El Padre Eterno

(La Historia del Rio Abajo is a monthly column about Valencia County history written by members of the Valencia County Historical Society. Dr. Matt Baca, the author of this month’s column, is a native of Adelino who spent many years as a teacher and administrator before retiring from the Belen Public Schools and as a university instructor.
He has contributed many articles to La Historia del Rio Abajo, focusing on our community’s traditions and cultural diversity.
Opinions expressed in this and all columns of La Historia del Rio Abajo are the author’s alone and not necessarily those of the Valencia County Historical Society or any other group or individual.
The following people contributed to this article: Ramon Torres, Dr. Richard Melzer, Walter Jackson, Leonard Castillo, Fransisco Sisneros and Tony Moya)

One of the great mysteries of the 19th century involve two friends, Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy, the first Archbishop of the Diocese of Santa Fe, and his friend, Father Jean Baptiste Ralliere, the pastor of the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Tomé. He served as pastor from 1856 until 1910.
Both of these curates were of French decent, arriving in New Mexico in the middle of the 19th century.
The mystery is ­— were the two abandoned Navajo twin boys that Bishop Lamy found near a river the same Navajo boys that Lamy and Ralliere each adopted and reared?