Santa Fe Living Treasures – Elder Stories

Alice attended school in Gardiner through eighth grade and at age eleven began working at the coal company's hospital. During the four years that she attended high school in Raton, she worked as a maid for a different family each year.

Her teaching career began in Elizabethtown in the 1920s, where she taught miners' children. Later she taught in tiny ranching and mining communities--Sofia, Optimo, Van Houten, and Gardiner. She met her husband, Dale Bullock, when he came to interview her for winning a teaching award. "If you were married, you weren't allowed to teach," she recalled. Her husband was the editor of the Raton Reporter, and because she couldn't teach after their marriage, Alice became interested in writing for the paper. Alice and Dale raised two daughters, Carlotta and Patricia.

The Bullocks moved to Santa Fe in 1941. Alice worked as secretary to the superintendent of schools. She also bought Corrine's Dress Shop, which she owned for several years, renaming it Bullock's of Santa Fe.

Her career as an author began when Alice was asked to write a history of the Santa Fe schools. For fifteen years, she reviewed books for the New Mexican. She could read an "ordinary book in two hours."

Please see Volume 1 for complete text.
Photo ©1997 by Joanne Rijmes