Throughout her career, Dr. Quintana became a well known and respected professional in the history, cultures, and politics of the Southwest. Although she did not pursue the traditional academic course of anthropology, her work places her among the pioneers of Southwestern studies. Frances Swadesh Quintana passed away peacefully on…
Short bio of writer, activist and feminist, Mary Austin. Mary Hunter Austin was born on September 9, 1868 in Carlinville, Illinois (the fourth of six children) to George and Susannah (Graham) Hunter. She graduated from Blackburn College in 1888. For 17 years she made a special study of Indian…
Susan Elston Wallace (1830-1907) by Joann Spragg, Montgomery County Historian Susan Arnold Elston was born on December 25, 1830, at Crawfordsville in Montgomery County, Indiana, the fourth of nine children of Major Isaac Compton and Maria Aiken Elston. Her father was a prominent businessman in Crawfordsville, and made his…
Following the conquest of the Southwest by the United States, Archbishop Lamy became the first bishop of Santa Fe. When he arrived in the early 1850s, he found only nine priests in New Mexico. He proceeded to bring a large number of priests from France and other European countries….
1859 By Mark Thompson Charles Lummis was born in Lynn, Mass., in 1859. His mother died when he was two. He claimed to have a vivid memory of her on her deathbed, a moment that he recalled years later in a poem called Page One. Taught at home by…
By J. Mark Sublette Farming in this high desert climate was always a challenge. Shortly after founding Santa Fe in 1610, the Spanish built an irrigation canal above the River, parallel to Canyon Road. Still in use, this Acequia Madre, or "mother ditch," brought precious water out of the…
By Genaro Padilla Gaspar Perez de Villagra published Historia de la Nueva México the same year that William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale was performed at the Globe in London. Villagra’s poem was published in Alcala de Henares, Miguel de Cervantes birthplace, and, as it turns out, is chronologically tucked…
4 10 1827 By William H. Wroth Lew Wallace (1827-1905) served as territorial governor of New Mexico from 1878 to 1881. Wallace was born in Brooksville, Indiana, on April 10, 1827, and moved to Indianapolis in 1837 when his father David Wallace was elected governor of Indiana. With the…
1 10 1888 First Lady of American Letters By Michael Ann Sullivan Erna Fergusson was born on 10 January 1888 to a prominent Albuquerque family. Her mother was Clara Mary Huning, the daughter of the successful merchant Franz Huning. Franz had emigrated to New Mexico from Germany in 1849….
1912 By Matthew Martínez My grandmother Esther Martínez often introduces herself by saying that she was born in 1912, the same year New Mexico became a state and the Titanic sank. The metaphor of the birth of a new period in history as well as the sinking of the…
