Hannah Howard’s Window

CLOUDCROFT, N.M. — Hannah was my grandmother, my father’s mother. Her family came from Cannon County, Tennessee and homesteaded on Section 15 near Ft. Sumner, New Mexico. My grandpa came from an adjoining county in Tennessee and homesteaded on an adjoining 160-acre parcel in Section 15. They married in 1914 when Hannah was 21 and had four children. My father was the baby, born in 1920.

Cloudcroft Hotel, circa 1945. (Courtesy of Cheryl Howard)

When I knew her, she and my grandpa operated the Cloudcroft Hotel, not a hotel as you might imagine, but a series of seven rooms above the living area with a bathroom at the end of the hallway.  Each room had a sink. There was also an apartment building next to the hotel and more apartments in a semi-circle around the back made out of old railroad cars. When the cousins arrived for holidays, we jumped on all the beds and pretended the propane tank was a horse. We watched in awe as my grandpa used a pocket knife to take the skin off an apple in one continuous peel. There was always a cigar box full of pocket knives hotel guests had left; we got to choose one on every visit and practiced like crazy on apples. Cloudcroft has always been an important emotional and physical constant in my otherwise ever-changing life.

Cheryl and cousins Joe, Jim, and John on step if the hotel. (Courtesy of Cheryl Howard)

We grew older and six cousins actually live in Cloudcroft now. I was the only girl so I learned to help clean the rooms and apartments and make beds with square corner sheets tucked in. I learned to use an old wringer washing machine and a mangle to iron sheets. This was a roller contraption that got hot; you put wrinkled sheets between the rollers and they came out unwrinkled on the other side. I also learned about cement and rock walls. The older cousins, and I was one, hauled furniture from one place to another at least twice a month and joked about starting a moving company.

Hannah was always busy. She made quilts and tablecloths, bedspreads and dolls, ceramic things and aprons. She could shoot rabbits with a 22 gauge rifle or wring a chicken’s neck and make a rabbit stew or chicken and dumplings. She didn’t bother too much with gender roles; she did what needed to be done, what she thought she ought to do, and what she felt like doing. She had enough energy for all three. I don’t think she tried to teach the boys how to use the mangle though.

In 1960 my grandpa died; Hannah stopped cooking so much and ate TV dinners and frozen cream pie for lunch. My cousin Sandi and I were staying with her for a week or so before heading off to college. She woke up one morning in her lavender bed (painted on a previous whim, along with all her other bedroom furniture) and decided that she wanted a window in her kitchen. We were enlisted. The three of us piled into her old Dodge pickup (she called it a peek-out) with a cracked back window and rusted-out floor board and headed down the hill toward 84 Lumber. She liked to put the truck in neutral and coast down the 16-mile hill with the engine off. We bought the necessary materials and headed back up the hill where we proceeded to knock a hole in the wall, frame out a space for the window, put it in and shim it square. I think we shimmed it square anyway. At the end of the day, Hannah had her window, not all pretty around the edges, but a window that made her happy.

My new outdoor bed. (Raymundo Aguirre)

This summer, at my cabin in Cloudcoft, I got an idea. I was tired of straining my neck looking at the stars out on my deck. I needed an outdoor bed. I had a lot of scrap lumber and stuff that could be used, so I got started sawing 4 x 4s and 4 x 6s for the legs. Earlier I had scrounged a shipping palate that held metal roofing at one time. I thought I would use it as a frame for a work table, but why not my outdoor bed?  In the tool shed there was also some outdoor siding, previously reclaimed from beside the dumpster.

Raymundo came and he was enlisted to help. He screwed the frame to the legs and cut the pieces of siding to fit. I added some foam, a sleeping bag and a pillow. Voilá, the outdoor bed, my window to the stars, was constructed. Only later did I remember Hannah and her window. One of these days I might even get the urge to paint it lavender.

Cheryl Howard. (Raymundo Aguirre)

Hanna Howard (Courtesy of Cheryl Howard)