Tony Reyna: A life of service
New Mexico lost a giant of a man this week.
Tony Reyna, 100 years strong, served his Taos Pueblo community, his state and his country — leaving behind a legacy that enriches his people at the pueblo, his friends in town and the many folks who walked through the doors of the Tony Reyna Indian Shop over the decades.
One of 11 men from Taos Pueblo to be captured while fighting in the Philippines during World War II, Reyna walked the 65 horrific miles of the Bataan Death March and then persevered through three-and-a-half brutal years of captivity. He is the last survivor from Taos Pueblo. He told Indian Country Today in 2013 that, “I was raised a farm boy from sunrise to sundown, so I was tough enough to survive starvation.”
Freed in 1945 by Allied forces, Reyna came back a shadow of his former self at six feet tall and 100 pounds. After regaining his strength, it was time to pay attention to living. He returned to Taos Pueblo, married and together, he and his wife, Annie Cata Reyna, established the shop in 1950. The couple raised four children.
At the pueblo, Reyna was twice governor, a lifetime member of the tribal council and always a presence at feast days and community doings. His efforts helped bring the health clinic to the pueblo and were instrumental in Taos Pueblo being designated an official United Nations World Heritage site — a designation that came without strings, because Reyna was strong enough to tell the U.N. that Taos wouldn’t accept the honor if it intruded on the privacy of the Taos people.
He was a man who did not give up where others might have. Take the beginnings of his shop. He wanted to provide an Indian-owned venue where Indian goods could be sold — most galleries and shops were non-Native owned. He told The Taos News in 2003 that the U.S. government wasn’t giving G.I. loans to Indian veterans at the time. So hardware store owners Max Ilfeld and Saul Harberg stepped up, and Reyna was in business, constructing a shop and a home for his family.
“I paid them all back in two years’ time,” he said. “My shop was built on trust and I have maintained that trust with people.” Some of the more famous people in the world — including former President Jimmy Carter and Britain’s Princess Anne — have shopped at Tony Reyna’s. Regular people stopped by, too, whether tourists or folks from Taos, looking to find the authentic, the real deal.
Because the real deal is what Reyna offered — whether in the arts and crafts he sold, or in the way he served his pueblo and wider community. He was a member of the Taos School Board, a trustee at the Millicent Rogers Museum, a judge at Santa Fe Indian Market and a police commissioner for the town of Taos. In 1992, Reyna was honored as a Santa Fe Living Treasure. He actively sought to preserve his culture, whether protecting water rights and resources, collecting the songs of his people or caring for the hundreds-year-old structure of the pueblo itself.
To celebrate Reyna’s birth on Feb. 1, 1916, friends and family of the beloved elder threw a whale of a party earlier this year for his 100th birthday. The New Mexico Legislature honored him with Tony Reyna Day. He deserved those accolades, and many more, and it is fitting that the honors came while Reyna was still around to celebrate with well-wishers. He died early Sunday morning in his sleep at home, with his family near. That, too, was as it should be. As his daughter Diane, put it: “All was peaceful and all is well.”
Gomez is the editorial page editor for the Santa Fe New Mexican, a sister-paper of The Taos News.
