CREEPY CREATURES
Mechanical monsters are scary fun at Jemez Haunted Graveyard
CAÑON — There should have been thunder. A rumbling sky and some aggressive streaks of lightning also would have been a nice touch.
As it was on this recent Friday morning, visitors to Jemez Haunted Graveyard in Cañon, a small Sandoval
County community eight miles south of Jemez Springs, had to make do with gray-bellied clouds and a brief rain shower to add a touch of seasonal chill to the elaborate Halloween display.
Not that the eerie exhibit in Sharon Chism’s front yard, just off N.M. 485, needs any help with atmosphere.
The panhandler at the entrance, proffering a can for donations and a sign reading “Pleez Help Feed Us,” sets the sinister tone just fine. He’s all bone, rotting skin and repulsive.
“I took a dried-up turkey leg and said, ‘That’s what I want him to look like,’” Chism said.
And then there is the animated coven of witches, one dropping a screaming cat into bubbling cauldron, a couple of others standing sentinel over a terrified man confined in a box. Walk up to that charming group with a brave grin on your face and see what you get.
“Now for a spell to remove that smile from your pretty face,” one of crones cackles.
Yeah, they talk. Even if you might wish they didn’t.
Monster maker
Chism, 70, a Cañon resident since 1989, introduced Jemez Haunted Graveyard to the village in 2015. It evolved from a display her son put up in Ennis, Texas, for many years. When he
moved from Texas to Cañon, his monsters came with him.
“We left furniture in Ennis to bring the Halloween stuff,” Chism said.
Chism’s son departed for other things after helping her create Jemez Haunted Graveyard that first year, but he left his haunts behind with Mom. She adds to or subtracts from the exhibit each year, making the annual displays distinct in some way.
The large, animated mechanical pieces are purchased from companies that produce such things. Besides the witches, these include an imposing, tree-like creature that barks, “Scream if you must, but you will never be going home;” a pack of snarling and howling werewolves; and a disembodied arm that reaches around a tombstone to grab at the legs of those passing by.
Chism herself makes some of the displays, such as the driedout skeletal panhandler.
“YouTube is the best way to learn how to make monsters,” she said.
Chism made Rose, a blue, life-size, cemetery statue, out of chicken wire, burlap, cloth, a nightstand, plastic foam and a fabrication ingredient called Monster Mud. She intended the statue to be a representation of the best-loved soiled dove in a frontier town but admits that Rose turned out looking more like a saint. Even so, Rose is unnerving, as many saints are.
Each year, Chism begins creating the Haunted Graveyard in August and continues adding to it right up to Halloween.
“On Oct. 30, I stop putting things out,” she said. “On Nov. 1, I start picking up.”
Gotta love it
Chism does not charge admission to the Haunted Graveyard but accepts contributions.
“I probably get enough donations each year to buy another monster,” she said. “It doesn’t cover the costs. To do this, you have to love it.”
People start stopping by in late summer when Chism begins setting up, and the number of visitors increases as Halloween approaches.
“On any day, we get from zero to 120 visitors,” Chism said. “I’ve had people from Brussels, Canada and Australia. The (Albuquerque International) Balloon Fiesta brings in people from other places.”
She said 95% of her visitors are adults who discover the Haunted Graveyard as they drive along N.M. 485 to see the fall colors or check out the impressive Gilman Tunnels, blasted out of rock to make way for a railroad that once served lumber and mining companies in the area. She likes the idea that her exhibit stirs up the inner child in people.
“As adults, our whole life is work and pay bills,” she said. “People need to revisit a happy time from their lives.”
Cool and scary
On this Friday, Gary Baudino, 67, and his wife, Liz, 66, of Albuquerque, stopped by with their 8-yearold granddaughter, Ava Burgarello. Gary discovered the Haunted Graveyard while passing by on fishing trips.
Ava is partial to the witches, and Liz is taken by the spectral girl in a tattered dress that is plucking fruit from the real apple tree in Chism’s yard.
“I like the way (Chism) uses the environment,” she said. “And I love these beautiful mountains in the background.”
Gary, who likes puns, is impressed by grave marker inscriptions such as “Owen Moore Gone Away Owin’ More Than He Could Pay.”
David and Joan Sleeter, both 61, of Tijeras, were on their way to the Gilman Tunnels when they came upon the Haunted Graveyard. Chism’s display might have been designed especially for Joan, a Halloween buff who just happened to be wearing a shirt emblazoned with the words “Ghouls just wanna have fun.”
“I said, ‘Oh that is so cool. We have got to stop’,” Joan said. She thought the decaying panhandler was “realistic,” a frightening observation in itself.
“I love Rose,” David said, as he gazed at Chism’s blue lady. “She’s a piece of work. And she’s scary, too.”
Saving the spirit
Chism was born in Memphis and stayed there until she was 17. While living in Dallas and working for Texas Instruments, she and her children took yearly two-week vacation trips through the Southwest, giving Chism a chance to explore and fall in love with the region.
In 1988, when she had the opportunity to work for Intel in Rio Rancho, she moved to Albuquerque. She relocated to Cañon the next year.
In part, Jemez Haunted Graveyard is her effort to preserve the fun-filled spirit of Halloween that she remembers from her own childhood. But there is more to it than that.
“You see what I get out of it,” she said as werewolves wailed nearby. “I get to talk to the people who stop here and to hear their stories. I meet people who used to live here, and they tell me what it was like then. People who worked in the sawmills or who lived here when they were kids. That’s what I get out of it.”