In January of 1935, Eugenia and her mother Manuela suddenly found themselves without a place to live. They made the decision to travel north, retracing their steps, hoping to find other members of Manuela's family who had left the town of Mills and were scattered around northeastern New Mexico.
Once again they boarded a train, leaving their lives behind, as they had done the previous year. Eugenia didn't have a chance to say goodbye to her friends, or even let them know she was leaving. She remembered the trip south she and her mother had taken when they first arrived in Bosque Farms. Now, it seemed to her that their time there was all gone to waste. Why had they even bothered living there if they couldn't set down roots? Why had they worked so hard to build a life they couldn't keep?
Before leaving the area, Eugenia and Manuela made one last stop. When their train stopped in downtown Belen, they had lunch at the local and traveler's favorite restaurant, the Harvey House......
...and it's there that Eugenia overhears something that gives her a small glimmer of hope.
As in the previous post, this part of Eugenia's story is also based in real history. The building pictured above is the actual Harvey House restaurant in the town of Belen, about 35 miles south of Albuquerque. Part of the famous Harvey House chain created by Fred Harvey, which were built not just in New Mexico but in surrounding states.
The picture is my own because I actually visited the location very recently! It is now a museum that houses displays and exhibits related to this particular Harvey House as well as the others. It was not exactly my first visit, as I attended a doll show there in late 2021.
This time I came specifically for the museum, because I wanted to integrate this piece of local history in Eugenia's history. Her story does not end here, but her brief visit kick-starts a new beginning in her life.
I really enjoyed my visit to the museum. It houses multiple rooms full of artifacts from the golden age of rail travel. And it was very special to me to get an up-close look at the small piece of the world Eugenia would have experienced.
The Belen Harvey House was built by entrepreneur Fred Harvey in 1910, three years after the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway expansion turned Belen into a major rail hub. It is situated right on the train tracks that remain today and are still in use. The location in Belen, which was in operation from 1910 to 1939, was indeed a restaurant frequented by locals and train travelers, as Eugenia experienced.
Free Harvey began his hospitality empire in the 1880s, continuing to expand to other locations throughout New Mexico before his death in 1901. Belen is one of many other hotels and restaurants built by the train stops. By the 1930s, travelers would fully expect that they were in for a good experience stopping at one of Fred Harvey's locations.
Also by the 1930s, the staff at these places had perfected their efficient way of serving customers with promptness and excellent service. About a half hour before the train arrived at the restaurant, a brakeman on the train went through the cars asking the passengers if they would like to eat at the restaurant, and would write down what each passenger wanted for lunch or dinner. They would telegraph that information to the restaurant so that the staff knew how many people to expect and what meals to start making.
After eating, the diners were given gentle reminders at 15 minutes and 10 minutes before the train was scheduled to leave, but staff members were polite enough to be sure everyone was finished and made it onto the train.
In 1935, adult meals cost $1.00 and had a pretty big variety. They also had a children's menu of course.
Here's the outside and inside of the children's menu. Eugenia would have been able to choose from a bowl of milk with crackers, creamed chicken in a mashed potato nest, toasted raisin bread with jam, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a selection of desserts, and lots more. I recommend clicking the picture to zoom in on the text. It's really interesting to see the differences to current children's menus almost 100 years later.
My 2021 doll show post linked above is not accurate when I referred to this location as a hotel. This particular Harvey House in Belen was never a hotel. It included dining rooms, a lunch counter, and upstairs dormitories that were only for the servers, known as “Harvey Girls.”
These were young women, mostly recruited from the Midwestern US, who were famous for their strict standards of behavior, hospitality, and attention to excellence. They were required to be unmarried, not older than 30 years old, and live on the premises under the supervision of their "dorm mother". The picture above shows the equally famous uniforms they wore.
Of course this sounds unreasonably strict to us in the 21st century, but this was a big deal in the early 20th century for women to be able to leave home, see a new part of the country, make friends, and earn decent money of their own. The pay was $17.50 per month, plus tips; the museum doesn't specify what year that was, and my inflation calculator only goes back to 1913. Using that year, that amounts to almost $600.00 per month in 2026. But in this time, not being financially dependent on a man was a true freedom that few of these women's peers got to enjoy.
The upstairs has several rooms open and on exhibit. This is the dorm mother's room. The servers shared a room with one roommate.
I also learned that Fred Harvey was a big promoter of native New Mexican fiber arts, and sold goods in the gift shops of his hotels and restaurants. The above picture shows the display of purses and jackets made by the Ortega Weavers in the historic town of Chimayo. Ortega Weavers had their beginnings in the 1700s, long before New Mexico was a state or even a territory.
Later on as rail travel gave way to widespread adoption of cars, and dining cars in trains became normal, the need for places like this diminished. This building transitioned from restaurant to a reading room, and then eventually to the Harvey House Museum it is today. But many of the former Harvey Houses are still around; here's a map of the others in New Mexico. There are a few others in surrounding states.
One of these will later become important in Eugenia's life........
In addition to the museum, there's also a cafe there. I arrived a bit too late to eat there, but I did get to admire the beautiful dining area!
