José María Higínio Baca, son of Nazario Baca and María Inez Faviana García,

José María Higínio Baca, son of Nazario Baca and María Inez Faviana García, was born in Belen, New Mexico, January 11, 1852. The many personal characteristics that set this man apart were manifested very strongly, whether they were bad, such as his temper, or whether they were good, such as his generosity. He claimed to have been raised in extreme poverty, which could be true in a family of nine, headed by a widowed mother. He claimed, also, to have worked very hard and to have suffered many hardships. His youth was spent on a farm, his mother's, later his own, when farming was mostly hard physical labor.
However, in his early manhood, during the 1870's, somehow, he acquired wagons and oxen and spent a number of years freighting from Kansas and Colorado into New Mexico and Arizona. He found time to get married. On February 23, 1876, he married María Eugenia García, the daughter of Rafael García and Dolores Aragón.
In 1887 he gave up freighting when he and his younger brother, Anastacio, took cattle on shares from Federico Scholle, a merchant in Belen. In 1888 they moved out of the Río Grande Valley west to a spring east of Santa Rita, later known as Riley, when a post office was established there.
The partido contracts usually were for five years. By 1892, while still running cattle, they opened a little store at nearby Santa Rita. There their children could attend what was called a school. When the contract expired in 1892, the brothers turned back to Mr. Scholle three hundred head of cattle. Seventy head were left for each of the brothers. About this time went into the sheep business. The sheep, as was very common, were being pushed farther and farther west in search of better and better grass. And so it happened that on one of the trips to check on the sheep, José María went on to Rito Quemado, a settlement that had been started some nineteen years before by a group including José Francisco Padilla and Reducindo Padilla, brothers, intimate friends of José María and also distant relatives. The Padillas and others induced José María to move his little store to Rito Quemado. And so in February of 1893, José María arrived at the settlement with his family and the few belongings, including the store. There was a great need for a store, so, in a modest way the business prospered
The family had been in Rito Quemado less than four years when the mother, María Eugenia, passed away. Perhaps the hardships of frontier life and the raising of a large family contributed to her untimely death. Nine children were left, ranging in ages from nineteen years to fourteen months: David, Margarita, Damácio, Nazario, Filemón, Trinidad, Encarnación, Enrique and Adelaida.
The family was shattered as could be expected, but not scattered. María Eugenia died on November l, 1896, and was buried in the Rito Quemado cemetery. The grave is well marked with iron railing around it. A year later José María married Margarita Piño, widow of Nestor Gonzales and daughter of Pablo Piño and Frances Skinner. So, the family was looked after by a step-mother whose character was beyond reproach. Never was any unfavorable comment made by any of the stepchildren!
In 1898 or 1899 José María filed on a hundred sixty acre homestead in what is now east part of Quemado. By 1900 he was well settled in the new location. He had built, not the first house in Quemado, but the second oldest and still standing now, in 1991. Doña Margarita, as José María called his second wife, owned some strips of land in Mangas, 18 miles southeast of Quemado. In 1903 José María relinquished his homestead in favor of his brother, Anastacio, who moved the store he had in Puertecito Blanco, west of Santa Rita, to Quemado and José María moved his to his wife's property in Mangas by 1904.


In Mangas, José María continued with the store with cows, with sheep and with farming. He had also taken over the post office and purchased additional land. He never got wealthy, but he was never broke. He provided for his family and tried to give the children at least the rudiments of an education. Although José María never saw the inside of a school when young, he learned to read and write and to do simple arithmetic. And he read a lot. Partly because he read so much, he acquired an amazing vocabulary -- sacred and profane.
In 1910 Doña Margarita died. The doctors found that she had cancer in one leg. When she had to choose between dying and having her leg amputated, she chose death. She left a daughter Mary Gonzales, from her first marriage and Eugenio Baca from the second.
José María stayed in his beloved Mangas. Gradually he closed the store in order to let his son, Filemon, run his nearby, together with the post office. His sheep were out on shares and so were most of his cattle. He devoted his attention to farming and to fattening of hogs; and gave away most of what the farm, garden and hogs produced. Although his children were grown, he was seldom alone. He did very little visiting but not a day passed without someone coming to see him. Old timers have been asked, "Why did people put up with his temper?" The words in the answers varied, but the meaning was the same: “Because he was there when he was needed.”
In 1918, sheep that he and his son, Nazario, had out on shares were turned back unexpectedly in the month of March and in poor condition. Although José María owned half of the sheep, he did not take part in handling them, but his meadows were used at lambing time. His son, Nazario, managed the sheep business and went often throughout the year to check on the sheep and on the grazing situation. The sheep ranged far and wide, then.
By 1915 José María's health had begun to fail. Diabetes was his trouble with other complications. On July 11, 1923, he passed away, seventy-one and a half years old. Incidentally, he took with him a perfect set of teeth, unimpaired hearing and excellent vision.
No effort has been made to canonize the man. His faults were well known and cannot be denied; they have been gleefully discussed throughout the years. At the same time, his forceful personality, his resourcefulness and unusual native intelligence have been acknowledged even by some who did not love him dearly. Those who knew him best and those he helped when help was sorely needed had reason to feel that his good traits outweighed the bad ones.
“Lynae, are you crying, baby?” Mom stroked Lynae’s brown hair.
“It just seems so sad that he’s dead already.” Lynae sniffed, wiping at the tears on her cheek.
“Sweetie, he’d be nearly a hundred a fifty years old. What do you mean already?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I just somehow feel really close to him and his family right now.” Lynae responded lamely looking toward Brent for validation.
Brent interpreted to change the focus. “So we probably got big families and diabetes from the Bacas.”
“And you must have gotten your orneriness from José María.” Lynae sniffed.
“Quítate hijita. I think we got the orneriness from more sides than one.”
“We seemed to have inherited having step-mothers too.” Lynae giggled in spite of her red nose and teary eyes.