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(432)837-5999
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Wed. - Sat. 10 - 6 p.m.or by appointment
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Hand-painted signs and graphics
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Tue - Sat 10-6
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432.837.1055
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by
Marguerite
Made in the Big Bend
HWY 118 • Terlingua
3/4 mile N of HWY 170
432.371.2292
M ARFA S CHOOL
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E ARLY L EARNING
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providing an engaging, hands-on
and nurturing educational environment
located in Marfa, Texas.
18
DESCANSOS ~
Roadside Memorials
For more information please call 432.729.3066
Cenizo
V
isitors traveling along
the roadways of the Big
Bend and other areas of the
Southwest are often intrigued
by the isolated crosses they
see beside the roads. These
informal roadside memorials
are known as descansos and
usually mark the site where
someone has died. They
range from simple wooden
crosses to more elaborate
memorials often decorated by
real or artificial flowers, reli-
gious icons, favorite toys of
children or other personal
mementos. Sometimes parts
of vehicles involved in fatal
accidents are incorporated
into the markers.
Some of these memorials
bear a name, date or other
information, but many are
just plain crosses placed by
family or friends along a fence
line or on fences near
Second Quarter 2009
dangerous curves,
intersections
or
other locations were
a fatal accident has
occurred.
While
these descansos are
most
commonly
seen in areas with
large
Hispanic
Catholic
popula-
tions, similar memo-
rials can be found throughout
the world to honor the dead.
In older times, descansos
were resting places where pall
bearers could rest along the
way to the grave site. They
also marked places where
some tragedy had happened.
For example, the city of Las
Cruces, New Mexico, is said
to have been named for cross-
es placed where early travel-
ers had died at the hands of
Apaches.
Descansos serve not only as
memorials to lost loved ones
but help the survivors in the
grieving process. In addition,
these informal shrines remind
us of our own mortality,
prompting us to drive more
carefully.