A life spared, a tradition born
It was a promise born of fever and family when a dying rancher asked the heavens for one more chance. Let me live, he prayed, and I will honor nuestra señora de Guadalupe for the rest of my days on this earth.
Melquiades Trujillo was a young man with a wife and a family then, raising cattle, corn and pinto beans on their small ranch, named El Cuervo for the crows that wheeled in the skies above the small farming community of Torreon.
In 1918, he had fallen gravely ill, a victim of the deadliest influenza pandemic in modern history. The Spanish flu, as it came to be known, struck about a third of the world’s population, killing an estimated 20 million to 50 million worldwide.
Trujillo seemed certain to become one of those millions. As he writhed on what had been presumed to be his deathbed, Trujillo saw the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, la nuestra señora, each time he closed his eyes. So he prayed to her, and he gave her his word.
His prayers, as the story goes, were answered. That year on Dec. 12, the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, he made good on his word, inviting family and friends to El Cuervo to celebrate with food and song and prayer that his life had been spared thanks to the blessing of nuestra señora.
They called this annual gathering a velorio, the Spanish word for wake, only this was not to commemorate death but life.
Trujillo’s vow lives on, the tradition of the velorio passed on from generation to generation. On Saturday, the 100th velorio was held in the Northeast Heights home of Trujillo’s granddaughter,
Rachel Martinez.
“This devotion is so ingrained in us,” Martinez said. “It is a part of us.”
Trujillo held the velorios every Dec. 12 without fail. In the early days, people traveled to El Cuervo in horse-drawn wagons, often braving snow and frigid mountain temperatures, to feast on roast pig slaughtered and prepared matanza-style in a fire pit. They also dined on pots of chile and beans, plates of chile rellenos, cakes and trays of pastelitos and bizcochitos.
“At around 8 o’clock in the evening, we all prayed the rosary together, and it included many beautiful prayers and songs,” Martinez recalled.
Men later gathered outside around a roaring bonfire while the women prepared coffee and goodies for the night’s repast.
“It was not uncommon for some people to stay the whole night, singing and praying and then leaving after breakfast,” she said.
By the second year, Trujillo had acquired a large statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe, though no one is quite sure where it came from. He etched his name at the base of the statute: Melquiades Trujillo y familia — 1919.
Each year, the statue was retrieved from storage and displayed in a place of honor.
After Trujillo’s death in 1968 at age 84, his wife, Leonor, continued
Time’s running out
Don’t forget to nominate that unsung someone who deserves recognition for doing good deeds for the community. Deadline for our ninth annual Angels Among Us is Dec. 13. Two winners will be featured in my column around Christmas and will receive a Nambé angel. Send nominations to jkrueger@abqjournal.com; 505-823-3603; Facebook message to Joline Gutierrez Krueger or write to Joline c/o the Journal, 7777 Jefferson NE, Albuquerque, NM 87109. the tradition. When she died in 1974, the tradition fell to Maria Rita Garcia, one of the Trujillos’ five children and Martinez’s mother.
Garcia passed away 10 years ago, and the tradition was passed on to Martinez, the oldest of Garcia’s seven children. Along with the tradition, came the large statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which Martinez calls her most valued possession.
But times had changed. The velorios became smaller, simpler occasions, often just involving a sibling or two, Martinez said.
“I wanted to make them bigger like in the old days, but I worked and it just seemed like people were too busy,” she said. “But we still remember Our Lady every Dec. 12 in some way.”
Three years ago, a new generation stepped in. Matthew Martinez McKinley, one of Martinez’s grandsons, visited her home and noticed two yellowed newspaper articles framed in a spare bedroom. Both articles — including one that had appeared on the front page of the Journal — were written in 1998 about family’s 80th velorio.
“I think for me, I was just intrigued that we had this neat tradition in the family for so long that’s been unbroken, and how people in my family, all of us, are here because my great-great grandfather did recover,” Martinez McKinley, 31, said from his home in Phoenix. “Because he recovered, generations of people lived.”
Three years ago, Martinez McKinley began having family members come to Phoenix for the velorio to ease the burden on Martinez, who is now 83.
But for the 100th velorio, the event was moved back to Martinez’s home in Albuquerque and held during the weekend to accommodate the travel schedule of Martinez McKinley and his family.
Instead of roast pig, Martinez served green chile stew and her sister’s famous barbecue beef. They recited the rosary, sang songs and remembered the vow Trujillo made so many years ago. They remembered how prayers are sometimes answered and how family endures.