View from the Innside

Bottger Mansion of Old Town Bed & Breakfast

Welcome to the blog for the Bottger Mansion of Old Town, an historic bed & breakfast located in the heart of Old Town Albuquerque, New Mexico.

110 San Felipe Street NW

Albuquerque, NM   87104

(800) 758-3639

(505) 243-3639

www.bottger.com

 

history research--tracing the Charles A. Bottger family tree

I've been doing some historical research on Charles A. Bottger, the man who had the Bottger Mansion built in 1910.  It's an appropriate thing to do in the 100th anniversary year of the house, right?

We've been given lots of oral history stories from local residents, Bottger family descendants, and some self-proclaimed historians. Since we had become aware of a few discrepancies, I decided to do factual research, beginning at the Special Collections Library in Albuquerque.  The Special Collections Library is full of records of marriages, deaths, births, baptisms, census records, property deeds, and newspaper archives, to name just a few.  There are some gaps in their records, which may be filled by documents elsewhere, like the Albuquerque Museum archives or the State Archives in Santa Fe, which I'm told has pretty much everything.  I'll see how much I can get in Albuquerque before I take that day trip to the State Archives in Santa Fe.  It's also amazing how much is available online.

What I've uncovered so far is a fascinating, convoluted history of the Bottger family, their own ancestors and descendants.  It turns out that much of that oral history we had been given is incorrect.  The factual documents and records that I've found disprove many of those stories.  On the other hand, there is documented evidence that many of those stories are true.

Part of the challenge in genealogy is that names were spelled incorrectly, families tended to use the same names over the generations (making it both easy and difficult to trace them), and there were a lot of multiple marriages.  Thomas D. Post (Miguela Bottger's father or step-father, not sure which yet) married a widow with a daughter.  Miguela Bottger had already been married, had two children, and was a widow when she married Charles Bottger.  Zachary Ortiz, Sr., Bottger's grandson, was a widower with four young boys, who later remarried and had an additional three children.  It is both fascinating and complex.

I've been encouraged by one of the librarians at the Special Collections Library to put all of this factual information with sources cited into a self-published book and donate a copy to the library.  Someday one of the Bottger family descendants may want to do some research on their own and would find it useful.

Special Collections Library--tracing roots

Yesterday I had an opportunity to do what I've been wanting to do for nearly six years--research Charles A. Bottger and his family in Albuquerque.  I made a trip to the Special Collections Library at the corner of Edith and Central, and spent a fascinating afternoon there.

Special Collections Library

423 Central Avenue NE

Albuquerque, NM   87103

Hours:  Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

First, I have to say that the volunteers are very helpful.  They are there on Tuesday and Friday, and can help with anything from suggesting a starting point to showing how to use the microfilm machines.  I needed that.  The other days you're on your own, but I think I can handle that now.

It was an amazingly busy place.  It appeared that a number of people were there tracing their roots.  I can only imagine how difficult that is in Albuquerque if your last name is something like Chavez.  At least Charles Bottger had a very unique last name.

I started with the indexes of newspaper articles because marriages and deaths were always published.  Then I cross-referenced to the large index books of marriages.  Census records are always good, although I found the 1910 Census to be nearly illegible.  Fortunately, the volunteer helping me had better eyes than mine, or at least he's used to trying to decipher the records.  While the printed copy we made was completely unreadable, I was able to jot down the information that we could see on the microfilm.  The challenge is that the census is only taken every 10 years, and a lot can happen in the meantime.  For instance, one or more children can be born and die in that period and never show up on the census.

Here's an interesting point:  The information taken by the census workers back then was actually written down by the census workers, not the people they were interviewing, perhaps assuming that people were illiterate.  However, what happened was that the census workers wrote down the names as they heard them phonetically, so names were spelled incorrectly a great deal of the time.  I found the name "Bottger" also written as Boettger, Botteger and Buttager.  And this is just one guy with a unique name. The 1900 Census had him listed as "Charley Botteger."  No wonder genealogy research is so complex and frustrating.

By the end of the day, I had managed to find most of the dates of death of his family members and dates of marriages, and references to a bunch of newspaper articles that I will need to follow up later.  All of the newspapers are on microfilm in a different location.  At the end of the day, I realized I really need to get copies of the newspaper obituaries, since they often give a great deal more information and background.

I had hoped to draw a family tree, but Julia Bottger Gallegos alone had six children and 24 grandchildren.  Maybe I'll just do a family "bush."

Twinkle Light Parade in Albuquerque--Saturday Nov. 28th

Kick off the holidays at the Twinkle Light Parade in Albuquerque on Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009!  The parade starts at 5:15 p.m., lasts for several hours and goes from the downtown area around 3rd Street along Central Avenue, ending at the Botanic Gardens at Central and New York Avenue.

The parade is free.  If you want even more holiday festivity, the River of Lights display at the Botanic Garden is open 6:00-9:00 every night from November 28th through December 30th (closed Dec. 24-25).  Tickets are $7 for adults and $3 for children.

The Twinkle Light parade started off as a home-grown parade.  The only requirement is that every entry have lights on it.  I've even ridden in the parade in the "official" Old Town VW Beetle adorned with twinkle lights run off a battery in the back seat!  Some people get very creative with their entries, like this car-within-a-car.  Some aren't fancy at all--a flatbed truck or trailer decorated with lights carrying a choir or dance group or Boy Scout troop.  But it's great fun.  Bring your friends and neighbors and make a party of it.

The River of Lights gets bigger and better every year with more displays.  Many of the displays are animal-related in recognition of the Rio Grande Zoo, which is part of the BioPark, but you can see lots of other displays as well, like a yellow submarine.

Economic times have been tough for the past couple of years, and we've all been pulling back on entertainment and activities.  Isn't it time to go have some fun?

Weems International Artfest 2009

Do you want to see and perhaps purchase some great art and meet the artists?  The Weems International Artfest is the best place I know to see art of all kinds in one place.  Paintings, pottery, jewelry, hand-turned wooden bowls, sculpture, hand-woven shawls and hand-painted scarves, you name it--they've got it.  The booths are manned by the artists themselves, who are delighted to talk about their art, techniques and the artistic process.  It's a great place to buy great Christmas gifts for those special people in your life.

Janet Napolitano, United States Secretary of Homeland Security, is this year's honoree at the awards ceremony on Friday night, November 13th, at 7:00 p.m.  She'll be introduced by New Mexico's former long-time Senator Pete Domenici.  Past honorees include author Tony Hillerman, photographer Kim Jew, and New Mexico Symphony conductor Guillermo Figueroa.  Ms. Napolitano has been a great supporter of the Weems International Artfest.

You may even be the highest bidder on a great piece of art at the silent auction held during the Artfest.  There are twelve works in the auction this year, and the auction proceeds go to benefit three charities.

When:  Nov. 13-15:  Friday 10-9, Saturday 10-6, Sunday 10-5

Where:  at Expo New Mexico, Manuel Lujan Building, 300 San Pedro NE (near Central Avenue and Louisiana Blvd.)

Cost:  $5.00 admission ($4.00 for seniors 65+, free for children under 12), plus $4.00 parking

Personal story:  About four years ago, we were fortunate to have a very good friend give us tickets to the preview on Thursday night, which included a reception for the awards honorees.  I noticed Tony Hillerman looking at me from across the room several times.  I soon realized that I was dressed in red from head to toe, and black was definitely the color of the evening, so I stood out like a fully-decorated Christmas tree among the live trees in a U-Cut lot!

The Grecian Festival in Albuquerque

While the first weekend in October may be the start of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, it's also the weekend of the Grecian Festival.  We were able to go for the first time on Saturday evening.

It's held at St. George Greek Orthodox Church at 308 High Street SE in Albuquerque.  I think we arrived at just the right time--between a busy afternoon and the evening rush.  The line to get in seemed fairly long (about 20 people at the time) but it moved quickly.

While standing in line, Steve noticed the shirts that some of the workers were wearing.  You can guess what the front says.  The back is obviously a reference to the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding and says in Greek, "put some Windex on it."  If you haven't seen that movie, you should.  It's really fun and gives some insight into Greek Americans.

The first thing we did was look inside the church, which was open to the public.  What a beautiful place!  They had a number of incredible mosaics on the walls and a spectacular altar area.

The focal point of this festival is the food--holy cow!  I think they're doing it right.  You don't purchase the food directly but buy tickets, then they tell you how many tickets each item takes.  It's sort of like the state fair where you buy tickets for the rides, and the rides take different numbers of tickets.  All of the classic Greek foods were there--souvlaki, spanakopita, gyros, rice pilaf, those wonderful potato wedges with the Greek spices, Greek salad, and some others I've never heard of.  Drinks could be picked up at the exit of the food area, and the cashiers took the appropriate numbers of tickets for what you picked up.  It's a good system, since it keeps the food servers from having to handle the tickets or money.  The lines moved fairly quickly.  They were out of some of the food items at the time, and one server said people were coming in quicker than they could restock the big pans of food.  Good for them!  I'm happy that so many people came to their festival.

The church grounds are larger than I expected, and there were a lot more people than I anticipated, but everyone seemed to be having a good time.  As I said, this was all about the food, and they had plenty of tables and chairs everywhere.

In the parish hall were items for sale, like paintings, specialty Greek food items that you can't find in the grocery store, a raffle, and--best of all--the pastry items in the corner.  We bought extra tickets so we could take home a box of baklava.

At the rear of the church was the main tent, again filled with lots of tables and chairs, some stadium bleachers, and a very large dance floor and stage.  They mixed up the dancing, periodically having dancers in Greek costumes doing various demonstration dances, then calling "everybody dance!"  I was watching some of the fancy footwork, which they could do quite well but looked very complex to me.  Given enough ouzo, I might have attempted some dancing, but this was a non-alcoholic event.

Even our mayor, who is running for re-election, showed up to make an appearance.  I thought he might have scored more popularity points if he had gone out on the dance floor and at least attempted one of the line dances.

Before leaving, we had someone take our picture in the obligatory cut-out board.  During the Grecian Festival, everyone gets to be Greek!

Opa!

pardon me, boy--is this the Albuquerque Trolley?

What could be finer on a late summer afternoon or evening than riding the ABQ Trolley around Albuquerque?  That's what most of the Albuquerque bed & breakfast owners did, along with a few guests and family members.

I'm sure you've known those perfect summer evenings when the temperature was just right, a gentle breeze was blowing, and everyone was having a wonderful time.  Diners were sitting outside some of the restaurants we passed ("let's give a shout out to the folks at Kelly's!")

Even innkeepers can learn some new things about their own city, and Mike and Jesse gave a superb tour of Albuquerque, taking us into some areas and streets not frequented by the average tourist.  Among the many great things we saw were the neon lights on Central Avenue (Route 66), some vintage cars that looked right at home, many historic buildings, the University of New Mexico, the two amazing houses on Girard Avenue built by world-famous Albuquerque architect Bart Prince, the new "old" castle built by Gertrude Zachary, the Railrunner trains in the rail yard lit by spotlights, the Barelas District...   too much to name here!

They also regaled us with some stories about their own experiences operating the ABQ Trolley, which has been running since May of this year.  The story I liked best was the wedding party that booked the Trolley as their ride all the way to the Audubon garden in Santa Fe for their wedding, complete with a mariachi band in the back seats!  What a hoot!

We even shouted the official UNM Lobo cheer:  after someone calls out "Everyone's a Lobo!" everyone shouts "woof, woof, woof" and howls "ah-ooooooooooooooo..." with appropriate hand gestures, of course.  That would be raising your hand in the air with fingers spread and curling the middle two fingers down with each "woof!"

Taking the ABQ Trolley tour of Albuquerque is a great way to get an idea of the many things to do and see in "Duke City."  It certainly lives up to their slogan:  "The best first thing to do in Albuquerque."

another historic Albuquerque building is gone

Several weeks ago we smelled smoke after 10:00 at night.  We threw on some clothes and went outside to make sure it wasn't our place or any of our neighbors' houses or our business. 

As we walked down Central Avenue with our neighbor, the sight was incredible.  Central was closed off, and fire trucks and ambulances were all around the intersection of 15th Street trying to put out the fire in an apartment building.  Smoke was billowing, ash was blowing, and flames were coming out the windows.  The fire trucks were using huge hoses and water cannons to get water into the building.  Fortunately for us, the wind shifted around and blew the smoke in another direction for the rest of the night and next day, but our townhouse smelled like smoke for a while.

It was the historic Castle Apartments building that burned, a lovely building with 20 apartments, surrounded by huge shady trees.  We used to live one street over and passed by it all the time.  It was the kind of place I thought I'd like to live in.

The next day we went over and talked to a neighbor up the street as we watched the water cannons continue to pour water on it and a waterfall streamed out the front door.  He said it was the kind of place that never had a vacancy--as soon as someone gave notice, they had someone waiting to move in.

Now it's just an empty shell.  I wonder if they'll be able to save any of the walls, all that's left.  It's bad enough to lose a great historic building to "urban renewal" or neglect, but to lose a well-kept landmark to a horrific fire that leaves 20 families without homes and destroys everything they own is just sad.

a hot air balloon ride--best birthday present ever!

For my birthday this year, Steve gave me a hot air balloon ride from Rainbow Ryders--woo-hoo!

I had to be at the take-off location at 6:15 a.m., which meant I had to get up at 5:00 a.m.  It was sort of like an early morning plane flight--I was so afraid that I would oversleep the 5:00 a.m. alarm that I kept waking up all night.  "Is it time to get up yet?  Nope."  Then, of course, when it was time to get up, I had a hard time rolling myself out of bed.

But it was worth it!  For one thing, the weather was absolutely perfect.  The sun hadn't yet come up over the mountains, and it was not quite 70 degrees, with a slight wind from the south-southeast.  They sent up a small black helium balloon to test the wind direction.  Did you know you can see a black balloon from a really long distance?  We could tell we'd be heading up over the west mesa and Rio Rancho to the northwest.

They pulled the trailer around and laid out a huge tarp to protect the balloon envelope.  The basket was placed on its side at the south end, and the envelope was laid out with the top facing the direction the wind was going.  On the horizon we could see three of the four balloons lifting off from another location.

Once the envelope was attached to the basket, they put a large fan in front of the opening of the envelope and started filling the envelope with air.  Once the envelope was filled, they lit the burner to heat the air inside the envelope.  The balloon lifted itself upright, along with the basket. 

Getting into the basket is an interesting proposition for a short person, but there were footholds woven into the side of the basket, and I'm a pretty good climber. 

After a few safety instructions about take-off and landing, we were ready to take off.

Lifting off in a hot air balloon is nothing like taking off in an airplane.  You simply start to rise.  And because you're floating with the wind, you don't feel any wind or hear anything except the burner.  Periodically they have to run the burner for about 10 seconds or so to keep the air in the envelope hot and maintain altitude.  They can gently drift closer to the ground, which we did, flying several hundred feet over the houses, treetops and power lines.

We came down closer over the Paradise Golf Course and the Inn at Paradise, then rose up higher over Rio Rancho.

It's amazing what you can see from the air and how different things look than you think.  "Oh, that's where that road goes?"  I saw huge homes that I didn't know were out there.  We passed over another golf course, and there were large homes on what appeared to be an island--I can just imagine how much those sell for.

Eventually we had to land because farther north is reservation on which people who aren't from the pueblo are not permitted to go, and access roads are very limited.  As we came down, we could see jackrabbits startled out of the brush.

Fortunately, the chase crew was already at the landing site and grabbed the ropes and basket as we landed.  Otherwise, the landing might have been a bit bumpier.

We climbed out of the basket, and the first thing Cynthia did was fall into a big rabbit hole.  One of the chase crew tripped over it himself.  So... watch out for rabbit holes.

Packing up the balloon is a reversal of the setting-up process.  The air is squished out of the envelope, the basket is dismantled, and the envelope is stuffed into a huge sack.  That's where the passengers have to work--we had to hold the bag up and open while the crew stuffed the envelope into it.

The crew put the basket and envelope and all the parts and pieces back into the trailer, the passengers went into the van and, except for some tire tracks, no one would know we had been there.

Well, maybe the rabbits.

On the way back to the launch site, we stopped at Cabezon Park for some snacks and the champagne toast.  Brook, our pilot, told us the story of the traditional balloonist's champagne toast, which is an interesting story all by itself.  I think I'll save that for another post.

I got taken out to lunch that day, and we attended a fish fry with some friends that evening. 

Best birthday ever!

 

"Lavender in the Village" Festival in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque

The "Lavender in the Village" Festival reminds me of the small-town festivals we used to attend in New Hampshire, like the Strawberry Festival in Hollis or the Sheep Festival in New Boston.  While there were lots of people there, it was obvious that many of them live in Los Ranchos as neighbors and friends greeted each other.

The festival is hosted by the Los Poblanos Inn and takes place on their lovely estate.  It centers around the lavender fields and their many lavender products, like soaps, lotions, and even lavender honey.  Visitors can go out into the field and cut lavender.  They don't charge by the bunch of lavender--they "rent" you the scissors!  Booths included all sorts of agriculture and wildlife interests, like the Wildlife Alliance, soil conservation, and a goat farmer selling all kinds of goat cheeses and goat milk products.  They had also brought four small goats in a petting pen.

The 4-H kids were also present with their Chinese crested chickens, baby turkeys, and rabbits.  One kid's exhibit chicken (with a really long breed name that I promptly forgot) regularly perches on his head.

While I was there, a great bluegrass band was playing in the apple orchard.  Thank goodness there are LOTS of trees there, because July can be hot here, and it was already fairly warm by 11:00 a.m.  Of course, there were booths that sold cold drinks and food, and even a gelato vendor was there doing a great business. 

Most of the grounds were open to visitors to the festival.  I hadn't been on the north end of the property before and seen the lovely pond surrounded by some willow trees and filled with huge water flowers--I'm not sure, but they look like lotus.

It was a really lovely local festival and worth going and spending some time.   I look forward to the Seventh Annual Festival next year.

The "Lavender in the Village" Festival reminds me of the small-town festivals we used to attend in New Hampshire, like the Strawberry Festival in Hollis or the Sheep Festival in New Boston.  While there were lots of people there, it was obvious that many of them live in Los Ranchos as neighbors and friends greeted each other.

The festival is hosted by the Los Poblanos Inn and takes place on their lovely estate.  It centers around the lavender fields and their many lavender products, like soaps, lotions, and even lavender honey.  Visitors can go out into the field and cut lavender.  They don't charge by the bunch of lavender--they "rent" you the scissors!  Booths included all sorts of agriculture and wildlife interests, like the Wildlife Alliance, soil conservation, and a goat farmer selling all kinds of goat cheeses and goat milk products.  They had also brought four small goats in a petting pen.

The 4-H kids were also present with their Chinese crested chickens, baby turkeys, and rabbits.  One kid's exhibit chicken (with a really long breed name that I promptly forgot) regularly perches on his head.

While I was there, a great bluegrass band was playing in the apple orchard.  Thank goodness there are LOTS of trees there, because July can be hot here, and it was already fairly warm by 11:00 a.m.  Of course, there were booths that sold cold drinks and food, and even a gelato vendor was there doing a great business. 

Most of the grounds were open to visitors to the festival.  I hadn't been on the north end of the property before and seen the lovely pond surrounded by some willow trees and filled with huge water flowers--I'm not sure, but they look like lotus.

It was a really lovely local festival and worth going and spending some time.   I look forward to the Seventh Annual Festival next year.