Chimayó residents say post office fire took piece of community

May 5—CHIMAYÓ — The Feb. 14 blaze that consumed the small post office in the rural community of Chimayó was a Valentine's Day heartbreaker that left a community longing for connection.

Now, nearly three months after the fire left residents without a convenient place to send and receive mail, U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández told residents of the historic village at a town hall meeting Thursday evening that she and the state's other federal lawmakers are pressuring U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to commit to building a new post office for the community.

"Chimayó residents depend on their post office for receiving checks, medications and other important mail," Leger Fernández wrote in a March 15 letter to DeJoy. "Many are senior citizens, retired veterans and multi-generational families who have long depended on the Chimayó Post Office. In many ways, the post office is the heart of this small, rural yet vibrant community."

So far, DeJoy's agency had not responded, she said during Thursday's event, held at the Benny J. Chavez Community Center in Chimayó.

But there might be good news for Chimayó residents — at least in the long run.

"The landlord of the facility will rebuild the office," Rod Spurgeon, a spokesman for the postal service, wrote in an email to The New Mexican on Friday. "I don't have a timeframe for the completion of the project, but we'll reoccupy the building once the process is complete."

Residents won't be picking up mail locally until the reconstruction is complete: The post office has no plans for a temporary, modular post office in Chimayó, Spurgeon said.

"We don't have a temporary building available as an on-site alternative, but we will return to the current site as soon as we're able."

The post office and an adjoining residential building were destroyed in the flames. The scorched wreckage — and a lone blue U.S. Post Office box — are all that remain to remind the 800 or so residents who had boxes there of a comfortable communal place they could go to see neighbors, pick up mail and catch up on the mitote, or gossip.

"There are only two places in Chimayó where people gather — the post office and Rancho de Chimayó," longtime Chimayó resident Sue Ellen Strale said in an interview before Thursday's meeting.

Others in the meeting echoed that remark, painting a portrait of the post office as a connection to the rest of the world — a world that knows the cultural and historical reputation of the village, renowned for the annual Good Friday pilgrimage thousands of the faithful take to El Santurio de Chimayó as well as for its arts and crafts stores.

The loss of the post office and the ensuing uncertainty regarding its future left many village residents "staggering around," uncertain of their ability to connect with others, said Sue Farrington, who has lived in Chimayó for 50 years.

"We need it," said another resident, Loretta Mendoza. She and others said residents now have to drive at least 20 minutes each way to Santa Cruz to send and retrieve mail, time that sometimes cuts into the workday and leaves local businesses with few employees with no choice but to close for up to an hour.

That trip is also difficult or dangerous for some seniors to make on a daily basis, others said.

One resident said the post office is vital to the health and needs of the village's elders, who rely on it for their Social Security checks and letters and parcels from family members and friends.

The cause of the fire remains unknown, David Lienemann, spokesman for the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, wrote in an email Thursday.

"The [State] Fire Marshal's office was unable to rule out either the furnace or the hot water heater as the heat source" that started the fire, he wrote. "As such, the cause of the fire is classified as undetermined."

Leger Fernández told the villagers who attended Thursday's meeting she understands what they want: a post office that speaks to their identity.

"You want it to say Chimayó, New Mexico, 87522. ... We want an 87522 post office," she said.

For such small rural communities, she said, a post office says home.

"It's not just where you live but the things around you that make a community," she said.