Another missionary who had an impact on peoples in our own Southwest wasFATHER ANTON DOCHER a French Franciscanborn in 1852, who served as a missionary to Native Americans in New Mexico.
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Respected by the Isleta for his open-minded attitude to their customs and ancestral faiths, Father Anton was called Tashide, which means "little helper" in Tewa language. He was known for owning a parrot named Tina, which used very foul language.
Father Docher raised an Isletan orphan boy named Tomas Chavez. When Tomas married Lolita Delores, Father Docher gave the couple five acres and a house in Los Lunas as a wedding gift. Tomas developed a vineyard on this land and supplied wine to the Isleta and local churches. Unfortunately, he died in 1925, three years before Father. His widow Lolita Delores was left with nine children. Father Docher paid for the children’s schooling.
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| Father on left, Tomas on right |
Father Anton became a naturalized
Suffering a long illness, Father Anton lived the last three years of his life as a patient at the St Joseph Hospital (Albuquerque
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| In front of his house with bee hives |
Willa Cather used him as a model for her protagonist Padre Jesus de Baca in her novel "Death Comes for the Archbishop" (1927). She visited him shortly before his death.