History will be forgotten without changing street name in honor of Anaya

Not many people remember Dona Cleofas Anaya — who she was and where she lived. In fact, Anaya was my maternal grandmother who lived in El Prado over a century ago at the end of Lake Road. Her family home, which originally belonged to her parents, the Sisneros, was an elongated adobe building — the type where you would add on a room at a time as the family grew.

Some time ago, the sprawling building that was later turned into small apartments was bulldozed and disappeared forever. Any tangible trace of the Sisneros/Anaya family, who had been one of the first families to build in El Prado, was gone.

Anaya had lived in her home with her husband Nicolas Anaya until he died, leaving her, at age 38, to raise 11 children, from three months to 15 years old. Even in today’s world it would not be an easy task, but then, without electricity and modern conveniences, the challenge had to have been even more difficult to keep the family intact. Also, those were also the days of the horse and buggy. Anaya persevered. All her children later attended high school. Three of her sons were soldiers in World War II, one of them died in combat and received the Purple Heart. She died at age 58 in 1943.

When the building was razed to construct a new home by the new owner, I was told that the name of the road should have been named, all along, after the Anaya family. In keeping with naming roads after families that have lived in El Prado, I then decided to look into the possibility of changing the name of Lake Road to Dona Cleofas Anaya.

The printed forms for street name changes were obtained from the planning office. A deposit was made, and my campaign to obtain the required 17 signatures from 75 percent of the owners who had the right to use the road began. It did not take long to obtain 14 signatures on the petition. Those who favored the name change agreed that the change would have more of an historical meaning for the community and future generations.

Three persons, out of loyalty to the most contentious objector, would not sign.

I reminded the naysayers that Anaya had been the owner of most of the property to the east of Lake Road — and property that had been sold to some of those residents who today access their property by the road in question.

To convince for the change, I reminded them that she had allowed Presbyterian missionaries to build the first Presbyterian Church in El Prado and Taos on her property, a church building that also served as the first school in El Prado, and that when the Anaya home had been converted into apartments, dozens if not hundreds of young couples had gotten an early start in those apartments before they settled elsewhere in the Taos area.

The most compelling argument for the name change was the historical significance the street name would have in honoring a family that had been one of the first to settle in El Prado.

We will eventually all be gone, to a better place hopefully, and all that will remain for posterity are the roads with their names for future generations.

I submit this to remind everyone that we are mortal souls. When we are gone, only the names of our streets in Taos, in El Prado and surrounding communities will outlast us for those who come later, for the histories of our communities. With so many new people moving to the Taos area, if we don’t insist on honoring those who first built our communities, those original families will eventually be forgotten. History will be forgotten.

Nied is a resident of El Prado.