San Miguel-Santa Fe County NM Archives Biographies.....Trujillo, Juan De La Cruz 1846 - February 16, 1927 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/nm/nmfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Richard Gehling GehlingR@aol.com February 19, 2010, 9:55 pm Source: Memories of Max Montoya, 1977 Author: Max Montoya/Richard Gehling Juan de La Cruz Trujillo was born - as his name indicates - in Santa Cruz de Las Canadas, NM, in 1846. He had a brother named Julian and a sister named Rafaelita. As a young man, Juan worked as a bullwhacker, helping to drive ox wagons from Santa Cruz, NM, to Chihuahua, Mexico, on trading expeditions. The down and back trips took more than six months. He also bullwhacked wagons to what is now Salina, Kansas, for salt. The 1,200-mile round trip took the whole summer, and undoubtedly followed the old Santa Fe Trail for most of the distance. Bullwhackers like Juan de La Cruz were a common sight along the western trails during the mid-19th century. One emigrant told of meeting a long line of such bullwhackers "with whips cracking, all urging their combersome bull wagons through the sand and the heat. Each wagon was drawn by at least six yoke of oxen. The drivers were principally Mexicans. Their appearance was rather singular. Their dress was made of buckskin. No covering on their feet or on their heads from which flowed long straight hair. They were friendly, each one shaking hands with us as they passed." Juan eventually married a local woman in Santa Cruz, and with her had two daughters named Ruperta and Lena. Some years later his wife died. Grieved by her premature death, Juan moved his motherless girls to Las Vegas, NM. There, about the year 1880, he met and married 26-year-old Leanore (Valenzuela) Martinez, a recently-widowed woman with dark brown hair and a stern, no nonsense air about her. Leanore was first married to a young man with the family name of Martinez. With him she had a son named Ceferino and a daughter named Delfinia. After her husband's premature death, Leanore moved her two children to Las Vegas, NM, where she met and married her second husband, Juan de La Cruz Trujillo, about the year 1880. After their marriage, Juan and Leanore Trujillo moved their combined family of four children into a little three-room house on 9th Street near the normal college (now called Highlands College), where teachers were trained. The surrounding area was known locally as the Chihualita Barrio, one of five such Spanish speaking districts in the "Old Town" area of Las Vegas, NM. As time went on, the Trujillo family grew to include another son named Manuel as well as four other daughters named Victoria, Regina, Gertrudes and Lucy. But even as the family grew larger, the house itself remained the same size. The house had been built with the kitchen facing south, and with a huge bedroom on the north side. In between was a large hallway, with two massive doors that opened out onto a porch. The hallway also had a wooden styairway that led to to an attic, which was rarely used. The huge bedroom on the north side was the coolest room in the summer and - thanks to a big pot bellied stove - it was also the warmest in winter. Next to the main house was a longer building (similar in construction to a modern-day motel), with three units that were rented out for about $3 a month to relatives and friends. Each unit contained a bedroom, a small kitchen and a much larger room, which often served as a dining and living room combined. Both the main house and the rental units were built of adobe. They had high walls, gabled roofs, and wood shingles. Behind the buildings was a corral and three small outbuildings, where chickens, goat and horses were kept. During the early 1920's, the Trujillo's kept two female goats, a white one named Washington and a light brown one named Nanny. They also had two horses, a beautiful chestnut stallion named prince and an old bay mare named Molly. Molly was very gentle. She would follow Prince wherever he went. But when hitched together, Molly and Prince would become one of the oddest looking teams in all of Las Vegas. During the summer months Juan Trujillo would take Molly and Prince to his ranch up in the mountains, an area marked by narrow canyons and ravines. There were no buildings on the ranch, just a bunkhouse where Juan and his son Manuel would stay while they cut wood and raised corn and other vegetables. In the fall they would bring the firewood and produce down to Las Vegas, a yearly ritual that Juan's grandson, Max Montoya, remembered well: "Granpa Trujillo was already retired when I knew him," Max later wrote, "but he still had a small farm up in the mountains. I remember him bringing a huge pile of ripe corn to Las Vegas. After dinner in the evenings the relatives would gather around the corn and husk it, then us kids would crank in order to take the kernals off the cobs. We used the cobs as fuel. "In physical appearance my granpa was short, had broad shoulders and a beard. He walked with a cane and always wore a suit coat. When he had money, he would buy candy, put it in his coat pocket and take it out for us kids. He had a happy disposition. He used to sit on the sunny side of his house and have long discussions with the neighbors." Juan Trujillo continued to live in his house on 9th Street even after the death of his wife, Leanore, in August of 1923. After the funeral, a daughter named Lucy moved in and looked after him for the final four years of his life. Juan passed away on 16 February 1927. He was 81 years old. Additional Comments: Quote on the "Mexican Bullwhackers" is from The Colorado Gold Rush, by John D. Young. Edited by Dwight L. Smith. Lakeside Classics, Chicago, 1969. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/nm/sanmiguel/bios/trujillo4nbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/nmfiles/ File size: 6.1 Kb