Bonaguidi, Schaff reflect on growing up in Gallup
Neighborhood kids gathering together for a game of backyard baseball. Or shooting hoops at a friend’s house. These are some of Mayor Louie Bonaguidi’s favorite memories of growing up in Gallup during the ‘60s and ‘70s.
THE BONAGUIDIS MOVE TO GALLUP
The Bonaguidi family chose Gallup as their home in 1924 after Louie’s father Sesto and his brother Mario decided to expand their shoe repair business. They already had a store in Albuquerque, but they’d both heard great things about the mining town of Gallup and decided to give it a try.
The two men traveled back and forth between Gallup and Albuquerque for a while before Mario fell in love with an Albuquerque schoolteacher and decided to stay in the big city full time. Sesto chose to make Gallup his family’s home.
That was in 1924, and City Electric Shoe Shop officially celebrated its 100th anniversary this year. Although Louie said they aren’t planning the big celebration until next year.
While his father was running the shoe repair store, Louie was busy growing up. He attended Cathedral School for most of his education, but then transferred to Gallup High School his sophomore year before graduating in 1963.
He remembers his childhood growing up in Gallup fondly.
“Growing up, the neighborhoods were great,” he said. “There was like 30-40 kids in [the neighborhood I grew up in]. Playing hide-and-seek with about 15 to 20 people is quite fun.”
As a teenager, the Zuni Drive-In was a popular place to meet up with friends and hang out. Or a group of them would go visit the local pool.
“Summers were always great,” Louie said. “Winters were kind of hard because the snow always seemed terrible. We’d get snow all the way from Thanksgiving until May.”
Louie said the closeness of the small town had its pros and cons during his childhood. He knew almost everyone in town, but that also meant everyone knew him.
“It was hard to stay out of trouble because everybody knew each other,” Louie said. “If you got in trouble you’d be in trouble with the whole community.”
For example, when Louie and his friends first got their drivers’ licenses, they once stayed out until 3 am driving around town.
While Louie was in grade school, his father hired the first Diné-speaking employee at City Electric Shoe Shop. Back then, many Navajo people didn’t speak English, so it was difficult to find someone who spoke both languages fluently. Sesto spoke a little bit of the language, and when he was younger Louie knew enough so that he could tell people how much something cost. But he said he’s lost most of the language now.
MOVING TO
GALLUP AT EIGHT
Michael Schaaf wasn’t born in Gallup. His family moved to town when he was eight years old after his father got a job working at what is now the Gallup Indian Medical Center.
His family’s house sat on the corner of Puerto Drive and Coal Avenue, which made it the perfect spot for Michael and his three siblings to watch the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial parade by hanging out the house’s windows as it rolled on by.
Schaaf’s mother could walk to the grocery store because a lot of stores were located downtown.
“Downtown was kind of my playground,” Schaaf said. “We just ran around downtown.”
He said the sense of community was something he really loved about growing up in Gallup.
“The nice thing about it was that at the time you might not know a person by name, but you knew where they worked,” Schaaf said. “Now, the town’s gotten so big [that] you walk into these stores, and I don’t know half the people in the stores anymore.”
WHAT’S CHANGED
IN THE PAST 60 YEARS
Louie and Schaaf both agree that Gallup has changed quite a lot since their childhoods.
Businesses have come and gone in Gallup. JCPenney used to be where Sammy C’s Rock N’ Sports Pub & Grille stands now. The town didn’t even have a McDonald’s in 1970.
According to the U.S. Census, just over 14,000 people lived in Gallup in 1960. The 2020 census recorded that almost 22,000 people lived in Gallup at that time. That’s a 63% population increase.
Louie said that the population increase has led to a lot of different changes, including an increase in traffic and unfortunately, an increase in crime.
“Traffic is a lot worse than it was back then,” Louie said. “There was very little traffic back then. Even though Highway 66 went right through town, it wasn’t until the ‘80s that traffic all of a sudden was unbelievable.”
These days drugs like fentanyl and meth are easily found in the streets of Gallup, but Louie said drugs weren’t as big of a problem back then.
“Back then, drugs were virtually unknown,” he said. “If anything, it was alcohol that was the biggest detriment to our community. Now, even raising my own kids and watching my grandkids grow up, we have to be so much closer to them, attached to them.”
When he was in school, Louie would often walk to school. Now, he said he doesn’t even dream of that for his grandkids.
For most of Louie’s childhood, the only major roadway in Gallup was Highway 66. Gallup’s part of Interstate 40 wasn’t completed until 1980.
Schaaf said he’s noticed that people are less involved in community activities now than during his childhood.
“The town was more involved in everything,” he said. “When the Ceremonial was going on, all the businesses would post advertisements in their windows months in advance. And during the Ceremonial everyone would get involved.”
Nowadays, Schaaf believes some people don’t even know when the Ceremonial is happening.
KEEPING
MEMORIES ALIVE
After his parents passed away, his mom in 1993 and his dad in 2007, Schaaf realized the importance of holding on to memories.
A large part of his teenage years and young adult life was spent listening to the older generations’ stories. He would sit at the local diner and listen to the people who built Gallup, who were born in the 1920s and ‘30s.
“I used to love to sit and listen to them tell stories from back in the ‘20s and ‘30s and what went on. But now a lot of them have passed away and a lot of those stories are gone now,” he said.
He never got the chance to do this with his parents, but now he tells people all the time to sit their parents down and have them tell stories of the past.
“Sit your parents down before they pass away and interview them,” Schaaf said. “Record it and have it on tape. I failed to do that.”
Today, Schaaf finds himself attending more and more funerals for the people he grew up listening to. At one recent funeral he remembers telling a friend “All the old timers are dying.” The friend responded by saying, “You know what that means, right? Now we’re the old timers.”
Schaaf said he’s still working on taking his own advice and writing down his own memories for future generations.
“Everybody tells me I need to sit down and start writing down my memories of Gallup,” he said. “And I just don’t do it. But the memories are starting to slip away, and I know I need to sit down and do it.”
By Molly Ann Howell
Managing Editor
