Lucy Fortune and lots of children, including Grandma, in San Marcial, New Mexico, around 1926.
Grandma is standing just in front of her.
Today is the 127th birthday of Adelina Lucia “Lucy” Fortune, the woman who raised Grandma after the death of her mother in March 1925. Lucy loved and supported Grandma during her darkest days, and though they did not live together for long, they remained close, and thought of each other as mother and daughter for the rest of their lives.
Born September 18, 1898, in Magdalena, New Mexico, Lucy Fortune was the fourth of eight sisters born to Edward Lawrence & Maria Guadalupe (Baca) Fortune. (There was one brother born in 1897, but he died after 38 days; all eight sisters lived to adulthood.) The Fortune sisters would become an institution in nearby Socorro, whose Baca ancestors arrived in the area from Mexico in 1600, twenty years before the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth Rock. (More on them in later posts.) All of the Fortune sisters were born in Magdalena, but appear to have moved to the Baca family house on the town square in Socorro after Edward died in 1918. Unfortunately, I cannot find them listed on any 1920 Census.
Grandma’s family, however, does appear on the 1920 Census, then living in Hanover, New Mexico, where Jesse Ray Green (our great grandfather) worked as a telegrapher for the Santa Fe Railroad. Within a couple years the Greens moved to San Antonio, New Mexico, where Lucy Fortune was then working in an elementary school. Grandma was one of her students.
As you know, the full story Marion Mae (Baer) Green’s death was shrouded in mystery, but the photo above helps unravel some family history. It was sent to my parents in 1999 by cousin Ray Wells (his story here), where he wrote:
I ran across the enclosed picture some time ago and thought you might like to have it, Barbara. The picture was taken about 1925 or so in San Marcial, NM. My mother always had a birthday party [April 5] for my two brothers and I and Virginia and JR [Jesse Ray Green Jr.] when they were living with us. The lady standing in the back is Lucy (Fortune) Green, Virginia’s and JR’s stepmother. She was very good to them, and was a good mother. Virginia, your mother, is standing directly in front of Lucy. In the front row is my brother Irwin, sitting down with his right hand over his eye, and the second boy to Irwin’s left is me in the sailor suit. Behind me is your uncle JR with his head bending down. This picture was very valuable to me in a sentimental way and I know you will treasure it as well.
Comparing his letter with information from Ancestry and notes from Grandma, I believe this was taken at Ray’s birthday party on April 5, 1926. Grandma’s mother Marion died on March 2, 1925, and Grandma accompanied her body on the train back to Eagle. She and her brother JR lived with her grandparents Henry & Lucy Baer for a while, then returned to New Mexico where her father still worked for the railroad. Because Jesse was a single working father, Grandma and JR were taken in by the Wells family in San Marcial. Bessie Mae (Green) Wells, mother of Ray and our great-grandaunt, was Jesse’s twin sister. (The Wellses had three boys: Ray, Irwin, and Robert.) It seems unlikely that this photo could have been taken on April 5, 1925, one month after Marion’s death, which is why I believe it was taken on Ray’s birthday the following year.
Five days after this photo was taken, Jesse and Lucy married in Soccoro, and Grandma and JR had a new stepmother. As reported in the Eagle Valley Enterprise on April 23, 1926:
Word has been received here by Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Green that their son Jesse was united in marriage to Miss Lucy Fortune of Socorro, N.M., April 10, at the home of the bride’s parents. Following the ceremony, a dinner was served for the wedding party, after which the couple departed for a trip in their new Buick sedan to El Paso and Juarez, Mexico.
Mr. Green resides in San Antonio, N.M., where he has been employed the past several years by the Santa Fe and Midland railroads as station agent. His bride is an accomplished young lady and has been employed as a teacher in the San Antonio public schools the past winter.
According to notes from Grandma, the Greens moved to Santa Rita in 1927, and then to Engle in 1928. The 1930 Census shows them still living in Engle, at least in part. All four are listed in Engle, but Lucy appears on another census sheet the same year, this time living with her sister Priscilla’s family in Socorro and working as a stenographer in a real estate office. Though listed as married on both censuses, I suspect they were separated at the time.
Around this time Grandma was sent to a Catholic boarding school—perhaps for orphans—from which she graduated in 1932. The following year, on August 16, 1933, Grandma married Edward Vance Standiford in Winslow, Arizona. Lucy (Fortune) Green signed as a witness for the wedding license. Jesse was not present.
I have not found a record of Jesse and Lucy’s divorce, but Jesse remarried in 1938. The 1940 and 1950 censuses show Lucy working as a primary school teacher in Socorro. Here is where the paper trail runs out, but I have found two photos of Lucy with Grandma. The first was taken around 1964 at our family home in Downey, California. The other shows the two sitting on a park bench in the town square in Socorro, probably 1981.
It probably goes without saying, but Lucy fostered Grandma’s appreciation for Mexican culture, which she shared with us. We took two family road trips with her to Guaymas, Mexico, the first in 1969 and the second in 1971, where Grandma acted as translator.
Guaymas 1969 Guaymas 1971
Lucy (Fortune) Green died in Socorro on May 21, 1984, at the age of 85. I believe she was buried in the San Miguel Cemetery, where several of her sisters are also laid to rest, but I have not been able to confirm this. Mom, Dad, and I visited Socorro in 2015, and mom left a bouquet in the Fortune family plot.
Later that day we stopped by the library to see if we could find any additional information, and sat down with the director, a lifelong Socorro resident. His face lit up and he smiled when we mentioned Lucy—she had been his teacher as a child! He said she was a sweet woman. But we already knew that.
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