{"id":165,"date":"2012-04-06T16:57:37","date_gmt":"2012-04-06T21:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blongerbros.com\/blog\/?p=165"},"modified":"2012-04-06T16:57:37","modified_gmt":"2012-04-06T21:57:37","slug":"the-widow-viles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blongerbros.com\/blog\/index.php\/2012\/04\/06\/the-widow-viles\/","title":{"rendered":"The Widow Viles"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Carrie<\/a>
Carrie Winsor Viles Blonger Hume<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We’ve long known that Joe’s only marriage to widow Carrie (Winsor) Viles didn’t last long. A new article\u00a0from the Albuquerque Daily Citizen<\/em>, by way of the Las Vegas <\/em>Optic,<\/em> colorfully describes just how short it was.<\/p>\n

UNLUCKY NUMBER<\/h3>\n

Couple Were Married in Room Thirteen of a Hotel.<\/h3>\n

The Pecos Valley Correspondent of the Las Vegas Optic says:<\/p>\n

Thirteen is a sure unlucky number. Some time about the middle of April Joseph Blonger, an old miner and a Grand Army man of Santa Fe, led to the hymeneal altar in the Plaza hotel at Santa Fe, Mrs. C. A. Viles. The solemn obligation that bound them together as man and wife was performed in room 13.<\/p>\n

Hardly two moons had passed over the fair contracting parties till Blonger concluded it was a good deal more economical and not near so hard work to hold down a miner\u2019s cabin, so he gathered up his bed, bid the fair bride of less than sixty days good by and again picked up the pick and shovel, departed for Cerrillos and gave all his right, title, and \u201cherediments\u201d back to the fair one, shook the dust of the Pecos from his feet anl [sic] left.<\/p>\n

Albuquerque Daily Citizen<\/em>
\nJuly 16, 1902<\/h6>\n

This is of particular interest in that we have recently been corresponding with Carrie’s grand niece, Sara Winsor Johnson (no relation to us).<\/p>\n

Sara informs us that Carrie is remembered in the Winsor family as something of a dingbat. Sara’s grandfather recalled having to\u00a0bail her out after her first husband died, and then when she and Joe split up. When her third husband, Ben Hume, died, she was on her own.\u00a0 For what it’s worth, Joe is recalled as the best of her three husbands.\u00a0Not sayin’ much, I guess.<\/p>\n

According to Sara, the Winsor\u00a0family — Windsor in some branches — can trace its roots back to William the Conqueror, and first came to these shores in 1638. Carrie, if I recall, was born in Vermont, just like all the Blongers.<\/p>\n

As for those “herediments,” the story is a confusing one.<\/p>\n

In March of 1892,\u00a0Joe traveled far up the Pecos valley, north of Cowles, NM, to a place still barely accessible today. There he claimed 160 acres straddling the Pecos River as a homestead. (Just days later\u00a0Sam and Lou\u00a0would strike it big on the Forest Queen<\/a> claim on Ironclad Hill, outside of Cripple Creek.)<\/p>\n

Joe then went on to prospect in Colorado, Nevada, and Cochiti, north of Albuquerque. This is curious considering that a homestead claim must be occupied and developed to be retained. So how could Joe claim a homestead, and yet continue his itinerant ways?<\/p>\n

In June of 1895, Carrie’s first husband, Charles Viles, passed away, and three months later\u00a0she purchased Joe’s 160 acres. In 1896\u00a0she had a small cabin built.<\/p>\n

In 1897 Joe was in Bonanza, and he\u00a0bought property in Santa Fe. Carrie\u00a0bought an additional piece of land in the Pecos valley. Then, in January of 1898, Joe finally recorded his 160 acre homestead.<\/p>\n

In August Joe\u00a0shot and killed Alexander Allan<\/a><\/strong>, operator of the Bottom Dollar Mine in the Cerrillos Hills, after Allan brandished a gun and threatened to kill Joe’s fellow miner Silas Smith with a rock.\u00a0His trial was December 22, 1898, and he was acquitted.\u00a0 About that time Carrie\u00a0sold 140 acres of the land.<\/p>\n

Joe\u00a0continued\u00a0mining around Cerrillos and Santa Fe. Then, in 1902,\u00a0he finally married Carrie.<\/p>\n

Less than three months later, they divorced, and Joe\u00a0went back to the desert mountains of Cerrillos. The question then becomes, did they marry to somehow settle the rights to the land? Was Joe just doing Carrie a favor? Or was it truly love gone bad?<\/p>\n

As for the land itself,\u00a0it was\u00a0eventually developed it into a dude ranch known as Mountain View.\u00a0 In the late Seventies it was bought by the government, and is now just a meadow.<\/p>\n

\"Mountain<\/a>
Mountain View Ranch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve long known that Joe’s only marriage to widow Carrie (Winsor) Viles didn’t last long. A new article\u00a0from the Albuquerque Daily Citizen, by way of the Las Vegas Optic, colorfully describes just how short it was. UNLUCKY NUMBER Couple Were Married in Room Thirteen of a Hotel. The Pecos Valley Correspondent of the Las Vegas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-profiles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blongerbros.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blongerbros.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blongerbros.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blongerbros.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blongerbros.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.blongerbros.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blongerbros.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blongerbros.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blongerbros.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}