On a recent fall morning, Frank “Boogie” Romero Jr. carried with him 31 urns of ashes that he, along with another volunteer, would provide a proper burial for at the Alamosa Spanish Cemetery.
These were bodies of unknowns that ended up cremated by either Romero Valley Funeral Home or Rogers Family Mortuary in Alamosa, the ashes then turned over to Boogie Romero Jr. for burial at the Spanish Cemetery on the Co-op Road southwest of town.
No families of the deceased, no identities to the bodies – just their ashes contained in a box and Boogie, along with a member of Rogers Family Mortuary, and a tractor to dig a series of 12-inch holes to place them in. Pauper graves lined up in six rows, five bodies of ashes to a row, and one set off by itself to make 31.
“I asked ‘Why did they have so many?’ And they just had ’em. They weren’t in the ground yet. They’d just been sitting in them urns,” Romero said during a taping of The Valley Pod. “I went out there first and marked the area. Then they brought a tractor and a fence hole digger. We set ’em down in six rows, and we did that.”
The site is marked with orange mesh fencing and an angel figurine that Romero placed on a fence post to protect and look over the fresh graves. He hopes some day to build a better fence around them.
These weren’t the first pauper graves either, at the old cemetery that dates back 111 years to a time in Alamosa when Spanish-speaking families, who either were native to the area or arrivals to work on the growing railroad which was the reason for Alamosa, lived their lives through segregated schools and segregated burial grounds in a segregated part of town.
And while the cemetery has both the pauper graves and other gravesites where only a cross marks the body buried, it is also rich in family history and with names in memoriam that harken back to the Spanish settlers of the Colorado-New Mexico border region.
Names like Tecla Esquibel and Candida Gallegos. Families like Ferminita and Andrew Madril, who are buried with a family headstone along with their three infant children, Steven, Susana and Anita. It’s an assumption made of the Madrils based on the family’s area neatly marked with a white picket fence at the Spanish Cemetery.
As caretaker of the cemetery and one of the last two living members of the Alamosa Spanish Cemetery Association, which established the burial ground in September of 1913, Romero takes personal responsibility to collect the bodies of the dead, no matter who they are or what they can afford, to make sure they have a resting place at the Spanish Cemetery.
We are not biased. Race is no factor. We will bury anybody out there. Anybody. The Lord doesn’t believe in race. So we’ll bury anybody whether you got a dollar or a hundred thousand dollars…
Frank “Boogie” Romero Jr
It’s a community service his dad and mom, Frank Boogie Sr. and Dorothy Romero, started decades ago, along with other members of the Alamosa Spanish Cemetery Association, and one their son has helped carry on.
“We’ve never had no problems burying somebody, but we’ve had a couple problems looking for somebody because shoot, 1913, and people expect us to know where their mom or their dad were buried, and we’ve tried the best we could,” Romero said.
While the pauper graves are recognizable by dirt mounds so that a future caretaker will know there are people buried there, many of the other gravestones carry the markings of a simple cross or a name carved into stone.
In November, the same month he buried the 31 unknowns, Romero turned over to the Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area a box of records of individuals buried there, part of a new effort to nominate the Alamosa Spanish Cemetery as a historical site worthy of preservation by History Colorado. (Read more about the effort HERE.)
Katie Dokson, a local researcher who was also instrumental in the sorting of records and historical facts around the Francisco Maestas school segregation case which dates to the same era of when the cemetery first opened, is organizing the files to help make the case that the Spanish Cemetery should be listed on the state and national historical registers.
If that were to happen, it could be that money would become available to help Romero and former city councilor Charlie Griego, the other living member of the Alamosa Spanish Cemetery Association, maintain the grounds, rebuild an adobe wall at the front of the cemetery, and maybe even enough money to build a proper fence and markings around the pauper graves.
“Nothing extraordinary. You don’t want a $3 million fence. You just want something up so they’re protected, so that they’re recognized also, besides just thrown in a corner out there,” he said.
You’re not going to get put in the ground, as long as I’m there, without a prayer.
Frank ‘Boogie’ Romero jr
Alamosa County, with support from county commissioners, helps with the annual maintenance, and other community members have volunteered their time and committed resources to support the cemetery.
Caring for the Spanish Cemetery is not a job Romero was looking to take on when he returned home to Alamosa after serving for nine years, three months and 26 days in the Army. But his dad, Boogie Sr., also a military veteran who worked a lifetime at Adams State, convinced him of the duty.
“Of course my folks passed, a lot of the board members passed. I told my dad once, I said, ‘No, I’m not going to help no more.’ He tells me ‘Like, hell you ain’t.’ And I told him ‘Like hell I am,’ because I didn’t want to take that responsibility. He goes, ‘Son, your grandma and grandpa are buried out here and you got 13 veterans. If you don’t do it, who’s going to do it?”
Boogie Sr. had a way with words.
Romero knows there is at least one WWI veteran buried at the Spanish Cemetery, among a dozen other veterans. Each year, American Legion Dickey Springer Post 113, which Romero and Griego are members of, holds a Memorial Day Service at the Spanish Cemetery to make sure the veterans who are buried at the Spanish Cemetery are remembered, just as they are in a ceremony held at the main Alamosa municipal cemetery a couple miles away.
With an upcoming push for historical preservation, Romero knows there will be others coming around to learn about the history, including relatives of loved ones who may be buried there, and maybe even others who’d like to be buried at the Alamosa Spanish Cemetery.
“People do call and ask to be buried there. Well, we just can’t just say, okay. So they go through the funeral homes. And I’ll say, okay, fine. So then I go out there with them and wherever they want, I got a map and I know where all the roads are and where they’re supposed to be and where I can and cannot bury ’em.
“The paupers’ graves, there’s a lot of ’em out there. There’s homeless. Even here in Alamosa, a couple (of bodies) they found under the bridge, no names. I can’t say no because everybody, the way I feel, regardless if you’re a veteran or just a person, you’re going to get a restful peace to be buried at the cemetery.
“We are not biased. Race is no factor. We will bury anybody out there. Anybody. The Lord doesn’t believe in race. So we’ll bury anybody whether you got a dollar or a hundred thousand dollars, we will bury you out there and you will get an ordained minister. You’re not going to get put in the ground, as long as I’m there, without a prayer.”
Like the angel that watches over the unknown graves, he’s there to protect.