Those Days in December: A Frontier Family's Southwestern Journey chronicles the interwoven lives of two very dissimilar people, bound together by marriage, in the vast lands of the American Southwest. This historical novel traces the changing times as reflected in the lives of real people, Clem Humphry (1856-1943), and Maria Lucia Gonzales (1872-1966), in New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona, as remembered by Lucia in her old age.
In 1891, as a young schoolteacher, Lucia married Clem, a widower with three young daughters, near Trinidad, Colorado. Through this marriage Lucia broke with family tradition by marrying outside her culture and religion.
During the 1880s, Clem had been Range Superintendent for the 2.5 million acre New Mexico branch of the Prairie Cattle Company. Married life with Clem - a true man of the old West: cattle rancher, businessman, prominent citizen, politician, and some said murderer - took them from place to place in a never ending search for the wealth and fame that had been his during the the late 1800s. Their journeys brought heartbreak and pain, and taught them both resilience, while Lucia's work as a midwife and curandera sustained her, as did her enduring faith.
Clem and Lucia Humphry spent their final years in Winkelman, Arizona. They are both buried in Mountain View Cemetary in the contiguous town of Hayden.
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