Josina Martinez has a personal connection to the centuries-old trade and travel routes that helped settle what is now New Mexico. She believes most of her ancestors arrived here by way of the 1,500-mile El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (Royal Road to the Interior Lands), which led north from Mexico City between the 16th and 19th centuries.

As administrative officer for the National Park Service's National Trails Intermountain Region, Martinez provides support for NPS employees involved in preserving El Camino Real, the Santa Fe Trail and other National Historic Trails. But as she has discovered, there are other — more surprising — connections between her life and work.

Martinez grew up in Santa Fe in the early 1960s, when St. Michael's Drive was a crudely paved two-lane road, far out on the outskirts of town. Going "into town" meant a trip to the Plaza for shopping at Sears or JC Penney and having lunch at the Woolworth's lunch counter.

For all 12 years of her schooling, she was taught by the Sisters of Loretto — whose presence in Santa Fe began in 1852 when five sisters reached the city by way of the Santa Fe Trail. Martinez attended St. Francis Cathedral School, the Loretto Academy (for one year before it closed) and St. Michael's High School, and was even named after a Loretto nun, Sister Josina.

When she entered first grade with Sister Josina as her teacher, little Josina assumed her name would win her a place as the teacher's pet — an assumption that quickly proved false; the infamous Sister Josina had no teacher's pets.

Martinez's federal government career has included a 20-year stint with the New Mexico National Guard. She has worked for the Federal Highway Administration and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Albuquerque, and in 1999 she joined the National Park Service in Santa Fe. In her current position, she helps coordinate activities related to the seven National Historic Trails administered by the office, as well as the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program.

For the past few years, one such activity has been a camping trip along the Santa Fe Trail for blind teenagers from Ohio, through an organization called Accessible Arts. Although Martinez rarely takes part in her office's on-the-ground activities, last summer she joined the blind teens and their chaperones on the Santa Fe Trail at Point of Rocks, near Springer.

Point of Rocks was the site of the massacre of a pioneer family in 1849. As Martinez watched the young people explore the site — through listening to historic interpretation and experiencing the land — she was moved by their enthusiasm for the history of a state that for generations her family has called home. And as it turned out, the Ohio woman organizing the event is a member of the small order of nuns — the Sisters of Loretto.

Contact Gussie Fauntleroy at gussie7@comcast.net.