Cadena Nativity, a nearly hidden landmark of spiritual devotion in Del Rio

December 5, 2007
By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer

“Oh my goodness, isn’t this just something!” Pat and Marita Parks, travelers from the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, reacted, Saturday (Nov. 24), as most newcomers do when entering the most secreted, nondescript building on the campus of the Whitehead Memorial Museum.

Even exclamations are hushed as visitors get their first glimpse of the Cadena Nativity, seemingly squirreled away in the farthest corner of the museum grounds. The sprawling exhibit of human figures, animals, angels, buildings and lights is breathtaking, even to the non-devout and culturally curious. As a matter of reflex and routine, people pausing before the 32-foot-long scene – circulating through the entrance and exit doors of the Nativity building – are respectfully quiet, even reverent in conversation, pointing out recognizable features from the lore and legend of Jesus’ birth in a Bethlehem stable.

But the diorama depicting the moments and days following the birth of Christ is far more than a complex display of religious icons and mementos. It’s a touchstone of tradition for Del Rioans and Val Verde County residents, as well as an introduction to one woman’s full measure of devotion and her family’s gift to the community.

Not every personal collection is suitable for valuable space in an already overcrowded community museum, but officials of the City of Del Rio, Val Verde County, and the Del Rio Council for the Arts got behind the 1991 gift of the Cadena family to move the valuable, inspiring display from the home of Beatriz Rodriguez Cadena, collector and architect of the exhibit, and matriarch of the Cadena family until her death, December 5, 1969.

The unimposing Cadena home at 601 Pecan, the intersection of Pecan St. and Canal St., included a room dedicated to the growth and display of the Nativity, but Beatriz’s passion began as a child with modest, annual trinket-quality shrines under stately Christmas trees accommodated by 12-foot-high ceilings in the family living room. Val Cadena Sr. recalls that his mother picked out the tree each year from natural groves of conifers near Carta Valley, 40 miles northeast of Del Rio.

But the Nativity became more and more populated with figurines which Beatriz collected from artists in California, Mexico City, Saltillo, Guadalajara and Monterrey. Val Cadena Sr. told LIVE! that the majority of the precious pieces – all ceramics – came from a single artist then living in a village in the hills above Monterrey, Nuevo León, México. “The reason mother went to Monterrey was that two sisters lived there – the Strozzi sisters – who were her best friends, and the Strozzi girls found this artist. So, she would go visit the Strozzis, place an order, and then go back a few months later and pick up her figures,” Cadena said.

He remembers Beatriz as a warm, affectionate woman who loved to sew and quilt when she wasn’t collecting figurines. “And three or four times a year, she would get my aunts and a bunch of women together for a tamalada. Oh, she made the best beef tamales, and sometimes with deer meat, too,” Cadena enthused. But he was not allowed to watch, participate or snitch during the all-day labors. “No, you couldn’t even get into the kitchen, because they’d chase you off!”

Cadena was born in the family home at 612 Garza St., San Felipe, but in 1931 the Cadena’s moved into the Keiffer home – built in the 1920s, Val believes. His father’s blacksmith shop was and remains behind the house. Hernan and Beatriz attended Sacred Heart Catholic Church, but Beatriz worshipped at home with family members and friends, often revolving around the growing Nativity in its special room.

“She was a very devout Catholic, and this was her way of showing it,” said her granddaughter, Lisa Cadena Craig. Though she never knew her grandmother, Cadena Craig has heard plenty about her grandmother who never wanted fame or renown. Beatriz refused requests for pictures with the collection. “She didn’t want to take credit for it. She just wanted people to focus their attention on the Nativity,” Cadena Craig explained.

Four years before Beatriz Cadena died, Arthur Moczygemba, San Antonio Express-News staff writer, visited the shrine, writing, “Mrs. Cadena opens the door and quietly, almost shyly, invites the visitor in. The first view leaves him breathless, for there before him is another world, the world of the time of Jesus Christ.” Moczygemba concludes his florid description of the diorama, “Young and old, the artist or just curious visitor, they all walk away not quite believing what they saw. For someone who claims she is only a modest housewife, Mrs. Cadena has created a masterpiece unequalled in South Texas.”

Val’s wife, Florisa, recalls the Nativity because of its accessibility to everyone who came calling: “Every year, she would have the Novena [nine days of prayer following Easter] at the Nativity room here at home, and Mrs. Cadena would recite the Rosary, always in Spanish.” Val added, “She also did it on feast days for family members, or when there was a death in the family. She was very reluctant to speak English because of her accent, but she could speak it and she could write it better than you can,” eyeing this reporter’s poor penmanship.

Born Feb. 3, 1903, the same year in which Pope Pius X was elected by the College of Cardinals and Wilbur and Orville Wright celebrated their first successful flight, Beatriz went on to graduate from Escuela Normal de Saltillo with a teaching degree. The collection grew steadily until she died, and then stopped altogether. According to Val Cadena Sr., no pieces were added to the collection after his mother’s death, but the collection remained in the family home for 23 years before it was moved to the Whitehead Memorial Museum.

Cadena Craig recalls, as a child of six and seven years, being asked to mount the exhibit terrain to make adjustments and minor repairs that were out of reach for adults in the family. “When you walked into that room, you felt as if you were in that scene. The reverence of the place was just overwhelming. Even kids would automatically get quiet when they entered. You felt like you were in a bustling city. She had running water with a creek, and fishermen and people drinking from the stream. Many of the windows of the village buildings had little twinkling lights, so it really looked like people were at home,” Cadena Craig said.

Visitors to the museum today are struck by the same details, yet not realizing that the quality of the figurines selected by Beatriz Cadena has lasted. Though a few of the figurines were damaged in the disassembly from the family home in preparation for shipment no more than a few blocks to museum, most of the pieces have been not been repainted or restored. Most look fresh and new.

The move was necessitated by two factors. First, structural failure assaulted the room in which the shrine was displayed. Water leaked from ceiling pipes, and dripped onto the exhibit’s precious pieces. Parts of the ceiling fell onto the exhibit threatening everything. Second, the Nativity tradition had always been that whenever anyone called or showed up at the door, Beatriz Cadena greeted them, and showed them to the exhibition room. The family continued that hospitality as much as they could, but with business schedules they felt they were letting the tradition down.

Florisa Cadena: “So many people were always calling. To them – well, to me, too – it was a shrine, and we just couldn’t be here enough. Our main thought in giving it to the museum was that the community could always have access to it.” Val Cadena Sr. added, “We want the community to follow my mother’s tradition, for the love and devotion of the Christmas spirit in Del Rio.”

Museum Director Lee Lincoln took the project on with determination to handle most of the work alone, though members of her family, a women’s coffee club and a few volunteers from Laughlin pitched in to help. “When we started, the first thing I did was go get banana boxes from every grocery store in town. They’re built with layers of cardboard to protect the fruit, and I knew they were exactly what I needed for all these figures,” Lincoln explained. Lincoln took photos and planned her disassembly of the whole and reassembly in a new building constructed just to house the exhibit. She worked 10-12-hour days for two months, often frustrated with stumbling blocks, calling on the spirit of Beatriz Cadena.

“I’d talk to her, and say, ‘O.K., Mrs. Cadena, these are my hands, but this is your collection, so please help me out here.’” Lincoln said puzzling mysteries fretted about at night with that prayer in mind were often immediately solved the next morning. “She was here; she’s here now,” Lincoln said, Sunday (Nov. 25). “Some people have called this my fifth child, and I’ve told my workers here, ‘If you want to stay out of trouble, if you want to keep your job, DON’T mess around with the Cadena Nativity!’”

Lincoln had to make significant adaptations for permanent display of this iconic collection, including rock-solid undercarriage to replace most of the metal sawhorses that supported it at the family home. Many of the trees and shrubs had sustained water damage, and were replaced with artificial miniatures. Mrs. Cadena’s “grass,” shaved wood particles dyed green, was necessarily replaced with indoor/outdoor carpeting, and her spun glass “angel hair” clouds and waterfalls were replaced with yards of white satin. “I just couldn’t find the angel hair when we installed it here,” Lincoln lamented.

Lisa Cadena Craig reflected on Lincoln’s dedication to protecting the Nativity, “We are so grateful to Lee Lincoln and her staff for taking such an interest in the collection, and for putting so much care into the exhibition of it.”

The Cadena family, now considerably larger than when Beatriz completed her exhibition, is a diverse cross section of Del Rio and Val Verde County commerce, politics and civil service. Cadena Craig bears the 12th grandchild of Val and Flo Cadena, who the Texas Aggie grandpa is determined to dub “The 12th Man.” Family members include a structural welder, an assistant U.S. attorney, a dentist, an imported décor show owner, a property appraiser, several Realtors® and brokers.

Val Cadena Sr., now the family patriarch, has served as a county commissioner, county judge, chair of the Val Verde Hospital Corporation board of directors, and now his daughter, Lisa Cadena Craig, proudly serves as a Del Rio city councilwoman. But such diversity and public service notwithstanding, a common family heritage may be seen as embodied in the Cadena Nativity, now a perpetual gift to be celebrated in particular by the community and its guests at this season of the year.
The Whitehead Memorial Museum and the Cadena Nativity are open to the public, Tues.-Sat., 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Sunday, 1 – 5 p.m.

For more information on the Whitehead Memorial Museum, see www.whitehead-museum.com