“And the day he died it was a birthday and I noticed it was mine.”

I have always liked Graham Nash’s song, Cathedral, and it is hard not to hum it when strolling through the Santa Fe national cemetery while taking gravestone photos for people. I’m always scanning others as I walk about. Given the thousands of sites within the grounds it did not surprise me when I came across one whose date was my actual birthday. It was sobering, however, when I realized the young lad was only 19.

Jose Antonio Lopez was born in the middle of winter, 30 January 1925, to Jose R. and Carmelita Lopez, lifelong residents of Santa Fe and descendants of lifelong residents. The Lopez surname goes all they back to the arrival of the original Spanish conquistadors, so it is likely the family goes back that far.

Jose was the youngest of four children, his older sisters being Rita (b. 1920), Tedra (b. 1922) and Teresa (b. 1924). His father was a mechanic and eventually a car salesman for the first automobile dealers in Santa Fe, Closson & Closson Garage (est. 1909). They owned their own home on 221 W. Garcia street. [In 1927, the City of Santa Fe changed the name of W. Garcia Street to Closson Sreet. The family home was then listed as 221 Closson St. A previous version of this note assumed the family had moved from W. Garcia to Closson.]

Jose R. Lopez passed away unexpectedly on 23 March 1936 at the age of 42. Soon afterwards, as the two older daughters married and moved out over the next few years, Carmeltia and her two youngest children moved into a smaller house next door, at 223 Closson St.  Both homes are still standing. They are located in one of the old Agua Fría sections of Santa Fe, close to downtown. They are in the same configuration as they would have been in 1940s, as are many of the homes built before the arrival of the automobile and the need for a garage.

Jose Antonio Lopez was a graduate of Guadalupe elementary and Santa Fe High schools, class of 1943. He had worked to support himself and his family as a clerk at Safeway, the new shiny store recently opened on Grant Avenue in the summer of 1941 (and the third Safeway to open in Santa Fe) but two months after graduation, and probably with not much in the way of prospects, he enlisted in the Army, on 18 July 1943.

He was sent to Camp Fannin for basic training, a short-lived (1943-1946) WWII training camp and POW camp north of Tyler, Texas. Following basic training, Jose Antonio enjoyed a 14-day furlough in February 1944, time spent visiting with his mother in Santa Fe, before shipping out for Fort Mead, Maryland, for final instruction.

He ended up being assigned to the 133rd infantry regiment, part of the 34th Red Bull division. By fall of 1944 Red Bull had amassed more combat hours than any other American division in the European theater. Jose set off in mid-September 1944 to Italy and joined his regiment. He had experience only a month of combat when he was wounded on 17 October 1944, for which he received a Purple Heart and the Expert Infantryman badge. The campaign during the month of October led to the 133rd defeating combined German and Italian forces and gaining control of a strategic region known as Monte Belmonte. His wounds were light enough that he was returned to the 133rd a month later, in mid-November. The Germans regrouped and fought back with increased ferocity. The month of November 1944 saw the greatest number of casualties in the history of the 133rd. The regiment’s official war record entry on Jose Antonio Lopez’ final day is written:

[29 November 1944]
Around 0500 hours on 29 November a great concentration of enemy artillery, mortar, and nebelwerfer (multi-barreled mortar) shells, estimated at 500 rounds, crashed in the town of Livergnano (Map !:25,000 98 I NE Monterenzio), 2,200 yards northeast of La Guarda.

The greater part of the night, however, was quiet in our sector. Continuing rain during the day turned trails into morasses of mud. There was a lull in activity, normal harassing fires breaking the stillness from time to time. At midnight most units reported light artillery fire, the sector being calm generally.

“Being calm generally” was not calm enough. Pfc. Jose Antonio Lopez, age 19, was killed in action on 29 November 1944. There is no one left to remember this young man, no one I could find who may be related, who would be interested in his story. His mother and sisters remained in the area; Carmelita passed away at age 67 on 5 July 1964. Her obituary ran in the Santa Fe New Mexican and lists the surviving daughters but no mention at all of Jose. I have been unable to trace what happened to the daughters but the obituary did mention that Carmelita left behind 8 great-grandchildren.

For now, I am the only one who knows this young man’s story. And now, so do you.