Kading earns kudos for preservation activities

Las Crucen Sally Kading has received the most prestigious preservation prize presented by the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, The DAR Historic Preservation Medal.

NSDAR Doña Ana Chapter Regent Linda Bartlett presented Kading with the distinguished award at the chapter’s December meeting, noting that Doña Ana County is lucky to be the recipient of her extraordinary work.

Kading is a member of the Doña Ana Chapter NSDAR.

“Ms. Kading’s commitment to the preservation of the history of Doña Ana County and tireless efforts on numerous preservation projects over many years are truly outstanding,” said NSDAR’s National Historic Preservation Chair Leslie R. Miller.

“From inventorying cemeteries to translation and transcription of historic church records, she has shared her expertise and passion for preservation.” Miller continued. “Because of Ms. Kadings’s efforts, the history of Doña Ana and the surrounding areas will be preserved, enjoyed and shared with many future generations.”

Kading’s work in Doña Ana County includes:

• Recording names, dates and locations on all inscriptions of headstones at San Albino Cemetery in Mesilla, publishing the information, and placing it in the genealogy department of the Thomas Branigan Memorial Library (TBML).
• Recording names, dates, inscriptions and biographies for those interred at The Slumbering Mountain Cemetery in Organ. Results were published and placed in the genealogy department of TBML.
• Typing early Doña Ana County civil marriages (1869-1926), volumes 3-10, which were hand-bound and placed in the genealogy department of TBML. This totaled to thousands of records.
• Translating and recording baptismal, marriage, burial records for San Albino Basilica and St. Genevieve Church.
• Working with the Doña ana County Genealogical Society to update Doña Ana County cemetery records, placing information on Find A Grave along with pictures, GPS locations and biographies.

Kading has an ongoing project that will tell yet another story of early Doña Ana County. With the Doña Ana Historical Society, Kading and fellow historians are mapping and documenting, and many cases discovering, interments in the old abandoned cemetery of Camp Santo de la Sagrada Familia, in the village of Picacho. The result of the work will include biographies on each known individual interred there, ground-penetrating radar scans to find lost graves, graphic maps of known grave locations, fencing along the open borders, and placement of a permanent plaque telling a brief history of cemetery, village, and names of interred. Copies of this information will be kept at the New Mexico State University Archives and Special Collections.

Fellowship Cemetery in Arkansas also benefitted from Kading’s expertise and work ethic. Two of Kading’s cousins and she cleared and researched this old abandoned cemetery beginning in the year 2000 and provided paperwork for it to receive the Arkansas Register of Historic Places award.