Spanish Ghost at the La Fonda Hotel

The La Fonda Hotel is located right on the Santa Fe Plaza, at the corner of San Francisco Street and old Santa Fe Trail. A small adobe inn was located here in the 1800s that doubled as the town courtroom. In those days, Spanish was the native language of many inhabitants as the territory had once been part of both Mexico and Spain. Local rumor has it that many men were hanged in the old building in Santa Fe's wild west days.

In the 1980's, when I first moved here, I invited my Cuban friend, Santa, to join me for lunch in the cafe.  As you can see above the dining room is a Santa Fe style delight, with plenty of decor and natural light. Locals still hung out at the bar in those days. We ordered green chili enchiladas and Santa headed out briefly to use the facilities. For me, I experience no ghosts or funny presence,  just good food and beautiful surroundings. But my friend returned to the table with a frown and speaking in garbled Spanish.

"What's up?" I asked.

"There's no on in the corridor leading to the restroom is very lonely," she said.

"It's a Tuesday," I suggested as a reason.

"But I met a man in a serape and a large hat."

"Is he cute?" I asked.

"No. He was an old man, with a mustache. He spoke to me in Spanish."

"It's not so unusual," I responded. "Many local people are bi-lingual. What did he say?"

"Voy a morir," she said.

"What does it mean?"

"I am going to die."

"Okay, that's odd."

"Me van a ahorcar."

"Huh?"

"It means, 'I will hang.'"

We paid and left the restaurant to search for the man in the serape, but no one was in the corridor or the lobby of the restaurant. So we asked the desk clerk if she had seen such a man.

"No, but a couple of our guests have seen him. He's a ghost from the old days. A man who was hung here on this spot before this hotel was built."

"Do you know his name?"

"No. In those days, justice was swift. Many men were tried and convicted on this spot, or so my boss tells me."

Santa and I walked out onto the plaza, and were glad of the bright sun. My friend has since become quite ill and unable to communicate, and I miss her. But I have many memories, including that strange meal at La Fonda on the plaza in Santa Fe.


 

A Panhandling, Headless Ghost...

Madrid, New Mexico -- a thriving tourist town now, full of galleries and shops and the Mine Shaft Tavern, where locals and tourists gather for refreshment. Every Christmas, the town resurrects an historic light show, rumored to go back to the 1920s and 30s.

Coal mining started in Madrid in the 1800s and picked up steam in the early part of the 20th century. By the 1920s, the town produced its own coal driven electricity and became famous for a Christmas light show that is still visible today.  The mines closed in the 1950s, but hippies and other non-conformists began to live in the old wooden cabins that occupied the site in the 1970s. Over the time I've lived here, Madrid has gone from an eccentric ghost town occupied by oddballs, to a popular tourist spot on the old Turquoise Trail, a "back way" between Santa Fe and Albuquerque.

When I arrived in New Mexico in 1982, the town was nothing like it is today. The old houses still tittered on rotting foundations, the roads were empty and ghostly, and, yes, ghost stories abounded about the town.

One story stuck in my mind. It was told to me in Santa Fe, at the old Green Onion Bar and Grill on St. Michael's Drive.  A seedy place even back then, my friend Al and I stopped in to soak up local color and  for local gossip.  After a couple of beers, one of our bar companions heard us talking about a recent driving adventure on the Turquoise Trail.

"You hear about the ghosts in the Mine Shaft Tavern?" The man was about 30, with straight dark hair and a mustache.

"Tell us," Al said.

The man moved down a barstool and revealed the story of a miner named Arnie who owed money to the mine company and couldn't pay.

"Arnie had this sick kid. And he spends money on the kid for medicine and taking him to the doctor in Albuquerque, so he can't pay his debt. So the story goes, a company man finds him and the middle of the night and cuts off his head, right in the guys bed, while his wife is laying there.  Late at night, here in the bar -- right before last call -- he appears in the near the bathrooms. Arnie, standing there in the dim light, holding his head in one hand and a donation cup in the other."

"Have you seen him?" I asked.

"Seen him?  I gave him money. Lot's of people do."

"Why? What happens to the money?"

"Folks find it later. Usually a family with a sick kid. They wake up one morning and the money is on the sidewalk in front of their house. In my case, I gave the ghost a twenty -- I was that scared -- and a woman from Madrid told me she  walking down the street and she looked down and there was a twenty."

I gave him a questioning look.

"God's truth, I swear. Stay until closing -- give an odd amount. You'll hear about it, I swear you will. No lie."

I heard the story again, but I never went into The Mine Shaft Tavern and stayed until closing. Maybe you can do that the next time you visit Mysterious New Mexico.

The Haunted Rivers of New Mexico

I  moved to Santa Fe 34 years ago, and that’s when I first head the haunting story of the woman who drowned her children in the Santa Fe River.  I was visiting a friend, Sandra, who lived with her grandmother on Upper Canyon Road, overlooking the river.

“When I was a little girl,” Sandra said, “My grandmother warned me never to go near the river alone because I would be caught up and taken away by the crying woman.”

“Why Grandma?” I asked. “Why will the woman take me away?”

“Because she took her own children down to the river one day and drowned them. Now she misses them, hita. So she will take you.”

I remember looking down at the river with her and feeling scared myself.

“Did you go alone anyway?” I asked Sandra.

“Are you kidding? Never.”

“Did you hear her cry?”

“Of course. Only at night. I would lie awake and listen to the sound of the river – it ran with water all the time back then, and then I’d hear a high-pitched whining sound. I still hear it even today.  My grandmother called the woman La llorona, in Spanish. It means the crying lady.

Later, I realized that this story wasn’t only about the Santa Fe River on Upper Canyon Road. La llorona haunts all the rivers and lakes in New Mexico.  Sometimes she is a woman whose children downed by accident, and sometimes, as in Sandra’s story, she drowned them herself. The story is told to small children all across the state – to keep them away from the swift running waters.  I suspect in the spring and summer the ghost of La llorona gets the most coverage, because spring runoff is heavy and even dry river beds (called arroyos) fill up during the strong rainstorms of summer.

For me, La llorona still lives up there on Canyon Road, where I first heard her the sad story of her dead children and the high sound of her weeping.

A Ghost from Homeville, Virginia Visits Santa Fe!

Ghosts wandered about in my childhood home in Homeville, Virginia.  The most talked about was Miss Rosa.

Miss Rosa Thornton Briggs, on of three wives of the family patriarch, Dr. Henry Caroline Briggs, was buried here, in a cemetery directly behind the big house.   She was the last of Dr. Briggs' wives -- the first two died in childbirth.  In life, she was said to be very protective of the family and of their reputation.  

My grandmother never knew Miss Rosa, but she knew the maids who had helped maintain the household in those days.  One maid in particular, a favorite of Miss Rosa, saw her rocking in the front hall for the first time when one of the children was gravely ill.  Miss Rosa particularly worried over children, as many of the small children in her day died of whooping cough and there was no vaccine. 

The maid walked out into the front entrance hall and noticed the old wooden rocking chair moving, looking closer, she clearly saw the figure of Miss Rosa rocking there, holding an infant in her arms.  On another occasion, the maid saw Miss Rosa rocking alone when one of the children were ill.

For myself, I never actually saw the figure of Miss Rosa, but when I descended he stairs in the front hall one morning after my mother died, I clearly saw the rocker going back and forth, but the house was empty except for my father, who was in the kitchen at the back of the house.

Then, once, when I was much older and living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I was packing up to move me and my children. I was getting over a very difficult divorce.  As I packed the last box and looked out onto the front porch of my own home, where an iron rocker waited for the movers. I clearly saw the chair going back and forth, as though someone were seated in it, rocking.  I saw no figure, but I clearly felt the presence of Miss Rosa, who was concerned for me and my children.  

Say what you like, I believe she was there!  And that's how it is in Mysterious New Mexico.

The Ghost of Death at Santa Fe College

In Santa Fe, during WWII, a set of army barracks were set up on what is not the location of the Santa Fe University of Art and Design (formerly the College of Santa Fe).

I worked at the College for many years, and during the last two years, my offices were located in these barracks.  What an adventure. One of the offices was the former surgery -- or so the story went.  And wa-ay in the back, there was a storage room that had once been the recovery room.  A very spooky place to look for supplies and records.

We tutored students in our crusty office building, and, one afternoon, a young woman I'll call Esperanza, entered the former surgery and began to cry.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Someone died here," she said.  "And there's sadness everywhere."

I didn't contradict here, exactly, but I said that no one had died there recently -- we were all well and happy.

"No.  I can't be in here," she insisted.  So I took her out into one of the larger offices near the front.

She stopped crying.  "Okay," she said.  "This is fine."

After the student left, the staff all gathered around to discuss the incident.  We knew that office was supposed to be the former surgery room for the army barracks, and we wondered if "Esperanza" had sensed the presence of death there?

Several months later, I needed records from that room in the back of the barracks.  This room held dusty old notebooks full of paper forms -- the kind we used in the last century.  The door was locked, and the key tuned stiffly in the lock.  I was greeted with a puff of stale, mildewed laden air and the stench -- this is truly what I smelled -- blood.

Of course, I told myself it was all in my head, but that didn't help at all.  The room was packed with filing cabinets and old chairs and desks.  I could barely move next to the shelves where the record notebooks were lined up like stacked. 

I pulled out the notebook I needed, but I had to sit down on a dusty metal chair and try to breath.  I could not shake the sense that someone was dead right there in the room with me.  Finally, unable to find the records I needed, I loaded up my arms with about 5 notebooks and fled that place.  Immediately, I felt better. One of my co-workers and I dusted the books and found the papers we needed. 

I told her the story about smelling blood, so we stored the notebooks upfront.  We never needed records again while I worked there, but one time we did need an extra desk and some chairs.  I suggested the storeroom, but the janitor refused and we borrowed furniture from one of the main buildings and brought it by truck just to avoid going into the "death room."

Are there really ghosts in those barracks at the back of the Santa Fe University of Art and Design?  I think so -- the buildings are abandoned now, but I have a feeling the spirits who haunt it are not.

Ghosts in Santa Fe hotel?

The old time Santa Fe residents have circulated stories about ghosts in the old hospital in downtown Santa Fe for years.   Now that the hospital, a nursing home for years, has been gutted and turned into a fancy hotel,  I hear the stories repeated in the hardware store, the grocery store and in classrooms in Santa Fe. 

People say the hospital was haunted by several of nurses.   The nurses are looking for patients who died because they want to keep taking care of them.  One of my college students, Amanda, told me that her grandmother claimed that a nurse came every night to cover her with extra blankets and give her a glass of water.

When Amanda went to thank the staff for being so good to her grandmother, she found no one had visited her grandmother during the night or brought her water.  The staff said it was likely the ghost of "Esperanza", a nurse at the old hospital.  "Esperanza" worked the night shift, and one night she took off to be with her novio (boyfriend).  When she returned the next night, three of her patients had died.

"Esperanza" never got over those deaths and never took another night of her shift off after that day.  It is said that "Esperanza" circulated in the nursing home, still finding patients to care for and watch over at night.

So, is "Esperanza" circulating in the new, fancy hotel, taking care of tourists?  Maybe...

Review in Publishers Weekly/Book Life goes LIVE!

Getting this review came after a long shot entry into the contest that is getting a review from Publishers Weekly/BookLife....and hoping it is favorable!

I followed the directions on the website and then waited.  After 4 weeks, I was notified by email that I cleared the first round.  After 13 weeks, I was notified that I would be reviewed (with the puzzling caveat that my book might be lost in the shuffle and never reviewed).  For a self-published writer, doing my own publicity, it's hard to get outside reviews, so I'm pretty happy to get this, and happy that it's favorable.  All the reviews on the site follow this format...a lot of description and a one line evaluation.  Some of the one line evaluations are pretty negative, so I'm fine with getting a decent last line.  I can't see using "far from run-of-the-mill" on my cover, but maybe "...distinctive..."  Don't laugh, I might just do that!

The Review

Lowe's first novel...features an unusual pair of New Mexican sleuths.  Burro, a schizophrenic, is susceptible to psychotic visions... a gift that comes in handy when he's working on a case with his PI partner, Cinnamon.  Cinnamon uses the income from their investigations... to try to track down the mother who abandoned her decades earlier.  Mirage, who blacked out after a party and woke up to find her brother, Lonnie, stabbed to death, fears she killed Lonnie.  The far from run-of-the-mill leads and Burro's distinctive investigative methods are the books main draw.  (Publishers Weekly/BookLife)