Sadie Lucia Aguilar, 88, a life-long resident of Cerro, passed away Feb. 11, 2023. She was born Nov. 3, 1934 and is preceded in death by two husbands, Elivy Jose Segura and Medardo “Bardo” Aguilar, parents, Edward Ortega and Francinia Rael, brothers Floyd (Roxanne) and Fred (Maxine) Ortega and children Frances (Amos) Martinez, Ernesto (Susan) Segura, and Geno (Monica) Aguilar. Her mother died when she was young and she was sent to live with her paternal grandmother, Elijia and her husband Manuel Jaramillo, of Arroyo Hondo.

Sadie attended primary school in Cerro where she learned English. She finished her schooling in 1949 and went to Denver by train where she lived with family and worked at a private boys’ school cleaning dormitories and picking peaches in the summer. She returned home a year later and married Elivy Segura on Dec. 29, 1950. She made her home for the next 15 years in Hawthorne, Nevada (1951-1966), where she would raise her six children. After her husband’s passing in Sept. 1965, Sadie returned to New Mexico to stake her claim on the Segura Land Grant, where she bought her home.