Women of the Mother Road

About 80 percent of the audience for a historical presentation Friday night at The Gallery Etc. in downtown Tucumcari were women.

That seemed appropriate, because the presentation was titled “Route 66 Women: Untold Stories of the Mother Road.”

Documentary filmmaker Katrina Parks presided over the event supported by the New Mexico Humanities Council and the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program. She showed extended excerpts of her “Route 66 Women: Untold Stories of the Mother Road” film she said she expects to finish by fall 2019 as three one-hour broadcasts for television. Parks made similar presentations in Gallup and Albuquerque last week.

Parks said stories of the Harvey Girls, who were employed as waitresses at railroad Harvey Houses in the Southwest from 1885 to the 1950s, inspired her to look deeper into women’s roles in shaping Route 66.

“As I was interviewing the later Harvey Girls, I realized that as the railroad waned, they found new careers for themselves on Route 66,” Parks said after the presentation. “I thought, ‘Are there other ways women’s lives have been impacted?’”

Parks said she initially thought it would be a one-hour film.

“But, of course, I got excited by all of these stories, and I keep finding new ones,” she said. “Tonight was an example of that.”

Parks was referring to longtime Pow Wow Inn proprietor Bettie Ditto, whom audience member Marjorie McKenzie told Parks about during a question-and-answer session.

Ditto, an Illinois native, came to Tucumcari in 1955 to develop Lins Motor Court. She transformed the nine-room motel into the 92-room Best Western Pow Wow Inn Restaurant and Lounge. Ditto also served on the Tucumcari Chamber of Commerce and Tucumcari City Commission and was elected to the New Mexico Tourism Association Hall of Fame. Ditto died at age 91 in 2008.

Parks said she would try to contact Ditto’s relatives to find more information and possibly include her in the film.

One extended film clip shown Friday included another Tucumcari connection — longtime Blue Swallow Motel owner Lillian Redman, who arrived in New Mexico from Texas by covered wagon in the early 20th century and became a Harvey Girl before getting into the Route 66 lodging business.

In the clip, Michael Wallis, author of the best-selling “Route 66: The Mother Road,” and his wife, Suzanne, shared their memories of Redman. One time, Michael said he was staying overnight at the motel and needed a 5:30 a.m. wakeup call. At the appointed time the next morning, she knocked on his door, said “Michael, it’s Miss Lillian” and gave him a cup of coffee.

Sharon Niederman, a guest presenter Friday, also told about Jewish history along and near Route 66. She briefly told about the German Jewish immigrants who founded the Vorenberg Hotel that once stood in downtown Tucumcari. The Vorenbergs also owned businesses in Wagon Mound and other parts of New Mexico.

Niederman told about Yetta Kohn, another German Jewish immigrant who acquired abandoned homesteads around Montoya and founded the T4 Ranch there.

Many of the film segments — a good portion which took place in New Mexico — told stories of women, Native Americans and African Americans who overcame sexism and discrimination. They often found independence and freedom amid the wide-open expanses and ruggedness of the American Southwest.

More about Parks’ film project may be found at route66women.com.