By Dawn Harris
Early last week, I met an amazing woman. Outside my own mother, she may be the most remarkable woman I’ve ever met. She is dedicated and active even at the age of 88. She volunteers at Birthright each week, helps at her great-grandson’s school, is involved in the Legion of Mary, and even visits the Hospital every week. She does all of this when most people say she has earned a relaxed retirement by teaching for 30 years. People just don’t come much more incredible than Cordelia Archunde.
Cordelia says she was “born doing.” As the oldest of 8 children growing up in the 1920s and 30s, she had to work hard. Her family raised their own food and had to make their own clothes. Even everyday activities were harder. She washed clothes using a washboard and handmade soap. Water for dishes was boiled on the stove before they could do all the dishes by hand. She worked hard as a young girl and later as a woman. She began teaching when she was nineteen, earning enough money to go to school in the summer. In 1951 she began teaching in Blanco and continued for 26 years.
Even now, when most people would say Cordelia can retire, she continues to stay more active and involved than most younger people. When I asked her why she still works so hard, she said, “I don’t know. It’s just the way I am. I guess I was born that way.”
Even more than her involvement in the community, Cordelia inspired me by her devotion to her husband. When she was 24, Cordelia had been teaching school during the year and attending classes at the University of New Mexico during the summer since she was nineteen. She planned to finish her degree and then travel around the world. She wanted to teach in Hawaii, Germany and all over the world, but marriage was not in her plans. However, she says, “My husband changed my mind.”
She didn’t even like Herman Archunde when they first met, although he had told her she was pretty and had “beautiful eyes.” It wasn’t until Herman had gone into the service and they had corresponded for months that Cordelia realized she loved him and wanted to spend her life with him. They were married on July 4 1942, during one of Herman’s short afternoons away from the military base.
In the next 61 years Cordelia and Herman spent together, their devotion to each other only grew stronger. Cordelia still says he was “the best man I ever knew.” She remembers the best years of her life were “when I was married to Herman.” Even after his death in 2003, her love and devotion to Herman have not changed.
Cordelia’s love and devotion are poured out to other people too. She has 4 children, 17 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren who say they don’t know what they would do without her, and Cordelia has never met a stranger. She talks to everybody who crosses her path.
She remembers going to school for the first time when she was eight years old, and feeling different from everyone else. Her clothes were homemade when other children’s were store-bought. Everybody else spoke English while she could only speak Spanish. She was always ashamed at school until one day she decided she didn’t have a reason to be ashamed.
She says, “I decided I was just as good or better than almost anyone else.” She realized she could offer just as much as anybody else, and her uniqueness didn’t make her a worse human being. She used her self-confidence in an amazing way after that. She is able to talk to anyone and everyone she sees, and pays special attention to those who are different, saying, “Maybe he needed somebody to talk to him.”
Most of us can’t understand the courage that enables Cordelia to approach complete strangers. Even Cordelia doesn’t understand it all the time, saying, “I guess it’s just something I do.”
But I think that I might know how she does it. Maybe Cordelia is able to stay so active and talk to complete strangers because she loves people. She has incredible love for her husband and family, but even more than that, she loves everybody she sees. The Bible says, “Perfect love casts out fear,” and Cordelia Archunde exemplifies this verse. She has no fear because she has so much love. Everything she does – whether it’s playing with her great-grandchildren, volunteering at Birthright, evangelizing, or talking to a man she met at the Pharmacy – is motivated by this love.
Cordelia also finds strength and sustenance in her faith. She has been a Catholic all of her life, always remembering her fathers advice to her: “You need to have a good name, get an education, and be a good Christian.” She showed me a prayer she has prayed for years. The Prayer of St. Francis says, “Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; for it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
Anyone who meets her would tell you that Cordelia Archunde tries to live up to that prayer. Everywhere she goes, she strives to sow love, pardon, faith, hope and light. She is an example of a woman who is bright, dedicated and loving to everyone she contacts. So I want to thank her for everything she does. She touches more people than she could ever know.
Dude, there is always plenty of stuff to do at the TEEN ZONE!
Contact the Teen Zone at 566-2201 or email at teenzone@infoway.org.