Ernestine Tina Zafarano

Ernestine (Ernestina/Tina) T. Zafarano passed away peacefully at home on November 15, 2024 at age 91 with her family. Ernestina was born on January 19, 1933 in Carlsbad, NM to Bernardino Trujillo and Manuela Trujillo née Alvarez, the seventh of thirteen children (of which eleven lived to adulthood). At a young age her family moved their home in nearby Loving, NM to Carlsbad, NM where she spent the remainder of her school age years. As a young child during summer months, she would sometimes stay with her grandmother Alavarez on a farm in Málaga, NM near the Texas border along the Pecos River.

 Ernestine and her younger siblings would sometimes pick wild asparagus at nearby springs or “ojos” and bring them home to be cut, washed and bundled by their mother to take to the grocery store in exchange for milk, bread, and other staples. At age 10 she began working in a bakery where her mother also sometimes worked, which supplied much of the pastries, sandwiches, and other food items for the nearby Carlsbad Caverns. Ernestine’s father was a musician and taught most of her older siblings to play musical instruments and he’d put on local dances at a community center or play music at other local events. Ernestine was on drums. During high school she played sports and excelled at basketball.

 In 1952 at age 19 she met and married James Zafarano, who was a gas service technician with the then Southern Union Gas Company. She had not quite graduated from high school on account of being held back two years in primary school due to lack of teachers during WWII and discriminatory practices toward local Hispanic children whose families still primarily spoke Spanish at home. Ernestine recalled many times being punished at school for speaking Spanish while at school. She later obtained her GED. After James put in for a transfer with the gas company they moved to Santa Fe, NM in 1953. The first of their five children was born in 1954.

 While raising a family during the remainder of the 50’s and 60’s, Ernestine held various jobs in Santa Fe. One such job was at the White Swan Laundry sewing pockets for military uniforms during the Korean War. Other jobs included waitressing and cocktail waitressing at the La Fonda hotel, the Palace Restaurant, and Jaffa’s on Shelby Street owned by the family of the same name serving four-star international cuisine and a popular spot for legislators. Later, she worked at Your Foods grocery store on Cordova Road, and then the Safeway grocery store on Grant Street in both the bakery and meat departments.

 In the late 50’s Ernestine and James built a house entirely on their own on Rodeo Road near present day Richard’s Avenue, which at the time was very far “out of town”, as there was no St. Francis Drive, St. Michael’s Drive, Osage Avenue, Siringo Road and surrounding developments. During these decades Ernestine and James enjoyed playing Pinochle and other card games with friends and other co-workers at the Gas Company. Back then, everyone seemed to know everyone because Santa Fe was not as populous.

 In the late 60’s James and Ernestine purchased John’s Trailer Court, which was a small travel lodge of about 13 RV-sized spaces, laundry, bathrooms and showers, ten converted army barrack apartments, and a gas service station on mostly vacant land located between Rodeo and Cerrillos Roads near Airport Road. They renamed it the “Roadrunner Trailer Lodge” and Ernestine began managing the trailer park full time while continuing to raise their family as the last of their children was born in 1973.

 With a lot of sweat-equity they re-configured the travel lodge eliminating the laundry room and shower services, enlarging each space to accommodate larger semi-permanent mobile homes, and increasing the total number of spaces to 120 over the years with most infrastructure being built by James on a backhoe tractor. James left the gas company after 25 years and started a small business making entry stairs for manufactured housing that at one time supplied nearly all mobile home dealerships across New Mexico as well as parts of Colorado, Arizona and West Texas. Ernestine managed all the business aspects of this as well.

 After owning the mobile home park for 30 years, in the 1990’s the land was re-developed into a retail shopping center known as Plaza Santa Fe, containing such iconic big-box anchor tenants as Target, Albertson’s, Best Buy, Michaels, PetSmart; it is one of the most recognizable shopping centers in Satna Fe thanks in part to the street running through the center that bears the family name, Zafarano Drive. The redevelopment could not have been possible without Ernestine’s amazing and acute business acumen. She was the family’s rock and financier.

 Ernestine enjoyed reading and studying her Bible and she was very devoted in her faith to God. She enjoyed reading Time, Archaeology and Smithsonian magazines and had a keen interest in archaeology. She often said that if she’d been able to continue her studies she would have wanted to be an archaeologist. In her last decade Ernestine was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s dementia. But with a great team of health practitioners and in-home care, she was able to remain at home and continued to have a very high functioning cognitive level, never forgot her children or husband, and always had a sweet and loving sense of humor.

 The family would like to thank Home Instead Senior Care for their services that allowed Ernestine (and her husband) to age gracefully at home, and the numerous caregivers too many to mention who have helped her and her family through the last decade. Ernestine was preceded in death by the love of her life James Zafarano, who passed away December 6, 2023; they were married 71+ years. She is survived by her youngest sister Emma Chavarría, and by her five children Jimmie Sue Wolf (Peter), Marcus Edward Zafarano, Violet Marie Rodriguez (Anthony), Virginia Zafarano, and Giacomo Zafarano, seven grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and numerous nieces and nephews. Funeral arrangements and services will be held at Rivera Family Funerals, 417 E. Rodeo Road, Santa Fe, NM 87505 on Thursday, December 5, 2024, 10:00AM with interment following at Santa Fe National Cemetery.