the hotel and made their way upstairs to the guests’ rooms and the Ritchie apartment. As they stalked into the room, a small kerosene lamp cast weird shadows of the Villistas on the wall.

“Where is Sam Ravel?” they kept asking. My grandfather told them over and over that Sam Ravel, a local resident, was in El Paso, as indeed he was. They milled about the apartment, opening wardrobes, drawers, and cupboards and rudely scattering the contents over the floor. The room was filled with these foul-smelling, gun-waving men. With their crossed bandoleers over their shoulders and guns pointed, they presented a heart-stopping terror to my family.

Finally the leader thrust a gun into my grandfather’s chest and motioned for him to leave the room; the bandits followed. My mother clung to her father, pleading, “Papa, don’t go!” but the bandits thrust her aside.

In addition to my grandfather, the bandits seized three guests of the hotel and pushed them down the stairway at gunpoint: Dr. Hart, a veterinarian from El Paso; Charles DeWitt Miller, an engineer doing some surveying in the area; and Walton Walker, a young man on his honeymoon. Walker’s bride clung to him as they forced him downstairs. A bandit roughly shoved her aside, and when Walker made some move to protect his wife, he was shot dead and left on the stairway. My grandfather, Miller, and Dr. Hart were marched through the front door and shot in the street. The bodies of Miller, Hart, and Walker were totally consumed when the hotel burned to the ground, but U.S. soldiers eventually pulled my grandfather’s scorched body clear of the flames.

Meanwhile my grandmother and her daughters stood stunned in the hotel room while the bandits continued looting. One Mexican approached the telephone on the wall and began slamming it with the butt of his rifle. When my grandmother made some impulsive gesture with a raised arm against the flailing gun, the bandit swung around and hit her wrist. She wore a sling for several weeks afterward. Then another bandit yanked the locket from her neck and tore some rings from her fingers. She offered no resistance. Yet another bandit grabbed my mother’s hands and began trying to take her rings. They were a bit tight, and as my mother tried to get them off, the bandit pushed her against the wall, grinning and making an obscene gesture. Little Blanche, watching from behind her mother’s robe, saw a bandit whisk a treasured pink dress and new slippers from a chair and stuff them into his shirt.

Still not satisfied, the bandits forced my grandmother to lead them through the rest of the hotel. They bayoneted the beds to make sure no one was hiding beneath them and broke the dresser mirrors with the butts of their guns, scattering glass over the floor.

After the bandits had left, the Ritchie women and Susan Walker, the bride, stood in the hallway in

stunned confusion. In a short time a man appeared at the door. My grandmother looked at him in relief. He was one of their Columbus friends, Juan Favela.

Juan said, “Mrs. Ritchie, the front of the hotel is on fire, and I have come to help you get to a safe place.” The girls began throwing clothes, shoes, small possessions, and family papers into a large trunk. Juan helped my mother drag the trunk down the rear stairway and out of the building, where it was retrieved the next day. After the hotel burned, that trunk contained all that was left of their possessions.

Juan led the women to a small house across the alley from the hotel where he had hidden his own wife. They stayed there until the raid was over, about 6:30 A.M. All members of the Ritchie family are forever grateful for his help.

As the frightened group stood in the small, dark adobe hut listening to the shooting outside, my aunt Edna suddenly remembered the pet canary she had left in the burning building. Disregarding my grandmother’s pleas, Edna sprinted across the alley and up the back stairway with her coat flying behind her. (That coat, with two bullet holes in it, survived many years until moths finished it off.)

Into the burning building Edna ran, but she was too late. The canary and the cage lay crushed on the floor. On impulse she rushed down the smoke-filled hall and out on the porch overlooking the street below. She almost fainted at what she saw. The body of her father lay sprawled in the street. Nearby the body of Charles DeWitt Miller rested on the hood of his car where he had fallen, apparently trying to get away.

Edna returned to the hut with the devastating news. I can only imagine my grandmother’s thoughts as she stood in the dark little hut knowing that her husband was dead and everything she owned was being consumed by fire.

Now may be a good time to clarify Sam Ravel’s role in the story. Ravel was a well-known and well-liked merchant. He served in the City Council and made many charitable contributions to the needs of the poor in Columbus. His family remained friends with my grandmother after all of them moved to El Paso in later years. I remember him as a smiling man who always appeared glad to see my grandmother and exchange small talk.

The consensus in Columbus was that Sam had sold Villa some guns and ammunition while Villa was still believed to be a genuine revolutionist fighting for his country. Villa paid Sam in advance, as was the common procedure up and down the Rio Grande. However, shortly after their business deal, in a political turnabout, Venustiano Carranza as the de facto president of Mexico, declared Villa an outlaw. Villa had led so many raids on churches, haciendas, villages, farms, and banks

that he had become an embarrassment to the more aristocratic and well-educated revolutionists. They wanted to be rid of him.

In October of 1915 President Wilson had ordered an embargo on shipments of guns and ammunition from the United States to anyone in Mexico but Carranza, making it illegal for Sam Ravel to deliver his order. But Villa, desperately in need of weapons, had decided to pursue his contract.

Pancho Villa’s raid on Columbus changed the future of all the Ritchie survivors, as it indeed changed the future of the United States. Within days Gen. John J. Pershing began to organize an expedition into Mexico to punish Villa. The United States began to recruit and train a young and eager army.

On March 15, 1916, at 12:30 P.M. , I stood beside the road that led to Mexico. An enthusiastic yet subdued crowd waved flags, and a military band played. We watched hundreds of cavalrymen trot past in full regalia, swords flashing, campaign hats sitting squarely on their heads. Ironically, our great misfortune may have benefited the nation. A year later the United States had a hardened, well-trained force ready to send to the aid of our Allies in Europe for the greater challenge of the First World War.