Ernesto Augustin Sanchez

Long time Clovis resident, Ernesto Augustin Sanchez, MSGT (RETIRED) US AIR FORCE, age 94, passed away on August 31, 2012, at his home in Albuquerque, NM, surrounded by his wife, family members, and friends. Mr. Sanchez had a twenty-year career in the U.S. Air Force and was a member of the prominent pioneer New Mexico family that traces its roots to the earliest days of new world Spanish exploration and settlement. Mr. Sanchez was a seventh-great-grandson of Jacinto Sanchez de Inigo, who was born in the Rio Abajo area of New Mexico in 1663. Mr. Sanchez was also a direct descendent of many well known early New Mexico settlers including Don Fernando Duran y Chaves, Juan de Vitoria Carvajal, Juan Griego, Jose Telles Jiron, Alonso Garcia and Andres Hurtado.
Mr. Sanchez was born on December 10, 1917, in Dilia, New Mexico (1920 population 383) to pioneer Guadalupe County school teachers Sotero Moises Sanchez and his wife, Juanita Silva Sanchez. During Mr. Sanchez' infancy, his mother and his maternal grandfather, Castolo Silva, both died, within weeks of each other, in the 1918 influenza epidemic which struck New Mexico hard and claimed millions of lives globally. After his mother's death, Mr. Sanchez was raised first by his grandparents, Leopoldo Sanchez and Mariana Marquez Sanchez, and later by his stepmother, Beatrice Aragon Ortega Sanchez, when Sotero M. Sanchez remarried.
While he was born in one of smallest of New Mexico communities, Mr. Sanchez began seeking the wider world at an early age. First, Mr. Sanchez gravitated towards Santa Rosa (1930 population 1381). As a young man in the 1930's, Mr. Sanchez showed an early talent for automobile repair while working at his grandfather's filling station in Santa Rosa, on the famed Route 66 highway. Years later Mr. Sanchez said he started to dream of traveling while meeting so many Route 66 visitors from exotic places such as Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, California, and even - once in a while - New York.
By his high school years, Mr. Sanchez convinced his family that he should go to boarding school in Albuquerque (late 1930's population 30,000). Mr. Sanchez attended the old Lourdes High School on Second Street in Albuquerque where he studied mechanics and, on Saturdays, went to movies and watched newsreels about the growing war in Europe. Several years ago, Mr. Sanchez recalled that his desire to travel abroad was intensified by his fascination with the Occidental Life Insurance Building at 305 Gold Street SW in downtown Albuquerque. The 1917 building, with its distinctive white terra-cotta tile façade and Gothic arches, was modeled on the Doge's Palace in Venice. Mr. Sanchez said that he would go stare at the building at every opportunity, which excited his imagination and desire to travel. He graduated from Lourdes High School in 1940, the month after Germany seized Norway and Denmark, knowing that the U.S. military was in his future.
On March 10, 1941, less than six months before the Pearl Harbor attack, Mr. Sanchez enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and began a twenty-year career as an airplane mechanic in both the Strategic Air Command and the Tactical Air Command. Although Mr. Sanchez joined the Air Force before the introduction of the first jet aircraft, he quickly learned the latest airplane technology, and was acknowledged for his talent and patience in teaching jet mechanics to new recruits. In addition, because of his cool, patient competence, Mr. Sanchez became known as the highly skilled mechanic that every experienced pilot wanted as his Crew Chief.
On January 6, 1947, Mr. Sanchez married the love of his life, Mary Rose Sena, in Santa Rosa, NM. Ernesto and Mary met in Santa Rosa in late 1945, while Ernesto was on a brief leave from the Air Force. Mary was working at Moore's Bakery and, according to Mary, Ernesto became a daily customer who seemed to constantly need every kind of baked goods imaginable. Mary's family was from Borica, in the southern part of Guadalupe County. Coincidentally, their families knew each other slightly from the days when Ernesto's father had taught at a nearby one-room school house, more than thirty years earlier.
During his Air Force career, Mr. Sanchez journeyed to more than fifty countries in Asia, the Pacific, North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, with significant tours of duty in Japan, Korea, and Turkey. Mr. Sanchez was also stationed domestically at various times in Illinois, California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas, as well as many temporary duty stations such as Nevada and Tennessee.
Mr. Sanchez was a voracious traveler and skilled photographer who documented many of his travels. He was fearless in plunging into new countries, cultures, and languages, and loved collecting memorabilia from virtually every country that he visited. When Mr. Sanchez was traveling, a steady stream of boxes and crates would arrive in the Sanchez household filled with exotic handicrafts, dolls, housewares, rugs, toys, foreign language phonograph records, books, postcards, and foods, such as enormous boxes of pistachio nuts from Turkey. Mr. Sanchez was not only hungry to see and experience the world, he was eager to share it with anyone who was willing to listen.
When Master Sargent Sanchez retired in November, 1961, he was awarded an official Letter of Appreciation by the Commander of the 832D Air Division of the United States Air Force, Colonel Harry J. Hawthorne. In this Letter, Colonel Hawthorne wrote: "Your devotion to duty in an era marked by world conflicts and tensions was, to the say the least, exemplary and inspiring. Your mature qualities of self-discipline, devotion to duty, and performance of duty, and pride in the service, coupled with your sound judgement, knowledge, and performance of duty, have gained for you the respect of both your superiors and your subordinates."
After his retirement, Mr. Sanchez and his family remained in Clovis, NM, where he had been stationed at Cannon Air Force Base since 1956. The family was active in Sacred Heart Catholic Parish until Mr. And Mrs. Sanchez moved to Albuquerque in 2005, to be closer to family and health care resources.
Mr. Sanchez was a man of truly unusual politeness, patience, high ideals, humility, and self - reliance who was boundless in love of his family and his country. He was a cheerful, optimistic, and gentle man, but fearless in fighting for his ideals. He also had a deep empathy for the less fortunate and, after his retirement, devoted himself to many quiet and unheralded works of personal charity including volunteer work delivering meals to the sick and elderly. He always urged his children to do the right thing, without worry about anyone else's opinion or about getting credit for good deeds. In a world that so often rewards self-promotion over hard work, he was a quiet man who always believed in doing more than his share of the work and offering a kind word, or a few of his hard-earned dollars, to someone in greater need. Mr. Sanchez cannot be replaced, but his spirit lives in the extraordinary, God fearing, uncomplaining personal example he set for his family and friends.
Ernesto is survived by his wife of 66 years, Mary Sena Sanchez; children, Ernest T. Sanchez (Susan Jenkins) and Doris Sanchez (Gary Vertrees) of Winnemucca, NV; grandsons, Dustun Vertrees and Christian Vertrees; grandaughter, Shantih Brando (Daniel Taylor) of Philadelphia, PA; and great-grandchildren, Mary Elizabeth Vertrees of Phoenix, AZ, and Sarah Taylor, Camille Taylor, Grace Taylor, and Will Taylor, all of Philadelphia, PA. He is also survived by brothers, Joseph A. Sanchez, Herman R. Sanchez, and Eugene Sanchez (Dorothy Lucero); sisters, Ernestine Chavez, Janet Dominguez, June (Larry) Ziegenfuss, and Juliette Dempsey; sisters-in-law, Agnes Sanchez, Sofia Maes Sanchez, and Linda and Petra Sanchez; as well as many nieces, nephews and cousins.
Ernesto was preceded in death by his parents, Sotero Moises Sanchez and Juanita Silva; stepmother, Beatrice Aragon Ortega Sanchez; in-laws, Tomas Sena and Delfenia Garcia; brothers, Canuto Ortega, Albert N. Sanchez, Sotero J. Sanchez, and Orlando A. Sanchez; brothers-in-law, Bonifacio Chavez, Raymond V. Dominguez, and John C. Dempsey; and sisters-in-law, Alice Quinn Sanchez and Mary Korte Ortega.
Mr. Sanchez was interred at the Santa Fe, NM, National Cemetery on September 11th with full military honors. In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made in Ernesto's memory to the Sotero M. Sanchez, Sr. Memorial Scholarship Fund, c/o The New Mexico Highlands University Foundation, Box 9000, Las Vegas, NM. 87701. Funeral arrangements were handled by Direct Funeral Services in Albuquerque (505-343-8008).