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FOOTHILLS GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY

GENERAL MEETING MINUTES

Date: November 13, 2019

1. President Jane Dahlstrom-Quinn called the meeting to order at 1:00 p.m. at the

Applewood Valley United Methodist Church.

• Jane announced that the Book Nook will be open at the December meeting. The Book

Nook is open every other month.

• Jane announced that the society is still looking for someone to fill this position.

Although Earlene has been filling in for setting up the table and sell books there are

additional tasks associated with the position, e.g. selection and ordering books that

she doesn’t want to do.

o The Board has decided to discontinue the Book Nook if no one accepts the

position. Books left in inventory will be used for door prizes.

2. Kathy Tarullo announced the winning number for the door prize.

3. Henri Hubenka, Membership

• Membership is now open. The membership form is included in the Newsletter and

available on the table at General Meetings.

4. Doris Ferguson introduced the visitors. Toni Lucero, Ben Romero, Linda Womack

5. Russ announced that there is a change in printing companies for the printing of the

Newsletter. The company he previously used has closed the business. He will now be

using Minuteman press.

• Keith Herron, The Printery, Inc. in Arvada decided to merge the business with

Minuteman Press in Olde Town Arvada on October 1st. The decision came after

Keith’s wife of 40 years passed away this past summer. Keith was a very kind and

considerate gentleman, who, with his wife, provided excellent printing services for 27

years. They will be missed by all who knew them.

o Russ had a sympathy card for Keith on the membership table for members to

sign.

6. Pam Heath, Education

• New Take 20 handout on the table. Pam has created exercises to help us learn how to find

information we are looking for. The exercises are designed to be completed in about 20

minutes. New exercises will be included with handouts table every month at the General

Meetings.

• Sensational Citations class, Thursday, January 30, 2020, 1:00-3:00 pm at the Lakewood

Public Library

• Kathy will be presenting a round table class before the January 8, 2020 general meeting on

“Beginning Genealogy” from 11:30-12:30.

7. Janet Boom had the donation table for donation or free items available before, during and

after the meeting.

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8. Linda Hendon, Refreshments Committee, thanked the refreshment committee and donors.

Linda indicated there is a sign up for December refreshment donations. Looking for 3-4

people to bring 3-4 dozen family Christmas family favorite cookies/snacks.

9. Sandy Quintrall introduced our speaker, William H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid presented by

Paul Matthew Marquez. Paul is on the board of the Wild West History Association. Paul

made an interesting discovery while researching his family’s ancestral path from New

Mexico to Denver. When reviewing oral histories told in his grandmother’s Gutierrez family,

he confirmed a relationship between his family and an outlaw which included kinship to the

sheriff who killed that outlaw.

Paul talked about his family’s experiences with William H. Bonney, aka "Billy the Kid." The

Gutierrez family relationship with New Mexico’s most notorious outlaw of the 19th Century

has been widely fictionalized in books and film. His Marquez family’s documents shed new

light on the close relationship between his great-great grandmother, Celsa Gutierrez, and the

notorious outlaw.

President Jane Dahlstrom-Quinn adjourned the meeting at 2:18 p.m.

___________________________________ Date: ____________________, 2019

Vikki Kourkouliotis, Recording Secretary Approved

Speaker Notes November 13, 2019

Notes by George Kourkouliotis

November Guest Speaker

El Tecolote, New Mexico to Denver, CO by Paul Matthew Marquez

Mr. Marquez is a member of the Wild West History Association, an organization that is

keenly interested in researching outlaws of the wild west and their exploits. This

presentation concerned Marquez’s quest to learn more about his New Mexican heritage,

the search for his relatives who lived in the area, and their possible connection to Billy the

Kid, William H. Bonney. The main ancestors in question, Sabal and Celsa Gutierrez, were

Marquez’s great-great grandparents and he wanted to follow up on old family stories that

were passed down through the years linking the two with Billy the Kid.

Marquez used old family stories to help him zero in on birth records and census data to

trace his grandmother’s Gutierrez family history back to the 1780s in New Mexico. Over

time, the family moved from the Tecolote area along the Pecos River down to Fort Sumner

and on to Roswell. It was during this time period that Celsa met and married Sabal

Gutierrez, although she was also possibly connected romantically to Billy the Kid. Whether

or not she was one of many promiscuous girls who enjoyed partying with the various

outlaws of the day, it is clear that the Gutiérrez’s were friends with the famous outlaw.

To assist in Marquez’s search, he inherited his grandfather’s old suitcase which contained

a plethora of documents and records that provided valuable information on the history of

the family. Armed with these new sources he was now able to validate many of the old

family stories through an exhausted period of research. Taking this information, he used a

number of other avenues to fill in the details of a storied family history. His research took

him to various libraries (most notably Denver Public Library) to find marriage and property

records, the National Archives in Broomfield, church archives where he found birth

records, death records, wedding and baptism information. Also assisting him in his search

was the website Newspapers.com.

Several interesting tidbits in Marquez’s life story is that the brother of his great

grandfather Dolores Gutierrez, a man named Dan Gutierrez, lived to over 100 years of age,

and Marquez is thrilled to think that he knew a man whose father was friends with Billy

the Kid. And to add more intrigue to the story, Marquez’s great-great grandmother, Celsa,

had a sister named Apolinaria who married Sheriff Pat Garrett, the man who eventually

killed Billy the Kid.

A brief summary of the trials and tribulations of Billy the Kid notes that he was born in

New York (New York City!?) but soon found his way to the New Mexico territory. He spent

Speaker Notes November 13, 2019

much of his time working for ranchers up and down the Pecos River, along the way

becoming fluent in Castilian Spanish and befriending the people in the Hispanic

communities in the area. But one of the most important relationships Billy developed was

with his rancher employer, John Tunstall, who soon became the first man killed in what

would become the Lincoln County War. This infuriated the Kid so much that he went on a

rampage of revenge all over the area. One of his most noted tactics was to rustle cattle

from one rancher, sell the cattle off to another, and then rustle the cattle back from the

man he sold it to and sell the cattle back to original owner- I guess great work if you can

get it and not get caught.

The story of Billy the Kid’s death at the hands of Pat Garrett happened on the night of

July 14, 1881. Billy had come into town (Ft. Sumner) one evening and visited the home of

Sabal and Celsa. Billy was hungry and Celsa gave Billy the keys to Pete Maxwell’s house,

along with a knife, so that Billy could go there to cut off a piece of meat from a dead

animal that Maxwell had hanging at his residence. It just so happened that Pat Garrett was

in town, along with two deputies, and coincidently, they were hanging out at Pete Maxwell’s

house. When Billy showed up there, he didn’t recognize the two deputies sitting outside

the residence (they also did not recognize that this was Billy the Kid who came a calling)

and went inside the house to ask Maxwell who those two guys hanging around outside were.

But unbeknownst to Billy, Pat Garrett was inside talking with Maxwell and Pat knew Billy

when he saw him. Within seconds shots were fired and Billy the Kid lay dead on the floor.

A passing curiosity was that the knife that Celsa gave to Billy was somehow saved down

through the ages and was last sold for over a hundred thousand dollars.