Montezuma

During the 1920s the school at Young continued to grow until we had six teachers. I was able to finish the first two years of high school there and was then faced with the problem of completing high school. Our parents were disappointed in Floyd's performance so they decided to try something different with me. They thought a boarding school might be a better answer than farming me out to a family in Globe. They talked with Rev. Bussell who was a bright very well educated man and was minister of the local Baptist Church. He recommended sending me to Montezuma, a Baptist high school and college in Montezuma, New Mexico. I remember the day Dad talked to me about leaving home to continue school. He was very direct saying,"Sherman, you have gone as far as you can go here in the Valley so we will need to decide where you go from here? What do you plan to do?" I said, "Dad, I want to go on to school. I do not know just yet what I will do but I do not see anything in this Valley that I would like to do for the rest of my life." Dad then told me that he and Mom had talked with Rev. Bussell and that Bussell had recommended a boarding school called Montezuma near Las Vegas, New Mexico. That hit me exactly where I wanted to be hit and I told the folks that I would do my best to make good there.

Now I am sure that many people would not consider Las Vegas New Mexico to be a great place to "escape" to. For me it was like the gates of paradise had just opened and I was ready to step inside. I was fresh from the "sticks." I had never seen a properly set table. I had never tasted ice tea or hot dogs. I was just in from the country riding on a load of pumpkins and had a million things to learn about the rest of the world. I did have one thing going for me. I was ready and willing to make the best of any situation.

It was decided that I would go alone on the train from Holbrook to Las Vegas. After all, I was sixteen years old and could ride a horse or brand a calf so I should be able to ride a train overnight to Las Vegas. It was necessary to get a few clothes and we relied on Sears Roebuck for those, placing an order for a suit, shirts, trousers and shoes. As I remember the order totaled about fifty dollars including shipping charges.

Around the first of September 1928 we started to Holbrook in Uncle Dalton's Model T Ford. That car had a Ruxtell Axle so it would throttle down enough to climb slowly over the large rocks in the unimproved road. The first day we made it to Heber which was forty seven miles from Young. We spent the night in the Heber School house and drove on to Holbrook the next morning. On checking schedules we found that I could catch a train at nine o'clock that evening. Dad and Mom would not think of leaving me alone to catch that train at nine that evening. We all sat around the depot and waited. You might suppose Dad, Mom. Ruth and Victor would stay at a motel after I left but there were no motels in those days. They simply drove out of town to a convenient spot, rolled out their bed rolls and slept. It was much less expensive to travel in those days but it was not very convenient.

I was so excited and thrilled by all that was happening that I couldn't sleep on the train. Besides I was afraid they would forget to wake me and would take me right past Las Vegas while I slept. When we finally arrived, I saw a busy thriving city that appeared to be very large to me. All the trains were powered by coal then and Las Vegas was a Division Point on the Santa Fe Railroad which meant that crews were changed, cars were cleaned and new linen was put on board. Today Las Vegas is barely worth a short whistle from passing trains.

Montezuma had a bus to transport students to the campus from Las Vegas since it was five or six miles out. I was the only passenger on the day I arrived so I got the full attention of Charlie Wood the driver. We headed into the foothills west of Las Vegas and gradually climbed into the pine trees. At last I could see an enormous sandstone building on top of a hill beside the Gallinas River. The building had towers and turrets and a beautiful slate roof. We approached it up a winding road and stopped at the main entrance. There Dr Barrick, the President of Montezuma, came out to welcome me to the school which was an elementary, high school and college all combined under one roof. I had just arrived in Paradise and I never got over that feeling.

The original building was constructed in the 1880s by the Santa Fe Railroad and Fred Harvey. It was made of red sandstone and was four or five stories high. It was a very ornate hotel to start with. The lobby was lined with golden oak and the furniture was covered with brown leather. There was a huge fire place in the lobby and very heavy plate glass mirrors were placed in the walls in such way as to reflect the fire light. Guest rooms were large and had wonderful Parquet floors. It was a great setting for a boarding school. Only a complete idiot could fail to appreciate the beauty of Montezuma. After seventy years I am still thrilled by the memories of that place and by the people who ran it.

I am not going to write a blow by blow account of my days at Montezuma because my high school experiences were about like those of all other students. I took History and English and all the other "medicine" with more or less success. I played football, basketball and base ball with some average success. It was a great experience to play football in Plainview, Texas in one of the first night games ever played in this country. This was in 1930. Our team stayed in one of the first Hilton Hotels during the Cotton Carnival celebration in Plainview. As you know the Hilton Hotel chain expanded from its meager start in west Texas.

It was also a great experience to play in the New Mexico State Basketball Tournament in Santa Fe even though we were eliminated after one or two games. Santa Fe was a small Mexican town in those days with narrow winding streets and very colorful residents. The greatest traffic hazard was a donkey loaded with fire wood and there were many of them.

It is my opinion that the success of my school experience at Montezuma was due to my association with the faculty and students there. They were a wonderfully inspiring group of people who took time to give a hand to a very green and ignorant boy.

I graduated from high school in 1930 and attended one quarter of college when the Great Depression hit and the school closed. I understand it opened again in 1936 but that did not last long. It was purchased by the Catholic Church and used to train priests from Mexico during a time when the Mexican government was trying to lessen the influence of the Catholic Church there. Today there is an International Academy which provides schooling for high school pupils from fifty different nations around the world. Armand Hammer donated nine million dollars to this institution and Prince Charles of England is on the Board of Directors. However, the "Old Victorian Castle" has been condemned due to structural deficiencies and is standing vacant awaiting its fate. It will be either torn down or rebuilt but it has served its purpose and will always be revered by those of us who lived in it.

When Montezuma closed in December 1930 I had no place to go. I could not go home because the road over the Mogollon Rim was not open in winter. Since there were students from Alamogordo in school with me, I caught a ride with them to Alamogordo and from there to Cloudcroft to my grand parents, Mr. and Mrs. Shelby Davis. They were still busy moving cattle from summer range down to the "flats" to winter range so I went to work with them and with Uncle Bodie, working cattle. When we finished with the cattle I bought a ticket on the Southern Pacific to Globe and hoped my parents could get out there to pick me up. Dad did meet me and I was home for Christmas where I played Santa Claus at the community Christmas Party.

There is one incident that I want to mention that occurred during my time at Montezuma. I received a routine letter from my Mother and there was nothing unusual about it except that it had a number of lines that had been erased. Now Mother was a good writer and it was not often that she erased anything in a letter. I managed to hold the page up to a light and read what had been erased. It said, "I bet you will be surprised when you get home and find that you have a new--." Well it did not take a genius to figure out what I had at home. I had a new brother or sister and I was already surprised but I was able to appear surprised when I got home and saw my sister Anne for the first time. She arrived in our family at about the same time I moved out but she was the "pick of the litter." She was a real joy to Mom and Dad in their last years and an inspiration to all of us who enjoyed watching her grow up.