Dolores Valdez

Dolores "Lola" M. Valdez
July 13, 1915 – January 5, 2008

Dolores "Lola" Valdez, beloved mother and grandmother, passed away early Saturday morning at the Española Valley Hospital due to a prolonged illness. Her daughter and grandchildren surrounded her with prayer, story, and song at the time of her passing. She was 92 years old.
Born on July 13, 1915 in El Guache, NM, Lola Valdez lived a long, blessed life filled with her many roles as loving mother, family provider, elementary school educator, and active community member. During World War II, Lola worked as a house matron for the incoming scientists and technicians stationed in Los Alamos for the Manhattan Project. She was proud of her work with the Manhattan Project. She understood its significance in marking the beginning of what we now understand as a long relationship between Española Valley community members and the national laboratory system. Mrs. Valdez always valued and commended everyone for their work regardless of their station; she often commented that the success of the lab has much to do with the fact that people from the valley work there. She worked to provide for her family during this time while her husband, Fred Michael Valdez, served his country in Okinawa, Japan. Her husband returned from WWII, an injured man, and she was widowed in 1950. Lola was left in the role of the sole provider for her children and extended family.
The choices she made next were extraordinary. While working in Los Alamos, she started school at the El Rito Normal School to receive her teaching certificate. At a time when the certificate would have been all the accreditation she needed to teach, she made the decision to continue on to college. While working, raising her children with the help of her extended family, and with a disability (she was crippled at age 18), Lola Valdez commuted to Albuquerque to attend classes during the weekends and summers, at times while on crutches. She received her B.A. in Education in 1953 from St. Joseph's University of Albuquerque. At this time it would have been very rare for a woman, let alone a Mexican American woman, to attend a university. With her degree in hand, she proceeded to have a fruitful and meaningful career of 43 years at Hernandez Elementary School where she whole-heartedly served the community that she loved and where she lived. Her degree also marks a long tradition of university education for her family.
In her advanced years, many of her former students still visited her to thank her for her commitment. One student fondly remembers how Mrs. Valdez not only cared for her students in class, but how she provided supplies for students who were under-privileged. She was vigilant in protecting children who suffered from poverty because she understood from her own experiences that success in school was also dependent on family and community support. "It is one thing to have schools," she would say, "but it is another thing to have the shoes to get there." In addition to supporting her own children, she tried her best to remove obstacles for community children in attaining their education. She often used her own money to buy notebooks, pencils, and even shoes and jackets for children who could not afford them. Also, at a time when there was a national push towards English-only schools, Mrs. Valdez taught bilingually and valued students' languages despite the fact that she herself had been punished for speaking Spanish at school. While attending the Normal School in El Rito, she was made to peel one hundred pounds of potatoes for using Spanish in a classroom. She often told that story with indignation towards the intolerance of her home language, but her response to such prejudice was to encourage her students and family to master both Spanish and English as she did.
Mrs. Valdez loved her Española Valley. She would defiantly stand up to the negativity that many people defer to when speaking about her home and sing its many graces. She personally survived many of the struggles people from the valley deal with daily, but she understood those struggles as only a part of her beautiful home. She believed deeply in the community practices that make Española unique: the fiesta parades, Center Market Days, visiting the Santuario de Chimayo, el Día de San Antonio, and reading the Sun with her family in the car while eating sunflower seeds. Her family fondly remembers how she would prepare a picnic lunch and pick up all her grandchildren to stake out the perfect spot hours before the Fiesta parade each year. She understood intrinsically that our community is what we make of it, and she always found ways to build in faith, culture, and education for the people fortunate to be in her presence. She was a life-long democrat (who would have loved to vote for our nation's first president of color!) and 50+-year member of the Women's Auxiliary of the VFW of Los Alamos, NM. She used her political influence to support many area democrats and would work with Marcella Martinez to encourage Española Valley citizens to vote. One of the greatest tributes to her memory would be for community members to participate fully in the upcoming election. She will be a dearly missed elder of our community and matriarch of her family.
Mrs. Valdez is preceded in death by her parents Antonio and Marina Montoya of El Guache; her sister, Carolina and husband, Marion LeFevre of El Guache; her brother, Frank A. Montoya of Española; her husband, Fred Michael Valdez of Trinidad, CO; her adult sons, George Valdez of Velarde and Norman Valdez of El Guache; her sons who died in childhood, Conrad, Fred Jr., and Tony Valdez of El Guache; and her grandsons, Jeff Valdez of Arroyo Seco and Norman Valdez of Velarde, NM.
She is survived by her "querida hija," constant companion, and long-time care provider, Elaine Trujillo and husband, David Trujillo of Arroyo Seco. As well, she is survived by her niece and primos: Rose Romero of Albuquerque, R