https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/7e9bcfacfb63b775069240f7f62f6582.pdf 991c441433b9ca042c2e9c9c869e1045 PDF Text Text GENEVIEVE PENA GUNN Genevieve Pena was born January 23, 1913, at Pagosa Junction, Colorado, one of the children of Juan Pena and Mary Baker Pena. Mary was a Ute and was considered a highly educated person in her day since she had finished the 12th grade at Haskell Institute in Kansas. "My grandparents," Genevieve says, "knew they had a gem of a person in my mother. They loved and valued her highly. My father, who was a member of the San Juan Pueblo near Espanola, N.M., came into this country herding sheep. When Dad wanted to marry Mother, her parents and grandparents discussed it a long lime, finally deciding Juan was industrious and good for the family. Dad offered to pay for Mother, but apparently he had nothing which they considered valuable enough as a dowry. After much thought the older Bakers set this condition. If Dad would work for the family for 2 years without pay, he could marry Mother. He agreed to this and was never sorry. "When I was born," Genevieve says, "the area around Pagosa Junction was not almost empty as it is today. The river valley and all the canyons leading up onto the mesas were full of people. You should have seen the people pour out of the canyons when there was a wedding or a celebration. There were about 20 houses in town, a train station, a church, a hotel with a restaurant, a school and two stores, one run by the Gomez family and the other by Walter Ziebriski. Both stores had good selections of general merchandise. Ziebriski made quite a stir when he put a hand operated gasoline pump out in front of his store. Since Ziebriski spoke English with a heavy accent, I could never understand one word he said, but Dad could. I would listen to their conversations and as soon as we left ask father, 'What did he say?'." "The train was the lifeline of our town. We were a switching point on the main AlamosaDurango line for the branch to Pagosa Springs. That's why we needed a hotel. The schedules didn't always match, so the people coming from or going to Pagosa were often caught between trains and needed a place to spend the night. This gave use a glimpse of the outside world, for some of the traveling people were dressed real fancy. We admired them as they walked up and down the street in the evenings. The little girls watching would say, 'This is our New York.' We were proud of the hotel. It had everything but an indoor toilet." "When it was time for us to go to school, Dad got a place right in town. Dad kept farming and was a good farmer. I can still picture him planning his work and keeping his accounts in a small tablet. He would look through it and say, 'I owe so-and-so two days of work;' or 'So-and-so owes me a lamb this spring.'" "I was so glad when I finished 6th grade. Thal was all the school I wanted, but I was sent to the boarding school at Santa Fe to continue my education. What a scary trip that was. I had ridden trains before, but never away from my parents and never so far away from home. A bunch of us were loaded on the train to Antonito where we spent the first night. I'm sure we all stuck out like sore thumbs, so curious and always saying, 'Look at this!' or 'Look at that!' The next day we got onto another train which took us south to Santa Fe." 6B �'J 'J 1 1 ' ' ' ') "Every summer I came home. The warm season was a busy time because we dried and canned and stored up all the food we needed for the winter, No one was lazy. No one seemed to mind hard work. They would get going and get it done. Every year we went camping to pick fruit and berries - so many kinds, l don't remember them all. Of course, there were chokecherries and the buffalo-berries. The river bottom near Sky Ute Downs used to be thick with buffalo-berries. We found that some of the bushes produced sweet, juicy berries while others nearby were sour. The location of those bushes was a family secret." '' ' ' "All of us liked dances. They were held outside in good weather. If it was cold or wet, Felix Gomez would let us use his barn. All of us got together to decorate it till it didn't even look like a barn. We saved all our bright paper for paper chains and other decorations, Young and old came with their lanterns. The old people were treated very respectfully, even if they didn't dance, for they were the good fiddle players. We went from one to another, asking them if they would play for us. When they got tired and went home, the dance was over." 1 ) } ) ) ") ) ) "On Saint Days there were horse races and foot races. I once won a length of cloth in a race. It was a welcome prize. People looked forward to the celebrations and the contests. As the time approached we engaged in much speculation. Rumors would fly around,' So-and-so has a real fast horse this year,' or 'so-and-so thinks he can beat last year's winner."' ) ) ) ) ) ) ) _) _) _j J _j _j ...) ..J _j ...) ..J ,J "My mother, Mary Pena, was recruited every year to help distribute per capita payments to the tribe. Dad would load the wagon and head for Arboles where we'd jump in the river and cool off and have lunch before going on. We always camped near the agency close to the present site of the Bear Dance Grounds for several days. Mother was chosen because she knew the names of all the tribal members. She rode a car with two armed guards from the BIA who kept between them a huge sack of silver money. None of the Indians wanted checks or paper money. They didn't trust it. Each tribal member was given a cup of silver money, large cups for adults, small ones for children. The money wasn't counted exact. It was merely dipped into the sack and poured into the men's hats. The beginnings of women's lib on the reservation may have started when one of the wives insisted that her cup of money be poured into her shawl instead of into her husband's hat." "One January while l was still in high school at Santa Fe, 1 received the message that my mother was dead. She had ridden the train to Ignacio, and the car she rode in was so overheated that she was sweaty hot when she got off. The walk in the cold winter wind from the depot up to the agency gave her fatal pneumonia." "When I finished high school, there was nothing to keep me in Pagosa Junction, so I came to Ignacio to stay with my aunt and uncle, Lucille and Frank Baker. I stayed with them until I married Graves Gunn. Graves and I had seven children: Harold, Aletha, Emery, Corrine, Sylvia, Janice, and Sandra. Harold and Emery are both dead now." "My father, Juan Pena, is still alive and very active at 94. Long life seems to be a tradition of his family. Juan's mother, Angelita Tapia, lived to be 108." ...) ,J J .J 69 �"When I look back to my childhood, I see that we were made happy with such simple things. Going to Ignacio on the train was a once a year treat. In August Dad would say, 'I think it's lime to go buy shoes and other things girls and boys need.' Thelma and I would get so excited just thinking about the trip." "Today the river has eaten away much of the land which used to belong to the town. Ziebriski's store had fallen down and most of the homesteads are deserted, but when I think of Pagosa Junction, I see it as it was 50 years ago. The school bell rings; the train moves into town; the hotel is busy. The canyon people are riding into town for Saturday shopping. (That's how we called them-the First Canyon people, or the Second Canyon people to indicate which canyon the lived in up or down the river.) I remember the town and the canyons full of life, homes and people. To see ii now, you'd think there had never been anyone there." Shelby Smith March, 1977 70 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Shelby Smith Interviews Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource https://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-NC/1.0/?language=en Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1973-1980 Subject The topic of the resource Ignacio; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Collection of biographies, predominantly of residents from the Ignacio Senior Center, based on interviews conducted by Shelby Smith from approximately 1973 to 1980. The abridged interviews were originally published as individual entries in The Thoughtful Years newsletter, published by the Ignacio Senior Center, beginning in 1973. They were later published as a whole in Smith's book: Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley, from which the original scans in this collection have been derived. Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Genevieve Pena Gunn Biography Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1978-03 Description An account of the resource Biography of Genevieve Pena Gunn based on an interview conducted by Shelby Smith. Originally included in the March, 1978 issue of "The Thoughtful Years" newsletter published by the Ignacio Senior Center. Later included in the book "Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley" by Shelby Smith. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gunn, Genevieve Pena Extent The size or duration of the resource. 3 pages Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NKC/1.0/ Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby