Clara Bustamate by Eliseo

By Eliseo Baca
Born January 13, 1885 married January 23, 1902
died 5 November, 1918.
Clara Bustamate was born at Santa Rita a small settlement twenty miles north of Magdalena, New Mexico. He parents were José Antonio Bustamate and Ana María Vallejos. José Antonio is listed with his parents Policarpio Bustamate and Guadalaupe Larranaga living in Tajique, New Mexico in 1850. Ana María may have been living in the area because she and José Antonio were married at Tome.
By the time of the Civil War they were living at Lemitar, from there they went to live in Aton Chico, where they stayed for seven years. They returned to join other families that were moving from the Río Grande to start a new settlement that has been known and is known to this day as Santa Rita, not Rily.
José Antonio and Ana María had altogether sixteen children among them, two sets of twins but only one set of triplets. Clara was one of the triplets; the other two died at the ages of two or three.
Clara had very fond and vivid memories of the seventeen years she lived in Santa Rita. Many were the incidents she remembered. Some sad, yes, but most of them hilarious. With her wonderful sense of humor she could see the funny side of life and with such a compassionate nature she keenly felt the misfortunes of others.
The people who lived in Santa Rita were not wealthy, but never the less they lived in rustic comfort. The family of José Antonio, besides having the farm, drew some extra dollars from his work as the village blacksmith -- his sons learned the trade.
Clara lost her father in 1894 when she was only nine years old but the youngest in the family. The mother held the family together. With what the farm produced and with the willingness of the boys to do their part, they managed to carry on.
Then in 1901, out of the clear sky, so far as is known, Nazario Baca dropped into this peaceful village to ask for the hand in marriage of the little guerita he had known when they went to school together back in the early nineties. The details are not known as to how the decisions was made to leave a pleasant home and a pleasant way of life to go to an isolated frontier ranch in the boondocks of the west Rito Quemado. How many tears were shed will ever be known. Regardless of the imagined heartaches, Nazario and Clara were married in the Santa Rita church and shortly afterwards left for Rito Quemado.
Clara left the house where she was born. She left behind her beloved Santa Rita; she said goodbye to her even more beloved mother, never to see them again. A month after the wedding Clara's mother was killed by a train at Lemitar as she was getting on it.
Nazario and Clara went to what is now called East Quemado and lived there for well over a year in the homestead of José María Baca, the father of Nazario. Perhaps because José María relinquished his homestead to his brother Anastacio, Nazario and Clara moved for Lomita Collards, about two miles down the creek and lived in one large room by Nazario's sister’s house. Then Nazario filed for 160 acres where the town of Quemado stands. There with the help of don Severo Rael a fairly good three room picket house was built to which three more rooms were added later. Those are bound to have been harsh times for Clara, but when she spoke of them, she did not complain. Harsh times were taken for granted.
When Nazario and Clara moved into the new house, they were some five hundred yards from the home of Nazario's Uncle Ramon García and his wife Anita. This couple was a great comfort to the family even years after Nazario and Clara passed away. Their many acts of kindness have never been repaid.
At the age of seventeen Nazario had taken his deceased brother's sheep on shares, and on sheep Nazario and Clara with their growing family depended for their livelihood. Late in 1912 or early 1913, Nazario went into the store business and it could be that economically life improved, but the fateful years of 1918 were approaching.
The marriage of Nazario and Clara lasted a little less than seventeen years. At least six children had been born but four were living when the flu epidemic of 1918 hit the country. Clara was among those taken she was not quite thirty-four. She was followed by Nazario four years later when he was thirty-nine. Although the two parents died young, the four children they left behind are still alive.
“Wow, thirty-four”, Lynae spoke reverently. “That’s when I was born. Mom was thirty-four when she had me. And Mom and Dad were married for 17 years. She didn’t die, but she nearly did. She definitely would have in that time.”
“So, Auntie Lola, Grandma Lucy, Auntie Marian and Uncle Eliseo are the only living kids of Grandmother Clara?” Lynae added trying to keep it straight in her own mind.

“Yeah, remember Auntie Marian is the little tiny lady in Albuquerque. When you were about three we went to visit her and you wanted to steal her shoes because they were so tiny and cute.” Brent reminisced.
“She seemed to be really big to me then, but when we went this summer, she was so tiny. I had to bend down to give her a hug. Remember Eugenia and her son Dominique were visiting there, too, and they were roasting green chilies on the barbecue grill in the back yard.”
“Oh, yeah, I love the smell of that.” Brent inhaled a big breath remembering the pungent odor of the roasting green chilies in the Albuquerque summer.
“She’s the one who gave us this story about her family and the nuns at Loretto Academy. “