Bringing Pecos to life through poetry

Ana Pacheco | For The New Mexican

1/5/2009 - 1/5/09

During World War II, Juan Varela used to play the harmonica for his fellow soldiers out on the Libyan desert. "It was kind of lonely out there, so the guys would dance along in the sand," recalls Varela.

Today, the 91-year-old continues to entertain others, using prose as his instrument. A prolific poet, he has written numerous poems about his beloved village of Pecos. Several of his poems are included in the book Pecos ... Mi Pecos, which was published in 2002 by Aspectos Culturales, a Santa Fe company that seeks to preserve and share the Hispanic culture, especially through the Spanish language.

Varela made his poetic debut in 1980 at St. Anthony's Church in Pecos. As Varela remembers, "My first poem, Este es Mi Pecos, was accompanied by music which the parishioners sang. It went over big — all afternoon people were calling to congratulate me."

That event inspired Varela to write more poems, so when he retired as a medical technician from Los Alamos Medical Center after 30 years, he took to writing poetry in an unconventional way. As Varela explains, "I wrote the poems in my head. Each morning I would go on a walk and I wouldn't come back until I finished the poem."

Varela was born in Pecos on Feb. 11, 1917, to Pedro Varela and Juanita Roybal. His mother died when he was 3 1/2 years old. "My father needed help with me, so I lived with different families in different houses when I was growing up," he says. "My father remarried when I was 13 and we moved to Lower Colonias, where I went to school until the eighth grade. I didn't get to go to high school because my father needed help making railroad ties in Chama for the railroad."

After working on the railroad as a teenager, Varela moved to Las Vegas, N.M., to work as an orderly at the state hospital. When World War II broke out, he was recruited to work as a medic since he had some medical experience. Varela was sent for more medical training at Camp Grant in Illinois before being sent to live in Indio, Calif., for four months to get accustomed to the heat before being deployed to the Middle East. "I carried bandages instead of a gun on the front lines," he says.

In addition to his service in the Middle East and North Africa, Varela participated in the invasion at Sicily. "When they dropped the bomb at Hiroshima, I was the only guy from New Mexico, and the guys clobbered me, saying, 'What business does Mexico have building bombs for the U.S.?' They thought New Mexico was Mexico," he explains.

Returning from the war, Varela met his wife, Altagracia Quintana, while he was fishing in Upper Colonias, which is southeast of the village of Pecos and is now a ghost town.

As Varela remembers, "She invited me over to see her vegetable garden. It was beautiful." The couple were married for 43 years and had seven children, 12 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. Altagracia died of cancer in 1989.

In his retirement, Varela did woodworking, making cabinets for his own home, and was very active with the senior citizens' community center in Pecos. He was able to live and care for himself until two years ago, when he fell and broke his back. He's currently a resident at Casa Real Health and Rehabilitation Center, where he's almost fully recovered. "After my fall, I didn't have the desire to do anything," he says. "I thought I was going to die, but I'm still here, so I'm starting to write poems again."

Ana Pacheco is the founder and publisher of La Herencia, a culture and history magazine (www.herencia.com, 505-474-2800). Her weekly tribute to our community elders appears every Tuesday.