Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert

The initiative's own biography gives her birth as May 16, 1894, a year before the date on this panel. She joined the state's agricultural extension service in 1929, one of its first Spanish-speaking home demonstration agents and later the first assigned to the Pueblos, teaching canning, gardening and sewing in villages that seldom saw an official. In 1932 a train struck her car and she lost a leg; within two years she was back on the road. In 1950 the United Nations sent her to Mexico to train extension agents.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert (1895–1991) Raised on a ranch at La Liendre, Fabiola received a degree from New Mexico Normal School. She worked as a rural teacher and an agricultural Home Extension agent. In the 1930s, she became a charter member of La Sociedad Folklorica. An author and teacher, she dedicated her life to preserving Hispanic traditions. In 1954, she wrote "We Fed Them Cactus," a book about growing up at La Liendre. Official Scenic Historic Marker New Mexico Historic Women Marker Initiative The New Mexico Historic Women Marker Initiative was founded in 2005 by members of the New Mexico Women's Forum in a statewide effort to recognize women's contributions to New Mexico history on the state's Official Scenic Historic Markers. The Initiative ensures that women's diverse histories will be remembered and told, and will inspire and provide a guide for future generations. The 2006 Legislature funded the project.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Montezuma Castle — 5.7 mi
  The railroad's turreted resort at the Las Vegas hot springs, burned twice in its first years, empty for most of a century, and now home to an international school.
• Fort Union National Monument — 24 mi
  Three forts in one prairie valley where the two branches of the Santa Fe Trail met: a log post, a star-shaped earthwork, and an adobe supply town that fed the army's wars.

More markers nearby

• Dr. Meta L. Christy — 0.6 mi
• Las Vegas — 1.7 mi
• Hogbacks — 5.9 mi
• Fort Union National Monument — 13 mi