Leila Hallums

     On October 29, 2023, Leila Valdez Hallums died peacefully in her sleep at home at age 102. She is predeceased by her husband Cpl. Odell Perry "Gus” Hallums, her beloved parents, Epifanio Celso and Maria Deluvina Valdez, her older sister Alicia Valdez Romero, and her little brother Lorenzo Epifanio Valdez. She is survived by many nieces and nephews, grand-nieces and -nephews, and great-grand-nieces and -nephews, who will miss her kindness, her stories, and long afternoons losing games of Scrabble to her.

     Leila was born near Miami, New Mexico in 1921 and lived with her family on the Valdez family’s ranch. Her mother Deluvina, a former schoolteacher, valued education tremendously and taught her to read and write in both English and Spanish by the time she was five, and Leila’s love of reading would remain with her for the rest of her life. Her father would take her to the one-room schoolhouse in Miami on horseback.

     When she was 15, the family moved to Santa Fe, where her father first worked as a mason for W.P.A. Road Construction and her mother at a hotel.  Leila attended Santa Fe high school and then a year at Western New Mexico University.  At 19 she was offered a job in Washington D.C. with the federal government after acing a civil service exam. She enjoyed a 32-year career in WDC, working for the Department of Labor, the War Department and finally the Department of the Navy.

     One afternoon in 1943 she met a handsome man named Gus at a grocery store; he offered to carry her groceries home for her, and before long they were married just before he headed off to Germany where he fought at the Battle of the Bulge. After Gus passed away in 1973, she returned to Santa Fe.

     Leila had lots of friends and many interests—she loved to travel, play word games, and compete in spelling bees and dancing competitions. She was intelligent, courageous, fiercely independent, always gracious, and a wonderful role model to all of her nieces, grand-nieces and others. Leila had a wonderful memory and was the repository of family history. We will miss her beyond words. 

     Her memorial will be held at the Rivera Funeral Home on November 10, 2023, at   12:00 p.m.