Santa Rita – Public Memory in New Mexico's Central Mining District
Oh, well, I that we all knew each other. I think we knew. And maybe we knew mostly the kids because we went to school with them. And after I came back after God, I left in 1959. I didn’t come back until 1993 to stay. And I could still relate to a lot of the older people. I could still relate to the families, I still read knew who they were. I knew who belong to whom. Because that was the kind of town that it was. It was a town for everybody knew everyone.
I still look towards where my house used to be. And it’s right under the kneeling nun. But now there’s a copper pit or whatever. But even though I have those feelings I’m very glad that the miners there because that’s our livelihood. And that mind goes down now and I know a lot of people have a love for the kneeling nun and so do I and for the town and so do I. But that’s our livelihood. If that mine shuts down and it goes away. I have one son that works at the mind. his livelihood and his family will probably have to pack up and leave. My other son works at the Forest Service. If that mind goes away We’re all going to have to back up and maybe leave. Or if you’re retired or you have Social Security, you might be able to stay. But if the jobs go away, most of the people will have to go away, and then the same cycle will have to happen. And I know how traumatic it was for me
My grandmother, and my grandfather participated in that strike on the Ojinaga side of the family. When they were arrested and placed in jail, my grandmother is in the jail. And she is running a tin cup along the bars saying “We want the formula. We want the formula,” because a woman Okay, who was the wife of one of the organizers was also put into jail with her baby. And so the women and the babies were in jail and the woman inside the jail were protesting to receive that milk. The movie is called The Salt of the Earth.
My parents never should have gotten me that bike because I roamed the whole town of Santa Rita. My mom and dad would get mad and they’d asked me “where do you been?” and that “Oh, I was just visiting my neighborhood!” I was all over. All over Santa. And they’d find out later, they would tell me they were going to take my bike away. But it guess I was not behaving when I was growing up.
You see when they moved to the church, all the statues from the church and the benches and everything were distributed to different churches around Grant County. But the statue of Santa Rita it couldn’t go anyplace because it was a patron saint of Santa Rita. So they somebody had in a house. So one of the residents from Santa Rita, actually a couple of residents from Santa Rita decided to make a shrine there for the for the saint with the statue because they figured there was a right place.
I remember if a baby got baptized, it was more about religion, a lot of religion. I remember if a baby got baptized, they throw a party in a home. Oh, now they rent a hall. No, they had a party and in a home and if there wasn’t room people would hang out in the porch or whatever. And I remember the red chile and chicken. And I go, every time a baby baptized, they make the red chili and chicken and the Mexican rice. And it was all so good. And most of the parties, weddings too it was just a lot of fun there a lot of people would I remember as teenagers too. A lot of teenagers would make parties at home, in the yard outside or inside and Just Dance with a record player. I mean, they just it was just simple fun, the best kind.
“My husband worked at the Empire Zinc. He did… When he got out of the service. He was in Vietnam. And that was in 67-68, I think when he got out. He got his job before he went to the service at the Empire Zinc. So he wasn’t there that long. He got there. And he worked there for a while. And then he got, you know, recruited to go to Vietnam. And then, when he got out of the service, he got a job at Phelps dodge. He worked at Phelps Dodge for 36 years.”
“My name is Olga Viola Chavez. My maiden name was Salce S-A-L-C-E. I was born in Santa Rita, raised in Santa Rita, on September the fifth, 1941 And I lived in Santa Rita till I was 20 years old. And I got married and moved to Arizona for five years. I came back to Grant County in 1966.”
“Well, I was born in Santa Rita and I was there until age of 21 When I got married and I moved to Silver City…Well I’m from, we used to call it Mexican town where the Hispanic people used to live.”
“Well, as I mentioned, I was born there and raised there until I was 18 when I went into the service and when I came back and started working at the Santa Rita open pit, and I’ve been connected with Santa Rita ever since and interested in its history.”