Santa Fe Living Treasures – Elder Stories

Mexican-Americans from the Texas border arrived in the Waupan area each spring to work in the sugar beet fields and stayed right through the fall before moving on to the orchards of the Northwest. Their children never saw the inside of a school, until Cornelia and colleagues got going. They opened a pioneer bilingual school, staffed by Spanish speaking students from University of Wisconsin; they started health and housing programs and opened the local swimming pool to migrant families. Cornelia also served on the Governor's Commission on Human Rights, under four Wisconsin governors.

The Hulls moved to Santa Fe in 1968. Disturbed by the lack of affordable housing in his new community, Harmon bought a few old condemned houses on the west side. "He thought we should renovate them, make them attractive, and then have the people who had been living in them before be able to move back in without having to pay more rent. It was his little personal Habitat for Humanity."