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Alamo Ranch
"Alamo Ranch" from Sarah Warner Brooks. (1822-1906).
102 pages, Paperback
First published January 21, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 11, 2018
A long long time ago I made a list for a challenge in which each book had to be set in one of the 50 states of the USA. I added a personal twist in which the titles of each selected book had to include the name of the state the story talked about. It was fun creating the list, but after I left the group concerned and eventually took a realistic look at the titles, I decided I really wanted to read only ten of them.
This book was my New Mexico entry, and one reason I chose it was that I had read (at the time) one other work by the same author, a memoir about her house and garden. Some time after that I read a collection of her short stories, a collection inspired by the author's visits to a local prison.
When it finally came time to read Alamo Ranch, I was expecting it to be another memoir. And in a way it is, but also I was startled to see that Alamo Ranch was actually a sanatorium for people with tuberculosis, and that this book was a sort of journal of a winter's stay there. Did the author have the disease? I don't think so. I think she disguised herself as the Boston lady who was staying at the nearby Hilton Ranch with her niece, with both taking their meals at Alamo.
So that was my first surprise. Just as I started to wonder if this would be a dull day to day diary of people with a debilitating disease, the 'guests' formed a club for themselves, based on a Pueblo Indian legend which says that the Ancient Ones had a type of clown to help relieve them of worry for the future and to guide their steps in joy.
They had afternoon teas, shooting contests, lectures, and a couple of day-trips to nearby points of interest. You might be thinking 'oh, yawn', and at first I did too. But the lectures turned out to be quite interesting, and dealt so much with Old Mexico that I am putting this title on my Mexico bookshelf.
There was a trip to see what was at the time (1897) the 'famous' Shalam Colony, which was a somewhat bizarre social experiment founded by a man who had written a new bible. The Colony was about forty miles from Las Cruces, and I was totally surprised to learn about it. I lived in
nearby El Paso Texas for many years and explored the surrounding country so I was very familiar with all the sites mentioned in the book, but I had never once heard of this attempt at building one man's version of Utopia.
There was also a visit to the Mescalero Apache Reservation. This was the most cringe worthy chapter, since the author went on and on about the 'dirty, uncivilized' tribe and how they were being tamed now that the Apache Wars were finally over. If beating and imprisonment in order to make a person cut his hair counts as becoming tamed, I would rather be uncivilized and I'm sure many of the Mescalero felt the same. But what can you do when your way of life has been destroyed and suddenly you have 'masters' who do not believe you are human enough to deserve even the most basic respect, that of one human for another? Shameful days and it was sad to read about them.
Considering the disease which the guests were dealing with, I expected the book to end with at least one or two deaths, but when Spring came everyone merely went their separate ways. Did the author keep in touch with the man she nicknamed the 'Star Boarder', the man who always kept everyone's spirits up and faced his own illness with dignity? He was portrayed as a sportsman who even though frail was able to go out tramping the country and often brought home game for the dinner table.
She dedicated the book to Leon, and I have to wonder, was the silence between them merely that of distance and the usual parting of the ways of hotel/sanatorium guests, or was it the eternal silence that is waiting for all of us?
To Leon
Across the silence that between us stays,
Speak! I should hear it from God's outmost sun,
Above Earth's noise of idle blame and praise,—
The longed-for whisper of thy dear "Well done!"
This book was my New Mexico entry, and one reason I chose it was that I had read (at the time) one other work by the same author, a memoir about her house and garden. Some time after that I read a collection of her short stories, a collection inspired by the author's visits to a local prison.
When it finally came time to read Alamo Ranch, I was expecting it to be another memoir. And in a way it is, but also I was startled to see that Alamo Ranch was actually a sanatorium for people with tuberculosis, and that this book was a sort of journal of a winter's stay there. Did the author have the disease? I don't think so. I think she disguised herself as the Boston lady who was staying at the nearby Hilton Ranch with her niece, with both taking their meals at Alamo.
So that was my first surprise. Just as I started to wonder if this would be a dull day to day diary of people with a debilitating disease, the 'guests' formed a club for themselves, based on a Pueblo Indian legend which says that the Ancient Ones had a type of clown to help relieve them of worry for the future and to guide their steps in joy.
They had afternoon teas, shooting contests, lectures, and a couple of day-trips to nearby points of interest. You might be thinking 'oh, yawn', and at first I did too. But the lectures turned out to be quite interesting, and dealt so much with Old Mexico that I am putting this title on my Mexico bookshelf.
There was a trip to see what was at the time (1897) the 'famous' Shalam Colony, which was a somewhat bizarre social experiment founded by a man who had written a new bible. The Colony was about forty miles from Las Cruces, and I was totally surprised to learn about it. I lived in
nearby El Paso Texas for many years and explored the surrounding country so I was very familiar with all the sites mentioned in the book, but I had never once heard of this attempt at building one man's version of Utopia.
There was also a visit to the Mescalero Apache Reservation. This was the most cringe worthy chapter, since the author went on and on about the 'dirty, uncivilized' tribe and how they were being tamed now that the Apache Wars were finally over. If beating and imprisonment in order to make a person cut his hair counts as becoming tamed, I would rather be uncivilized and I'm sure many of the Mescalero felt the same. But what can you do when your way of life has been destroyed and suddenly you have 'masters' who do not believe you are human enough to deserve even the most basic respect, that of one human for another? Shameful days and it was sad to read about them.
Considering the disease which the guests were dealing with, I expected the book to end with at least one or two deaths, but when Spring came everyone merely went their separate ways. Did the author keep in touch with the man she nicknamed the 'Star Boarder', the man who always kept everyone's spirits up and faced his own illness with dignity? He was portrayed as a sportsman who even though frail was able to go out tramping the country and often brought home game for the dinner table.
She dedicated the book to Leon, and I have to wonder, was the silence between them merely that of distance and the usual parting of the ways of hotel/sanatorium guests, or was it the eternal silence that is waiting for all of us?
To Leon
Across the silence that between us stays,
Speak! I should hear it from God's outmost sun,
Above Earth's noise of idle blame and praise,—
The longed-for whisper of thy dear "Well done!"
January 1, 2016
Didn't finish. Could not get into it.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews