An official USGenWeb Project site Dedicated to Free Information for Home Family Genealogy use only.
Abe Peña's  "From the Past"  newspaper column

All material used with the kind permission of the author, given to me personally.

"Monday, November 24, 2008 5:23 PM MST

Fray Angelico Chávez - El Franciscan

Abe Peña is a local author and historian whose award winning books 'Memories of Cibola' and 'Villages and Villagers' are available at bookstores throughout New Mexico.

When I asked Fray Angelico Chávez, noted Franciscan priest, author, and historian from Santa Fe, “How were you able to accomplish so much research and writing given your priestly duties?” he answered, “I always sought to be assigned as an assistant pastor. It gave me time to do research and write.”

That explains how this remarkable man wrote close to 30 books. Most priests, like most men, would rather seek the Pastor position, the top position in the parish, caring for the flock, leaving little time for other matters.

The good friar placed religious and literary pursuits above personal ambition, and we're the beneficiaries. Knowing the energy of this man, I'm certain he never neglected his duties as an assistant pastor, he simply was a tireless worker.

This small man in stature, about 5 feet 7 inches, weighed about 115 pounds soaking wet, and looked like the actor George Burns. He had a pleasant countenance, white hair that was once brown, brown eyes, a fair complexion, and very fine hands. In the opinion of many of us who know his work, he was a giant for the ages.

He was born in Wagon Mound, New Mexico, on April 10, 1910. His parents, Don Fabian Chávez and Doña Nicolasa Roybal Chávez, were from old Spanish families who came with the early colonists to northern New Mexico in the late 16th century.

From Wagon Mound, the family moved to Mora, and then to Santa Fe. There were seven children, Manuel, Ezequiel (Fray Angelico), Romualdo, Maria Consuelo, Francisco, Fabian (former Speaker of the New Mexico House of Representatives), Antonio, and José Chávez.

He told Ken Dunnagan in 1990, who did a video feature of the Padre in Santa Fe at age 80, “Since I was a boy, I wanted to be a Franciscan,” adding, “To serve a merciful God and remain close to my mountains.”

He served as an Army Chaplain in WW II, rising to the rank of major. He said, “I volunteered and was rejected because I didn't weigh enough. A couple of months later, I tried again and passed. The examining doctor, with a wink of his eye, doctored my weight!

Fray Anegelico's book, “But for Time and Chance” is a masterpiece. It is the compelling story of another Padre, Padre Antonio José Martínez of Taos. A giant of his own time, who was suspended from his priestly duties by Bishop Lamy in 1857. But for another time and chance, Martínez himself might have been the Bishop.

Padre Martínez brought the first printing press to New Mexico and started the first school at Taos in 1833. He was a protector and champion of the Penitentes who he felt preserved the Catholic faith when the Spanish priests were expelled by Mexico after the War of Independence in 1821.

Bishop Lamy rose to Archbishop, but never recognized the Penitentes as true Catholics. Los Hermanos Penitentes were finally accepted by Archbishop Edwin Byrne in 1935.

Severo Martínez, my brother-in-law, and his wife Rose (my wife's sister), introduced me to Fray Angelico in the summer of 1985 at an Indian Art Fair on the plaza near St. Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe. Viola was born a few blocks from the plaza and we were married in the cathedral in 1955 where she had been a vocalist.

I had always admired the good Padre and in our conversation I told him about my writing of people and places of northwest New Mexico and asked if he would mind me calling from time to time to consult on various aspects of our history.

The Plaza de Santa Fe became our meeting place. When I had questions, I telephoned and he asked me to meet him at his “office.” His office was a park bench on the plaza, an ornate bench in the northwest quadrant nearest to the Palace Restaurant, his favorite eatery and watering hole.

On that park bench I learned the origin of the pageant of “Los Comanches” which we celebrated in San Mateo for Christmas, and also the origin of the 100 families that colonized northern New Mexico. All Hispanics in northern and northwest New Mexico trace back in large part to those 100 families. In tracing the Pena and Márquez family trees, I bear the following names; Ortega, Chávez, Ortiz, Montoya, Duran, Gutiérrez, and on and on back to 1692.

According to Fray Angelico, some Indian blood has probably mixed in us, but, by and large, we are the descendents of those original 100 Spanish families who dared to cross the oceans to come and colonize a remote and isolated part of the New World.

They came to the port of Vera Cruz in Mexico, continued on to Mexico City, then went north through Zacatecas to the northern edges of New Spain, now known as New Mexico. I've spent many days at the State Record Center and Archives in Santa Fe looking for land grant documents and church records, attempting to find windows to our past. Fray Angelico has played a large role in collecting and micro-filming historical records available to us today.

Fray Angelico used to drive an old car around. One summer Viola and I went to Sunday Mass at the cathedral, and, while we were parking, a noisy “clunker” with what we assumed was a young man at the wheel parked next to us. Instead, out jumped Fray Angelico wearing his sporty navy blue blazer looking fit as a fiddle.

He elected not to retire to the Franciscan home for old priests back east, but rather chose to rent an apartment and stay close to his beloved mountains and the city of the Holy Faith, Santa Fe. In 1992, at age 82, the good Padre was persuaded to move to the rectory of the cathedral by the Franciscan Fathers.

That location was within easy walking distance of the plaza and the Palace Restaurant where he could converse with friends and visit with his many, many admirers.

We New Mexicans, and indeed all Americans, are all indebted to Padre Angelico. Muchas gracias, Padre.

Note: Fray Angelico passed away in the mid 1990s. A life-size bronze statue in his honor was dedicated near the Municipal Library in Santa Fe."