Elizabeth Johnson, Cliff Johnson, and Virginia Bairby

[00:01] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: My name is Virginia Bairby I'm 35 years old. It's March 20, 2023. We're here in Taos, New Mexico, and I'm talking to Libby and Cliff Johnson. I am their pastor. I'm Elizabeth or Libby Johnson. I am 71. Today's date is March 20, 2023. It's in Taos, New Mexico, at Heart, at the library. And my partner is my husband, Cliff.

[00:39] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: I'm Cliff Johnson. I'm 73. Today's date is March 2023, in Taos, New Mexico. I am here with my wife, Libby Johnson. And I ran out of things to say.

[01:00] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: You said some good things, I hope. Oh, man. So I've only lived here. This is year number seven, which is kind of hard to believe.

[01:10] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: Yeah.

[01:11] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: Yeah. But y'all both grew up here, right? You did, yes. Yes. So tell me, so you've lived 71 years in Taos. Can you tell me a little bit about. You said your dad, your grandfather. Sort of what it was like growing up. Well, I was born in the old convent, which has burned down to the ground. Broke my heart when it burned. And when I was born, I was put on the third floor in a closet with my mom because the hospital was full. And I have lived here ever since. The doctor that delivered me was Al Rosen. Most people think he was insane because he would ski down Al's run at the ski area without an oxygen tank. He had bad heart. And I went to school over here at Enos Garcia. It was not at Enos Garcia at the time. It was still Taos Elementary. I stayed in school here in Taos until I got to be in high school. My parents were concerned about the level of education I would get here, so I ended up going to a school in Denver called Kent School for Girls. It's now a girls and boys school, and it's combined with Denver Country Day. And I met Cliff there. It was a blind date. And the first time I met him, I saw he has these stunning blue eyes. And I decided that right then and there I was going to see him again. And I guess he decided he liked me, too. We said we had set him up with a girl from Kent who was 6, 3, 6, 6. And I was with a boy that I'd known for a long time that he lived, shared a home with. And we dated for, well, since I was a senior. And we dated all the way until we got married. I finally asked him when he was going to ask me to marry him after dating him for three years. And I Went to school in Boulder, started out there. And he was in school in Boulder also, and he was studying accounting. I thought I might go into nursing, which I realized later and I'm glad I didn't. It would not have. I wouldn't have survived. Our daughter did later and I saw the trauma that she went through and I couldn't have handled it. So I ended up. Finally, we transferred to UNM after three years in Boulder. You were there longer, but I was there for three years and went to the University of New Mexico and I got my teaching certificate at unm.

[04:55] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: Your degree?

[04:56] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: Yes, and two degrees. I got my undergraduate and then I later down the line decided I needed more than that. And so I got a master's in educating children in the classroom with computers. So I did that. The reason I wanted. I wanted to go to UNM is because my granddad was the president.

[05:28] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: What was his name?

[05:30] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: John James Fulton Zimmerman. And my mom was he. She. They were in New York before he got hired at unm. And he was hired and was at UNM for only about five or six years, I believe. He had a massive heart attack when he was only 47. And he left the university. Obviously he was there, though. He left me. I have speeches that he made at graduations that were amazing and stunned me that he was so forward thinking. And he was determined that all three cultures, Hispanic, Pueblo and Anglo, were going to get a good education at unm, period, no matter what it took him. And I think all of the programs really got established when he was president. Let's see, my mom was in choir for years. She had a beautiful soprano voice. And she worked with the wpa, which was in the Second World War. And she worked starting here in Taos. And the old elementary school was right here on the hill. Right. Basically where we are right now. And she worked for the WPA and made meals served, that kind of stuff. And she met my dad. He came here from Pineville, Kentucky, and he practiced law here in Taos. And they met and lots of people had said, oh, they had to meet. And well, dad met her. She didn't like him the first time she saw him. And then they got married six months later. It sounds like, yeah, it was. Yeah, it was meant to be. And they stayed here until they're both of their deaths. The law school, the law practice was in a building that dad and mom built in 1962. Mom designed it. Bad idea. The stairs to the basement are deadly for anybody. Just straight down. Not. Anyway. And dad started the practice there. Then There was another attorney that came. Well, he had several people. There was one that was a cheatham and there was a gentleman, Ketchum.

[08:43] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: And cheat him.

[08:45] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: Believe it or not, real live names for attorneys. Catch him and cheat him. Catch them and cheat him. Yep. And after their passing, then dad practiced law with. I had forgotten his name all of a sudden.

[09:02] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: Butler.

[09:03] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: Yeah, Floyd Butler. And he and Floyd practiced law together until. I'm not even sure when they practiced together. Then my brother. Wait, my brother graduated from law school and he came up here. There was another attorney in the office that dad had known since he was a little baby. John Ryming And it turned out John was really not very moral. And he got disbarred and thrown in jail after embezzling.

[09:45] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: After embezzling out of the trust fund.

[09:48] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: Yeah, A quarter of a million dollars. And my dad paid it all back on his own. And he was broken hearted. He went from having brown hair to gray overnight. And we found out about that at Thanksgiving. So John got into the pen and the pen very smartly had him teaching personal finance at the boys school. That wasn't very good. But he got back, you know, he got out. And then immediately, within a year or so, he ended back in the pen. Oh, wow. And this time they sent him to Santa Fe. No, no.

[10:35] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: Sent him someplace in the Midwest. Iowa. Okay, Federal. Pit.

[10:42] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: Okay, Federal. Anyway, so he was obviously not going to practice law anymore. Dad was in the office and my brother was in the office and there was this gap. And that's where you came in. And we had met in high school. I was a senior. He was a sophomore in college at Boulder. And we came to Taos because I said, I miss Taos. I missed the mountains. This was home. And he said, I can deal with it. He didn't want to come, really. He was kind of scared. He didn't think he'd have any interests. That changed after a while. I'll let him tell that. And we've been here since we've had our children here, both of them, our daughter, Meredith, and our son, Greg. Greg is now living in Maine and Meredith is back here in Taos practicing her profession. She's a nurse. And she's a very good nurse, as I understand it. Fortunately, I haven't had to have her nurse me. Well, yeah, I know she's helped me, but anyway. And I can't think of anything else except that we're getting old together. We're adjusting to getting older. He is adjusted fine. I have not. I keep trying to do things That I used to be able to do when I was 20, and I can't do that anymore. Most recently, I tried to move a couch and I fell on my derriere and I cracked a bone in my knee, my other knee. And so I'm limping around with a brace on one knee and a cracked bone on the other knee. And I promised Cliff that I would use my head and realize I am not 20 years old anymore, and I can't move couches anymore. And we're trying to retire gracefully. He's doing a great job at it. I'm not doing very well. I miss it. I miss teaching so much. And I teach at the International School. He is on the board of directors.

[13:29] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: For it, the president.

[13:30] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: He's the president on the board. And I volunteer one day a week. I teach. I do reading to kindergartners and second and first and second graders. I teach asl, American Sign Language. And it's funny, because I've run into a couple children, a couple children, a couple adults that were in my class. And they remember sign more than anything else. Ms. Libby. And they remember my name because that's what I went at. So it was Ms. Libby. I was never Mrs. Johnson or anything like that. And it turns out that five of the nurses in the neurologist office were in my class. And they all said, isn't that Ms. Libby? And they asked him to ask me, and he said, I've never heard of Ms. Libby. And he asked me and I said, oh, yeah, I've been Ms. Libby for a lifetime. And he was really excited. And he said, I've got five of my nurses that were in your class in second grade. So that made me feel really good that they remembered me, even though it was for sign and not anything I taught necessarily other than the sign. So were you always teaching at the International School or were you all over? No, I was at Taos elementary and was there until I retired, which was 30, about 30 years. Not quite. It got very political there at the end. I couldn't handle the stuff that was required of teachers at the time. They were wanting everybody in second grade to teach the same page, the same books, nothing creative. And I lost it. And I couldn't teach like that. And I was teaching my students how to be liars. And it bothered me because what I would do is I would teach, shut my door, teach what I thought was really important, and that would sink in. And then when I knew the principal was coming, I'd open the door and say, okay, guys, get Your books open to such and such. And I finally. I just got awful feeling about that. And so that was one of the main reasons that I quit, because I couldn't continue doing what they wanted me to do. And they eliminated teaching Native Americans. And it was in the English book. Hello. And in the history book, four miles away is the pueblo. And they ignored it totally. I'm sorry. That was not part of how I went to. Started to teach. Especially with your grandfather's legacy too, right? Of that being. Yeah. And you know, his desire to include Native Americans and Hispanics and Anglos altogether. And. Yeah, it was too important. And at the end of the school year, normally kids lose it by the last few weeks. And so I always did. I did astronomy and the space and because I could keep their attention. And so we learned about Pluto, and we were horrified that Pluto got eliminated as a real live planet, you know, and. But the kid. I could keep the kids excitement and going. So. And I was able to use. I taught them when I was. I would do. Right at this time of year when the powwow occurs in Albuquerque. I would take this time to have the kids research a tribe or a nation, anywhere in the nation. And they included Mexico so that they could do Mayan and Inca. And they would be working in groups of three. These are second graders. And they would put a report together. They would put it together on the computer. And they all learned how to use PowerPoint. And they all made little books that I printed out for him. I used up more color ink. I think he almost was about ready to have a stroke. But I made books for all of the kids. So each one of them had book about their nation. And they pick. They pick their own nation. I had a big map where all the Indian nations were. And they would pick things, you know, up in Wyoming and in Florida. And so they had to do some serious research. Yeah. And I did too, I bet. Yes. Yeah. So. And it was very exciting. And they put books together, and I think probably they were good enough that they kept. And by the end of that time, we all the second graders got together and they walked around and came to our class and listened and had a presentation of my students and what they had learned about their nation for the whole grade. For the whole second grade. So that was pretty exciting. And then while I was teaching, also in second grade, after I'd gotten my master's in utilizing Spanish, I mean, using sign language in the classroom, there were a lot of teachers who had no experience with computers at all. And so I was asked if I would teach classes. And so there were two of us, Betsy Roth and myself. Betsy was a OT and I was a second grade teacher. And we taught the school. Whoever wanted to come to learn some computer. So. And we even. I had a couple of the people that worked in food service come in and say, we need to know how to do such and such. And so Betsy and I taught for several years. I probably three or four years that we taught computers for teachers and staff and, you know. Yeah, awesome. So. And it was fun, and I miss doing that. But so I couldn't quit, and I couldn't retire completely. That's when I went to the International School, because our grandson went there as a kindergartener. And so I went with him for kindergarten to read. And then the teacher said, oh, won't you go up to first grade? Oh, won't you go to second grade? And when it got to third grade, I said, okay, guys, that's it. I'm gonna, you know, do just kindergarten, first and second. That was it. That's more your. Your age range, your favorite. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, yeah. So, Cliff, I'm wondering, you moved. How long ago did you move to Taos?

[21:33] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: Just after graduation from law School in 1975.

[21:39] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: And so then you've been practicing law here and then retired?

[21:43] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: Yes.

[21:44] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: Tell me, what have you seen? That's a lot. I imagine you've seen a lot change, both of you. What's changed and what has stayed absolutely the same. I guess the biggest change is I used to know every single person at the grocery store, and it would take me hours to get through the store because I had to stop and talk to everybody. And anymore, I really don't recognize all the people, you know. And it was an interesting thing when we had to clean out the office. Excuse me. And there were all of Cliff's files, all of my dad's files, all of my brother's files, and all of. I don't know, there were some Ketchum and Cheathams in the basement, and there were Floyd Butler's files. And none of them ever threw a file away. None of them. And so they saved them and they kept them in boxes, and they ended up in the basement. And a whole file room had to be built for their files and his files and my brother's files and everybody's files. And when it came time and I had retired from teaching and I wasn't doing anything and he needed some help.

[23:21] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: Well, my legal assistant died quite suddenly overnight after we had worked together for 33 years. And I thought I could continue the practice on my own. And I tried to do that for about 10 months. And then Libby decided to retire, resign her position with the schools. And she said she would come and help me. And she did, until the day I retired, which was about seven years. Seven years. And she was a big help to me. She demeans what she did for me, and I tell her that she was a big help. She answered the phone, she made appointments, she balanced my bank accounts. She did the office work for me so I could concentrate on being a lawyer.

[25:02] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: And a good one.

[25:04] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: And he was a good one, and you were a good help.

[25:07] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: Thank you. So anyway, you finish up. Continue.

[25:12] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: I have. I retired.

[25:14] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: Well, how did you get involved with the fire department? Can you tell me a little bit about that?

[25:19] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: Your question again?

[25:21] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: How did you get involved with the fire department when. What was that like?

[25:25] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: Her brother was involved with the department, and he suggested I come with him to a business meeting at the fire department. There was a business meeting every month, the first Tuesday of every month. And I came with him to a couple business meetings. And I saw the other guys. I saw the trucks, saw the equipment, heard the reports, and I became interested in it. Here were guys my age, being firefighters, they actually had what we call bunker gear. It's the turnout gear. The protective pants, jacket, helmet. They actually had those. They used those. At the time that I joined the department, they were not like they were now. For helmets, we had a construction hard hat. We had bunker pants, insulated pants, but we didn't have bunker coats. It just gave us a rain slicker.

[26:49] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: That was going to keep the fire out.

[26:50] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: Yeah, and kept the water off, too.

[26:53] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: Okay, there you go.

[26:56] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: And then later in the department, the department had enough money to move on to the point of bunker gear, real life turnout gear that firefighters need. Good stuff. You can stand next to a fire and you don't feel a thing. So I started in 78. That's when I joined. January of 1978. Yeah, it was one month after Meredith's birth. And that's when I became interested and joined. They have a process where you have to fill out an application, then training board considers your application, and if they approve it, then they move it on to the board of directors. If the board of directors approve it, then they move it to the general membership, and the general membership has to approve it. And I went through those three steps and was accepted. And I was. I was on active duty, actively responding to calls, fire calls and Rescue calls for 34 years. Until I retired from active duty at the department.

[28:39] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: Are there any particular calls that really stand out in your mind? The ones that fell through the floor?

[28:47] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: Yeah, she's talking about one that was at a. A lounge in El Prado. I can't even remember what the name of the name of the lounge was.

[29:00] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: I'll think of it in a minute.

[29:02] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: Yeah, and it was a lounge in a dance hall. And I and another guy in the department, we went in with charged lines. And in the building, the floor gave away on us, and we weren't expecting that. And it turned out that we only fell about three feet. And there was the dirt underneath the floor. We only fell about 3ft. But it was a big surprise. Another one that stands out in my mind, I was. I think it was a trainee at the time. The Tao Sienn burned and the. The atrium in the center burned, and it burned right out the top. That was a big fire. Another one that stands out in my mind is Overland Sheepskin.

[30:20] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: Yeah, that burned.

[30:22] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: Yes, that burned.

[30:24] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: And it was all wood. I mean, it was all wood.

[30:29] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: And another one that stands out in my mind is the convent that Libby referred to that burned.

[30:36] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: That was your last fire, wasn't it?

[30:38] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: That was the last big, big call that I responded to. And it turned out that that fire was intentionally set. It was intended to cover up a murder. Oh, wow. It was down in the basement. We found a body. It was. It was a drug deal gone bad. And they wanted to get rid of one of the guys. And he. I don't know if he was killed before being thrown down in the basement, but he was down in the basement and the fire was lit to cover up that murder.

[31:35] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: And the tragedy about that fire, A lot of the buildings around here were all built hand carved wood. And the whole convent that, you know, it was an active convent. And all the doors and all the floors and everything were all carved, beautiful wood. And so when it got on fire, it went up just like crazy. And Ada Randall, her home was right behind the convent. And they used so much water on that fire that they almost flooded out Ada and Merlin's home.

[32:23] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: Yeah, we had to get on the radio and ask the town to bring the equipment in. And they dug a berm in between the convent fire and the home so that the water that was flooding would fill the berm and save the homes. We estimated that we used a million gallons of water on that fire, and five departments were called out to respond to that because it was so big, it needed so much equipment, so much Help.

[32:57] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: Wow. Was it still active? The convent wasn't still active as a baby? No. Right, right. It was after that convent, it closed, but it became the hospital Holy Cross. Okay. And the hospital was built right in front of it. And so those buildings that are now occupied with businesses and stuff were now. They were converted into the hospital, and then it moved out further. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What was it like raising kids here? I mean, y'all sort of became young adults here. What was it like having your kids grow up here?

[33:48] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: Well, I consider it. It was rather difficult. The kids grew up in house that we have now, and it's rather remotely located, so the kids didn't have much in the way of playmates next door. They played either with each other or by themselves or friends from school. Yeah, some. And that was rather difficult on them. And if it's difficult on the kids, it's difficult on the parents. Do.

[34:32] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: Right. Our son had a great way of dealing with problems, is he'd go to his room and just shut the door and he would isolate himself. Our daughter, on the other hand, decided that at age 18, she was moving out. And she did. And she had four, five years that she disappeared in Albuquerque. We had no idea where she was, and we were worried about her, needless to say. And she survived that miraculously. And it was after that that she decided to go into nursing. And I think that that was a big, huge part of her decision making at that point. There was a counselor here in town, Ted Wired, and he writes for the paper. And I attribute the counseling that Ted was able to give Meredith when she first came back to Taos to save her life. And he still counsels people, and he is an amazing man. He is. He lost his wife, and then shortly thereafter, both of his daughters and his mother in law were hit by a trash truck, and all three of them were killed. And how Ted has been able to write letters and stuff for the newspaper and how to deal with grief is amazing to me. I don't know how he does it, but he is probably one of the wisest people I've ever known, even though he's my age. And he was a teacher when I was teaching. He taught third grade. Okay. @ Taos Elementary. Yeah, at Taos Elementary. Yeah. And so, you know, and then he started his own counseling business. Sartman got out as teaching. He got. He had the same issues as I did. You know, you couldn't. You couldn't teach. You didn't become a teacher to teach the way the state wanted you to teach. They lost a lot of good teachers because of that. Believe it. So now you're watching Meredith raise her kids here. Yeah, and that's a whole different story because they live out community that is there are lots of families around. And Meredith's husband, they. She and William met each other and had known each other in high school and then they disappeared from each other and they hadn't seen each other for 21 years, I think. And William got divorced from his wife when she left him. They adopted some children. Three, four, two. The little ones are two and then the older three. And they have this huge family that all of a sudden Meredith's got sons now and daughters and, you know, and they're adults. And so it's a very different situation. And I think they're very happy and well adjusted.

[38:39] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: I think so, too.

[38:42] VIRGINIA BAIRBY: The kids are super sweet. I love these boys. Okay.

[38:48] ELIZABETH JOHNSON: All right.