Holy Cross at Deming, New Mexico

by Sr. Maria Assunta Werner, C.S.C.

On May 12, 1923, the Sisters of the Holy Cross dedicated Holy Cross Sanatorium in Deming, Luna County , New Mexico .  The Bishop of El Paso , Texas , the Most Rev. Anthony J. Schuler, S.J., officiated.  Mother M. Aquina, CSC, Superior General, saw the completion of many months of work. 

          Mother Aquina had been looking for a suitable place for a sanatorium for Sisters suffering from tuberculosis and when she received a letter from the Rev. G.C. Van Goethem, pastor of both Holy Family and St. Ann ’s Churches in Deming, asking for Sisters to establish such an institution there, she and her Council agreed to purchase and staff it.

          The Sanatorium was located three miles northwest of the city of Deming in the Mimbres Valley .  It was surrounded by the Black Range of the Rockies to the north, the Three Sisters to the south, and the Floridas to the southeast.  Deming has an altitude of 4330 feet with a mean humidity of 40%, a mean annual temperature between 59.6˚ and 62.3˚, an average rainfall of 10”, and at least 330 days of sunshine.  The winters are mild and the summers warm but not uncomfortable with cool nights.  A few sandstorms blow up in the spring.  The whole valley boasted an unlimited supply of 99.9% pure water, according to government tests.  The Sanatorium had wells about 177 feet deep with tans holding 100,000 gallons each.  The water was pumped by both steam and electric power; a booster pump elevated the water to another tank 65 feel higher.  There was plenty of water for use within the sanatorium and for irrigation.  The soil was fertile and there was, later, a large vegetable garden.  Wild grass, good for feeding cattle, mesquite, yucca, and cacti grew in the surrounding countryside.

          The sanatorium had not been built as a tuberculosis hospital. originally, it had been constructed by the War Department during World War I for military purposes, and the structures of temporary nature on land leased from the Chamber of Commerce of Deming and named Camp Cody .  The buildings were unpainted frame with substantial walls.  They were set on 240 acres of land which the Chamber of Commerce had leased from various individuals and then to the government as a blanket lease.  After the war the government was eager to dispose of the property in some way.  Its way was salvage.  The eighty buildings were in good shape, but there was no longer any use for them.  The War Department salvaged some of the buildings, but 40 buildings were turned over to the Treasury Department for hospital purposes and were for the care of tubercular soldiers.

          Before the salvage was completed by the Treasury Department, several estimates were gathered about the value of the remaining buildings.  In March 1922 R.O. Ferguson, custodian of the camp, wrote to Assistant Secretary of Public Health, Edward Clifford, “(A)t salvage property prices the property and materials here are worth more than $200,000,” a price later considered “ridiculous.”  Another estimate put the buildings at $100,000 and if salvaged at $50,000.  A Deming contractor and builder, a Mr. Roach, was asked by Senator Bursum to give his estimate.  His opinion was that the government would lose at least $2300 in the total salvaging process.  J.E. Morgan, another contractor, put the government’s loss at $18,000.  In the opinion of both men the lumber would be useful only for building pig-pens and cowsheds, with splinters for kindling.

          In March 1922 thirty-five buildings remained on the property, large and small.  At the request of the Hon. H. O. Bursum, United States Senator from New Mexico , the Department advertised the property for sale on February 21, 1922, bids to be opened on March 15.  In a letter to Mr. Clifford, Senator Bursum wrote,

I certainly do not believe that the public will justify wrecking and salvaging and converting hospital buildings into kindling wood, pig-pens and cow sheds, especially when there is an opportunity to preserve the establishment for useful purposes to serve health seeking people and utilize the same for the purposes for which the construction was originally made.  If there were no other alternative, except perhaps to permit the improvements to decay and remain idle, in that event salvage of most any kind providing it did not cost more than was recovered, would be justified.  In view of these circumstances, I urge that the sale on the basis on the modified bid is more than justified and that it would be the best of public policy to do so.