Aunt Jennie Romero: A Life of Resilience

My Aunt Juanita “Jennie” Romero was born on Christmas Day, 1902, in Valverde, Socorro County, New Mexico Territory. It was probably a home birth because the village of Valverde, which had a church and a school, was home to about 600 citizens¹ and had no doctor.

A larger town, San Marcial, was about seven miles southeast, across the Rio Grande. San Marcial probably had a physician.

Jennie was not born blind but was afflicted with an eye disease that developed after a headache, according to her mother (my grandmother), Luz Romero.

The Romero Family in California

In the early 1940s, many of my father Justiniano’s siblings moved with their parents from New Mexico to Southern California. His mother, Luz Romero, and stepfather, Anastascio; sisters Jennie and Julia; brother John; stepsisters Linda, Rosa, and Luisa; and stepbrothers Frank, Cirilio, and Herman settled around Monterey Park and Los Angeles.

Two sisters, Marian and Sostena, stayed in Albuquerque.

Jennie and her husband, Saturnino Trujillo, lived nearby in Monterey Park. Jennie’s daughter, Tommie, and her family were very close to us—not only in distance, but in relationship. We often visited Tommie, her husband John Burns, and their family.

When I would see Jennie, she seemed to me an enigmatic person. She did speak English, but because I was young and shy, we did not converse much. She carried herself with great dignity and self-assuredness.

Education at the New Mexico Institute for the Blind

On June 7, 1916, when Jennie was 13 years old, Nestor and Luz Romero applied for Jennie to attend the New Mexico Institute for the Blind, which was founded in 1902 by legislative act and located in Alamogordo, Otero County. Its primary purpose was to give a practical education and training to the “many unfortunate blind of New Mexico.”²

In 2018, I emailed a request for Jennie’s school records from this institution, now named the New Mexico School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Jennie and her sister Julia were enrolled at the Institute from 1916 to 1923.

They sent me a copy of her application, which included a physician’s certification of visual impairment. Her visual acuity was recorded as none in one eye and 20/200 in the other. Her sister, Julia, was described as having cataracts, for which she received treatment.

Along with the application copy, the Institute also sent copies of correspondence from my grandparents, Nestor and Luz, to Institute Supervisor R. R. Pratt during the years Jennie attended. There was even a handwritten note from Jennie to Mr. Pratt.

Newspaper accounts described how Mr. Pratt would travel to New Mexico towns where applicants lived and escort them to the Institute by train.

Jennie’s curriculum consisted of Geography, Domestic Science, Reading, Spelling, Arithmetic, Chorus, Piano, and Hand Sewing. She was about 20 years old when she left the Institute.

Male visually impaired students were trained to make brooms and cane chairs, and to tune pianos, in addition to the basic curriculum.

On November 4, 1925, Mr. Pratt wrote a recommendation letter for Jennie:

“To Whom It May Concern: Juanita Romero, because of defective vision, attended the New Mexico School for the Blind from 1916 to 1923. She completed the sixth grade and, in addition to this, spent one year in special work, specializing in industrial. Juanita was a good girl, conscientious, and trustworthy.”

Jennie’s Adult Life

As an adult, Jennie volunteered as a secretary at the Monterey Park Women’s Club. She could take minutes in shorthand, and she also played the piano.

Besides her daughter, Tommie, Jennie had two sons, Raymond Gonzales and Henry Romero.

A Personal Family Legacy

Receiving this information from the Institute has given me a very personal account of those days when my grandparents and their children lived there.

Image 1: A group of Institute classmates, with Julia seated in the center and Juanita standing at the far right.

Image 2: The girls’ dormitory building at the Institute campus in Alamogordo.

¹ U.S. Census. Year: 1900; Census, Place: Valverde (sic), Socorro, New Mexico Territory; Roll: 1003; Page: 2B; Enumeration District: 0141; FHL microfilm: 1241003.² Alamogordo Daily News, Aug. 23, 1917.