Manuel and Adelaida Barron Pacheco buy an Indian handmaiden

Manuel was married to Adelaida Barron Pacheco, an artist who sold her paintings in Taos, New Mexico. The Barrons had once owned the hotel on the plaza in Taos and the entire block it was on. The old man lost it when he signed the wrong document, one giving ownership to a conniving local businessman. Mother Barron would cry when she talked of it.

The entire Barron clan then moved to Walsenberg, Colorado and began again. Uncle Fred became a barber and businessman. Aunt Lola became a podiatrist and treated patients in the barber chair in the back of Uncle Fred's barber shop. Another brother became a policeman. Uncle Pepe became a lawyer, judge, and state senator from Walsenberg.

Adelaida was not a hands on homemaker and Manuel had a maid. She was an Indian girl named

Guadalupe. She was a Navaho who was taken in reprisal for a raid on San Pablo when two Hispanic children were kidnapped. She worked for Manuel all her life. Guadalupe helped raise my grandmother and Manuel's son Augustino. She and her sister later owned the San Luis hotel.

    

Manuel used to say that he bought her for $600. Actually slavery was outlawed in Costilla County at the end of the civil war. All slaves were required to go to the county court house and declare whether they wanted to stay or go back to their tribes.  

       

Manuel also used to say that raising Indian children in the Catholic faith was an old New Mexico tradition.

My grandmother Betty remembers Guadalupe working quietly when Manuel entertained, then offering animated opinions of various guests after they left.

Betty said that when Guadalupe, after much debate, accepted the Catholic religion. Mom says that it was the teachings about sin, and its deleterious effects on a person’s centered-ness that swayed her.