Senovia Ray was born in Gila New Mexico and moved to Chihuahua Hill in 1931. Senovia remembers farming in the Gila as a young girl. She tells stories of gathering water from the Gila River, or playing with the family’s farm animals. Her family gave up farming and moved to Silver City, to Chihuahua Hill, at the age of 5, in the year 1936. Remembering the first street they lived on in Chihuahua Hill, Senovia said, “no era calle, era arroyo. It was not a street, it was a ditch”
Senovia fondly remembers the Capilla hill in her youth. Although the chapel had been gone for decades at that point, the hill where they original Capilla was built was an important part of the neighborhood. “At first when we moved to Silver, aqui estan los fireworks…The kids would go up to the hill, fly the kites. Or just to get away from the house. They would hide up there. That Capilla knows a lot” tells Senovia.
More so than just a place for fun, Senovia recalls priests giving mass on the Capilla Hill, or the posadas that would make their way through the neighborhood in the days leading up to Christmas. Many residents tell how Father Linane, then pastor of the 103-year-old St. Vincent de Paul church, led a pilgrimage up the hill on a white horse. “We respected where the main Capilla used to be many years ago.” Senovia remembers.
The respect for the Capilla manifested in a group dedicated to remembering its history. In 2002, at the age of 71, Senovia and a group of volunteers set out to build a replica of the Capilla which had been torn down in 1915. The gross work began in 2004. The Youth Conservation Corps spent the summer grading, paving, and laying stones for the pathway that winds its way to the recreation of the chapel.
“Senovia and Joe Ray serve as “officers on La Capilla Project’s board of directors. They also are credited with providing much of the push for the chapel’s progress these days, and certainly for handing down what is known of its marvelous history.” -Desert Exposure, Little Chapel, Big Dreams, Donna Clayton Lawder, June 2005
Close to 400 people attended the grand opening ribbon cutting for the new Capilla. The foundation of the original Capilla is still visible with a small knee high wall built over it to forever commemorate the original Capilla built by the devotion of the neighborhood.