Dox later worked for the NWEC in the Spanish-speaking village of San Mateo, New Mexico for a period variously described as three months, nine months, and "the entire school year". Here she met a much stiffer resistance than she had in Oxford. Her later stories about this period often focused on her difficult plight in the village, with a local priest scheming against her and a wealthy rancher trying to starve her out, and on the peculiar practices of the community's Penitentes, but also mentioned the kindness of the local women who saved her from starvation and gave her gifts on her departure.
