Interview with Pat DeVivi about Compadres
As printed in the Corrales Main Street News, Winter 2023 edition.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Alphonse Karr’s hackneyed cliche is no longer a “quote” but a casual representation of the pace of today’s world. It’s so commonly used that it’s become a part of everyday life, and it perfectly describes one of Corrales’ long-standing groups that is evolving to fulfill its never-changing mission.
Los Compadres de Corrales, formerly known as Corrales Newcomers Club, is alive, well, and among other fun pursuits, meeting monthly for happy hour. The latter phrase is a generic description of what occurs at these gatherings – not the usual party-hearty kind of happiness but the kind that stems from belonging and feeling welcomed.
Anyone who’s ever moved to a strange town, big or small, likely knows that sensation of loneliness and isolation – go to work, come home, turn on the TV, nuke a frozen dinner. It’s something the group’s first president, Pat DeVivi, remembers from her early days in Corrales 30 years ago. She moved here for a new job in employee health at Sandia National Laboratory.
The now-retired nurse came first while her artist husband. Carmine, now deceased, stayed behind in California to sell their house and close their gallery. It was a lonely year.
Once her husband joined her and they moved into their newly remodeled house, he opened a gallery in Corrales, and they settled into their new lives. A friend was speaking with Carmine and expressed the desire to start a newcomers’ group. DeVivi recalls with a laugh. “My dear husband said ‘Pat will do it.’
“When I got home and he told me about it, I said sure,” she said. “I had been involved with the newcomers’ group in Danville (California). And I wanted to meet people, too.”
They put the word out – it was the summer of 1996 – that their first meeting would be at Corrales Elementary School. “Twelve people showed up,” DeVivi said. “It was raining, and they walked through mud and puddles to get there.”
Anticipating questions from their initial attendees, DeVivi said she had already contacted one of her California friends for a copy of that organization’s bylaws. “She (snail) mailed them to me, and I tweaked them for Corrales,” she said. “Sure enough,” she recalls, “one guy in the back said, ’Do you have bylaws for this organization?’”
Feeling grateful that she had moved proactively. she remembers replying with satisfaction, “I said, ‘Yes, we do.’” The answer must have satisfied her audience, because the group outgrew the school meeting place and moved to the community library.
They posted notices of their meetings in the old post office and asked realtors if they would hand out information to their clients. It finally reached a breaking point, she said, when they could find no facility big enough to accommodate their crowd. They tried meeting at Corrales’ Old Historic Church, but it carried a rental fee, and “We didn’t have much money,” she said.
That’s likely because their dues were $10 a year (now they’re $20), so they made the decision to change their operations model.
Going forward, she said, their board of directors met and sent out a newsletter with information on activities, special-interest groups like golf and books, and whatever else was going on. One member, known then as Alice ‘N Corrales, came up with their new name, Los Compadres de Corrales.
Many new friends and activities were available, DeVivi said. Prior to the change in meeting structure, their monthly gatherings had initially featured informational talks. A story in the Aug. 21, 1996, edition of the Albuquerque Journal reported that featured speakers included Jim Goodhue, then director of Alameda’s Adobe Theater, then Village of Corrales administrator Phil Rios, and Carmine, who was listed as a plant expert.
“Anything we hear about the area, we try to keep (club members) up on,” said Mary Harrington, who was serving as the group’s spokesperson for the Journal interview. “What’s fun, what’s educational,” she added.
The club’s somewhat formal meetings gradually evolved into more social gatherings, and fun they were, DeVivi says. “Everything was potluck, and people hosted them in their homes when it wasn’t as large,” she said. “We had dinners for holidays – a Valentine’s Day heart dinner, and every year, Dolores and George Biehl would hold a ‘Reel Party’ with every dish named for a movie. We had masquerade parties for Halloween.”
Los Compadres also faced a kind of “midlife crisis,” DeVivi said. As it grew and morphed, special interest groups began to form. Those who golfed got together, as did members who read and were interested in creating book discussion groups, and individual or couple friendships developed.
“People began to say that we were ‘cliquey,’” she said. “We weren’t,” she added with emphasis, noting that the group has always been about welcoming people to the Village.
In addition, the. group grew just too big to host in people’s homes, DeVivi said. “We have 80 members now, and we meet monthly for happy hours at places like Indigo Crow and Casa Vieja and Pasando Tiempo, where we went because they have a large facility.”
Fun hasn’t been the group’s only focus, DeVivi added. “We’ve helped out at the Growers’ Market, the Harvest Festival, cleaning up Corrales Road, and mudding at the Old Church.” All such service projects help people get acquainted on a personal basis with the fabric of Corrales life, she said.
In addition to growth changing their activities, Los Compadres, like so many other groups, were significantly impacted by COVID19, but they got creative to meet that challenge, too. “Last year, we had a progressive dinner,” DeVivi said. “Each house would host six people at a time, because that’s all we could have, starting with appetizers. The first six people would rotate out and move on to salads, and then to the main entree and then to dessert.”
The only issue was that the hosts didn’t get to rotate, because they had their small groups coming through all evening. ’’But it worked!” she said. “It was the only thing we could do.”
This year, the group planned a big picnic at the park, she said. “But it was SO hot we couldn’t do it.” They were going to revert to the old potluck model – an effort to connect old with new.
Mother Nature had other ideas, so the picnic was cancelled because of the high temperatures.
Setbacks notwithstanding, the group wants to make sure their purpose continues to be fulfilled. They are seeking new “newcomer” members who want to meet and mingle with the best of Corrales, and perhaps even some who would like to take leadership roles.
“New people don’t know we exist,” DeVivi said. “A nucleus of people is still meeting, and we want it to continue.” She said the group has coordinators who do tasks like planning events, a treasurer who collects dues and manages their slim budget, and members at large. At this moment, she said, the group is seeking new leaders. The current co-coordinators are stepping down after two years of service, and that would be the most immediate critical need DeVivi said.
Newcomers will also bring new ideas, and Los Compadres welcomes that, too, she added.
“Things are changing, new things are coming in, and we want to make sure we can still welcome our newcomers. I know it helped me so much.”