The Little Church Mystery:Can you help solve it?

By Kris Thacher and Rick Holben

There is a small historic church in the Village of Tijeras. The old white plastered building with its two-foot thick adobe walls, metal roof, and empty bell tower sits serenely in the southwest corner of the Luis Garcia Park and Vietnam War Memorial. On that everyone agrees.

But who built the church and how old is it? During the past year, members of the EMHS Oral History Project/Map Committee have been tracking down two divergent stories about the origins of old Santo Niño church.

The official story, cited in the National Register of Historic Places, is that the church was built around 1912. According to this document, submitted and approved in 1977, the four-acre church property was purchased from Juan and Juana Samora Gutierrez in 1906 by Rev. Camilo Capilupi, SJ (Jesuit) for $340.

That same year, Rev. Capilupi sold most of the property to Jesse Keleher of Albuquerque. Keleher also owned the nearby Whitcomb Springs resort that would eventually become Carlito Springs. Six years later, Keleher deeded the property to Rev. A.M. Mandelari, SJ (Jesuit) of the thriving Immaculate Conception Church in Albuquerque, with the understanding that the land in Tijeras would be used for a church or be returned to her.

According to the National Register, “on this site, the Tijeras Holy Child Church was erected.” The description of the building says, “Although the church is only 65 years old, the irregular planes in materials and craftsmanship give the appearance of a much older building.” In 1975, a UNM architectural study of the building suggested that it was about 70 years old.

In 1930, title to the property reverted back to Jesse Keleher via Quit Claim Deed from Rev. A. Daeger, OFM (Order of Friars Minor), Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe; so the church must have fallen into disuse. However, this transaction was unknown to the villagers of Tijeras, and they decided to refurbish the empty church building in 1935. Mayordomo Tomás Gonzales began to enlarge the church in 1940 and added a semi-circular, 15-foot extension to the sanctuary for an altar area on the north end and a smaller, 10-foot square sandstone sacristy on the northeast corner. After the death of Jesse Keleher, her daughter Margaret Keleher deeded the church property back to the archdiocese in 1963.

Tijeras became a parish in 1964. The old Santo Niño Church was an important part of the Tijeras community until 1971 when the N.M. Department of Transportation bought the property as part of a right-of-way for construction of Interstate 40. That same year a new, larger Santo Niño Church was built for the parish near Camino Primera Agua in Tijeras. Later, the construction plans for I-40 were modified, the right of way adjusted, and the little church, now labeled St. Anthony’s on NMDOT maps, stood abandoned. The unused building was eventually declared surplus property and given to the Village of Tijeras.

In 1986, the Village began work to restore the old church building which had fallen into disrepair and planned to turn it into a museum. In 1994, the East Mountain Historical Society sought and was awarded a $32,000 grant to stabilize the building for restoration; the Village of Tijeras attained several additional sources of funding to restore the building as it is today. The refurbished historic church and new park were dedicated in 2008. EMHS and the Village of Tijeras now use the church building for public events and meetings.

All that seems pretty straightforward. But there is another, older story handed down through time in the Village of Tijeras, which says the little church was once the home of Serafin Ramirez. In this tale, there is even a ghost!

Here’s the other side of the story: Jose Serafin Ramirez was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, about 1818. He moved to New Mexico in the 1840s, served in the military and was the treasurer of the Mexican Government under Gov. Manuel Armijo. After the Mexican-American War, when New Mexico became a U.S. Territory, Ramirez, who already owned the Cañon del Agua Grant and would eventually own the San Pedro Grant, left Santa Fe and became a miner and rancher in southern Santa Fe County. He built Rancho San Pedro, which included a family chapel, somewhere near Paa-ko. By 1860, he and his family also had a home in San Antonito and he became in involved in politics once again. After selling the San Pedro Grant in 1866, the Ramirez family moved to Tijeras. Ramirez bought several buildings and pieces of property in Tijeras, including one that would become his home. He also owned a store and a saloon.

Just three years later, in June 1869, he died; and his bequests were enumerated in a 17-page Last Will and Testament hand-written in Spanish. The property list in his will mentions statues of saints, vestments, and a chapel with two bells, but the location and disposition of the religious artifacts or chapel is not clear. The year after his death, a priest was called to Tijeras to celebrate mass in a room of a house where a servant reported seeing the ghost of Serafin Ramirez. The priest spent the night in the room with the servant, but Serafin’s ghost did not reappear or rattle any chains. Was this room in the Ramirez home or in a chapel?

To complicate the story further, on surveyors’ maps as early as 1880 and 1904, there is a church building symbol drawn on the maps, located near the same site as today’s little historic church. These churches pre-date the so-called Immaculate Conception Church built in 1912. Could these churches have been Serafin Ramirez’s house or his family chapel?

A 1905 property deed registered with the Bernalillo County Clerk describes a property that was once the home of Paulita Ramirez (Serafin’s youngest daughter). Her home was located about where Brandy’s Hair Design is now, and is described as being adjacent to a “chapel” to the north, where the historic church stands. But it is unlikely that the Paulita Ramirez house of 1905 was the same as the family home of 1869 where the entire Ramirez family of two parents, four children and several servants lived together. Deeds suggest the family home may have been south on the other side of the road where the ruins of a home existed until the 1950s.

At this point, we’d like help from members and the community:

Does anyone know anything about this old house ruin, located between Anna King’s gallery and the Western Mercantile and Feed Store or who may have lived there?

Does anyone’s family history include stories of weddings, baptisms or funerals in a church in Tijeras prior to 1912?

Was one church built on top of the ruins of an older church or a family chapel?

If you have any information, please EMHS: president@eastmountainhistory.org