Tingleys’ legacy worth remembering
You might not know the man and woman behind the name, but they made NM better
I’ve been thinking about Clyde and Carrie Tingley lately. Arguably the most important couple in the modern history of New Mexico, few people really know who the Tingleys were and what place they have in our history. “I know the name,” people will tell you. “There’s Tingley Beach. Is that the same man?”
Clyde came from Ohio and adopted Albuquerque and the Southwest. As a man who came from someplace else and made this state his own, he represented a new New Mexican, someone with new ideas and energy, an individual who propelled New Mexico into the modern world.
As mayor, what Tingley accomplished in Albuquerque is impossible to sum up in a few words. He built parks, roads, a zoo and a baseball field; he paved streets, brought a beach to the desert and started a bus system. He installed streetlights.
Clyde was a hands-on guy. It may sound corny, but it’s nice to remember that he and Carrie drove his big Buick around the city after supper to see that all was well. He carried a shovel and sand in the trunk in case he came across any potholes.
As a historian, it’s sad to think how easily from one generation to the next people tend to be forgotten, erased from the collective memory. In the case of the Tingleys, they have left their mark on our state. Clyde served two terms as our governor; Carrie’s name is on the orthopedic wing of UNM Hospital.
During her husband’s time as governor, Carrie built the Carrie Tingley Children’s Hospital at Hot Springs, N.M., now Truth or Consequences. In her book on the Tingleys,
“Clyde Tingley’s New Deal for New Mexico 1935-1938,” Lucinda Lucero Sachs says the entire Children’s Hospital should be named for her.
During his time in the Governor’s Mansion, along with his friend Sen. Dennis Chavez, Clyde Tingley worked to reorganize Democratic politics in his adopted state. By laying this foundation during the Great Depression, one of the most perilous periods in our nation’s history, Democratic politics were cemented in the lives of most New Mexicans and remain that way to this day.
Is there a Clyde and Carrie Tingley Day in Albuquerque? If I had done what this dynamic couple have achieved, I would hope people would at least remember me for one day in the place that by my deeds have shown that I loved so much.