Skip to main content

Transcription of interview (See CD 6 A in Box 5. Tape 6 A, Side 1. , 9/29/2008

 File — translation missing: en.enumerations.container_type.container: Box 1, Folder: 15

Scope and Contents

Notes taken from transcription. Ramona, interview with Lee, Richard Marmon (Dick), at Richard’s house in Los Lunas. Lee’s brother, an unidentified female and Ramona at the home of Richard Marmon, in Los Chavez, near Los Lunas. Conversation about the Acoma bike race September 2008, Lee took photos. Lee and Dick talking their Dad trading Navajo rugs for a light plant from a man by the Rio Puerco and about selling magazines and newspapers at Laguna. Lee and Dick talking about their grandfather Stagner, from Sweetwater, Texas, German, came to Belen, working on railroad, digging water wells, living in Laguna, and about their mother, who wanted to be a mechanic and pilot. Their Dad worked at trading post, had a light plant, no electricity yet. Grandfather Stagner had built twelve Kent Cabins in Laguna, 1930s, on Route 66 ran between the Marmon store and the house, tourists and poor, homeless from depression, dust bowl, going West. Lee’s darkroom was in a left-over building - the wash room. Lee and Richard put wood in the cabins for the visitors to keep warm, cook, no restaurants around, had to haul in gasoline for pumps, 25 cent a gallon to tourist, 15 cents in town, maybe 15 to 20 vehicles a day stopped at the trading post. In 1941 Lee’s Dad got his own trading post, and Lee and Richard worked there. Talking about a photo of Lee’s family take outside the trading post about 1928 and one of Lee standing on a Porche car with gas sign in back, where were they? Lee and Richard talk about going to school in Albuquerque, Eugene Field, lived with their grandmother. Lee ran away in 1934, tried to take the Laguna Cut-off road home but it was not finished, caught in the cold, an old man picked him up, saved him from freezing. There was a day school in Laguna, few students, one room, eight grades. Lee and Richard went to the Albuquerque Indian School, Indian Boarding School, to the eighth grade, learned trades, and then to Grants High School in 1939. In the Laguna Day School Lee and Richard were bored, skipped out and went hunting with their rifles and dog. Lee and Richard describe the Albuquerque Indian School, training for boys, girls. Richard and Lee graduated from Grants High. Richard describes the war time training at Grant High School for seniors to avoid getting drafted as a soldier, he took aircraft mechanics and signal corps training, instruments, was in the Army Reserves, then went on to school In Las Vegas, NM and in Kingsville, Texas A and I and to Philadelphia Philco aircraft radio school. Lee was drafted into World War II in 1943 and in late 1943 Richard shipped out from Belen on the train. Later he tried pilot training and then gunnery in Las Vegas, Nevada

Dates

  • 9/29/2008

Access Restrictions

The collection is open for research.

Extent

From the Collection: 7 boxes (3.5 cu. ft., plus 1 oversize folder)

Language of Materials

From the Collection: English

Creator

Repository Details

Part of the UNM Center for Southwest Research & Special Collections Repository

Contact:
University of New Mexico Center for Southwest Research & Special Collections
University Libraries, MSC05 3020
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque NM 87131
505-277-6451