By Carolyn Murset
2017
This is the musical story of my Hispanic Latter-Day Saint Pioneer Grandmother Tila Trujillo, who lived in Taos, New Mexico. She was patient, optimistic, beautiful, and wise. As a young girl who struggled to make soft tortillas good enough for her older brothers to chew, not crunch, and swallow down with choking, she had the faith that her prayers for help, would help. They did. I’m glad she wrote about it in her brief personal history when she was 57 years old. She also wrote about going to boarding school in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she learned to knit and crochet with the other girls.
She and Grandpa Trujillo exchanged notes to each other in a ledger. Back in the year 2000, I transcribed the juicier parts of the messages that she and Grandpa wrote to each other. She also kept family records, as many others have done in a family bible. Many of her writings in the Ledger have faded and are almost illegible now. I wish I’d transcribed more back then.
Join Tila on her journey through the first half of the twentieth century, as she experiences friends her age leaving to serve in the Great War (as World War One was called back then), the Spanish Flu Epidemic, joining the LDS Church when Mormon missionaries arrive in Taos, marrying her friend’s brother at age 17, waiting three years for him to also join the LDS Church, the Great Depression, World War Two and her husbands contribution toward the creation of the Atomic Bomb in the secret city of Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Contributing Musicians:
Carolyn Murset: vocals and narration, rhythm guitar, research, script and songwriting.
John Houston: Bass Guitar, Piano, Hammond and Wurlitzer Keyboards, Accordion, Wailing Harmonica (Post Office Box 1663), mixing and mastering.
Ryan Tilby: Mandolin, Bouzouki.
Lisle Crowley: Classical Guitar, and unusual chord suggestions. (Ab7b5, in “Chow Chow”.)
Gordon Strang: Percussion.
