A Glimpse Into The Past

Interview with Michael Martin, grandson of George Martin Senior

​By Jessica Rath

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How many of you, our esteemed readers, remember General Stores? Before supermarkets, shrink-wrapped groceries, packaged goods, self-checkout, credit cards, and so many more new-fangled contraptions? When sugar, flour, beans, etc. were stored in big bins and had to be hand-measured into a paper bag by a clerk  who then weighed the item and calculated the cost? In Germany where I grew up, such stores were common at least until the end of the 1960s, even in big cities where one could find several supermarkets as well.

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Martin’s, the general store in El Rito which closed its doors for the last time on  August 29, 2009, was different from my German memories. At Martin’s, besides groceries one could buy horseshoes, nails, screws, bolts,  and hammers, pails, ropes, medicines, crockery and dishes, soap, lanterns, chicken feed, kitchen gadgets  – just about anything the local families and farmers might need. Oh, and one could get gas, too. It was a sad event for the community when the store closed, people had to drive to Abiquiú or Espanola for almost everything.

The building stood empty, but unchanged for many years. I always wanted to find out more about its past. Greg Martin, who ran the store until it closed and who is the grandson of the original owner George Martin, moved to Albuquerque, I learned. But his cousin Michael Martin (everybody knows him as Mike), who is  the Chair of Northern New Mexico College’s Board of Regents, lives in El Rito and kindly agreed to meet with me. Over a cup of coffee at the Abiquiú Inn we had a lovely chat.

​First of all, a quick family history, so you’ll know who Mike is referring to later. George Martin Senior started the store together with his business partner John Sargent in the 1920s and eventually became the sole proprietor. He was married to Margaret Allen Martin, an Irish nurse with the nickname Dambo, who ran a Maternal and Child Health Care Center in El Rito. They had five children: John, Tom, Roberta, George and Pat. Tom, and later Tom’s son Greg ran the store until it closed. “The Martins also acquired a ranch, later managed by their son Pat, daughter-in-law JoAnn, and grandchildren Mike and Tim.”(1)

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Which means that Mike, the person I was talking with, is the grandson of the store’s original owner, and that his uncle Tom and later his cousin Greg ran the store, while he grew up on his father’s ranch.

Where did your family originally come from, I asked Mike.
“My grandfather, George Martin, came from Alsace Lorraine, and went to school at Manhattan University in New York,” I learned. “Then they thought he had tuberculosis, so he came out west for his health.  Because he had a bachelor's degree from Manhattan College, and they needed somebody to be the principal at the school here, he moved to El Rito. And then he met my grandmother, who was originally from Ireland, Margaret Allen, and they were married in 1912.”

Wait a minute – is Mike talking about the El Rito campus of Northern New Mexico College? I had no idea it had such a long history.
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(1)Rio Grande Sun, Obituaries

Image credit: Gia Marie Hook

“It was founded in 1909 as a normal school to train teachers”, Mike informed me. “It actually became a college before we were even a state, in 1912.”

​This is so interesting that I had to do a bit of research. The school was known as the Spanish American Normal School and was a teacher training institution, originally meant to train students to become teachers for the local schools in Northern New Mexico. It was the first institution for Hispanics in the United States. In 1969 the last class graduated from Normal School, and it became part of Espanola’s Northern New Mexico College in 1971 (actually, a community college until 2005).

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“My grandfather was working at the college,” Mike continued.  “He was their first principal in 1910, and then in 1913 they promoted him to be President. He was president for one year, because in 1914 they moved the family to Pueblo, Colorado. They moved back to El Rito in 1925, and George went into partnership with a man by the name of John Sergeant. They both had a store together. Eventually the partnership dissolved, and my grandfather went into business by himself. This must have been about 1930, where the current Martin store is.”

“My grandfather's degree was in languages. He spoke German, French, English, and Spanish. He was very good friends with Mr. Bode, with Martin Bode,  Karl's father.” Sure, because Martin Bode immigrated from Germany at the turn of the last century. The area of Alsace-Lorraine was part of Imperial Germany from 1871 until the Treaty of Versailles at the End of World War I, and even today people in the region speak a dialect which is similar to Swiss German. At the same time, people are fluent in French and German. One can imagine that Martin Bode and George Martin would easily communicate in German.

How was it growing up in El Rito as a kid, I wanted to know. Did you go to school somewhere in El Rito? Was there a school? I had no idea, of course.

Mike corrected me.  “I went to school here in Abiquiú, to the St. Thomas Catholic school. I started in 1964 in the first grade, and went through the spring of 1971 when they closed the school. That’s when I was in the seventh grade. I spent my eighth grade at El Rito Elementary, then went to Mesa Vista High School, and graduated in 1976.”

So how did you get from El Rito to Abiquiú, I asked.

“There were three or four families that carpooled,” I learned. “At the school,  we had four nuns, and there were two classes for each nun, and school was held in what's now the Parish Hall. There were two classes in each room per nun.”

So there was no school bus, I wanted to confirm.

​“Well, there was a school bus that picked up the kids here in Abiquiú, but it didn't go all the way to El Rito,” Mike explained.

Image credit: Dominic Trujillo.

When I heard that Mike attended Mesa Vista High School near Ojo Caliente, I was reminded of my recent interview with Quentin Wilson; both he and his wife Maria had been teachers at Mesa Vista. Did he know them, was he their student, I asked Mike.

“I know them both very well,” was his reply, but they were not his teachers.  “He is quite the adobe specialist, and he helped us with some projects at
our house.” Funny, how this all weaves together. But then again, in small towns everybody knows everybody, of course.

Mike went to college at the New  Mexico State University in Las Cruces, and graduated in 1980 with a bachelor's degree in agriculture and  economics. And then he returned to El Rito and worked on the ranch, because his father inherited the ranch, while his Uncle Tom got the store.

I imagined that it would be fun for a young kid to spend time at a grocery store where everybody you know would show up sooner or later. But it turned out that I was wrong.

“We used to help my Uncle Tom do the inventory at the end of the year”, I learned, “but that was about the extent of my time at the store. We stayed pretty busy on the ranch with all the work to be done there.” Sure, that made sense; I didn’t think of that.

But I did want to hear about the store – was it a true general  shopping place, where one could purchase just about anything, I wanted to know.

​“Yes, it was a general store,” he confirmed. “They had everything. They had groceries, they had hardware, dry goods, just about anything that you need. My Uncle Tom had horse shoes, plumbing parts,  feed for the livestock, candy, and he had a gas station as well.”

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“The store was really busy for a long time. My uncle used to have a couple of gentlemen working for him, and then a couple of young boys would come in after school and help them with stocking the shelves. Yes, they did a lot of business.”

As Mike was talking, I could  almost  picture everything, the cash register, the balance scales to weigh dry goods,  the baskets with apples, carrots, and other produce. I could smell a mixture of onions, garlic, and spices.

“When they first had the store, there was a big counter in the front. You came in and gave your list to the proprietor, and they filled your order while you waited for your items. Then later they switched over to where you would actually go shop for yourself. But for a long time, there wasn't anything like self serving. No, you came in and visited with the other people while they got your groceries together.”

It must have been a social hub of sorts, where people could meet and hang out.
Mike confirmed: “The post office was right across the street; the building that’s right next to El Farolito used to be the old post office. So, everything was right there together. You could come to get your mail and then you could shop. And you could get the gasoline for your tractor or your truck.”

And then it all changed. It became harder and harder to make a profit because customers dwindled. Were there more people living in El Rito then, or why did business  sort of peter out?

“I think people weren't nearly as mobile back then as they are now,” Mike explained.  “And they couldn't easily get to town. You know, back in the 20s, there were very few automobiles in El Rito. People just had horses and teams and wagons,  and it was just subsistence living. It was a big deal to go to Espanola even back in the 60s.”

And there were no streets, only  dirt roads. If it was raining, it would be a drag to go to a store somewhere farther away.But then your cousin Greg at some point had enough, I suggested.

​“Yes, Greg closed the store in 2009. He had run it since 1974 or so, and business had slowed down. A lot. People were doing a lot more shopping in town, and he was just ready for some peace and quiet.”

Image credit: Dominic Trujillo.

Was it sad and difficult for the community when the store closed, I asked Mike.

“Yes, it was very hard,” he confirmed. “Greg was the only one selling gasoline fuel at that point. The other store in El Rito had been selling fuel, but then they stopped so we no longer had any gas station in town. We had to drive to Bode’s or go to Espanola or to Ojo Caliente to get fuel, and that was a big adjustment for everybody.”

I asked Mike about the work on their ranch, what he had to do when growing up.

“We had a lot of cattle,” he told me,  “so we had to irrigate some fields and grow alfalfa, and then we cut it and made hay bales. We’d take the cattle up into the mountains, to our forest service permit area, and they'd spend the summer up there. So we had to go up there and check on them, and then we’d bring them back home, so they'd spend the winter there in El Rito on the fields, and we'd have to feed them every day. Taking care of animals was a big part of the routine.”

Mike had a final word: “The community has been very, very good to our family. They were always supportive and I've always felt lucky. It’s been a privilege to be able to live in El Rito.”

​Thank you, Mike, for telling me about your family, about your past, and about the iconic store in El Rito.