Chapter Twelve, New Mexico: 1958‑1962 (Part One)

In the late afternoon of August 22, 1958, I stopped our station wagon on the edge of a mesa and looked down with some dismay upon the unprepossessing twin communities of Las Vegas.  As Ruth and I glanced at each other, I felt like turning the vehicle around and returning to Georgia.  But after our brief pause, we drove into town observing the many vacant business buildings and the potholed streets.  We soon found the row house rented for us by Dr. Lynn I. Perrigo at 1111 Douglas Street.

Ruth's parents came out to greet us as we parked the car.  On learning that we were moving to New Mexico, they (with their son, John) loaded a truck with furniture, drove to Las Vegas, cleaned and arranged the house, called the utilities, and had a hot meal waiting for us.  We carried our tired boys into the living room, ate supper, put the children to bed, and sat up a good part of the night catching up with the family news.  We quite appreciated their kind support at a time when our budget was limited.

The next morning I walked the one block to the small campus of New Mexico Highlands University to report to the divisional chairman, Dr. Perrigo, to locate my office, and to fill in whatever administrative forms which might be required.  My office, similar to those of the other members of the division, was a small room on the second floor of an aging, two‑story, cream‑colored brick building.  The first floor housed the college printing shop.

Dr. Perrigo welcomed me to the college, accompanied me to the administration building, introduced me to Dean Burrus (a cold‑eyed, reserved academic bureaucrat), and helped me to fill out the many required forms.  By noon I had become a formal member of the department.  I also found the incredibly tiny library and checked out a few books to help prepare my lecture notes.

After lunch, Ruth's father and I went for a long walk to explore the town.  By chance we crossed the bridge over the Gallinas, a stream dividing the old town from the new town and wandered up along Bridge Street to the plaza of the old town.  The street was lined with decaying 19th century brick and adobe buildings, empty for the most part.  The play of light and shadow upon the curves, angles, and recesses of the well‑built cream or gray colored adobe buildings and the sound of Spanish on every hand comforted me.  The Spanish‑American community in old town interested me far more than the Anglo American community New Town.  Las Vegas, a small, declining city, was divided into two political divisions‑‑the town of Las Vegas, the county seat, and the more prosperous city of Las Vegas.  Returning from our walk, we walked around Highland's campus‑‑a mixture of old and new buildings.  I tired very rapidly and had to rest upon reaching our house.  My car would not start promptly.  I found out that both my body and my car had to adjust to the higher altitude.

On Sunday, August 24, we attended our first meetings of the Las Vegas branch.  About thirty people were in attendance, divided almost equally between Spanish‑Americans and Anglo‑Americans.  Priesthood and Sacrament meetings were in English, but there were two adult Sunday school classes‑‑one in English and the other in Spanish.  Without thinking, I drifted into the Spanish language class to revel in hearing and speaking Spanish after so many years.  The teacher, Alfonso Garcia, was an employee of the State Mental Hospital located in Las Vegas.  My simple act of attending the Spanish Sunday school was interpreted as a rejection by many Anglo Americans.  The Spanish‑American members were very pleased at my attendance, but some Anglo Americans, like Sister Genevieve Tilley, the teacher of the English language Sunday school, never forgave me.  Before we left the hall, President Mayo Sorenson called me to serve as branch clerk.

After lunch we drove out to the Fort Union National Monument and spent several interesting hours walking around the remains of the old military base.  The wind blew through the dry grass and hawks wheeled above us in the incredibly blue sky.  I examined the wagon ruts of the Santa Fe Trail and thought about the history of the Fort.  We returned home late in the after‑ noon.  Stores were closed and as we had little food to feed the children, I went out to a nearby Spanish‑American restaurant and bought tacos and enchiladas.  David, upon eating an enchilada said, "Daddy, I am burning on the outside and on the inside."  I had forgotten that in New Mexico chili would be a major ingredient in such dishes.

Reverend Bunz, the minister of a nearby Methodist church, visited us on the evening of our second day in Las Vegas.  We talked long into the night about the community.  He told Ruth and I that President Donnelly had little interest in religion and did not facilitate the work of any church with students.  Church attendance in Las Vegas was poor.  The Anglo population in general neither attended nor supported local churches.  Relations between the Catholic and Protestant clergy was sporadic and cold.  Although the Anglos dominated the region, a well‑defined class structure did not exist.  Society was marked by the existence of social cliques, although tacit lines of social seclusion existed between Anglos and Spanish‑Americans.

I arose early the next morning.  Helped Ruth to clean house.  I then walked up to the university before lunch to arrange books and supplies in my office and to secure a typewriter.  I met President John Donnelly, a tight‑lipped, cold‑eyed Irishman, and the jovial Dean of Students, Ray Farmer.  I picked up my travel allowance of $250, banked half of it, and then explored the downtown area of the City of Las Vegas.  Ruth and I drove around the residential sections and decided that both the City and Town of Las Vegas had seen better days.  The two communities huddled in a small valley as though seeking protection from the high mountains to the west and the rolling mesas and plains to the east.

The fall quarter began with a divisional meeting on September 12, 1958.  I met other members of the division‑‑Jiggs Snyder, who taught anthropology; Robert Simmons, responsible for political science; and Lynn I. Perrigo, chairman and historian.  I was responsible for sociology and geography.  Before the meeting ended, I knew that I had become a member of a division knit together by friendship and mutual respect.

The college faculty meeting that followed was quite different.  The atmosphere was cold, authoritarian, and rigid, with little faculty response.  President Donnelly directing the meeting reminded me of an army officer speaking to troops.  I took an immediate dislike to him and to the college dean, Guy Burris.  Robert Simmons told me that Donnelly ran the university, making all decisions down to the selection of graduate assistants.  His administrative staff and department heads were little better than errand boys.

Registration following the general faculty meeting was incredibly inefficient, archaic, and time consuming, with students having to get personal approval of each individual faculty member to enter his class.  I noted that more than half of the students were Spanish‑Americans.  I was surprised at the large number of foreign students and blacks in attendance.  Robert Simmons, in explaining the situation, commented that Highlands was divided into two quite separate colleges.  In the one college were the physical and biological sciences and fine arts with new buildings, expensive equipment, and better paid faculty.  As few Spanish American students were enrolled, the administration had to recruit Anglo American students from outside the state and foreign students from outside the country.  In the other sections were located the lower prestige divisions of education, English, Spanish, and the Social Sciences filled with Spanish American students and staffed by lower‑paid, less prestigious faculty members.  Simmons further mentioned that President Donnelly disliked our divisional chairman, Dr. Perrigo.

John Donnelly, I was told, became president of Highlands University somewhat inadvertently.  He came to New Mexico as a state administrator of a New Deal agency.  From there he moved to the Department of Political Science at the University of New Mexico.  Becoming department chairman, he developed several innovative programs, wrote a book and some articles on the political scene in New Mexico, and became a university dean.  The president of the university died, and a struggle for his position developed between Donnelly and Popejoy, head of Buildings and Grounds.  Popejoy was selected as the new university President; only in New Mexico could a head of buildings and grounds become a university president.  Donnelly, as compensation, was awarded the presidency of New Mexico Highlands University.

Before he could enter his office at Highlands, he had to evict the former president, a victim of plotting by his Administrative Dean, Guy Burris, and other faculty members.  He had been asked to resign by the Board of Regents.  Defended by Perrigo and other faculty members, the president refused to leave the campus, barricading himself in his office.  The state police bodily removed him and his possessions from the office.  As Perrigo was a leader among the faculty opposed to the firing of the older president, Donnelly did all he could to humiliate and embarrass Perrigo in front of the faculty and in the community.

The enrollment at New Mexico Highlands University was a little over a thousand students a year.  The majority were poorly prepared Spanish American students, many with language problems from the numerous villages and towns in northern New Mexico.  They regarded the school as their college and resented the presence of other students.  The majority of Anglo American students came to Highlands to enjoy hunting, fishing, skiing, and mountain climbing while attending school.  It should be said, however, that some very good Anglo students enrolled in the physical and biological sciences.  Around 200 American Indian students, primarily Navajo and Pueblo, were there.  Most of the blacks, I was told, came to the school on athletic scholarships.  Considerable friction existed between them and the Spanish American students.  I tried speaking a little Spanish to some of the Spanish American students and it was as though I had sent a current of electricity through them.  I noted that within minutes, many Spanish American students were coming by our registration table to look at me.

As I became better informed about campus and community affairs, I decided to do my work as best I could, avoid becoming involved in campus factions, and to develop a research program among the Spanish‑Americans.  Living only a half a block from the campus, I began to invite small groups of Spanish American and American Indian students to my home for an evening.  At first they were shy, formal, and uncertain; but little by little Ruth, a marvelous hostess, and I were able to break that down.  I soon found out that large numbers of Spanish American students had serious problems of adjustment at Highlands.

By the end of the first quarter, groups of Spanish American and American Indian students began to come to our home to talk until late into the night about their problems, hopes, dreams, difficulties, and aspirations.  So many of them had such terrible financial problems that my heart ached for them.  They were tender rose buds just opening their petals in a cold Anglo American world.  Many of them were brutally hurt by prejudiced or uncaring faculty members.  So many felt inferior to Anglo American students that I began to lecture to them night after night about the achievements of their ancestors, the strengths of their culture, and their need to know (which few of them did) their past.  I put myself through a crash course in Spanish American and New Mexican history.  Ruth and I thoroughly enjoyed these informal seminars to which Robert Simmons often came.  The students began to bring their parents to visit Ruth and me.  We received many invitations to visit their families in their home villages, which we did.  Thus, I gained an entrée into Spanish American society.  Before the first quarter was over, I had come to love my Spanish American and Indian students and to become their ardent advocate on campus.

Life at Highlands was far more agitated that it had ever been in Georgia.  The first event of the fall quarter of 1958 was a student and police riot.  The university, eager for winning football and basketball teams, recruited blacks and a few Anglos from West Virginia, Kentucky, and other border states.  These students often treated the smaller Spanish American students with arrogance and contempt.  Many Spanish American students resented their presence.

On a warm fall evening, a number of black students were standing outside their campus dorm.  A carload of Spanish American high school students from West Las Vegas slowly drove by.  One of the Spanish American boys swore at the blacks in Spanish.  The car stopped above the dorm, turned around and drove back, parking in front of the dorm.  One of the blacks, who understood the epithets, approached the car with friends.  An argument developed and one of the Spanish‑Americans hit a black student with a wrench.  Fighting broke out and the car occupants fled.  Within an hour they returned with reinforcements and, armed with wrenches, attacked the black students, forcing them to retreat into the dorm.  The boys began to break dorm windows.  All the occupants rushed outside and general fighting broke out.  The Spanish American boys, getting the worst of it, fled, pursued by students, to the police headquarters a few blocks away.  The police swarmed out and threw tear gas grenades.  The wind blew the gas back into the building, causing a teary exit of all inside.  By this time, the dean of students, Ray Farmer, showed up and herded the students back to the university.  Three weeks later, the local police arrested many black students and held them without bail.  At the beginning of the next quarter, Donnelly and the Board of Regents charged the police with condoning harassment of students by local gangs and demanded protection of the university and its students. 

The Spanish American students on campus had much to complain about.  No remedial courses.  All students, no matter how many English courses they took, had to pass a harsh set of written English examinations developed from the New York Regent Exams.  Many Spanish American students took the exams three or four times before they could graduate.  Those unable to pass simply did not graduate.  No financial assistance existed for poor students, although the college president prided himself upon providing lavish athletic scholarships to outside players.  Faculty members faced with students lacking an adequate academic background clamored for even higher admission standards.  Faculty turnover was incredibly high.  Within three years I found myself one of the senior members of the faculty.  President Donnelly, constantly lectured about making Highlands into one of the finer small universities in the United States.  He was totally oblivious to the educational needs and problems of his Spanish American Indian students.

In the spring of 1959, Dr. Perrigo suggested that, for the sake of public relations, I should join the Las Vegas Rotary Club, he being active in Kiwanis.  Through his influence an invitation was extended to me, which I accepted.  The majority of the members were Anglo American, with a few Spanish American businessmen and professionals.  I enjoyed the meetings and made many friends, although I was never able to take the organization seriously.  These new friends helped me to understand the social structure and life of Las Vegas far better.  Although the members felt that the high welfare rates in San Miguel County hurt the community (failing to understand that their local businesses depended on welfare payments), they were willing to support any viable project to improve the community.

On Saturdays, Ruth and I (often with Spanish American or American Indian students in our car) went with our children to study Spanish American villages in San Miguel and Mora counties, to visit the families of my students and to explore the magnificent scenic country of northern New Mexico.  We visited churches, museums, ruined forts, and ruined pueblos, canyons, and plains.  I developed an intense affection and identity with New Mexico that I had never felt for any other state in my life.

Sunday we devoted to the L.D.S. church.  I soon found the small branch had serious problems. At one time, two independent branches existed‑‑one in Spanish and the other in English.  The two branches were joined together when the Albuquerque stake was formed.  The Spanish American members had been promised that church meetings would be held equally in Spanish and English, a promise that was never kept.  As a result, many Spanish American members drifted away.  Those who came resented the downgrading of Spanish‑‑in essence, a downgrading of themselves.  Many Anglo American members harbored prejudices and often demonstrated contempt for Spanish‑Americans.

Most of the Spanish American members were quite poor and lacked transportation.  Ruth and I soon got into the habit of picking them up for church meetings, taking them shopping, and entertaining them in our home‑ ‑something that Anglo American members had never done.  Many Anglo members resented our apparent identification with the Spanish American members.

As the winter of 1959 began, Ruth's health deteriorated during her pregnancy.  Although the high altitude freed her of hay fever and asthma, she suffered from toxemia and uremic poisoning and was confined to bed for long periods of time.  I found myself doing the housework and taking care of the children.  I felt sorry for David and Daniel, who could not understand why their mother could not get our of bed.  Finally, on December 13, after a period of very hard labor in a hospital with few good nurses, Ruth gave birth to Keith, who came smiling into the world.  Brown‑eyed, brown haired, and olive complexioned, he could pass as a Spanish American.  Ruth's mother came down to take care of Ruth for a week or two.

The day after Keith was born, several foreign students came into our lives.  My friend, Robert Simmons, had asked me to co‑sponsor the Cosmopolitan Club, made up of foreign students and their friends.  I agreed to do so, enriching our lives greatly.  We participated in the lectures, dances, programs, and dinners sponsored by the foreign students.  One of them, Judson Yearwood, was an English‑speaking Panamanian.  He came from Jamaican stock brought to Panama to work on the canal.  The son of a Baptist minister, he lost his religious faith and wanted to stay in the United States.  He was sharp‑witted, humorous, intelligent, and circulated around the campus.  He seemed to like our home and kept us informed about campus gossip.  He married a Chinese girl.  Years later he called me from Chicago, pleading for a substantial amount of money which I could not give him.  From that I judged that he managed to secure a resident visa and was leading an adventuresome life.

Sadiq Al‑Isterabadi from Iraq was another such student.  He came into my office seeking help. A revolution in Iraq had impoverished his family and he had no funds.  As he spoke very little English, Bob Simmons and I wondered how he ever managed to come to the United States.  I went to President Donnelly and was told that he should be turned over to the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization for deportation.  Indignantly leaving the president's office, I contacted Simmons.  Together we composed a letter to major New Mexican newspapers, outlining his plight and requesting assistance.  President Donnelly severely scolded us, but a Mrs. Wurlitzer, a wealthy retired lady living in Taos, invited us to visit her.  We discussed the situation and she gave us more than enough money to care for Sadiq and for other students with financial problems.  As he did not know enough English to pass college courses, Simmons and I enrolled him in our courses quarter after quarter, giving him incompletes and tutoring him in English.  He taught Ruth and me Arabic.  A very intelligent student, he began to do well in his courses, making up his incompletes.  We secured a part‑time job at Penny's for him.

Upon his graduation from Highlands, we drove him to Salt Lake City and managed to get a visa extension and a work permit for him, admission into the Political Science Department at the University of Utah, and employment.  He never quite finished his M.A. degree at the University of Utah.  He married a local Salt Lake City girl and fathered two boys before getting a divorce and returning abruptly to Iraq.  I found out later that a Professor Rich and another faculty member had tried to recruit him into the C.I.A. threatening his stay in the United States and his marriage if he did not accept their offer.

The winter quarter found me employing an Ethiopian girl as a secretary in the division.  Her father was involved in a revolt against Haile Salsas and lost his life and the family all their property.  She was alone, distressed, and destitute.  Again, the University administration refused any assistance.  Simmons and I managed to find the money to send her east to some friends and relatives.

The winter of 1959‑1960 was extremely cold and snowy.  Ruth and I found the weather hard to take after Georgia.  The blizzards that swept across Las Vegas were impressive, with howling winds and incredible quantities of snow.  Each winter we were there, Las Vegas was snowed in for days at a time.  Trapped tourists often went house to house, begging shelter.  But then the sun came out, the temperature soon fell, a chinook blew, and the temperature rose rapidly under a gloriously blue sky unmatched anywhere for purity and luminescence.  Winter came early and remained late.  The springs were marked by high winds and hail storms that killed animals in the field and stripped the paint from cars.

On January 4, 1959, the president of the Albuquerque Stake, President Wilson, came up to Las Vegas to meet with the branch presidency.  We were told that Apostle Kimball, in charge of the work among the American Indians and Spanish‑Americans, had decided that the church in the Southwest would never be integrated as long as Spanish and Indian languages were used and separate wards maintained.  We were told that, henceforth, all church meetings would be conducted in English.  Totally appalled, I pointed out that in Las Vegas we had many Spanish‑American members who spoke no English, or who had problems in understanding the gospel in English.  I also said that Anglo Americans did not fellowship or understand the Spanish‑Americans and that Spanish‑Americans would not accept positions of leadership in the ward structure dominated by Anglos.  President Wilson refused to listen to my arguments and the discussion waxed strong.

The Spanish‑American members, poor though they might be, were close to my heart.  I would like to mention some of them.  Brother Louis Barela joined the church just before we arrived.  Living alone he had a huge growth on the back of his neck that ultimately killed him.  In his sixties, he became a good, wise friend to Ruth and me.  A poor but very intelligent man, he taught us the history of San Miguel County from a sensitive Spanish‑American point of view.  As a boy, he sold papers in the saloons of the town and knew Billy the Kid, who spoke excellent Spanish.  Billy never killed a Spanish‑American and was loved by them.  He also showed us the building in which the outlaw, Silva, conducted his saloon and buried his victims.  He liked to go with us to witness Indian dances and festivities in the Rio Grande Valley.  He died shortly after we left.

The Cocas were a sad family.  Brother Coca was blind.  Two of his older girls got into trouble through sneaking out the windows when the parents were asleep.  We made much over the young children in the family.  They moved to Albuquerque when we left, and I have often wondered what became of them.  Brother Coca died of cancer of the stomach during our last year in Las Vegas.

The Martinez family was a middle class family who lived in the City of Las Vegas.  Composed of a mother and four or five children, the family were faithful members of the Church, but quit coming when Spanish was abandoned in the branch.  They later came to Salt Lake City and became quite active again in the Church.

The Herreras were a young family with three or four children.  An immigrant from Mexico, Brother Herrera married a local Spanish‑American girl.  The family had been converted to the Church by a talented missionary.  They came faithfully, accepted office, and became good members.  Unfortunately, their feelings, as well as those of other Spanish‑American members, were constantly hurt by crude, insensitive Anglo‑American members.  They became inactive just before we left.

Then there were Ida and Al Garcia from Taos.  Al worked at the State Mental Hospital and served as branch president of the Spanish speaking branch and, later, taught in the Spanish language Sunday school.  Well educated, Ida and Al had problems in adjusting to both the poor Spanish‑American members and to the less educated Anglo‑American members who did not always guard their tongues.  We enjoyed their friendship.  They later moved to El Paso after our arrival there, he having joined the army, and our friendship continued.

In the spring of 1960, my relationship with President Donnelly began to deteriorate.  A small group of Spanish‑American students who wrote excellent Spanish poetry began to meet in my office to compose, criticize, and read their poetry.  Loving Spanish poetry, I met with them as often as I could.  Although they knew English well, they were not creative in that language.  We discussed between us the possibility of publishing a journal in the Spanish language on campus devoted to poetry, short stories, and essays.  I went to President Donnelly to request University help in getting the publication underway.  He told me abruptly, coldly, and rudely that under no circumstances would any Spanish language publication be printed or permitted on the campus of New Mexico Highlands University.  Almost in a rage, he said that if the students had anything to say, they could say it in English.

Shortly afterwards, Herbert Shore a newly hired English faculty member came into my office, embittered and distraught.  He told me that Dr. Jameson, a tenured member of the English department had died and that Shore had applied for his position.  He had once been a member of the Communist Party for a short time and had left in disgust.  The F.B.I. contacted him and asked for the names of all the members of the party that he knew.  He told the F.B.I. that he would be frank and candid about his experiences in the Communist Party but would not be an informer.  Several days later he was visited by a good friend of mine, a prominent educator in Las Vegas, a former Communist who told him that in return for providing information to the F.B.I., the F.B.I. had helped him find employment.  Shore replied that he simply could not inform on his former friends.  The next day, Dean Guy Burris fired him.  I calmed him down and suggested that he apply for a position in a more liberal college.

About this time, my good friend, Robert Simmons, and I organized what we called a Town and Gown Forum to meet once a month in each other's home.  Before long we had pulled together a group of around ten to fifteen people.  By the end of 1960, we had become a tightly knit group.  Among our members were Robert Simmons and his wife, Lynn June; William Fisher, superintendent of the Las Vegas School System; Ned Roberts and his lovely wife; Marion Cline and his wife; the Gnagys; and several others whose names now escape me.  Mr. Gnagy was a guitar playing, Presbyterian minister, married to a lovely Portuguese girl with a fine singing voice.  We had many happy times together.

Tragedy overshadowed certain members of the group.  Bill Fisher lost his wife to cancer and then moved to El Paso employed at UTEP.  The Gnagys, after we left, moved to Albuquerque, where he became involved with drugs.  Unable to find his way, he lost his wife to divorce.  The Simmons went to graduate school at the University of Washington, so that Bob could finish his doctorate in political science.  In spite of his popularity at Highlands and in northern New Mexico, he accepted a position at Los Angeles City College.  Within a year or so he and Lynn June divorced.

In the fall of 1959, Robert Simmons and I organized the American Indian Students' Association at Highlands University.  The majority of the students were from the Navajo, Pueblo, and Jicarilla Apache tribes, in that order, with a smattering from many other tribes.  The Indian students deeply enriched our lives.  Living just half a block from campus, our home became their clubhouse.  Almost any night of the week, Indian students were apt to visit us to talk about their families, their tribes, their hopes and aspirations, fears, and their problems with teachers, Anglo‑American and Spanish‑American students, and their difficulties with their subjects.  We always invited them to eat with us. 

We were able to fully integrate them into the life of the school.  The Indian students sponsored an annual program of Indian dances supported by the tribes and pueblos of New Mexico to raise money for Indian scholarships.  The dances became community events with large audiences.  They danced during the University's basketball games at half‑times.  Ruth and I came to love and to cherish such students as Anita Tsinajenny, Andrew Pete, Joe Jimenez, Velva Vigil, Jo Carijo, Tony Whitecloud, Kenneth McCabe, Loretta Arvizo, and Janice Livingston.

Through club activities, we became close friends with Joe Herrera, a Cochiti Indian artist and a staff member of the State Department of Education in charge of Indian education.  Through him we got to know a number of Indian artists in and around Santa Fe.  My experiences with my Indian friends were among the richest and most rewarding of my entire teaching career.

It was a good thing that I became a member of the University Discipline Committee at this time.  In the spring of 1959, Anita Tsinajenny, the lovely daughter of a wealthy Navajo family, Loretta Arviso, and a girl named Juanita came to my office in tears.  They had checked out of their dorm on a Friday night to spend the weekend with their parents on the reservation.  In Anita's beautiful white station wagon, one of the most expensive cars on campus, they had traveled to Albuquerque and decided to visit Indian friends at the University of New Mexico.  Before they realized it, night had come upon them.  So they drove out into the desert, cooked some food on a campfire, and slept in the car.  The next day, Sunday, they visited friends in Albuquerque and in Santa Fe.  On the way back to Las Vegas, Juanita got them to stop at a store and purchased several six packs of beer and drank most of them.

The girls tried to sneak into the dormitory, but Juanita broke away from them to do a fast war dance in the dormitory lounge, chanting loudly in Navajo.  The dorm mother and residents swarmed out, wondering if the dorm was under attack.  The next morning the girls were told by Dean Ray Farmer that they were suspended for the rest of the year, which meant the loss of their tribal scholarships.

I calmed the angry Farmer down, pointing out that these girls had slept out in the desert from the time that they were little girls tending family sheep.  Most of them had tasted alcohol in their adolescence.  I managed to keep them from being suspended by heroic, inspired flights of oratory.  They were finally campused for one week.  When it was over, I sighed and wondered when the next crisis would be upon me.

I am not sure whether it was in the fall of 1959 or the summer of 1960 that the Indian students resolved to hold a picnic up Gallinas Canyon.  Ruth and I and Simmons, with the help of Indian girls, cooked large basins of mutton stew, prepared several wash tubs of potato salad, and a mountain of fry bread.  At the picnic site, the Indian students play games and enjoyed themselves tremendously.  As darkness fell, we all sat around the campfire.  The conversation of the students drifted into Navajo, Apache, and Pueblo, and their faces blended into the darkness.  Bob, Lynn June, Ruth and I sat back replete against a backrest and listened to the Indian students laughing, playing practical jokes, drumming, and singing softly.

A considerable distance up the hill, loud voices rent the air as a party of Texans from Dallas celebrated the weekend.  Drinking was heavy and rancorous arguments broke out.  (Poor New Mexico‑‑so close to Texas and so far from heaven.)  One of the men stumbled down the hillside to our campfire, carrying a folded crinoline slip over his arm.  Approaching Simmons, his wife, Ruth, and myself, he demanded to know in a bellicose manner what we had done with his wife, as he had seen her come our way.  Our denials of any knowledge of her whereabouts seemed to increase his wrath.  Suddenly, an Indian girl giggled.  After a shocked moment, he suddenly realized that he was surrounded by Indians, regarding him with unfriendly eyes.  He spun around and, stumbling up the hill, screamed, "Run, run!  Indians, Indians!  They have got my wife!"  The Texans hurriedly took down their tents, packed their gear into the cars, and raced down the road.  The Indian students broke up into hilarious laughter.

Another time, a young Pueblo Indian student stood in front of the union building by his pickup on the first day of the hunting season.  Several Anglo students, seeing his hunting license, asked him where he intended to go for his deer.  He said fairly close by and that he hoped that he would get his deer inside of an hour.  The Anglo students hooted at him.  Sensing that the teasing was becoming unfriendly, I suggested a friendly game of chance.  Perhaps the Anglo students would like to bet ten dollars each that he could not kill a deer within two hours.  The students pulled out their money and gave it to me‑‑around $100.  I looked at my watch and said, "go."  The Indian student sped off and within 45 minutes was back with a large buck in his pick‑up truck, an arrow in its heart.  I paid him the money as the students silently walked away.  He told me that every afternoon he explored the nearby hills and knew the location of every deer within several miles of Las Vegas.

On April 27, 1959, I secured travel money to attend the meetings of the Society for American Archeology at the University of Utah.  Loading up our car, we traveled to Salt Lake City.  I attended the meetings during the day and at night visited family members.  As usual, I thoroughly enjoyed talking to my parents.  My father mentioned that he was writing a history of the Utah State Road Commission.  I ran across an old friend, Kimball Romney, engaged in field work in southern Mexico.  Kimball told me that he was drifting away from the Church, to the unhappiness of his wife and children.  He wanted to know my position in the Church.  I told him that I was still active.  I talked with Ross about the unhappy conditions at the Brigham Young University.  I returned to Las Vegas several days later, refreshed and better able to meet the ever‑challenging conditions of life at Highlands.

In May, Robert Simmons asked me to accompany him to Chama.  He had been invited to give the commencement address at Chama High School.  As he rose to give his speech, he told me that he expected me to follow him in Spanish.  Quite shocked, I spoke for five minutes on the important role that the Spanish‑ Americans had played in New Mexico and urged them to preserve their language and their culture.  The audience came alive, although the teachers and principal reacted rather coldly.  That night, Robert and I talked long into the night with a local teacher, Arturo Trujillo.  He told us that he had worked as a sheepherder for many years.  Deciding in his 30s that he wanted to become a school teacher, he saved his money, worked his way through Highlands University, and became a math teacher in Chama.

Upon our return to campus, another fantastic episode erupted.  All during the fall of 1958 and most of 1959, an Israeli had titillated Las Vegas with fantastic stories about his heroic experiences in the Israeli Air Force.  Taken up by what passed as society in Las Vegas, he courted and married the daughter of a prominent Jewish merchant.  Enrolled at the University, he became a confidant of President Donnelly and Dean Burris.  I was quite suspicious of him from the very beginning.  Simmons and I began to note down everything he said and soon found many discrepancies.  He reported to the University administration and to the police that a packet of highly confidential papers had been stolen.  A few people began to question his authenticity, and factions developed within the University and the community.  Those who accepted his stories criticized those who did not.  To settle the question, I called the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., and related the situation to them.  Within several weeks, I received a letter from the embassy stating that no such man had ever served in the Israeli Air Force.  President Donnelly was most upset at me for having contacted the embassy.

Shortly after this, President Donnelly and I had an angry confrontation over Sadiq Al‑Isterabadi.  Donnelly angrily wanted to know why I worked so hard finding money to keep him at Highlands.  he also accused me of being the source for a series of hostile articles appearing in the Optic, written by Jack Flynn, whom I scarcely knew at the time.  He also accused me of calling his wife and frightening her.  Quite shocked, I denied all of it.  I contacted Flynn, who told me that Donnelly had broken into his home several days ago to threaten him with libel suits and accused me of being his source of news.  Becoming quite intrigued by the whole affair, Simmons and I moved among the faculty for several weeks listening to faculty gossip and managed to find the guilty party (a person named Ryan) in the Department of Psychology.  We told him coldly what we might do to him unless he confessed all to Donnelly, which he did.  I began to view Highlands as an insane asylum.  Jack Flynn and I became rather close friends.

When the summer quarter came to an end in the fall of 1959, we drove to Salt Lake City.  On the way, we stopped in Gallup to visit the families of many of our Indian students.  We quite enjoyed Salt Lake City, spending much of our time in the family cabin.  The boys especially enjoyed interacting with their numerous relatives on both sides of the family.  Salt Lake City, in spite of scheduling conflicts with our two families, seemed to be an oasis of peace and tranquility compared to Las Vegas.

The fall quarter of 1960 began calmly enough.  The Simmons had left for graduate school at the University of Washington.  Bob was replaced by Warren Weston, who had come in from Missouri. Wally and his wife, Jenny, also became close friends.  They brought with them their collection of pigeons and rabbits.  Wally was a very calm, thoughtful, humorous man who enjoyed making his own beer and bread.  We spent many happy days and evenings in their company.

But the peace and quiet did not last long.  One cold day in November, the campus was blanketed with a student manifesto attacking Coach Gibson for the exclusion of Spanish‑Americans from athletic scholarships, as well as the failure of Highlands to meet the needs of the Spanish‑American students.  The administration located the culprits‑‑all Spanish‑American students‑‑and permanently suspended them from Highlands University.  As one of them was Toby Maes, my graduate student, I immediately went to bat for him and managed to keep him on campus.  The others were abandoned by their departments.

On November 22, 1959, Stake President, Brother Lemmon, came to Las Vegas to reorganize the branch.  I accepted the position of branch president, with Brother Tilly as first counselor, Alfonso Garcia as second counselor, and Brother Robert Herrera as branch clerk.  I was very much aware of the hostility that had developed among the Tilly's and the Sorenson's toward me because of what they conceived as my bias towards the Spanish‑Americans.  The only reason I accepted the position was to better serve the Spanish‑American members.

I taught a night course in juvenile delinquency in Tucumcari to a group of teachers during the fall quarter of 1960.  Teaching the class meant traveling over a narrow, twisting, two‑lane paved road through mountains and plains, without a service station for over 100 miles each way.  One of the deans, Dean Farmer, urged me to recruit as many Anglo‑American students as possible for Highlands.  He told me that the administration resented the fact that Highlands was known as a "Mexican school" in New Mexico.  I recruited as many Spanish‑American students as I could.  One evening, I took with me a big, tall Irish‑American priest, Father Ed Sullivan, a fine friend and a Catholic chaplain at the New Mexico Boys' School in Springer, New Mexico, to talk to my students.  As we rounded a curve, we encountered a large family of skunks on the road.  Father Ed, crossing himself, called out, "In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, miss those skunks," which I barely did.

On December 9, we loaded our family into the station wagon and traveled to Salt Lake City once more.  We filled up with gas in Monticello.  On the other side of Moab, the car sputtered, gasped, and coughed, refusing to go up the hill.  I drove back to a Moab garage, the car coughed, sputtered, and gasped, refusing to go more than ten miles an hour.  We managed to get to Crescent Junction, where a station attendant, putting some alcohol in the gas tank, told us we had watery gasoline.  That was the last time we ever bought gas in Monticello.

My purpose in going to Salt Lake City was to talk to the Church Building Committee about our building site and whether or not we could get the church to put up a building.  I was quite shocked to find that the Committee had charged our scanty building fund, raised so penuriously, with a $500 architect fee for a set of building plans that we could never use.  I protested vigorously, pointing out that the plans were too big, and not suitable for our site.  I left Mr. Pederson's office with many reservations about the probity and integrity of the Church Building Committee.  I later learned that this committee had been released under the shadow of kickbacks, etc.

We had a very enjoyable 1960 Christmas by ourselves.  The boys were all contented and happy with their gifts.  We had tried so hard to balance the three piles equally.  Ruth and I remained at home during the holidays, reading, listening to good music, and visiting friends in Las Vegas.  The weather, as usual, was cold and snowy.  After a New Year's party with our Town and Gown group, we all prayed for a nice, quiet school year in 1961, but it was not to be.  Ruth became pregnant again and was confined to bed with toxemia.  The full burden of taking care of the house and of cooking again fell upon my shoulders.  Our three young boys could not understand why their mother was confined to bed and suffered from their inability to secure her full attention.