 838 Agua Fria

Castellano Jose C. 929 Agua Fria

El Monte Grocery 1101 Agua Fria

Gonzales, Juvencio A. 1275 Agua Fria

Romero, Richard Box 37 Agua Fria

Castellano Grocery No. 2 Box 43 Agua Fria

Independent Grocery 468 W. Alameda

Rocky’s Super Market 700 W. Alameda

Louis Grocery 531 Alto

Vigil’s Grocery 719 Alto

A & J Grocery 923 Alto

Montoya, Richard 600 Armijo

Rios, Jesus 324 Camino Monte Sol

Roybal’s Store & Bar 656 Cañon Road

Friendly Market 830 Cañon Road

Gormley’s 670 Cañon Road

New Canon Road Grocery 1027 Cañon Road

Duran Trading Post 1136 Cañon Road

Furr Food Stores 537 Cerrillos Road

Indio Mercantile 1908 Cerrillos Road

Wigwam Food Market 1802 Cerrillos Road

Gonzales, Mrs. Nazarena B. 227 Closson

Hillyer’s Grocery & Market 312 College

Health Food Store 316 College

Pecos Trail Store 529 College

Griego’s Grocery 620 College

Foodline, The 601 Cortez Place

H & H Grocery 1001 Don Juan

Johnnie’s Cash Store 420 Don Miguel

Padilla, Sam 410 Don Miguel

Tzeranis, Peter 808 Fayette

Roybal Store, Theo 212-14 Galisteo

M & S Super Market 232 Galisteo

Mansion Market 312 Galisteo

Capitol Food Shop 316 Galisteo

Ortiz Food Store 600 Galisteo

Galisteo Food Market 740 Galisteo

Safeway Stores 123 Grant Avenue

Hillside Grocery 367 Hillside

Manuel Grocery Store 324 W. Houghton

Larribas, prop. Herberger, Thos. 220 Irvine

Cordova, Estevan 539 Juanita

Romero, Lorenzo 204 N. Jefferson

Batrite Food Store 135 Lincoln

D & L Grocery 701 W. Manhattan

Martinez, Antonio 729 W. Manhattan

Lujan, Martin 816 W. Manhattan

Sullivan’s Grocery 308 Montezuma

El Pueblo Grocery 208 Navajo Blvd.

Cash & Carry Grocery 110 E. Palace

Palace Grocery 855 E. Palace

Corner Grocery 880 E. Palace

Moore, Samuel A. Sam St. Torreon Addn

Kaune Grocery 54 E. San Francisco

City Cash Market 207 W. San Francisco

Dependable Meat Market

& Grocery 218 W. San Francisco

Spanish Town Grocery 411 W. San Francisco

Julian’s Food Store 445 W. San Francisco

Santa Fe Camp Ground & Grocery 516 W. San Francisco

Tom’s Grocery 554 W. San Francisco

Ortiz, Willie Store 622 W. San Francisco

Johnny’s Market 320 Tesuque Dr

Medrano, Benito Box 38 Torcido

G & G Super Market 248 W. Water

Johnnie's Cash Store

Notable Events of the Year 1940 in Santa Fe

Jan 7. The new Santa Fe County Courthouse, built by the federal Public Works Administration at a cost of a quarter of a million dollars, is formally dedicated. New Mexico Governor John E. Miles, Supreme Court Justice Dan Sadler and District Judge David Chavez deliver speeches. The new building, designed by Santa Fe architect John Gaw Meem, has 45 rooms and a large, spacious courtroom, to accommodate Judge Chavez and the Court Clerk (Iola Yashvin). County offices include County Clerk (Margaret D. Ortiz), County Treasurer William Thayer), County Assessor (Eduardo Naranjo), County Sheriff (Biterbo Quintana), Superintendent of Schools (J.R. Granito) and the Probate Judge (Julio Ortiz) and an office for the County Commissioners Miguel Leyva, H.L. Taylor and Abedon Lopez.

Jan 21. Santa Fe celebrates the 50th anniversary of the opening of Don Gaspar Avenue. The broad street, now lined with handsome residential dwellings, was named after Don Gaspar Ortiz, a “merchant prince” who ran wagon trains from Santa Fe to Chihuahua and, later, to St. Louis, Missouri. Don Gaspar, whose family lived on the property now occupied by the Montezuma Hotel, donated the land on which the street was built.

Mar 4. Santa Fe weatherman J.A. Rivera reports a record snowstorm with snowfall measuring from 12 to 16 inches. The worst storm in a decade brings down telephone wires, damages trees (including one on the Plaza), closes the airport and strands 70 motorists on the Taos road.

Mar 5. The St. Michael’s College Horsemen sweep the District 2 tournaments, defeating the Santa Fe High School Demons 30-22. Stars for the Horsemen include Buster Hiller, Sammy Ortiz, Tom Irigoyen, Stanley Gallup and Bob Rutherford. After the championship game, Horsemen Coach Stanley Perez announces that the team has been invited to participate in the National Catholic Tournament in Chicago later this year.

Mar 7. Harrington Junior High School presents new uniforms to the 40-member school band. The band, directed by Ernest K. Luce, was using old Santa Fe High School band uniforms of blue capes and caps lined in gold will now wear red and white military uniforms, just in time for their first concert at Seth Hall on May 10.

Mar 8. Henry Dendahl announces the opening of the Coronado Building, formerly the Santa Fe Courthouse, on Palace Avenue across from the hospital. The original building was a brick structure completed in 1886 and rebuilt after a 1909 fire. Remodeled in Territorial style, the building is expected to serve prominent local doctors, including Albert S. Lathrop and G. L. Renfro.

Mar 10. A coalition of republicans and independent democrats offers a full slate of candidates for City offices. Manual Lujan, insurance businessman, president of the Boy’s Club and former county school superintendent, will run for Mayor, leading the “Better Santa Fe Ticket.” Aldermen candidates are N.B. (Nat) Stern, Florentino Ortiz and Charles Batts. Currently, the Mayor of Santa Fe is Alfredo Ortiz and the Aldermen are R. L. Ormsbee, John Chapman, Eleuterio Martinez and Cesario Ortiz.

Mar 11. Raymond P. Sweeney, head of the state’s High School Athletic Association, publicly doubts that St. Michael’s High School’s basketball team can participate in the National Catholic basketball tournament, just weeks away. The Association’s rules bar member teams from playing in out-of-state tournaments. Officials at St. Michael’s College (as it was called in 1940) have no comment.

Mar 13. In a tight thriller, the St. Michael’s College Horsemen defeat the Santa Fe High School Demons, 27-24, to claim their first State Championship. A jubilant parade of cars escorts the team from Las Vegas, site of the tournament, home to Santa Fe.

Mar 20. St. Michael’s College Horsemen withdraw from the state high school athletic association to avoid violating the association’s rule and to allow them to participate in the National Catholic basketball tournament. The announcement is made by Brother Benildus, President of the school.

Apr 1. St. Michael’s College Horsemen take second place in the National Catholic basketball tournament in Chicago, losing to Ft. Wayne’s Central High School, 35-33. The team is welcomed at the Lamy train station by Governor John E. Miles who leads a parade of fans back to Santa where a week’s festivities awaits the team.

Apr 3. Democrats hold on to City Offices, Mayor Alfred Ortiz winning a 162-vote majority. All current Aldermen keep their seats. Losing mayoral candidate Manuel Lujan issues a gracious concession letter.

Apr 5. The Santa Fe High School Senior Class presents “You Can’t Take it With You” to an audience of 600 at Seth Hall. The play is memorable for the realistic set and for James Stumpff, excelling in the role of Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff. Other players include Bobbye Moore, Homer Pierce, Maxine Runyan, Rene McClatchy, Frank Zych (who really can play the concertina) and Pita Sena as the colored maid.

Apr 16. National radio show “Believe It or Not!” is broadcast live from Santa Fe. Host Robert Ripley features bits of New Mexico history, guest speaker Elfego Baca and a tale of Governor Lew Wallace’s dream of silver mines which made two prospectors rich. Baca related that he was once sentenced to 30 days in jail where he happened to be the jailer. As jailer, he earned 75 cents a day for feeding the prisoner – himself, believe it or not!

Apr 17. Father Sidney Matthew Metzger, 37, of San Antonio, Texas is named auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Santa Fe, under Archbishop Rudolph A. Gerken. The youthful bishop trained in Rome, was ordained there in 1926 and taught philosophy before being appointed titular bishop of Birta, a now extinct diocese in Asia Minor, then to his post in Santa Fe.

Apr 30. The City of Santa Fe reports a boom in local building early in 1940. The Immanual Lutheran Church plans a new chapel at the corner of Sheridan and Marcy, Henry Dendahl is building a warehouse at the corner of Manhattan and College streets, L. Peterson is building a house at 324 Sena not far from E.M. Quintana’s new house on Don Diego and Alfonso Baca is building a filling station on West Hickox. Dan Taichert has added to his store on San Francisco Street extending it in the back to Water Street and the Park Laundry building, on East Marcy, is nearing completion, owner George Park announced.

May 2. “Blondie,” Chic Young’s popular comic strip, joins “Nancy,” “Moon Mullins,” “Dick Tracy,” “Little Orphan Annie,” “Li’l Abner,” “Thimble Theater, starring Popeye” and “Gasoline Alley” in the pages of the New Mexican.

May 5. Leah Harvey Junior High School announces the honor roll for the six-week period ending April 17. Top scholars are Phyllis Bailey, Patsy Daly, Lorraine Kempenich, Joan Seligman, Lou Ellen Zent, Joe Barton and Lourdes Armijo. In the regular honor roll are Billy Lakin, Betty Pilkington and Bob Sweeney of the 7th grade, Pauline Duran, Dolores Garcia, Nola Jean Ross, Corrine Salazar, Dolly Mae Spohr and Jane Wiley of the 8th grade and Elaine Andreakis, Frances Anton, Richard Cook, Frank Packard, Edith Parton, Earl Robbins, Gus Rodriguez, Edwin Smith, Margie Wendland and Frank Willard.

May 28. Santa Fe High School graduates 142 students in 1940, the largest class ever. Joseph Byrne is valedictorian and Billy Cartwright is salutatorian. The theme of the commencement will be “Coronado’s Heritage” with three speakers, Dr. Edward Eyring, president of the Normal University in Las Vegas, and three graduating seniors, Gumersindo DeVargas, Betty Jo Moore and James Stumpff.

May 22. The New Mexico state high school athletic association schedules a vote on whether St. Michael’s College is eligible to re-join the association. A month ago, the school withdrew from the state association to join the national Catholic association and enter the national basketball tournament in Chicago.

May 24. Seth Hall is the site for the 1940 Santa Fe High School Junior-Senior Prom, drawing more than 365 students to the music of Bob Sadler’s orchestra. The traditional semi-formal prom was arranged by students Elizabeth Renfrew, Barbara Allgaler, Lloyd Cain, David Salazar and Carolyn Parkhurst.

May 26. Bishop Sidney Metzger of Santa Fe delivers the main address at commencement ceremonies at Loretto Academy. 36 young women gather at St. Michael’s gymnasium to receive their diplomas.

May 27. Santa Fe hosts two Corpus Christi Processions. The morning procession of about 2500 marchers is led by the newly established Christo Rey Parish, Father Daniel Krahe, rector, from the church to the Cross of the Martyrs. The traditional night-time Corpus Christi Procession, numbering more than 4,000 faithful led by Fathers Theodosius, Jerome and Eric of St. Francis Cathedral, marches to the Francisco Delgado altar (Delgado at Canyon Road), then to the Sena altar at Sena Plaza. Thousands of spectators line the sidewalks or watch from the hillsides as witnesses to the annual event.

May 30. St. Michael’s College is ruled ineligible to re-join the state high school athletic association, announces president Raymond P. Sweeney, casting that season’s football schedule into chaos.

Jun 2. The Lensic Theatre celebrates its 9th Anniversary with a selection of hit movies, a giant birthday cake and special ticket prices. Founders Nathan Salmon and E. John Greer take the opportunity to introduce the Lensic staff: Frank Mahboub, manager, Adolph Cantou, operator, Edward “Go Go” Lopez, doorman, Clara Garcia, cashier, Lily Martinez, Head Usherette, Nashie Gutierrez, Ethel Moya and Esther Mascarenas, usherettes and Dan Moya, car lot attendant. Featured movies during the celebration are “My Favorite Wife,” starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, “Irene,” starring Ray Milland and Ann Neagle, “One Million B.C.,” with Victor Mature and Carole Landis and “Waterloo Bridge,” starring Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor.

Jun 28. The year of Coronado opens in Santa Fe with the planning of the Cuarto Centenario entrada led by Jose D. Sena, Jr., playing the part of Coronado. Other principals include Virginia Ortiz as Dona Beatriz and George W. Armijo as the Viceroy Mendoza as well as dozens of Santa Feans in costume in a re-enactment of Coronado’s entry into New Mexico. The program, conducted entirely in Spanish for one night, features real Indians for the Indian parts and Franciscan fathers playing the early padres.

Jun 5. Trustees of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad announce that, after years of running at a loss, the famous “Chili Line” would be abandoned. The narrow gauge train took a 125-mile course along rivers and through mountains from Santa Fe to Antonito, Colorado. Delegations from New Mexico and Colorado are organizing to protest the action at a hearing before the Interstate Commerce Commission to approve the railroad’s abandonment petition.

Jun 6. Christo Rey Church installs a 1500 lb. bell in the new parish church. The bell is six feet high with walls almost five inches thick and is composed of 80% copper and 20% tin. It is a gift of H. L. Brown of 555 Camino del Monte Sol who commissioned its manufacture from a German bell maker in St. Louis.

Jun 8. A twenty year tradition is broken when the game between arch-rivals the St. Michael’s College Horsemen and the Santa Fe High School Demons is cancelled as a result of a 5-1 vote of the state’s high school athletic association barring St. Michael’s from participating in any association-sponsored game.

Jun 10. Soap Box Derby chairman Jim Strosnider opens trial runs on Marcy Street, closed to traffic for the event. Among the early entrants are Buddy Baca driving his “Flying Eagle,” Mike Nevares piloting the “Red Devil” and Art Sena with an unnamed sleek silver racer.

Jul 4. Magers Field hosts more than 11,000 spectators to the City’s annual Independence Day fireworks show. Sponsored by the Lion’s Club, the show included a huge American flag, the Statue of Liberty and a lighted Cross of the Martyrs as well as the largest ever display of skyrockets, Roman candles, bombs and colored lights.

Jul 17. Citizen Roman Garcia complains that dozens of shoe shine boys swarming the plaza pay no taxes and should be prohibited from plying their trade. Mayor Alfredo Ortiz, speaking for the council, determines to do nothing as long as the boys stay out of barbershops, hotels and established shine parlors that pay a $5 occupation tax.

Jul 22. Jesse Urban, a 12-year old Leah Harvey 8th grader, wins the Santa Fe Soap Box Derby. Jesse is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Placido Urban of 617 Don Felix Street. Jesse’s black streamlined racer crosses two blocks of Marcy Street in 30 seconds, inching out second place winner Mike Nevares. Besides a trophy and gold medal, Urban wins an all-expense paid trip to Akron, Ohio to participate in the national Soap Box Derby.

Jul 25. St. Michael’s College Horseman, barred from games with any member of the state high school athletic association, announces an 8-game football schedule beginning Sept. 29 against Texas and Colorado catholic schools.

Jul 30. Margaret D. Ortiz and Maj. Herman Baca, co-chairs of the Fiesta Queen committee, receive candidates for the role of La Reina. Rules require all candidates to be unmarried and native born to Santa Fe. Candidates include Elvira Trujillo and Augustina Catanach, sponsored by La Union Protectiva Mujeril; Lucia Vigil and Victoria Ortiz, sponsored by the Alianza Hispano-Americana 25; Cuca Romero and Flora Romero, sponsored by the Alianza Hispano-Americana 43; Josefina Granito and Beatriz Branch, sponsored by the LULAC Women’s Council; and Adelina Delgado and Dolores White, sponsored by La Sociedad Folklorica.

Jul 31. 19 year old Jack Hardy, recent Santa Fe High School graduate and reporter for the New Mexican, receives a full scholarship to Harvard then reveals that he is really Ernest Jackson Harding who ran away from his Illinois home at 14. After stints on an Arkansas farm and Texas cattle ranch, Jackson took the name Jack Hardy and came to Santa Fe. Supporting himself with odd jobs, Hardy re-entered high school and graduated with honors. Hardy plans to visit his parents in Belleville, Illinois before entering Harvard University.

Aug 15. Cuca Romero is named Queen of the 228th Santa Fe Fiesta. Cuca, whose real name is Juanita, will be joined by Fiesta Princesses Lucia Vigil, Beatriz Branch, Flora Romero and Dolores White. New royal offices this year are Pages Rita and Paula Lucero and Trumpeters Angie Garcia and Adelina Ortiz.

Aug 31. The 228th Santa Fe Fiesta opens with the traditional burning of Zozobra, a 30-foot effigy, said to banish gloom and endow the event with a festive spirit. The Fiesta Queen is crowned as the highlight of the annual La Fonda Roof Show, followed by a “come one come all” ball at Seth Hall.

Sep 1. The 1940 Santa Fe Fiesta continues as Bishop Metzger leads a pontifical procession and high mass in the morning and a candlelight procession in the evening. The formal DeVargas Pageant takes place on the Plaza. Acrobats, street musicians, performing dogs and trained bears share the Plaza with Tio Vivo, a perennial Fiesta favorite. Singing and dancing continues at the La Fonda Roof Show and on the Plaza. Guests at the Conquistadores Ball are treated to a playlet, “The Birthday of the Infanta,” with parts played by Nina Otero-Warren, Jose Sena, Jr., Lorraine Delara, James J. Brennan and Charlotte Greer.

Sep 2. Over 100 entries in the Pet Parade, organized this year by Dolly Sloan, are welcomed back to the Fiesta. There had been no Pet Parade in 1939 but the event returned to the Fiesta schedule in 1940 by popular demand. Children show off their pets, including dogs, cats, one rat, one parakeet, two calves and a stuffed anteater on a cart. The favored entry is Tessie and Dorothy May Gonzales’ decorated cart, a “rabbit prairie schooner.” Dorothy Sosaya, just 2 ½ years old, accompanied by her brothers, Manuel and Edward, was likely the youngest participant in the Pet Parade. Afterwards, the children attack three giant piñatas on the City Hall lawn, with gifts and prizes for every child.

The Hysterical Parade follows, with floats sponsored by Closson & Closson, Capital Pharmacy, Del Rico Creamery, Bishop’s Lodge, La Posada, La Fonda and Handy Lumber and others. Prominent citizens are represented as well: George King, Ellis Bauer, Joe and Theresa Bakos, Don Clauser and Bates Wilson. The Parade features 100 floats including an 1864 stagecoach, an old circus wagon and artist John Sloan as a “blood-drinking Hitler.”

Sep 3. Inmate Bennie Mendez, a prison trusty, fails to check into prison on Saturday night after working at the Governor’s Mansion, a prison guard is sent looking and finds him celebrating Fiesta in a downtown bar. Benny Mendez is back in his prison cell early Sunday morning.

Sep 21. The body of Santa Fe shoe merchant, Richard Elias, 68, is found lodged in rocks on the bank of the Santa River. The body was first spotted by James Henson floating on a flash flood in the Arroyo Mascarenas, behind the Allison-James School. A search party discovers the body about 3 miles south of town. A doctor’s examination reveals that Elias died by gunshot to the head. Police find a suicide note in Elias’ room at the Paul Giers home on Grant Avenue, written in his native Syrian. Police surmise that Elias, known to be despondent, shot himself in a ravine north of town, perhaps the Arroyo Chamisa, and heavy rains caused a flash flood, carrying the body downstream.

Sep 30. The St. Michael’s College Horsemen lose their first game of an unusual football season. Barred from playing schools with membership in the New Mexico state high school athletic association, the Horsemen had scheduled an 8-game season with Texas and Colorado schools. In Denver, the St. Joseph’s Bulldogs defeat the Horsemen, 7-0.

Oct 5. The Santa Fe Board of Education buys two parcels of land on Camino Acequia Madre and negotiates for a third parcel to build a six-room grade school. Board secretary Mrs. Blanche Lucero says plans have already been sent to the WPA to construct a one-story, Santa Fe style building. The new school should relieve the overflow in the only other school in the area, Manderfield school on Upper Canyon road.

Oct 10. Harrington junior high school reports its honor roll. In the seventh grade, Eddie Garcia, Joan Evans, Antonio Fernandez, Pat Hamilton, Patricia Harding, Ira Jean Hathaway, Willie Herrera, Hazel Martinez, Rosemary Robinson, Judy Straw, Doris Thompson and Joyce Wilder. In the eighth grade, Shirley Gust, Paula Odor, Allan Bennett, Jack Bordner, Louis Brown, Burton Dwyre, Jr., Dolores Fernandez, Emily Gomez, Mary Grosvenor, Edward Kaune, Doris Moseley, Margaret Sue Muir, Gloria Padilla, Jennie Varela, Oleta Walker and Opal Wilson. In the ninth grade, Spurgeon Cozart, Robert Shockey, Stella Rodriguez, Francis E. Garcia, Lorraine Ferran, Dorothy Luchini, Helen James Proctor, Phyllis Charles, Earline Hazlitt, Margaret Wolfe, Ella Bynon, Richard Heine, Bernadyne Wallace, Helen Virginia Smiley, Billy Byrne and Martha Ann Barnes.

Nov 8. 3,824 Santa Fe men register for the draft at offices in the federal court building and in the basement of the Supreme Court building. First to receive a serial number from District 1 is Domingo Coriz, 26, truck driver, 637 West San Francisco Street, reports Esther Barton, secretary to the District 1 Board; the first from District 2 is Ralph Ward, Negro.

Oct 26. Governor John E. Miles dedicates and opens the new Santa Fe-Taos Highway, recently completed under the supervision of state Highway Engineer, Burton G. Dwyre. The new paved road generally follows the route of the “old original road” up out of the canyon, thought to be the Taos branch of the old Santa Fe Trail.

Oct 20. Federal Census officials report Santa Fe’s population at 20,325. At the last Census, Santa Fe’s population stood at 11,236.

Nov 15. Albert Gonzales, 27, is admitted to the State Bar in New Mexico following graduation from Georgetown University School of Law. Gonzales, a Las Cruces native, was blinded in a swimming accident as a youth but persevered in his studies to achieve his dream of being a lawyer.

Dec 12. The Trianon Nite Club holds a Grand Opening at a new location 2 miles out on the Albuquerque Highway. The club’s owners, Mr. and Mrs. N. T. Whittington, have completely renovated the former Sunset Inn building for an improved dance floor, modern rest rooms, bar service and check room. Santa Fe’s own Johnnie Hamilton, master of modern rhythm, and his orchestra provide entertainment.

Dec 20. The Mayflower Restaurant on San Francisco Street re-opens after extensive remodeling. Owners Pete and Tom Pomonis (now partnered with Pete Theodore) have engaged the services of Los Angeles chef, Nick Morris, and two expert bartenders as well as The Mayflower Swinging Strings, a four-piece combo under the direction of Paul McCallister, which will be heard regularly in the large private dining room.

Dec 28. Mrs. Bernabe Romero of Anita Place wins first prize of $10 in the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce Christmas lighting contest. Mrs. Carl Bishop of Circle Drive wins second prize of $5 and Mrs. Tom McCurdy of Gomez Road wins third prize of $2.50.

Notable Weddings of 1940. Josephine Wilma Balling and Arthur B. Scott, Lucy Balling and John Davie. Ronnie Gardner and Martha Carnahan, Sally Maestas and Rocky Varela, Baker McPhate and Elaine Rogers, Louise Barton and Edward B. Erekson, Manuelita Herrera and J.J. Romero, Jr., Louise Davidson and Harvey Yates, Loretta Feldhake and Reese Fullerton, Rosana Lujan and Fortino Gutierrez, Wanda Manker and Fred Kinsbrough, Wynona Freeman and Jon Rainer, Geraldine Carter and Stanley Mathis, Consuelo Lucero and Celso Lopez, Jr., Will Prince and Juanita Eva McGuire, Almee Sullivan and Dick Parish, Jane McDonald and Charles Husted, Mary Emily Cummings and Dan Estes, Jack Thompson and Katherine Anderson, C. Phelps Dodge and Eileen Hollis Martindale, Patricia Hurley and Dr. Henry Beall Gwynn, Erlinda Billas and Edward Romero, Mary Medina and Eddie Silva, Louise Trujillo and Ursulo Borrego, Jr., Eugene Valdez and Clara Baca, Mabel Stanton and John Sterrett, Doris Fish and Leonard J. Coyne, Kay Mera and Adj. Gen. Russell C. Charlton, Dorothy Black and Keith F. Quail, Edward Safford, Jr. and Thelma Conn, Peggy Lee and Howard Berliner, Duncan Scott Duncan and Mary Frances Huber, Ellen Elise Armstrong and H. Mannie Foster, Dean McAuliffe and Alene Champ and Lala Romero and Max Ortega.

Notable Deaths in 1940: Esterino Napoleon, Miss Luis Sena, Evaristo Duran, Miss Cora Garish, William W. Harah, Mrs. Almyra E. Brackett, W.H. Livingston, Mrs. Virginia M. French, Mrs. Charles B. Barker. N. Howard Thorpe, Captain James Baca, Mrs. Rose B. Nagle, Stanley Guy Lamoreux, Walter C. Rubeach, Marion Stewart, Richard S. Elias, J. Ashby Davis, Mrs. M.J. Fincke, Ralph H. Bushner, Mrs. Celia E. Hogle, H.H. Malcolm, Mrs. Donald C. Ortiz, M.W. Barrett, Martin Gardesky and others.

1940 - Memoirs of a Santa Fe Taxi Driver

I knew Henry Barbero late in his life. He was a loud, vulgar, devious old bastard who stank of beer and cigarettes. He was boastful, argumentative and obnoxious. Nobody liked the guy but my grandmother Luz, otherwise a sensible woman, married him and – for better or worse – Henry Barbero was family.

Visits with my grandmother in those days were often spoiled because, sooner or later, Henry would act a horse’s ass, then everyone would go home mad. But that changed when I discovered an interesting fact: When he was a young man in the late 1930’s, Henry Barbero was a Santa Fe cab driver. Suddenly, the prickly old coot was interesting to me.

So, during family visits, I spent time with Henry asking questions about Santa Fe in the 30’s and 40’s. And while Henry was so occupied, the rest of the family could have a peaceful visit with my grandmother.

Henry had a surprisingly good memory of Santa Fe in those days. Once, he recited the names of all the businesses operating on Water Street in 1939, one by one. It was nearly poetry. He drove a 1935 Desoto Airstream 4-door sedan for the Santa Fe Cab & Transfer Company, owned and operated by Jack Stacy. The telephone number was 374. The company motto was “Speedy – Safe – Dependable Taxi Service!” I learned a lot of interesting facts like this from listening to Henry Barbero.

The only time his memory truly failed him was when I asked him why he stopped driving a cab. He couldn’t really remember, he said. Then, years later, I ran across an interesting story in the pages of the Santa Fe New Mexican.

Here’s the gist of it:

On March 28, 1939, Henry Barbero was employed as a taxi driver in Santa Fe. While driving his taxi on upper Palace Avenue, he struck and seriously injured two boys, Carl Waller and Billy Fisher. One had to go to the hospital.

Henry was cited for reckless driving, but the charge was quickly bumped up to second offense reckless driving when Henry’s poor driving record was discovered. The new charge was serious, a misdemeanor with a maximum sentence of 6 months in the county jail and a $1,000 fine.

By the time the charges were sorted out, Henry Barbero was an unemployed taxi driver, so he was appointed a local lawyer, Charles Barker, to aid in his defense. Assistant District Attorney Arthur Livingston prosecuted the charges and District Judge David Chavez presided over the legal proceedings. For reasons not apparent in the news accounts, the trial was delayed into the next year.

Finally, on Saturday, January 13, 1940, the trial of Henry Barbero began. Trial was to the court without a jury, so it was up to Judge Chavez to weigh the evidence and return the verdict. Police witnesses included the citing officer, Tom Nicholson, and State Police Captain A.B. Martinez (who testified as to the scientific method for determining rate of travel). Two eyewitnesses, Mrs. R.B. Johnston and Rumaldo Quintana, testified that Barbero was driving erratically and at a good speed when he ran into the two children. Though both had recovered by the time of trial, neither boy testified. The news accounts don’t say, but it doesn’t appear that Henry testified in his own defense. At the end of the trial, Judge Chavez found Henry Barbero guilty and sentenced him to 30 days in jail and a $300 fine.

Ordinarily, that would have been the end of the story. But a few days later, on January 17, 1940, the Santa Fe New Mexican posted an editorial entitled, “Reckless Drivers.” These are the interesting parts:

Probably at no time in recent years did the residents of Santa Fe become aroused about reckless driving as they did nearly a year ago when two youngsters were struck by a taxi driven on East Palace by one Henry Barbero . . .

It developed that Barbero has been in court on traffic counts before. And while awaiting district court trial for reckless driving, he was pinched on a charge of driving without a license . . .

It is not our job to mete out justice but like any citizen, we can voice an opinion. And that is, that Henry, in view of his past record, needed more than 30 days. Reckless driving needs to be stopped and apparently the first time Barbero erred, he wasn’t much impressed by the law. A heavier sentence for reckless drivers seems the obvious answer.

That’s still not the end of the story. This seemingly mild editorial opinion apparently irritated District Judge David Chavez. The judge fired off a letter in response, a letter which appeared in full in an article in the January 18, 1940 New Mexican, headlined, “Chavez Flays Editor of New Mexican.” Excerpts are presented below:

You, Mr. Editor, were not present nor heard the witnesses testify under oath, so that you could have heard both sides of the case, and all of the facts and circumstances. Therefore, whatever information you obtained must have been second hand, or from a biased source.

… I would not reply to your editorial but for the fact that in the Barbero case children were involved, and the writer’s affection and high regard for the welfare of children is well known to the people of Santa Fe, even though you, a new-comer, may not know it.

… As to what sentence you would have given Barbero I am not interested, but for your attitude of haphazardly endeavoring to discredit the court I can only say that I have the utmost contempt.

(A little blustery for general consumption, I think. Still, Judge Chavez’ response had heat, if not much light. As it turned out, the New Mexican really did have a reporter present during the testimony of State Police Captain A.B. Martinez and, as the editor slyly pointed out, the same reporter was present and waiting during the court’s two-hour lunch recess. And the “newcomer” business was a jab at Frank Rand who had only recently purchased the New Mexican. Chavez was leader of the Democratic Party in Santa Fe; Rand was a Republican. And reading the last part, about haphazard endeavors made my head hurt.)

Now, that’s the whole story.

Henry Barbero injured two kids, was convicted of a misdemeanor and went to jail for a month. To boot, he touched off a lively front-page exchange between the editor of the New Mexican and a sitting district judge. That was big news in Santa Fe in 1939. It’s puzzling that Henry didn’t remember any of this.

Thinking back on it now, I can only conclude that when I asked Henry Barbero why he quit driving cabs and he said he didn’t remember, Henry was not telling the truth.

Eloise Kennedy - Blonde Beauty

Louis Young - Maniac Slayer

1945 - Maniac Slayer Knifes Blonde Beauty

In 1945 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on the corner of Grant and Bowers Streets, were the Twitchell Apartments. Built in classic pueblo style, the comfortable apartments were arranged around the street corner in an L shape so that each resident’s back door opened onto a partly walled-in common court. The arrangement made for close neighbors who knew each other by name. On the Grant side, there was Frank Flanagan, a superintendent at the Santa Fe Builders Supply Company, and his wife Betty, Al Thorwaldsen, operator of Fiesta Fashions, and his wife Jean, who worked at Boyles Flower Shop on the Plaza. On the Bowers side, there was Leslie Murphey, librarian at the Palace of the Governors, Leon G. “Bud” Kennedy, a teller at the First National Bank, and his wife Eloise and one celebrity resident, Frank Young, Chief of the New Mexico State Police.

Several miles away, within the walls of the New Mexico State Penitentiary, there resided inmate Louis Young, 44, a “tall, lanky Negro,” who spoke slowly and with a Texas drawl. He was serving a ten-year term for an armed robbery committed in 1943 during which he tied an Albuquerque woman to a chair and threatened her with a hatchet in order to separate her from $110. This was Louis Young’s fourth prison term. The first three were for burglaries in his hometown of Houston, Texas.

In January of 1944, Louis Young began his sentence at the New Mexico penitentiary and just six weeks later, Warden John B. McManus awarded Young with trusty status. He was assigned to work as a janitor at State Police headquarters under the general supervision of State Police Chief Frank Young (no relation).

It was a familiar and frequent practice at the penitentiary for the warden to “farm” out convicts for labor. Under a statute first written in territorial days, state prisoners were required to labor and the warden was given almost unlimited discretion in determining what that labor might be. Early on, prisoners labored mostly on road gangs but by 1945, prisoners worked at “industries” within the walls (at the prison’s own dairy, for example) or outside the walls as assigned by the warden. Over the years, it became customary for the warden to provide prison labor to especially favored government officials.

The practice came under fire in 1944 when the local newspaper, The Santa Fe New Mexican, reported that a crew of convicts was used to help resurface the driveway at Governor Dempsey’s private home in Santa Fe. The editor declared himself shocked to learn, from an Attorney General’s ruling on the point, that this sort of thing was “not unlawful.” The editor was much more comfortable, however, in early 1945, when the City of Santa Fe negotiated with the new warden, Howell Gage, for the use of convict labor in the first post-war street improvement projects. In that instance, the deal was “lawful” since state law specifically authorized the use of prison labor to “work on streets, alleys, roads and bridges in and near Santa Fe.”

[Interestingly, no other city, town or village in New Mexico has this same privilege to call upon the warden for laborers – only Santa Fe. Under the original 1889 law, Santa Fe could use prisoners not only for road work but for “quarrying and hauling stone and also in securing, bettering and protecting the banks of the Santa Fe River. . .”)

By the warden’s long custom, one trusty worked as the warden’s chauffeur, others maintained the grounds at the New Mexico Supreme Court and at the Governor’s Mansion. Many more were assigned as “porters” to important state officials – like the Chief of the New Mexico State Police. Such a trusty was Louis Young, driven by police car to State Police headquarters on Cerrillos Road to work during the day, and then driven back to the Penitentiary in the evening.

Over the months, State Police Chief Frank Young fell into the habit of ordering Louis Young to the Chief’s own Bowers Street apartment for housework. By summer of 1945, Louis Young worked for the Chief and his family at the apartment on Bowers Street three or four times a week. Generously, Chief Young often loaned out his “houseboy” to the neighbors, including the Kennedys and the Flanagans. So, by November 1945, the “tall, lanky Negro”, dressed in plain overalls, was a familiar sight at the quiet Twitchell Apartments.

On November 19, 1945 Louis Young had finished his morning chores at the Chief’s apartment and was assigned to wax the floors at the Flanagan apartment that afternoon. Betty Flanagan would later say that she thought Louis Young had done a good job on the floors. At 5 o’clock, Louis Young called for a ride to the penitentiary where he ate his dinner and went to bed in his cell as usual.

***

Eloise Kennedy was not yet 23, when she and her husband, Bud, moved to Santa Fe from Denver. Bud, a member of a prominent Denver banking family, married young Eloise Cannon just before entering the Army in 1942. After discharge from the service in 1944, Bud and Eloise took up residence on Bowers Street, while Bud worked for the First National Bank as a teller. In mid-September 1945, Eloise gave birth to a baby girl, Lynne Gray, and cared for the child at home. The birth had been difficult and, five weeks later, Eloise was still frail.

That afternoon, about 2 p.m., she called Bud at the office to tell him she had spoken with Dr. R.B. Coombs about the baby and that she, herself, would visit the family dentist, Dr. Renfro, that afternoon about a toothache. Around 2:30 p.m., Betty Flanagan knocked at the Kennedy door but no one answered. She opened the unlocked door and walked inside, softly calling for Eloise. Hearing nothing, Mrs. Flanagan left to town on errands. At about 4:30 p.m., another neighbor, Mrs. Clifford Hall, knocked at the door but received no response to her calls. At 5:30 p.m., Bud Kennedy came home and discovered his child resting quietly in her crib and his wife sprawled on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood.

He immediately called for help, then applied cold compresses to his wife’s face in hope of reviving her. He assumed that Eloise, still weak from the birth of their child, had hemorrhaged. He did not notice that her blouse was ripped and her blue jeans were torn.

City police officers arrived along with Dr. Coombs who had also been called by Bud Kennedy. Dr. Coombs briefly examined the body and determined that Eloise Kennedy, 23 years old, had been dead for more than three hours. While the neighbors comforted Bud Kennedy, a police unit transported the infant to St. Vincent hospital for care. For some reason unexplained in the newspaper accounts of these events, there was no ambulance or funeral car called. Instead, police officers placed Eloise Kennedy’s body in the back seat of a patrol car and, in this way, transported the body to Memorial Chapel, the funeral home operated by Preston McGee.

At Memorial Chapel, Dr. Coombs undertook a closer examination of the body of Eloise Kennedy and made a ghastly discovery. Eloise Kennedy had not died of a hemorrhage. She had been stabbed eleven times in the neck, chest and shoulder, at least one thrust severing her jugular vein. The body showed bruising and an injury to the vagina, a small cut with some bleeding. Her blue jeans were torn from the waist to the right knee.

The police were called and, after conferring with Dr. Coombs, a team of officers returned to Bowers Street to search the area and question the neighbors. A search produced no weapon and questioning of the immediate neighbors produced no significant leads. The police, as the newspaper was later to say, were completely baffled.

***

The following morning, the local newspaper headlines shouted that the police were hunting a “maniac slayer” and carried the story of the murder of “blonde beauty” Eloise Kennedy with grisly details. Santa Fe police chief Manuel Montoya gratefully accepted an offer of help in the investigation from the Kennedy’s neighbor, State Police Chief Frank Young and his top deputy, A.B. Martinez. Physical evidence was gathered from the scene – bloody clothing, some black hairs found in Eloise Kennedy’s hands, nail scrapings, blood samples – for shipment to an FBI lab. All activity at the Bowers Street apartments on the afternoon of November 19, 1945 was tracked. A delivery boy from Capitol Pharmacy saw nothing when he came by. A neighbor, Albino Rivera, saw a man park his car on the street in front of the Kennedy car and emerge with a briefcase. Two men from Broome’s Furniture Store delivering tables and chairs to the Thorwaldsen apartment around 3 or 3:30 p.m. met a man coming out of the back yard. He had a full beard and wavy black hair, they told police, adding that the man was “rather foreign-looking, maybe an Italian.” The leads went nowhere.

At 3:00 p.m. on the afternoon of November 20, 1945, a formal inquest at Memorial Chapel was called on the death of Eloise Kennedy. After testimony from a tearful Bud Kennedy, the police and the neighbor, Betty Flanagan, Louis Young appeared as a witness. In a soft voice, he testified that he spent the entire afternoon at the Flanagan apartment waxing the floors. Although he knew the neighbors well, including Eloise Kennedy whom he referred to as ”Miss Eloise,” he knew nothing useful. The inquest closed with a determination of homicide “by an unknown person or persons.”

The following day, police investigation continued. Panicky citizens called in numerous tips of shady characters, rowdy hoodlums and peeping Toms, keeping the police busy. Then came a significant break in the case. While playing in the arroyo north of the Bowers Street Apartments, a 13-year old neighbor boy named John Steel, found a butcher knife with a bent and bloody blade in a pile of leaves. At some point, the record does not reveal exactly when, State Police Chief Frank Young saw the murder knife and recognized it as one of a set kept in his own kitchen. The last time he had seen it, a week earlier, Louis Young was using it to quarter a hog on the kitchen table.

About 10:30 p.m., State Police Captain A.B. Martinez, Assistant District Attorney Albert Clancy, the DA’s investigator Eddie Mack and Santa Fe Police Chief Montoya arrived at the State Penitentiary with a request to interview Louis Young. Louis Young was awakened and taken from his cell to an “inner” room at the prison by guard W. L. McDonald (and, incidentally, the warden’s father-in-law). There, (according to police accounts) Louis Young was advised of his rights and questioned by Bert Clancy for forty minutes about the Eloise Kennedy killing. Louis Young steadfastly denied any knowledge of the crime.

In a dramatic display, the Chief’s set of butcher knives – minus one – was laid on a table before Louis Young and he was asked if he had ever seen them. He denied it. Then Chief Frank Young himself entered the room for the first time and placed the bloody knife on the table. Louis Young looked at the knife, hesitated, then said “I did it, I will tell you all about it.”

Over the next hour, Louis Young answered detailed questions about the murder of Eloise Kennedy while Captain A.B. Martinez typed. Sometime after midnight, the completed statement was read to the illiterate Louis Young who signed it.

Not yet aware of the early morning confession, the local newspaper reported only that evidence in the Kennedy murder had been sent to the FBI but that the police were stalled in their hunt for the killer. The editor of the New Mexican spoke for the community:

The shocking murder of one of Santa Fe’s most charming young women has brought a justified public demand that everything humanly possible be done to bring her slayer speedily to justice.

The case is initially one of the most baffling in New Mexico history. There are few tangible clues. Patience and perseverance are indicated for both public and officials, but every possible effort must be exerted.

For one important thing, the multiplicity of state, district, county and city agencies now working on the case should continue to operate in complete harmony and co-operation.

There should be no hesitancy in sharing information which might lead to the revelation of new clues and speedy capture of the criminal. It makes no difference who breaks the case; the important thing is that it be broken.

Meanwhile, the heartfelt sympathy of every Santa Fean goes out to the family and friends of Mrs. Kennedy.

Later that day, the New Mexican learned of Louis Young’s confession and published an extra edition with banner headlines: “Killer Confesses” and “Negro Convict Admits Knifing Blonde Beauty.” The accompanying story contained only a few details of the confession itself since Assistant District Attorney vowed to keep it secret until the trial. Secret confession or not, enough lurid detail emerged from various sources to fill several columns in the local paper. This is essentially what the well read Santa Fean knew three days after the crime:

Sometime after 1 p.m. on November 19, Louis Young, carrying the knife from Chief Young’s kitchen in his overalls, went to the apartment of Eloise Kennedy. There, the convict propositioned the young mother for sex. When she refused him and indicated she would tell on him, Young furiously stabbed her to death. An apparent attempt at rape was abandoned when someone, likely Mrs. Flanagan, entered the houseand called for Eloise. Young fled at the first opportunity and went to the Flanagan apartment, as he was assigned, to wax the floors. Initially, Louis Young had never been considered a suspect in the murder. In fact, he was called as a friendly witness at the inquest, impressing observers as quiet and polite.

The next day, Thanksgiving Day, the newspaper exposed another bombshell. For the first time Santa Feans learned that the very knife used to kill Eloise Kennedy came from Chief Frank Young’s own kitchen. The Chief had no comment for the newspaper. He was already at his desk, composing a letter of resignation he would tender to Governor Dempsey by the end of the week.

***

The shocking murder and the revelation that it was likely committed by a Negro convict running loose in the streets was stunning to Santa Fe. But, the more resilient of Santa Fe citizens soon overcame their shock and began looking for someone to blame, other than a killer Negro convict. And there were more than the usual suspects available for blame.

For months, the community had grumbled that police protection in Santa Fe was inadequate, a state of affairs both Mayor Manuel Lujan and the Police Chief could not deny. Chief Montoya woefully admitted that, at any given time of the day, only four police officers were available to patrol the entire city (22,000 residents within 36 square miles). In the months before the murder, Santa Fe citizens had regularly complained about youthful hoodlums, unrestrained speeders and downtown drunks, always questioning the absence of police on patrol.

For a City already fearful of criminals at loose, the effect of the murder of Eloise Kennedy was galvanic. Just days after the killing, over 800 citizens gathered at Seth Hall with the purpose of drafting a proposal to improve police protection within the City. Most speakers referred to the Eloise Kennedy murder as they went on to offer solutions to the police problem. Alice Howland, operator of the local Youth Center, urged attention to juvenile delinquents. (Interestingly, a few months later, 900 members of the 1125-member Youth Center walked out, citing the danger from gangs.] Cy Hess argued for better street lighting (“Get us out of the Dark Ages” was a constant refrain in his letters to the editor.) Chamber of Commerce President Norman Shenk declared he would write a letter to J. Edgar Hoover to get help from the FBI. Interestingly, Hoover replied and assigned an Albuquerque agent to offer training to the City’s police officers. More than a few citizens suggested armed vigilante patrols. Over the next several weeks, the citizens met three more times with the final meeting (as the New Mexican ruefully noted) drawing only 45 participants.

The group’s Committee of Ten presented a seven point program to the City, which called for more patrolmen (from 18 to 30), better trained officers, higher salaries, three more squad cars, radios, guns, even a strait jacket – about $45,000 of improvements in all. Prominent citizens, to show their zeal, pledged personal funds for the effort. Eventually, over the next two years, the City began a measured process of increasing business and liquor licensing fees to raise the revenue to pay for more officers and equipment.

At every community meeting – whether at Seth Hall or the City Council – the subject of the Eloise Kennedy murder was raised. Citizen Margaret Gronert wrote a letter to the editor expressing the view of many:

If out of the awful calamity that has befallen Santa Fe, a strong organization of decent citizens is formed, then a young woman will not have been martyred in vain. New Mexico history is replete with the names of martyrs. It seems a pity that in this day and age another martyr is sacrificed to bring about a needed reform. Let us ignore party politics and band together the good people from all parties as a new non-political organization that transcends cheap politics and assumes a guardianships of New Mexico for decent New Mexicans.

Not all citizens were so high-minded. One writer to the New Mexican , Mrs. C.M. Jaramillo, revealed what many had “been itching to say for years, or have been saying it just among ourselves” – that most of the crime in the City of Santa Fe was the work of Negroes and, of course, speeders. Mrs. Louise Sebastian, self-described crusader, suggested that meat and milk should be inspected more closely, without fully explaining how police protection might be thereby improved.

The editor of the New Mexican blamed Governor Dempsey who had been warned by the newspaper that the use of convicts on private projects was immoral, even if no laws were broken.

In the case of Louis Young, it is fair to note that convicts are confined primarily to prevent their continued depredations on law-abiding society. If they are permitted to roam at large, unsupervised, they must just as well not be ordered confined in the first place.

While the Governor was quick to accept Chief Young’s resignation and declare that he was “horrified” by the Kennedy murder, his actions, according to the editor, were too little, too late.

To make matters worse, the Attorney General ruled that the warden had no legal obligation to open prison records to public scrutiny. This turn of events infuriated the local newspaper, which issued at least four editorials that condemned, among other things, the protection of inmate records at the expense of the public safety.

Meanwhile Governor Dempsey, apparently unaware of the irony, joined the citizens of Santa Fe in calling for an investigation of the use of convict labor for private projects. John F. Simms, chairman of the Board of the State Penitentiary (and, later, Governor of New Mexico from 1955 through 1957) advanced specific reforms, including the rewriting of the laws pertaining to prison labor.

Simms disclosed that Warden Gage had been reprimanded in one case where he loaned a prisoner to his father-in-law (the same W.L. McDonald who was employed as a guard at the Penitentiary) for use on the family sheep ranch near Santa Fe. But the reprimand was not for the use of convict labor on a private project – the Attorney General had already determined that was “not unlawful.” Nor was the warden reprimanded for transporting the prisoner in a state car driven by the warden’s chauffeur, another trusty. The reprimand was for the warden’s failure to provide a guard for the two prisoners as they made their trip to the sheep ranch.

Just weeks after the Kennedy murder and while the prison scandal was unfolding in the press, another prisoner, Lester King – serving 25 years for armed robbery – escaped. He left in a penitentiary truck after delivering materials to the prison-owned clay pit in Lamy. (One of the prison’s most profitable industries in 1945 was the making of fired brick for construction purposes, mostly in Santa Fe homes.) King was captured after more than three days on the run. Santa Feans howled for the Warden’s head but Gage (a powerful politician who would go on to be a delegate to the 1948 Democratic National Convention) weathered the storm.

Meanwhile, the interest of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had been aroused by the Louis Young case and representatives visited the convict in his prison cell. Ultimately, the group did not enter the case although a NAACP lawyer, William T. O’Sullivan, recommended that a psychiatrist examine Young.

***

Louis Young appeared, in chains and without an attorney, for arraignment on the murder charge on December 20, 1945 before District Judge William J. Barker. When Judge Barker offered to appoint him counsel, Young said, “Whatever you all do, I ain’t got no say-so.” Barker appointed prominent Santa Fe attorneys Fletcher Catron and Frank Andrews. Catron promised a good defense although he admitted all he knew of the case came from the newspapers. At an unannounced hearing before Judge Barker on January 5, 1946, Louis Young, accompanied by his new lawyers, entered his plea of “not guilty.” Young’s lawyer, Fletcher Catron, also waived preliminary hearing. District Attorney David Carmody announced that he would ask the jury to impose the death penalty.

Catron and Frank Andrews promptly filed a motion to move the trial to McKinley County, on the basis that the local press had inflamed the citizens of Santa Fe and no fair jury could be found in the City. The District Attorney quickly conceded the motion. Judge Barker moved Louis Young, in shackles and leg chains, from the Penitentiary to the McKinley County Jail in Gallup in preparation for trial there on February 19, 1946.

Jury selection in Gallup was brisk. Forty potential jurors were called. The State struck two for good cause, the Defense, one. Seven more were excused by peremptory challenges, challenges for which no cause need be stated. Judge Barker seated twelve regular jurors and one alternate. On the opening day of trial, those jurors heard an opening statement from DA David Carmody who told the jury to expect hard evidence of cold-blooded murder, including the killer’s own words. Neither Fletcher Catron nor Frank Andrews offered an opening statement for the Defendant. Louis Young sat quietly, chain-smoking, and observed the proceedings.

Leon G. Kennedy, Jr., the grieving husband, was called as the state’s first witness. He related the events of November 19, 1945 with undisguised emotion. The husband was respectfully and only briefly cross-examined. Deputy Chief A.B. Martinez recited the chain of custody as the basis to introduce the physical evidence, including items sent to the FBI for examination. Then came the scientists, bearing laboratory results to prove that human blood was found on both the murder weapon and on Louis Young’s pants and under shorts. Young’s lawyers responded by repeatedly pointing out that the body had been removed from the apartment to the funeral home in the back seat of a police car, thus irreparably contaminating the so-called “scientific” evidence. One result of the lab tests was surprising: the wiry black hairs found in Eloise Kennedy’s hands at death was not Louis Young’s. They belonged to the Kennedy family terrier.

Former Chief Frank Young testified, then Dr. Coombs who testified, to visible reaction from the jury, that a recent injury to Eloise Kennedy’s vagina could have resulted from an attempted rape. Others told their parts in the tale: Preston McGee, the funeral director; Frank Flanagan, the neighbor; even little Johnny Steel, the 13-year old who found the murder weapon.

On the next day of trial, over the objections of defense counsel, Louis Young’s confession was read to the jury. In his confession, Young admitted that he went to the Kennedy apartment after the Flanagans had left him waxing the floor. There, Young and Eloise Kennedy were talking:

Q: What were you talking about?

A: About Work

Q: What did you then do?

A: She went into the bathroom.

Q: Then what did, if anything, happen?

A: I asked her for a date

Q: What do you mean by a date?

A: Going to bed.

Q: What did she say?

A: She said she was going to tell on me.

Q: What did you then do?

A: I got scared and stabbed her.

Young had carried the knife from Chief Young’s kitchen with him when he went to the Kennedy apartment. While he denied any intention of rape, he admitted that he tore Eloise Kennedy’s clothes but then he heard someone enter the apartment and he fled. He returned to the Flanagan apartment and finished waxing the floors, then called a police unit to take him back to the penitentiary. As to his motive:

Q: Louis, tell me why did you do this?

A: I don’t know – just what come up in my mind. I do not . . .

Q: But when you went over there, you had definite intentions, did you not?

A: Yes, sir. I figured I would get some, that she would let me, but I did not figure on hurting her.

Young’s lawyers vigorously objected to the admission of Louis Young’s confession because, they claimed, the confession was given involuntarily, out of fear of police violence and out of love for Chief Frank Young and his family. Young’s lawyers further argued that Louis Young was also physically exhausted, having been awakened late at night and grilled through the early morning. Finally, the lawyers concluded, Louis Young was illiterate and could not know what he was signing. Nevertheless, Judge Barker admitted the confession into evidence.

Louis Young took the witness stand once at his own trial, during the motion to suppress the confession, but that testimony was heard without the jury present. The jury never actually heard Louis Young speak.

On the last day of trial, the jurors received closing arguments in the morning and withdrew to consider their verdict, emerging after just two hours of deliberation with a verdict that Louis Young was guilty of first-degree, malicious and deliberate murder. Minutes later, Louis Young stood before Judge William Barker to receive his sentence: death by electrocution on April 23, 1946. He made this brief statement:

I am here to suffer a penalty. I am not guilty. You will find in the Bible that all vengeance belongs to God.

As he was led out of the courtroom, Louis Young burst into a Negro spiritual.

The editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican had this to say:

Not Vengeance

It is not vengeance which society seeks in the case of Louis Young, although there are few people who can avoid feeling a desire for revenge against the killer of Santa Fe’s charming young matron, Mrs. Eloise Kennedy.

In decreeing the death penalty for Louis Young, society asks not vengeance, but protection. A horrible crime has been committed. A swift, sure sentence of death will put the perpetrator where he can murder no more, and will deter anyone else who might be tempted to a similar crime.

Although the case probably will be appealed, no one familiar with it now doubts that justice was done.

Young was given a fair trial, before an impartial jury. He repudiated his earlier confession, but failed to convince the court that it had been obtained under duress. The case boiled down to his unsupported denial, in the face of much direct and circumstantial evidence that he was the killer.

His defense attorneys, both of them able and respected in their profession, made as good a case as they could have, under the circumstances. They just didn’t have much to work with.

It is no defense for Louis Young, to point out that the crime never would have occurred if those responsible for his safe-keeping acted otherwise than they did.

Those people were not on trial, and they cannot be brought to trial, because what they did – or did not do – was not against the law.

Society has been fair to Louis Young. But it seeks protection against such crimes as he has been convicted of committing.

It can gain a measure of protection by invoking quick justice against an individual killer. It can gain a greater and more lasting protection by revising the state’s prison code to provide assurance that known potential murderers cannot roam unguarded.

There is no conflict between such a law and one providing for the utmost efforts to rehabilitate convicts. Modern prison law does both. New Mexico’s law is antiquated and inadequate.

With financial support from “a group of Negroes from Albuquerque” interested in Young’s case, Fletcher Catron filed an appeal with the New Mexico Supreme Court. Gilbert Espinosa, an Albuquerque lawyer, was hired to carry Louis Young’s appeal. The appeal triggered an automatic stay of execution on April 20, 1946, just three days before the original execution date. The slow process of appeal began.

***

On March 19, 1947 – almost a year after Louis Young first filed his appeal – the Supreme Court issued its opinion. See State v. Young, 51 NM 77, 178 P.2d 592 (1947). Chief Justice Brice, writing for Justices Lujan and Sadler and District Judge Luis E. Armijo, sitting by designation. The State’s Attorney General, C.C. McCulloh, Assistant Attorney General Robert W. Ward and Santa Fe’s District Attorney David Carmody argued the case for the State. Fletcher Catron and Frank Andrews appeared along with Gilbert Espinosa for Louis Young.

The appeal raised a number of interesting points, most only of interest to the lawyer, but, the opinion is notable in reciting the facts of the case at some length, including the circumstances of Louis Young’s midnight confession. According to Young, he was never told he could have a lawyer. For hours, he was cajoled, threatened and tricked into a confession. First the interrogators worked on his love of Chief Frank Young and his family; then they waved their arms in a way he thought threatening and then they tricked him by telling him there were two witnesses ready to say they saw him coming out of Eloise Kennedy’s apartment at the time of the murder. By this time, Young was tired, feeling sick and he gave the police the confession they wanted.

If you want me to tell you a story I can tell you one and you all write it down, but some day somebody will read it and find out I did not do it. I say, ‘Of course there is nothing for me to do. I don’t know what you all is going to do with me, but if it will please you all I will say you it.’

When Louis Young was confronted with the bloody knife by his former employer, Chief Frank Young,

I sat there and looked at the knife. I did not know what to say because I knowed I had not used it, but did not know what they was going to do to me if I did not answer the question like they wanted me to, from the way they had been talking to me, and I say ‘I reckon I did,’ and I got these words to face now and press my dying pillow.

On that issue, the Supreme Court ruled that the confession was properly admitted because the circumstances of the Louis Young case weren’t any worse than other cases they’d seen pass constitutional muster in other states.

The most interesting discussion in the opinion concerns whether there was evidence of “malice aforethought,” the legal term at the time to describe the modern requirements for first degree murder: deliberation and premeditation in the intent to kill. The Supreme Court first noted that Louis Young went to Eloise Kennedy’s apartment to ask her “for a date,” by which he meant “going to bed.” She refused him. Young said, “I figured I would get me some, that she would let me, but I did not figure on hurting her.” But that, according to the Supreme Court, was obviously false:

He was a Negro convict and must have realized that it was so improbable the deceased would submit herself to him, that to accomplish his purpose he would almost certainly have to resort to force. He weighed these possibilities and determined that he would rape her (unless, as a remote possibility, she would submit), and then slay her.

The Supreme Court affirmed Louis Young’s conviction for first-degree murder and reinstated the order for his sentence of death by electrocution. No further appeal was filed. The new date set for Louis Young’s execution by the electric chair was Friday, June 13, 1947.

Louis Young, on death row for more than a year, seemed resigned to his fate. He told an AP reporter, “If the good Lord is ready for me to go, I’m going. If he isn’t, I ain’t.” Re-baptized into the Baptist Church while his appeal was pending, Louis Young had found comfort in religion. “The lawyers, everybody, have done all they can for me,” he was quoted in the New Mexican as saying (with a grin), “I’m in fine spirits. No need of worrying now.” Louis Young occupied his final days with praying, reading from his Bible and singing old hymns or Negro spirituals.

On June 13, 1947, Santa Fe New Mexican editor, Will Harrison, visited Louis Young in death row, hours before his scheduled electrocution. “Louis Young looked at death today and grinned,” wrote Harrison, “the 47-year-old man talked with ease to a reporter and a made a joke of what will happen to him at a minute past 12 tonight.” Young still maintained his innocence in the killing of Eloise Kennedy. He seemed reconciled to his fate, saying, “I’ve got to pay anyway so I ain’t letting it worry me.”

Despite some talk of reprieve, the Governor (Tom Mabry in 1947) publicly stated he would take no action in the Louis Young case. In any event, Young’s lawyers had made no request for clemency.

As was customary in the newspaper reporting of these matters, Louis Young’s last meal was described in detail:

Young, of lanky figure and easy posture, intoned Negro spirituals in his cell between feasts of ham and eggs for breakfast, rolled beef roast, baked corn, potatoes buttered peas and cake, for lunch, and on the final meal tonight, fried chicken, giblet gravy, French-fried potatoes, asparagus tips, fresh strawberries, with whipped cream. “I ain’t very hungry,” Young said, grinning, “but I’m eating it all and liking it.”

Just before midnight, Louis Young walked to the electric chair, singing a favorite spiritual, “Use Me Lord, In Thy Service” in a strong baritone voice. The warden interrupted his singing to ask, "Louis Young, you are about to be executed by the State of New Mexico. Do you have anything to say." Young replied, "No, I ain't, Mr. Gage. I've done said all I'm going to say. I'm going innocent. I ask God to take me into his kingdom. God take my soul." A leather mask was then put over Louis Young's head and the executioner sent three 40-second shocks through Young's body. At seven minutes past midnight, on June 13, 1947, Louis Young was declared dead.

Notes: Long-time residents of the City of Santa Fe know this story and many of the people and places mentioned. So I provide the following notes only for the newcomer:

1. In 1945, Bowers Street was a short tangent off the northwest curve of the Federal Oval, a dead end lane less than 100 meters in length, across the Arroyo de Las Mascaras from Rosario Street. Bowers Street no longer exists. It disappeared during the construction of the City’s inner-city loop, called Paseo de Peralta, in 1969.

2. The Twitchell Apartments were converted to offices sometime in the 1960’s. Currently, the main building is occupied by Sotheby’s International Realty with its address as 326 Grant Avenue.

3. Leon G. “Bud” Kennedy, Jr. left Santa Fe almost immediately after the murder of his wife and moved back to Denver. As far as I know, he never visited the City again, except to attend the trial and, later, the execution, of Louis Young. His father, however, was a national banking figure and had at least one occasion to visit Santa Fe. The brief society item that noted his visit also mentioned the tragic murder of Eloise Kennedy.

4. Santa Fe Builder’s Supply Company, the employer of Frank Flanagan, was known then as Sanbusco. Now it is Sanbusco Market Center, a retail shopping emporium. To answer the typical tourist question, the Center is not named for a saint. Sanbusco is a shortened version of the words, Santa Fe Builder’s Supply Company.

5. Warden John B. McManus eventually became Chief Justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court (1971-1979). Nicknamed “Blackjack” McManus, he had a reputation as a gambler and had a regular table at the Palace where he and his cronies played “Stacko,” a game involving stacked coins.

6. Warden Howell Gage held a number of political appointments before becoming warden in 1945. Previously, he had been a State Corporation Commissioner.

7. Drs. Coombs and Renfro maintained offices at the nearby Coronado Building, as did most of Santa Fe’s leading doctors, including Drs. Albert Lathrop and the infamous Nancy Campbell (but that’s another story).

8. Preston McGee’s Memorial Chapel Mortuary was opened in 1942 on Shelby Street. The mortuary moved to Luisa Street in 1956. In 1984, the name was changed to McGee Memorial Chapel.

9. State Police Captain A.B. Martinez, a large and forceful man, figures in many crime stories in Santa Fe, due to his astonishing ability to extract confessions from suspects. Most Santa Feans know him as a long-time member (and once President) of the Santa Fe Fiesta Council.

10. District Attorney David Carmody became a District Judge in Santa Fe, then Supreme Court Justice (1959-1969).

11. Seth Hall, scene of mass meetings in 1945, served as the high school gymnasium for the local high school. It was razed in 1955 for the Sweeney Convention Center which was, in turn, razed in 2007, to make way for yet another, grander convention center.

12. Fletcher Catron, one of Louis Young’s attorneys, was the son of the more famous Thomas B. Catron of Santa Fe Ring fame. Fletcher Catron (and his brothers, John, Charles and Tom) practiced law from their offices in the Catron Block, which consisted of most of the east side of the Plaza. The Catron law firm still exists (with another Fletcher Catron in charge, a nephew of our Fletcher Catron).

13. Frank Andrews also founded a legal dynasty with lawyer Seth Montgomery. The offices of Montgomery & Andrews are located directly across Paseo de Peralta from Sotheby’s International Realty.

14. I have no idea whatever happened to little Johnny Steel.

***