Stephen Torres: 0:00

Her mother was from the Vigil family and thanks to the work of one of our cousins who lives in Southern Colorado, Mr Brendan Cruz, he's been able to take our genealogy on the Vigil side all the way back to Charlemagne.

Crista Cowan: 0:16

Well, okay, then, I think you just one-upped Grandpa. Stories that Live In Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present and future. I'm Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist. Counting down to the upcoming celebration of America's 250th birthday, you'll meet families from each state whose stories are woven into the very fabric of America Tales of immigration, migration, courage and community that remind us that when we tell our stories, we strengthen the bonds that connect us. So join me for season two as we discover, from Sea to Shining Sea, the stories that live in us.

Crista Cowan: 1:05

Last week on the podcast, you heard a story about an experience in Arizona, and it just touched on the state of Arizona. This week, we get to visit the state of New Mexico, and my guest is someone with deep, deep roots in New Mexico. Now, I didn't know Stephen Torres before this conversation. As a matter of fact, I called my friend Pam, who is a genealogist and is from New Mexico, and I thought surely she would have a story about New Mexico that she would want to share on the podcast, but instead she graciously directed me to this friend of hers from high school who has deep, deep roots in not just the state, but very specifically in the Taos Valley. And as I went into this conversation with him, having never met him before, I had no idea where our conversation was going to go or exactly what story he was going to share, but the depth of his connection to the state of New Mexico is pretty inspiring.

Crista Cowan: 2:08

I hope you'll enjoy my conversation with my guest, stephen Torres. Well, steve, thank you so much for being here. I'm excited to hear about your New Mexico roots. I would love to just hear a little bit about you growing up in New Mexico and what that was like for you.

Stephen Torres: 2:35

Well, let me tell you it was truly blessed when I was growing. I was born and raised in northern New Mexico and even though some people have a preconception about New Mexico, because pretty much the whole state south of Santa Fe is dry and arid and kind of a desert, kind of desolate in a lot of places, but in northern New Mexico where I grew up, it's mountainous country, beautiful mountains, lush green valleys, lots of streams, beautiful. I mean. My wife and I have been lucky, we've traveled throughout some parts of the world, we've seen some beautiful places, but in my opinion northern New Mexico, southern Colorado, is some of the prettiest country in the whole world and I was just so lucky to be able to grow up there.

Crista Cowan: 3:20

It is beautiful. Do you still live there?

Stephen Torres: 3:23

We live just south of there. We live two hours south of Taos in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Crista Cowan: 3:31

Okay, and have you guys been affected by the recent flooding at all?

Stephen Torres: 3:36

No, Fortunately here. No, We've had some good rains, but flooding no, fortunately.

Crista Cowan: 3:42

Oh good, I know there's some really really hard things going on there right now.

Stephen Torres: 3:46

Uh-huh, yes, ma'am yeah.

Crista Cowan: 3:50

So tell me about your family, like, did you grow up in a big family, a small family?

Stephen Torres: 3:56

Well, I grew up in a big family because for me family is a very extended. It's not just me, my brothers and sisters. For me family is my aunts and uncles, my cousins, and my grandparents had 11 children, so we had over 50 some cousins. But it's not just the aunts and uncles and cousins. For me family includes my dad's cousins, my mom's cousins. I mean, I'm just as close to some of my second cousins as I am to some of my brothers and sisters, just because we grew up together and shared a lot of memories together. I love that. Family to me is a big thing.

Crista Cowan: 4:39

To me, too, that's very similar to my situation. To me, too, that's very similar to my situation. I grew up in Los Angeles and with a lot of my dad's first cousins and their kids, and we'd have family reunions every year. But it sounds like you actually grew up in close proximity to them. Did you guys go to school together? Did you know your relationship to one another growing up?

Stephen Torres: 5:01

I, I a lot of yeah, yes, um, quite a few of my cousins grew up uh with me there in in the Taos Valley. Uh, a lot of them that were in Albuquerque, espanola, some up in Denver, but you know they they almost on a regular basis. They would come back to Taos uh to visit at least once, twice a year. So we kept in close contact.

Crista Cowan: 5:26

What a gift. That's amazing.

Stephen Torres: 5:28

Oh, yes, yes, Like I said, truly blessed.

Crista Cowan: 5:31

And did you know all four of your grandparents?

Stephen Torres: 5:36

Yes, I did, and did they live close as well, my father's parents lived just three miles south of us, and my mother's parents were even closer, just two miles to the southeast.

Crista Cowan: 5:50

That's amazing. I don't know if you know this, but Ancestry did a study a few years ago that says that 53% of Americans cannot even name all four of their grandparents name all four of their grandparents. I think that's a reflection of maybe some of the societal things that we are dealing with and fractured families and just distance in general between grandchildren and grandparents physically as well as kind of digitally. So the fact that you had all four that close, that's really incredible.

Stephen Torres: 6:23

And I got to spend a lot of time with all of them, especially my paternal grandmother Right.

Stephen Torres: 6:31

Oh tell me about her. She was a school teacher. She taught school for over 40 years and that's hard to imagine. But back when she first started teaching, in order to be a teacher all you needed was an eighth grade education. So she became a teacher at a young age. A lot of her students were older than she was, oh, wow. Anyway, as the years went on, she would go back to college and gradually got her degree and her teaching certificate. But yes, she taught school for over 40 some years and because she was, that was a big influence on her family.

Stephen Torres: 7:09

Of her 11 children, six of them went into the education field, including my father. Six of them went into the education field, including my father. My grandfather, my paternal grandfather, passed away when I was oh 16, I think it was, and because my grandmother did not want to leave her home and move in with somebody else or heaven forbid, go to a nursing facility. It was just decided and I kind of knew it was expected of me. I was one of the oldest grandchildren there in Taos. I just moved in with her. I moved in with her and lived with her for close to two years and that was some of the most precious time of my life, because when I was with her, I didn't have to share her with anybody.

Crista Cowan: 8:00

What a spoiled grandchild.

Stephen Torres: 8:04

It was wonderful. So, yes, I was very close to my, especially my paternal grandmother.

Crista Cowan: 8:10

It sounds like it. Now I understand you have a little bit of tradition of storytelling in your family. Was there a particular grandparent who was a good storyteller?

Stephen Torres: 8:19

My grandfather in particular. He had lots of stories, but my aunts and uncles my aunts and uncles had well, everybody contributed their stories and as we were growing up, we created stories, made stories about going up to the mountains and camping, stories about ranching. My father and my grandfather had a small ranching operation there, in just south of Taos, in the little village of Ranchos de Taos, and we, just as we were growing up, there were lots of stories that we remembered and just lots of memories. What was it that they ranced? When my grandfather was younger, he had a variety of farm animals. He had horses, cows, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, turkeys. As he grew older, like I said, it was a lot of hard work. So as he grew older, he gave up a lot of that. When my dad started helping him, we were pretty much down to just raising cattle and some hogs.

Crista Cowan: 9:29

It does sound like a lot of hard work, but also a lot of opportunity for some really lovely experiences for a kid, exactly so. Did your grandfather ever tell you stories about his family history?

Stephen Torres: 9:45

Yes, he told us some stories about the Torres family there in the Taos Valley and where we had come from and where people had spread out to. As I understand it, the Torres family, the Torres' faith, first came to New Mexico early on 1598, I believe, and they've been mostly settled in and around Espapanola, which is just north of Santa Fe, but from there they spread out all over northern New Mexico and into southern Colorado.

Crista Cowan: 10:26

So 400 years of history in that place.

Stephen Torres: 10:29

Yes, ma'am.

Crista Cowan: 10:30

Which means you've got a lot more than just second cousins that are there. Oh yes, man, is there any particular story Like? Was there any story that caught your imagination as a kid about your family history?

Stephen Torres: 10:49

Well, the one that I was, the one that always intrigued me and I and I and I have to say, the one that I, that I was skeptical about, was my grandfather. He was he. He, he was also a school teacher. He did, he did ranching and farming, but he also did some some teaching. So he, he was fond of sitting us down and and trying to teach us about whatever farming, ranching, politics. But one of the things he also used to teach us was to be proud of who we were and to be proud of our heritage, to try and make sure that we didn't do anything to ever sully the good Tordes name. Because he told us, remember, he said one of your forefathers was the first European to set foot on the New World soil. And I used to think to myself oh, that's a little bit of a stretch. I found it hard to believe because I had done some studying of history as a young boy and I had never heard of any anybody by the name of torres doing anything famous like that. Uh, but, uh. But years later, the, the, the, it started.

Stephen Torres: 12:05

The information came together when I was, when I was in college and I majored in in history and I've always loved Southwest history. I was doing some research on Columbus and his discovery and I came across the manifesto of who all was on the ships with him. And lo and behold, there was a fellow there by the name of Luis Torres, and the reason that he was there on the ship with Columbus was because he was fluent in several languages. If I remember correctly, he could speak English, french, italian, arabic and Hebrew. Oh my goodness. And the reason that Columbus brought him with him was because Columbus didn't know where he was going to end up and so he thought it might be helpful to have somebody there who was fluent in several languages, who could maybe help with communications.

Stephen Torres: 13:09

So this fellow was there on Columbus's first voyage when they landed in the Bahamas fellow was there on Columbus's first voyage when they landed in the Bahamas, and at that point it made sense to me. Well, when they landed in Bahamas and saw all these Native Americans there on the shore, well, who else but the interpreter would you send to go and try and establish some context and communication? And then later on, much, much later even, and try and establish some context and communication. And then later on, much, much later, even after I had finished my college education, there were several people who shared my interest in the Torres family history. One of them sent me an excerpt from the World Book Encyclopedia, and in it it says the history of the Jews in America begins with its discovery. A number of Jews sailed with Columbus on his first voyage. According to accounts of the voyage, columbus's interpreter, luis de Torres, who was Jewish, was the first man of the expedition to set full on American soil.

Crista Cowan: 14:21

So your grandpa was right.

Stephen Torres: 14:24

My grandfather was right. Unfortunately, by the time I discovered all this, my grandfather had passed away, because I would have loved to have told him. Grandpa, your story has merit.

Crista Cowan: 14:35

Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. That's interesting to me. Now, I don't know a lot about this history. I know just enough, probably to misspeak, but by the time Columbus and his expedition came to the New World, hadn't a lot of the Jewish people in the Iberian Peninsula had already been forced to convert to Christianity? I'm surprised that they called him a Jewish man. I guess is what I'm curious about.

Stephen Torres: 15:05

Well, after Ferdinand and Isabella consolidated Spain, yes, there was a lot of ethnic cleansing, if you would. The Jews were given the choice of either convert or leave. A lot of Jews, of course, pretended to convert and a lot of them just tried to get as far away as they could from Spain and Madrid. In fact, in northern New Mexico, in the little town of Cuesta, just north of Taos, there's a lot of people there by the name of Rael R-A-E-L. Well, of course, that's a derby revision from Israel, and speculation is that a lot of these people were just trying to get as far away from government as they could, so they went way out into the hinterlands.

Crista Cowan: 15:55

Yeah, yeah, wow. So how then, have you ever made the connection between how he got from that expedition to you know, to having family that eventually settled in New Mexico? Have you connected the dots between you and?

Stephen Torres: 16:12

him at all and there's a big gap there from 1500 to 1598. So there's almost 100 years there that I have not been able to connect the genealogy.

Crista Cowan: 16:30

Yeah, but it sounds like you've done a lot of work back to that 1598 date when people arrived there in New Mexico. Was that something that like? Are those records accessible to people? Are those family stories and information that's been well kept because the family has just been there for all of that time?

Stephen Torres: 16:50

Yes, and a lot of that is thanks to the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church kept very good records of baptisms and weddings and funerals and all of those records were, of course, were archived and they're available here in Albuquerque. We're fortunate that we have the Hispanic Cultural Center downtown Albuquerque and there's a research room there where you can go and research family histories, and so a lot of that information is readily available.

Crista Cowan: 17:25

Wow, that's incredible. I think there are very few, I think, cultures or groups of people in the United States or anywhere that have that longevity of unbroken records To be able to have 400 years of records available to you to be able to trace. That is really remarkable.

Stephen Torres: 17:44

Well, it goes back further than that. We can change subjects just for a second. My mother is a Vigil. Her mother was from the Vigil family and thanks to the work of one of our cousins who lives in southern Colorado, mr Brendan Cruz, he's been able to take our genealogy on the Vigil side all the way back to Charlemagne. Well, okay then.

Crista Cowan: 18:15

Yeah, I think you just one-upped, grandpa.

Stephen Torres: 18:24

Wasn't me. I think you just one-upped grandpa.

Crista Cowan: 18:29

Wasn't me, wasn't me but I've been fortunate to be able to get some of his history. So, do you have children of your own grandchildren? My wife and I had three sons, and from those three sons we have now five granddaughters. Oh, how lovely. And what is it? Have you been intentional at all about passing on some of that long-lived oral history with them? Oh yes, I.

Stephen Torres: 18:53

I think it's important. So I I um, oh. Around 20, some years, 25 years ago, I thought it was important to start to memorialize a lot of these stories. So I sat down in front of the computer and started compiling a lot of these stories and I actually came up with a little favorite stories of the Torres family, favorite stories of the Torres family, and I shared copies of that with my aunts and uncles, my brothers and sisters and with my sons.

Crista Cowan: 19:35

Okay, I noticed you have the title of that in both English and Spanish. Is the Spanish language something that has persisted in your family as well all this time?

Stephen Torres: 19:39

Yes, it has, yes, it has.

Crista Cowan: 19:41

What is it that enables you to continue to perpetuate that cultural tradition?

Stephen Torres: 19:47

Growing up with people around you who pretty much exclusively spoke Spanish.

Crista Cowan: 19:53

That's incredible. That is so incredible. I think that's so important too. That that I think that's so important too. Does that also like move into other cultural traditions, like are there holidays or foods or other things that that you've maintained that in your family?

Stephen Torres: 20:11

Oh, certainly, oh certainly. What does that look like? I don't know if you've had the opportunity to come and visit Northern New Mexico, but our new Mexican food it's a combination of Mexican and Native American and it's just a wonderful combination and it's distinctive. The food that we commonly eat here in Northern New Mexico is quite different from what they eat even in Southern New Mexico and down in Mexico. And then, of course, a lot of our holidays, of course, are still centered around Catholic tradition and Spanish tradition. A lot of our customs.

Crista Cowan: 20:58

I have been to Albuquerque. A lot of our customs. I have been to Albuquerque. I have not been to Northern New Mexico, but I will tell you that every year, every year, I get myself a bushel of hatch chilies and roast them. So that is my one culinary tie to New Mexico. Again, I'm just fascinated by this because you know, I come from a family where you know my mom's family's from the South Arkansas, tennessee. My dad's family is from you know, ohio and Pennsylvania on one side and Germany and Scotland on the other. That have come together in my life to bring me to where I am. But you have this trunk of deep-rooted culture on all sides in this one place and to be tied to a singular place. How do you think that changes your perspective on the world or how you think about the future?

Stephen Torres: 22:05

I think the most important thing is that it gives you a very sound, good foundation to be able to know who you are, who you can rely upon, what to do in certain situations, because other family members have been through it. My wife and I have been very fortunate to be able to travel throughout the world to Europe and Mexico and Canada, but it's always important to come back to our base.

Crista Cowan: 22:34

Yeah, New Mexico isn't just a character in your story, it's part of who you are. Oh, definitely.

Stephen Torres: 22:39

Yeah, that's amazing, do you are? Oh, definitely.

Crista Cowan: 22:40

Yeah, that's amazing. Do you have any great-grandchildren yet? Not yet, not yet Looking forward to it, but not yet Okay, as you think forward to that great-grandchild, that first great-grandchild. If you were to tell that great-grandchild about your grandfather, how would you tell that great grandchild about your grandfather? How would you tell that story?

Stephen Torres: 23:02

My grandfather was a hardworking man, an honest, hardworking man. Very close ties to the soil, but again very proud of his heritage also and tried to teach us to be just as proud.

Crista Cowan: 23:22

That's beautiful, steve. Thank you so much for sharing your family, your roots, for sharing New Mexico with us. I'm so excited to have you as part of this America 250 series, representing New Mexico, because it sounds like you do in all the ways.

Stephen Torres: 23:40

It's been my pleasure and I want to extend a personal invitation to you. Next time you're ever near Albuquerque, lunch is on me.

Crista Cowan: 23:50

I would love that. Thank you so much. Studio sponsored by Ancestry.