11 10 216 https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/a9e7970740dd8b03dbec081255ce8cda.pdf 4fc42a2afaf116a1ccfa50d844dd03ef PDF Text Text MARY (Conroy) PATRICK & MARTHA (Conroy) POTTER Two small round faces stared big-eyed out of the train window at the bustling Union Depot of Denver. Streams of people were departing and boarding the train. Porters were pushing carts of luggage across the platform and hawkers were selling peanuts, apples, sandwiches, coffee and lemonade up and down the aisles of the coaches. The Conroys decided to stretch their legs. Mike helped his wife Lydia down the steps, then lifted down his 4 year old twin daughters Mary and Martha and his 5 year old son, Charles. Though ii was fall, Mary and Martha clearly remember a band nearby was loudly playing "In the Good Old Summer Time." The Conroys were enroute from one way of life to another. Nine years before, Mike, the son of a Manhattan, Kansas farmer caught the fever for the land run into the Cherokee Outlet. He was there on that hot day in 1893 with 180,000 others waiting breathlessly for the shot fired by the cavalry men along the border which signaled noon and the opening of the land run. Mike had a wagon and two white horses. His competitors, stretching along the border of this vast land both to the right and to the left to the horizons and beyond were mostly people like him hungry for land of their own. Most had horses and wagons, but some had sleek race horses, a few were astride highwheeled bicycles and a few with very determined looks on their faces were afoot. Mike was one of the lucky ones. He managed to slay fairly near the front of the raging sea of horses and to find a good piece of land. Others were not so lucky. Horses stumbled, wagon wheels shattered, gullies opened unexpectedly in front of racing throngs and swallowed animals, wagons and people. Men who staked opposite ends of a claim shot at each other to decide who owned the land. This northwest Oklahoma territory was a trying land to farm. When the rains came Mike was amazed at the crops it would produce, but it was heartbreaking during the dry years to see the wheat sprout and wilt and turn brown under the relentless sun. Mike sold his land in 1902 and decided to go to the mountains. After a brief rest the family reboarded the train. When they arrived in Pueblo, they visited an aunt for several days. The girls had never spent much time in a town of the size of Pueblo. On afternoon the girls were out playing hide-and-seek with their cousins and the neighbor children. Mary hid a little too well. Unfortunately when she ran across the corner of the block to hide, no one found her. By the lime she decided to return to the yard she had lost her sense of direction. Finally a man passing by look her to the right address. The remainder of the trip to Durango took much longer than expected. When the Conroys changed to the narrow gauge train at Alamosa, the sky was grey and threatening over the mountains. Snow was falling so hard at Antonito that the train was delayed several days. Most of the passengers including the Conroys lived on the train until the passes were cleared. Mike bought a dairy farm on Florida road east of Animas City. Though Animas City had only two stores, Mary and Martha liked to go there. Quickly they learned that Mike Kennedy, who owned the general store, was a pushover. The two little girls would mosey over to the candy counter and stare longingly at the display until Mike would ease over with a big smile and give then each a sample. "I suppose we were spoiled 132 �.., ~ 'I "1 'I "1 brats," admit Mary and Martha. "We always were babied and made over because we were twins." When the girls were 5 and Charles was 6, they all three started in the first grade at Animas City School. Good weather and bad their father put all three on the ) ) -) ) -) ) ) ') ) ) ) ) same horse for the ride down the valley to town. Animas City was the end of the line for the Durango Trolley. Whenever the family needed a better selection of goods they rode the trolley into Durango. Since Animas City had no high school, the girls went into Durango after grade 8. Both were members of the girls basketball team and both loved to dance. "Our parents were fairly lenient. They usually let us to go to dances and parties whenever and wherever we wanted to go." Being a twin was handy now and then, too. Once when Mary faced a stiff German exam, she let Martha who was a year ahead of her in German, sit in for her. Neither the students nor the teacher caught on. Both Martha and Mary decided to become teachers. College training was not required in those days, but it was necessary to pass a stiff exam. Martha taught in the Waterfall School in the Animas Valley and then moved south of Ignacio to teach the Harvey School. While there she boarded with the Fred Harvey Family. "Sometimes we still visit Mrs. Harvey in Durango. She's about 92 now." Finally, Martha taught at the Hood School 4 miles NE of Elmore's Store uniil she was married. ) ) ) ) ) Mary's first school was the Fairview School near Oxford. Then she went to Holder School on Spring Creek, Mason School on Florida Mesa and finally she taught at Morrison South, north of Ignacio. As it is today school teaching was a satisfying, but very demanding job. Mary and Martha frequently opened their schools for dances and box suppers. "Most of our dance music was accompanied by piano and violin. Guitars were not too common at dances then." } ) _) ) _) _) _) J _) ..) ..J ..) ...) J J J ....) J ...J .J Both Martha and Mary admit to a string of beaus during those years, but when asked for names and more details, they replied, "Let's leave that out. 11 One episode they will tell (minus the boy's name). Martha had a date to go for a buggy ride with a certain young man. The afternoon of the ride Martha became very ill and asked Mary to go in her place. "He will never know the difference," Mary recalls. Beyond this, they each admit to one feller, their husbands. Martha met Marvin Potter at a Grange Meeting at the Morrison School. They were married in Durango on December 14, 1919. "We drove out to Ignacio in a horse and buggy on what must have been the coldest day of the year. It took 6 hours and was nearing evening when we arrived." The Potters have 4 children. Donald lives in Montrose. Jean Mcclanahan lives in Ignacio. Stanley is in New Jersey, and Irvin is in Dallas . When Mary was 22, she met Leslie Patrick at a dance. She and Leslie were married in Durango on June 4, 1922. After the wedding ceremony, they rode the train to Ignacio and as soon as they arrived at the farm , Leslie put on his boots and went right out to irrigate. "That's the way life was then, 'l Mary says. "We had to work like the dickens. We milked cows, separated the milk and sold the cream. We never could make a living just from the farm. Leslie always had to have another job as ditch rider, or carpenter or something else to earn enough." The Patricks have 2 children. Lee Patrick lives in Gallup, New Mexico and Eleanor Stansberry lives in Basalt, Colorado . 133 �During the long winter months of the 1920's the Potters and the Patricks came to town regularly to play basketball at Burns Hall. The ladies enjoyed it as much as the men. "Getting there was the hardest part. Sometimes the road would be a string of mud holes. Everyone but the driver would have to get out and push." In the spring and summer it was baseball. Marvin, Leslie, Louie Morris, Fred Robinson and others the ladies have forgotten, were on the team. "In 1926 both our families went on a wild goose chase," the ladies recall. "We packed up and headed for California. In Los Angeles one of the men got a job on the docks; the other drove a team." After a few months the Potters moved on to Fresno where they had relatives, but it was suffocatingly hot in the summer. Finally, after visiting relatives in Oregon for a short while, both families decided to return to Ignacio. "None of us ever seemed to feel at home out there. When we crossed the Colorado line west of Dove Creek, Leslie stopped the car, jumped out, threw his hat in the air and let out a wild yell of joy. That's just how glad we were to get back to Colorado." Martha and Mary started life together 76 years ago. Now that Marvin and Leslie are gone, it seems right that they are together again sharing life and memories. When asked what they think about being twins, they both reply, "It's great having a double. I'm sure we've always been closer because of it." Shelby Smith - May 1974. 134 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Shelby Smith Interviews Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource https://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-NC/1.0/?language=en Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1973-1980 Subject The topic of the resource Ignacio; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Collection of biographies, predominantly of residents from the Ignacio Senior Center, based on interviews conducted by Shelby Smith from approximately 1973 to 1980. The abridged interviews were originally published as individual entries in The Thoughtful Years newsletter, published by the Ignacio Senior Center, beginning in 1973. They were later published as a whole in Smith's book: Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley, from which the original scans in this collection have been derived. Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mary (Conroy) Patrick and Martha (Conroy) Potter Biography Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1974-05 Subject The topic of the resource Patrick, Mary (Conroy); Potter, Martha (Conroy); Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Biography of Mary (Conroy) Patrick and Martha (Conroy) Potter based on an interview conducted by Shelby Smith. Originally included in the May, 1974 issue of "The Thoughtful Years" newsletter published by the Ignacio Senior Center. Later included in the book "Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley" by Shelby Smith. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Patrick, Mary (Conroy); Potter, Martha (Conroy) Extent The size or duration of the resource. 3 pages Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NKC/1.0/ Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/139868dccd8b745a6c3c7e50a559871c.pdf b3139b3d2cbdc3c116a9a06560ad6623 PDF Text Text r'\ ~ "I ~ "") MARY EDNA (TRUJILLO) GALLEGOS ~ Mary Edna Gallegos was born in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, February 25, 1912, the oldest child of Tobias Trujillo and Sarah (Moreno) Trujillo. Tobias was a farmer. When he died in 1916, Edna was only 4 years old and hardly remembers her dad. Her mother later married Evaristo Garcia. i i ) J -) "My step~dad," Edna says, "was a very good man. He treated me really well. My younger sisters and one brother are still living. Mary lives in Los Angeles, Dolores in Blanco, Rose in Plymouth, CA, and Ray in Albuquerque." ) ) "I went to school in Lonetree (about 10 miles north of Pagosa Junction on Cat Creek Road). That is dryland country, but in those days we had plenty of rain for hay and for crops. The wild grass was so tall it would brush your feet when you rode a horse. We used to knot necklaces from a particular variety of tough grass there. I wonder if it still grows there. The climate has changed so much." ) About 1922 Edna's family moved to Mancos for 2 years, then came back to Durango. , ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) J ) ) J .J __) J J .J ....J J __J __J "My step-dad worked at the smelter where they processed the ores from Silverton. I enjoyed living in Durango, but it didn't last very long. When my mother died, I went to live with my aunt in Ignacio. I stayed with her two years until I was married at the age of 15. Aurelio Gallegos and I got married in 1927. For 15 years we lived on the farm at Caracas by the San Juan River just below the New Mexico State Line. There was no bridge across the river. We forded it with a wagon to buy supplies at Pagosa Junction. If the river was too high we crossed with pack horses. Sometimes I stayed home for 3 months. Often the river was so high in May, June, and July from the spring melt, that we were isolated. We had a log house on a rise above the river. Aurelio raised alfalfa on the river bottom and grain on a flat place we called the "alcon." Whenever we needed fuel we took our wagon up on Caracas Mesa. We had a permit to haul all the wood we needed for our personal use. In the summer and fall we took our wagon up on the mesa top into the woods and enjoyed the views and the peaceful feeling of the back country. Sometimes we could watch the herds of beautiful wild horses which roamed the canyons and mesas at that time. Before the winter, we always had enough wood to last till the next summer. We grew nearly all of our food. Our irrigation system was from our well, simple but effective. We pulled up buckets of water with a rope and pulley and emptied them into a series of trenches which ran down the rows of the garden. This was a lot easier than hauling buckets around the garden. We roasted our blue corn and had it ground at Allison, enough for us and some to sell. We put away 200 lbs. of white peas and all kinds of chilies and vegetables. We used kerosene lamps and a wood burning cookstove. Our cellar kept our cream and eggs cool in summer and kept our produce from freezing in winter. We never had electricity and never missed it. You'd be surprised how few worries we had. No utility bills to pay. No food bills. We were sure of everything. I was never bored and never lonely. I always liked the quiet places. __J J J J ..) .J "Aurelio and I had four children. Roger now lives in Ogden, Utah, Sarah in Newark, CA, Abe in Farmington, and Lillie in Bayfield. The kids went about 3 miles to school. If we needed to travel any further than the valley, we crossed the river and waited for the train. 57 �lfwe needed to go shopping or go to the doctor, we took the train to Durango. II arrived from Alamosa ~very day at 1:30 p.m. and would get to Durango in about 2 hours. In winter it was sometimes delayed for long periods because of snow on the passes. One way to Durango cost $2.45. "In 1942 we moved to Jack Dickinson's irrigated farm across the river in Colorado, where we stayed 5 years. From 1947-49 we lived in Durango. When Aurelio's mom died in 1949, we moved back to Caracas where we stayed until 1964. Thal year we moved to Ignacio and I've been here ever since." Edna lives in one of the apartments in the Senior Citizen's Complex just north of Ignacio. She visits her children whenever she can and occasionally keeps one of her grandchildren. Edna enjoys her new apartment and the conveniences of life today, but she would trade her electric range for a wood burning cookstove in a minute. Shelby Smith - February, 1978 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Shelby Smith Interviews Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource https://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-NC/1.0/?language=en Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1973-1980 Subject The topic of the resource Ignacio; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Collection of biographies, predominantly of residents from the Ignacio Senior Center, based on interviews conducted by Shelby Smith from approximately 1973 to 1980. The abridged interviews were originally published as individual entries in The Thoughtful Years newsletter, published by the Ignacio Senior Center, beginning in 1973. They were later published as a whole in Smith's book: Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley, from which the original scans in this collection have been derived. Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mary Edna (Trujillo) Gallegos Biography Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1978-02 Subject The topic of the resource Gallegos, Mary Edna (Trujillo); Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Biography of Mary Edna (Trujillo) Gallegos based on an interview conducted by Shelby Smith. Originally included in the February, 1978 issue of "The Thoughtful Years" newsletter published by the Ignacio Senior Center. Later included in the book "Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley" by Shelby Smith. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gallegos, Mary Edna (Trujillo) Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2 pages Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NKC/1.0/ Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/b45f091bb89b59d5310d14a443779455.pdf 064d2a701f87b4ece953be09e365548b PDF Text Text MARY LA VIDA (Wayt) RITTER Mary La Vida Wayt, daughter of Louis and Margaret Wayt was born October 29, 1891, in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) four miles from Maysville, Arkansas. Folks in the area referred to it as "Lapland", meaning the region where Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri have a common border. Vida has only slight memories of those early years. Her family left Indian Territory and moved to Texas for a while and then back to Indian Territory. One thing she does remember is crossing the Red River. Crossing the prairie rivers was an experience to be remembered, especially if they were the big ones. There were few, if any, bridges anywhere in the Indian Territory and none across the big rivers. The Red River in many places is a mile wide. The amount of water depends on the season of the year. Ferries were not possible since even in flood season the water is deep only in a few channels. Most of the year the river consists mainly of sand bars, treacherous mud bogs, quicksand and log-strewn shallows. Getting across was mainly a matter of slogging through the mud flats, avoiding the quicksand and hoping the wagon would float. Vida remembers a frightful crossing. Her family made it across all right, but not everyone was so lucky. ) ) ) ) ) _). When the Wayts moved back to Oklahoma, they settled on a farm just across the border from Chetopa, Kansas. Most of their neighbors in the area were Cherokee Indians. It may seem unusual to gather nuts to go fishing , but that's what they and their neighbors did. Buckeyes, small nuts growing profusely in the area, have a chemical which stuns fish. The men would pound the nuts into a meal, scatter the meal on a pool in the "crick" and almost immediately the fish in the pool would float belly-up to the surface. Vida was very frightened when the men jumped into the water whooping and hollering, but her mother explained what was happening, "Then," she recalls, "we had a real fish fry." ) _) _) .J _) ....J .J ..J ..J .._J ....J .J J J J J .._J J .._J There is a section of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Iowa known to weathermen as a 'cyclone alley. This region has some of the most frequent violent weather on the continent. Nearly everyone today, as well as then, has a cellar for refuge during tornado weather. Vida recalls the old dugout cellar her father built and recalls she was more frightened of the snakes and spiders and creepy things she imagined in the cellar than of the tornados. However, her father knew what he was doing. One day when the family scurried to the cellar, a tornado twisted their house on its foundation, requiring her father to prop up one wall with logs and poles. The Wayts raised corn, black-eye peas and sugar cane. At an early age Vida was taught to milk and was assigned the job of washing the pails and the separator. When Vida was 12, her father sold the farm and moved to Pueblo to work in the steel mill. Shortly after arriving in Colorado, Vida saw a sight she could hardly believe. She said, "Oh, mother look at that wagon going without any horses." The year was 1904 and that was Vida's first encounter with a motorized vehicle. After a year Louis moved his family to a farm near La Jara in the San Luis Valley where they stayed for 3 years. "We raised potatoes and field peas and did all right, but it was too cold and windy there to suit us." Vida was sixteen when the Wayts moved to the Pine River Valley and settled in 141 �this region for good. The family took the train to Ignacio and rode in the mail wagon lo Bayfield. "We always traveled light. Dad sold everything but our personal belongings whenever we moved. It was too difficult and expensive to move furniture and implements. Everywhere we went we had to start all over again. Louis got a job as a logger in the woods north of Bayfield for a year and then moved to a ranch 3-4 miles north of Ignacio. When the town of Ignacio was organized, Louis was hired on the survey team which named the streets and laid them out. Later Louis constructed the building which is now the north section of the SUARK lodge and Mrs. Wayt operated it as a hotel. Vida attended the Morrison School. She remembers well the day at school when she looked out of the window to see a tall young man riding a horse along the road. Vida had no idea this young man would one day become her husband. At the age of 18, Vida started dating Paul Ritter. "Paul and I liked to dance. All of the young people in the area would pile into a wagon or onto a sled if it was winter and go to Spring Creek or Bayfield or wherever there was a dance. On Sunday, there were horse races up Goddard Avenue in Ignacio and ball games and, finally, someone started a movie theater (silent pictures of course)." Vida and Paul were married in Durango in the home of Paul's parents on April 10, 1911. "After the wedding, we drove back lo the ranch in our buggy. Since the spring and summer work was just getting started, we put off our honeymoon until the fall." After the crops were in that fall, Paul and Vida went to Denver. Paul had worked as a cartoonist for the Denver Post and had many friends there. The train ride to Denver was an experience in itself. Senator West obtained ticket passes for Paul. The train steamed to Telluride, where they stayed overnight and then on to Denver the next day thru Montrose, Gunnison, Salida, Canon City, Pueblo, and Colorado Springs. Vida enjoyed the big city. Every evening the Ritters were guests of Paul's friends for a nice dinner and a movie or concert or stage play. Paul never let Vida forget that she went to sleep during the stage production of BEN HUR. Vida explains, "We had been out late every evening that week and I was tired." The Ritters lived on the ranch for 33 years. They raised hay and grains and animals of all kinds. Paul and Vida never had any children, but for a number of years they kept three brothers, Ray and Ralph and Robert Dickey. Ray now lives in Alaska, Robert lives west of Ignacio. Ralph was killed in a construction accident in California after WWII. The Ritters once owned a spirited trotting horse named Queenie. Vida dearly loved to hitch her up and drive her to town. One reason she needed to go to Ignacio regularly was to ship cream on the train to Durango. She recalls one day that the time of day got away from her. As she left the house she noticed she had 12 minutes to cover the three miles lo the depot. Clipping down Goddard Avenue, Vida could hear the train approaching. She whipped across the tracks just ahead of the train and got an angry whistle from the engineer. Paul acquired one of the first automobiles in Ignacio. For a long time he wouldn't allow Vida to drive, but she wouldn't stand for that forever. Vida practiced driving the car when Paul was away. One day when they left the house for town, Vida jumped under the wheel and said, "I'm driving today." Paul was leery an_d said, "Just to the gate," but Vida kept going. Vida states "Paul had his hand on the door handle, ready to jump out the 142 �'} -. '\ ' ' '·, ' 1 l } ) ) whole way, but I made it just fine." In addition to his farming, Paul operated a business in Ignacio for many years. The Ritters inherited an interest in a cabin at Electra Lake and enjoyed many fun weekends there with friends. Paul died in 1963. V ida has been alone for 12 years, but not really alone. She has many friends and receives a lot of attention from them. There are several reasons for this. First and probably the most important is that Vida takes an interest in other people. Endless recitation of life's aches and pains are not the subject of her conversation. Vida keeps herself active, entertaining friends and going out whenever possible. Undoubtedly, she will continue to face life with the same courage, sense of humor and good spirit that she always has shown. We wish her many years of good memories, friendship and happiness. ' March, 1975 - Shelby Smith .) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) _) _} _) _J _J _) .J ,.J J J J J J J J ..J ...) 143 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Shelby Smith Interviews Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource https://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-NC/1.0/?language=en Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1973-1980 Subject The topic of the resource Ignacio; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Collection of biographies, predominantly of residents from the Ignacio Senior Center, based on interviews conducted by Shelby Smith from approximately 1973 to 1980. The abridged interviews were originally published as individual entries in The Thoughtful Years newsletter, published by the Ignacio Senior Center, beginning in 1973. They were later published as a whole in Smith's book: Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley, from which the original scans in this collection have been derived. Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mary La Vida (Wayt) Ritter Biography Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1975-03 Subject The topic of the resource Ritter, Mary La Vida (Wayt); Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Biography of Mary La Vida (Wayt) Ritter based on an interview conducted by Shelby Smith. Originally included in the March, 1975 issue of "The Thoughtful Years" newsletter published by the Ignacio Senior Center. Later included in the book "Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley" by Shelby Smith. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ritter, Mary La Vida (Wayt) Extent The size or duration of the resource. 3 pages Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NKC/1.0/ Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/3c7d93139e662f40913542b3845c7077.pdf 067d4145536a23a5c3c251d4b1898f82 PDF Text Text MAX AND ELLEN (House) WATTS Max Smith Watts was born in a teepee camped in the pine Valley near La Boca, Colorado, in 1894, the son of Andrew and Cecilia Watts. Max says, "My father's band, the capote Band, traveled a lot in those days. Some of them were farmers, but most of them moved around to find better hunting. Teepees were just right for people on the move. There were very few white men around in those days. We hunted for deer and rabbits and herded our sheep and goats. Our games were made to give us skill. We would throw round targets into the air and shoot them before they came down. I made my own fishing pole from a willow, some string and a needle bent into a hook. We all had horses and depended on them for all of our moving around. My grandfather told me of a lime when he was young that there were few horses. He knew of some of our people trading a child for a horse. They were valued so much when they were scarce. The Utes always liked horse racing. Since the road across the river was so long and straight, we had our races over there." "My people were not surprised when the white man brought the train. One of the old men had seen it in a dream. He told his people that one day white men would come in a thing of smoke and fire. I never rode the train until I was nearly grown. I was scared of it. When it came up the valley, it looked like it was coming straight at me. I would run." My parents put me in the BIA Boarding School for a few years; but when I got old enough to herd the goats, they needed me at home. We had some land over on the Piedra River and moved back and forth to it. We played many games - some for fun and some for gambling. One was played with big nails and a pile of dirt. The nails which had numbers painted on them were pushed out of sight into a pile of soft earth. The players look turns poking a stick into the pile to expose a nail. They got points according to the numbers painted on them. The women watching the game would sing and dance around the pile lo try to make the earth fall. Blankets, horses and money were gambled in this game. We also had a game like the white man's horse shoes only we used flat rocks to try to throw near or into holes dug into the ground." By the time he was 16, Max was on his own. He worked with the crews which dug the irrigation ditches. His pay was $1.50 per day. Euterpe Taylor's father John Taylor was his boss. A few years later he went to Buckskin, Arizona, to work in the cornfields. Before the corn was ripe, Max was put on guard to shoot the blackbirds out in the fields. In harvest time he harnessed the horses every morning and helped with the picking. "I always came back lo Ignacio when a job ended. After a few years I got a job working at the Agency. Until I met Ellen House, I had not thought of marrying any one. Why get married with no money in my pocket?" Ellen remembers, "Max started sending me boxes of chocolate. Sometimes there would be money in the boxes. We were married in 1925 at the courthouse in Durango. I was born in 1907. My mother Fannie House died in the flu epidemic in 1918 when I was 11 years old. Daisy Eagle is my half sister and I had a brother, Danny, and a sister named July. Both of them died in accidents on horses. Max and I lived in a house near the agency until 1934 when we moved to the farm near La Boca. We lived on the farm 172 �~ "' 'I 'I 'J 'I J 'J ' J l ) ' ) J ) ) where Rose Watts is now. At that time there was an old house on the farm built of posts. Later we bought the land on the hill where we still live. It's good ground up there with a spring nearby." Afte r Max quit the agency, he worked for the D. & R. G . W. Railroad with the crews that cleared the tracks of snow in winter. Since Max was a cook's helper, his job was not too hard. The others had to use their shovels if the snow plow could not remove the drifts. The crews had lots to do at Red Cliff and at Soldier's Summit in Utah. The crews slept in the cars. It was very cold. "In 1955," Ellen says, "we built a new house on our farm. When we were strong, we raised sheep, horses, grain, hay and all of our vegetables. I still have a big garden. In the 1930's many hoboes came up from the railroad tracks and asked for something to eat. I always gave them something. So many people were traveling around then. I think a farm is the best place to live because even when there are not jobs, farmers have work. We sold potatoes to the BIA School and horses to the Navajos. We never liked cows, but we kept goats and made cheese from their milk. We're still on our farm and don't ever want to live anyplace else." ) ) ) The Watts had seven children in all: Colleen, Ed, Lula, Ellenetta, Crystal, Jerry and Eunice. Only Colleen, Crystal and Lula are still living. September, 1977 - Shelby Smith ) ) } ) ) ) ) J j ._) J ..J ..J J J ..J J J -.) ..J J ...) ...) 173 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Shelby Smith Interviews Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource https://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-NC/1.0/?language=en Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1973-1980 Subject The topic of the resource Ignacio; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Collection of biographies, predominantly of residents from the Ignacio Senior Center, based on interviews conducted by Shelby Smith from approximately 1973 to 1980. The abridged interviews were originally published as individual entries in The Thoughtful Years newsletter, published by the Ignacio Senior Center, beginning in 1973. They were later published as a whole in Smith's book: Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley, from which the original scans in this collection have been derived. Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Max Watts and Ellen (House) Watts Biography Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1977-09 Subject The topic of the resource Watts, Max; Watts, Ellen (House) Description An account of the resource Biography of Max Watts and Ellen (House) Watts based on an interview conducted by Shelby Smith. Originally included in the September, 1977 issue of "The Thoughtful Years" newsletter published by the Ignacio Senior Center. Later included in the book "Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley" by Shelby Smith. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Watts, Max; Watts, Ellen (House) Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2 pages Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NKC/1.0/ Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/89af2b9cc2be99b37a7ae6049633fe26.pdf cb0a9de06325d959b2c5f8f5ec1737a0 PDF Text Text MILDRED (Parrott) LEONARD Mildred's maternal grandparents, John and Mary Porterfield, met and were married in Nevada. Mary Dexter was a member of the Washoe Indian Tribe, a people who have lived along the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and nearby desert areas for countless generations. Their child Lillian Porterfield was only 14 years old when Mary died. John sent Lillian to the Indian school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to get a quality education. Lillian excelled at needlework and soon became an expert seamstress. She look a job at the Modoc Indian Agency in northeast California to teach sewing. George Parrott, Mildred's grandfather, was born on a farm in south central Ohio near the small village of South Salem. He learned all the traditional farming skills of the late 1800's at home. George and Lillian's lives intersected when he was hired to teach agriculture at the same Modoc Agency in California. After George and Lillian were married, they moved back to Ohio where Mildred, their only child, was born. Soon enough they were enticed back into teaching at the Indian Agencies. Mildred says, "I think Dad liked to move and experience different parts of the country. We spent a couple of years at Santa Fe with the Pueblo people, next at the Shawnee Agency in Oklahoma, then at Busby, Montana, with the Crow people, and then at Ft. Bidwell, California, with the Modocs. Finally, Dad was sent to Colorado to work with the Southern Ute people. We stayed in Ignacio until 1930 when Dad retired." Mildred attended high school here in Ignacio. She loved playing basketball. The kids had to use the American Legion Hall (localed south of the new library) since the school had no gym. In those days Ignacio had a movie theater, two or three grocery stores, two gas stations and a drug store. These businesses were essential as most people could not go to Durango often. Mildred met and dated Jack Leonard, Virginia Lunsford's brother. They were married when she was very young. The Leonards were an old family in Ignacio. Jack's dad had operated a meat market here for a long time. His mom Edna Leonard taught first grade in Ignacio for many years. Mildred and Jack had three sons, Ted, Bob and Jack. Mildred never worked outside of home. She considered raising three boys a big enough job. When Mildred's husband enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II, he did not expect the assignment he got. Jack had grown up at Fruitland, N. M., where most of his friends were Navajo kids. When the army learned he could speak Navajo well, they assigned him to work with the legendary Code Talkers. What he was doing in the South Pacific was a secret - so much so that Mildred did not know anything about it until some time after the war was ended. Mildred has traveled a lot. One memorable trip happened during World War II when she and Virginia Lunsford, her sister in law, rode the train all the way to Providence, Rhode Island. "We took the narrow gauge train to Alamosa, then changed to the wide gauge. It was a long trip, but enjoyable. Virginia's husband Paul was a Sea Bee, stationed there in Rhode Island. When he got some time off, Paul took us to New York City to see the Statue of Liberty, Staten Island, the Empire State Building and a 100 �"l ~ 'l ,,, ,,, 'l 'l ) l l ) ) J ) -) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) performance at Radio City Music Hall. Before his time in New England, Paul had been in Hawaii helping rebuild Pearl Harbor." After the war ended Mildred moved to Farmington where she lived for 45 years. In 1978 when she and her dad learned about the opening of the second phase of the Southern Ute Senior Apartments, they applied for a two bedroom unit and moved back to Ignacio. She and her dad had a good two years at the senior center before he died. Both of them liked to play cards. The rest of their crowd included Louisa Hartig, Beulah Miller, Gertrude Dunn, Willie Bledsoe and Twila Bright. Mildred recalls, "When Dad got a notion to play cards, he'd say, 'Do you suppose the old biddies will want to come over?' Usually, they did." Mildred has had wonderful trips to Hawaii as well as to Germany and Switzerland to visit her sons who were stationed there. She has traveled to all but six states in the U.S. In 1980 she attended a family reunion at her old home town in Ohio, where she met most of her 18 cousins and many other relatives. Six of them remain today. Two of Mildred's sons have died: Bob in 1993 and Jack in October of 2010. Ted, a retired Army Colonel, and his wife live in Las Vegas, Nevada. "I don't think a person is supposed to outlive their children. It's very hard to lose them, but I have 6 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren to enjoy today. I'll be 94 years old on July 22nd. So far I don't need any medicine except a daily baby aspirin. My friends Jean Patrick, Jean McClanahan and several others still come over to play Liverpool Rummy. We enjoy it a lot." ) March, 2010- Shelby Smith ) ) ) _) _J _J _) J .J __J J _) _) .J J _; ..J ..J ..J ..J 101 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Shelby Smith Interviews Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource https://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-NC/1.0/?language=en Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1973-1980 Subject The topic of the resource Ignacio; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Collection of biographies, predominantly of residents from the Ignacio Senior Center, based on interviews conducted by Shelby Smith from approximately 1973 to 1980. The abridged interviews were originally published as individual entries in The Thoughtful Years newsletter, published by the Ignacio Senior Center, beginning in 1973. They were later published as a whole in Smith's book: Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley, from which the original scans in this collection have been derived. Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mildred (Parrott) Leonard Biography Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2010-03 Subject The topic of the resource Leonard, Mildred (Parrott); Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Biography of Mildred (Parrott) Leonard based on an interview conducted by Shelby Smith in March, 2010. Included in the book "Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley" by Shelby Smith. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Leonard, Mildred (Parrott) Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2 pages Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NKC/1.0/ Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/25d99f8b3b18bc4a91f7517106d26511.pdf f0f2fa1d2290e406eb0a52a3326ada58 PDF Text Text Neil Cloud (Southern Ute Tribal Elder) My name is Neil Buck Cloud; I'm the NAGPRO [Native American Graves Protection] coordinator for the Southern Ute Tribe at the current time. I was born at Towaoc, CO. At that time the Southern Ute Tribe did not have a hospital here [Ignacio]. So all the mothers had to go over to Towaoc to give birth; that's where a hospital was. We didn't have a hospital. A year or two later Taylor Hospital was built; which functions as the Southern Ute Tribal Building. It's an old building. Then, when I was born over there, I came back. We didn't have roads like this. It used to be gravel roads. It was winter and they said they had to deliver me. They walked part of the way, most of the way, through all that snow. Where the current BIA building is, there used to be an old building that was made originally out of wood. And, that burned down with all the tribal records. Finally, they built another one right under it. There's a tree still standing there that you will notice in old pictures. The museum currently has pictures of the Utes standing there. That was the old BIA building. When they built the new BIA building that was in 1940 ... somewhere in that area. And, when I was growing up, I used to play there; I remember that as a boy. We used to play, at that time Billy Rock and I, we used to play in the foundation; that's what I remember. At that time, our fathers were the Southern Ute Tribal Policemen. And, if you look right off north there, the jail is still standing there: the little cement building that you see. If you look north, it's still there. There were houses towards the south; those were the houses where our parents lived. And, there were a few sheds (warehouses) a little bit to the west ofus, southwest. Two buildings I think it was, or three ... huge: we used to all go to there and play. There used to be a whole mess of sheep pelts in there. During that time the tribe had sheep (we owned the sheep). Also, during that time, individual families had sheep and there was a Southern Ute Sheep Association, also, which we owned together. Every spring we used to take them up to Williams Creek and north ofVallecito Dam in that National Forest area. We had trouble with bears, and we had to have a quota [of sheep] for the National Fore st. We had to purchase 30,000 more. So, I don't know how many total we had, because there were several families. But, over the following ears, we kept saying that bears killed our sheep. Finally it added up and we had bucks. I guess they got old also, because they died. We had, I don't know 50 or 100 head of bucks, and we kept them separate. Well, that's my experience. During the time when I heard these stories, the Indians were still riding horses at that time. Well, there was a store there next to that office that burned down; where the Ute Park entrance is today. A little south of there was a warehouse. The Indian agents used to say that Hans Aspas was the one who had it, or one of them. And, over a period oftime (when he was in charge), the way the story goes, he used to get the wagons that were given to us by the United States Government. Over that period he accumulated a lot of money. And, that's how Ignacio became the little city of Ignacio. That part is just hearsay, you see. I just heard it and didn't see it for myself I just heard the people talk about it. �Page 2 of9 One thing is very important according to the story of how Ignacio was built. First, it was supposed to have been built in Tiffany, CO; which is about 15 miles southeast oflgnacio. And, something happened over there and they moved it to this area: the Pine River area. Well, there's a slaughterhouse where the Town is supposed to be, over the hill. I've been there, there's a lot of debris. The first one (I forget the Spanish guy's name), he was the very first guy to build a saloon. The pieces of wood that you find are part of the foundation of that saloon. And then, during that time, something happened. They moved to where the current Ignacio is, and he had to move his saloon back down. That's why there are pieces of debris there; I've been there. I don't know what condition it's in now. If you walk on over, there's a creek there. If you walk along, there's still trash from that period. There's a big question about that: how Ignacio came about and why they moved it. I never knew, never was told. That's why I say it is hearsay ... I wasn't really involved. It happened before my time, way before my time, about the time when the allotments were being created. But, I did see the Utes riding their horses right in front of that big building that they call the Legion Hall. Right across the corner from there was a drugstore, as I remember. And, I remember the druggist's name: it was Britt, and I remember that because he sold ice cream. Us little guys used to go get ice cream there. Every time we went to town that was the first place we went to. And, right across it was the Legion Hall; it's still standing today. That's where the Spanish people put on dances. That was the only big building and that's where they used to have dances (right next to the police station, where the hitching post was). That's where the Utes used to tie their horses and their wagons. There used to e a whole bunch of them where the station is today. Also, the Ignacio High School was built where the grade school is. It was a tall building: two stories. That's where the Anglo kids went to school and some of the Ute kids went there, too. I went to this one here (we had an Indian school, also). The boarding school. .. during the early days we lived so far from the school that we were all scattered all throughout this reservation. We didn't have no buses during those days. Some of them had to ride horseback when they went to school. Some of the Utes went to school over towards Mesa Mountains; which is about a good 10 or 15 miles from here. There was another country school over there. Some of them had to suffer every winter riding horses to get to school. And, there's another Indian school up over northeast from here, about 15 miles out. But, there's a little country school. .. some of those people went to that one. It was muddy and they had a rough time being out in the country. That's why the Bureau of Indian Affairs built this Indian school. According to my dad, who went to school here, this boarding school was ... I still remember it; it was functioning a few years back. But, they built an additional part to it and it got bigger. Whereas the old one was funny looking: narrow and long. It was divided: one side was the girls' section and the other side was for the boys. There was a sign there, when it was built, and I remember seeing it. I believe it said, '1889'; that's when my dad went to school, when he was a little guy. They said his dad came and got home and never told them he was putting him in school. According to his story, he just thought he was going for a ride with his dad and he was happy. But, he left him at that boarding school and he cried. When he was over �Page 3 of9 there, I guess he cried so much that when one of the girls got him, they calmed him down and took care of him. He was the littlest one there. That's the way he was healthy about telling that story; I remember that part. 'My dad did me wrong by not telling me,' he'd say. 'I'm still mad at my dad (which was Edwin Cloud).' I remember him [Edwin Cloud], too, vaguely. He had braids, but I really didn't know him too well. They just pointed him out and said that's my grandfather. That's how I knew him. But, I never did know him too well, because he lived down by Spring Creek and I lived where my mother lived ( down three miles south oflgnacio). My mother's maiden name was Buck: Molly Buck. My grandmother was married to Antonio Buck, Sr.; he was the son of Charlie Buck. Actually, 'Buckskin Charlie' was not his real name. His real name was Charlie Buck. That's where the misconception comes out. Not very many people know his real name. 'Charlie Buck' would have been his name in the Census, if there were any when he was born. That was way before the creation of this reservation. Well, he used to live in Colorado Springs. That's where most of the pictures came out of; they were taken over there. But, he was moved here. Some of the Utes didn't have no birth certificates, because they were born at home. While he was growing up, he also served as a scout with the Fourth Cavalry. The cavalry, the soldiers had to keep the Utes in the interior of the reservation, to isolate them (so the Government said). He did serve with the Fourth Cavalry. (I don't know where they were stationed). As a scout, I guess he used to kill deer for the soldiers to eat. He'd butcher them and skin them; he'd save the hide, and right then he'd start tanning it. When the soldiers saw him that's how his name was created: the soldiers called him 'Buckskin' and used his first name as his last name. I guess he liked his nickname. Being a scout is king of a prestige position, important. He felt he was an important guy, so he kept the name. I don't know how many years he served with the soldiers, and that's how he became 'Buckskin Charlie.' Only we family members knew his real name: Charlie Buck. The Tribal Council, for a while, continued to claim that the family of Charlie all died off But, there are still a lot of them living. They even have a newspaper clipping telling about his commission in the Fourth Cavalry. Now that's not the Fort Lewis ... I don't know if that's the same bunch. With the creation of the reservation we were moved so many times. When my grandfather was living in Colorado Springs there was still a spring over there. The Garden of the Gods: that's where they lived. He roamed the whole eastern Rockies, all the way up to Boulder. He was there when the first covered wagons came across the prairie. What they call west of Boulder, these big rocks, high hills, it's called ... they called them ... I'm mixed up about them. Well, there's a Ute trail up there. It's a high place and that's where he was watching the first covered wagons coming across the prairie. He had never seen anything like that, so he waited for it ... a whole bunch of Utes waited for it. At that time, looking east you could see way out across the prairie: 80 miles ... 100 miles out, I guess, from that high point. So, they waited all day. Finally, it came to the foothills where the Colorado University is. And, they came down to meet them (they were curious to meet them, I guess). While he was there he met the wagon master and told the wagon master ... he said (well, I guess through sign language), �Page 4 of9 'these things [wagon wheels] aren't going to make it through those steep hills (which were mostly horse trails).' Some were almost 45 degrees steep. He told the wagon master, he said, 'this is the end of your trip, your travels. Your wagons will never make it over the hill.' 'You might as well plan on staying here,' he told them. 'Make your home here and we'll protect you from the enemies that come around.' There were Sioux to the north, Arapahoe and other tribes that claim that that's their homeland. They could stay on one condition: he told the wagon master, 'if you're going to stay here you have to build a house of wisdom (is what they called it).' I wrote a composition about what I heard. So, that was the beginning. The 'house of wisdom' later became the University of Colorado. So that's why it's there; it was that mutual agreement during that first encounter. That was Charlie Buck in that area. Let's see ... Denver was being built at that time. And, during that time there was that militia, Colorado Militia, which was in authority. While Denver was already being built there was another little town southeast of Colorado called Centennial. All that San Luis Valley was nothing but creeks and was home to the beaver. And there was a trapper, a Canadian trapper I think, that came into that area. All that San Luis Valley clear up to Nebraska (the Platte River) was the home of the beaver. Also, according to his [Charlie Buck's] description looking east, that whole valley was just black specks. The way he described those black specks was they looked like the flies in the fall time. Those were the buffalo, as far as he could see. I remember that description. That's how he described it. In the wintertime, when it gets cold, the flies have a tendency to come into your home and land on your wall so that it's dark ... that's the way he described it. Also, according to that picture, Centennial was a small town. Well, during that same period the Colorado Militia was out. The Colorado Militia was sponsored by the City of Denver. They were, I believe ... according to the story, separate. And, they were the ones that created the massacres in that area. Of course, in that movie it depicts that other guy, and they try to decommission the one that was supposed to be in charge. So, there was a friction there. But, according to the story, later they add the one that was authorized to be the commander in San Luis Valley had a fight with the Colorado Militia commander. So, he was chased out of that country, because he killed people in cold blood. They saw that happen right in the streets of Denver. When a wanted Indian was walking in the streets, he shot him in the back. That was the turning point: the pioneers didn't like the style of his torture. When the man was trying to turn himself in and he just shot him in the back, is how he confronted him. Well, what brought it out was in Cripple Creek they found a lot of gold. First, that was where our reservation was big, and they discovered the gold in Cripple Creek. Well, they said, 'move the savages out West.' So, we were rounded up and we were moved. Our first agency was built down in Albuquerque, New Mexico. There were Spaniards in that Santa Fe area, also the Pueblos were too close. And, the Utes being hunters and picking berries didn't fell good being cooped up in a tight place. There was all that friction: the Pueblos were having trouble with the Spanish, too. A lot of things were happening down in New Mexico. The Utes didn't like it, and I guess we were moved to La Vida, back to La Vida. Well, we were there around Trinidad; there're Ute names in that area. I guess when we was there we were moved again, to Pagosa. Well, we were supposed to become farmers and self-supporting. �Page 5 of 9 Okay, Pagosa Springs is a high-altitude little town. That's when the Fort Lewis was built there, the first Fort Lewis. I believe the Fourth Cavalry, and maybe the Eighth too, that bunch ... Later I heard the Buffalo Soldiers were attached there, too. When we were there we complained to the government that we cannot grow food. Vegetables would rot. Besides, it was too cold for the vegetables. So, we were moved to this area where the Pine River is. Well, I've got to go back. When we was in the La Vida area, there was a river called 'Los Pines', which is still there today on the map. Okay, when we were moved from Pagosa to here, this Pine River Valley, it was called 'Los Pines.' So, today we have two Los Pines Rivers. That Spanish name followed us here; I don't know how that happened. It followed the Utes. So, today this Pine River Valley is known as the Los Pines River, but some ofus prefer to call it Pine River. Well, that's when the creation oflgnacio happened, because where I live (three miles north oflgnacio) there's that Spanish trail; it goes across my field. From Santa Fe all the way up, it goes across Ignacio Peak right there (that's where we call Cedar Ridge). I think it follows the railroad tracks here ... the D. & R.G. [Durango & Rio Grande0 that used to run through Ignacio (it runs quite a ways close to Oxford). It goes straight west, all the way to Weasel Skin Bridge. That's where the Spanish trail went. And then, from over there (the Weasel Skin Bridge is located on the Animas River), on the west side of the river it goes straight north; right where the Southern Utes are building the A-LP [Animas-La Plata Project]. Well, right where that [Home] Depot is ... the new store ... that Wal-Mart ... right south of there, there was a highway, and on the left side was a big rock as a marker for the Spanish trail. It went west, northwest, right where the A-LP is being built. And, it goes all the way west. Somewhere east of there it goes toward Delta, and then one goes south towards Towaoc. That's the way the Spanish trail went: it goes all the way up north to Grand Junction. And, as I was saying, there was a third route that cut west, a short cut they called it. The one that goes through Palisade, that was the short cut to the one that went to the gold fields of California. This one over here by Mancos Creek, we called it 'Target Tree' in the Ute language; that's what it translates to. There was only one tree. But, the way the elders came up with that they called it 'Target Tree.' So, that's what it's called today. Well, actually, when the Utes came through they always shot that tree. So, during that time it had a lot of arrows stuck up in it. When the Spanish words came to this area, the Ute language got mixed up with the Spanish. Like 'caba' and caballo,' and some other names. So, what we're speaking here is not Ute: it's colloquial, mixed, a hybrid language. We lost our language a long time ago. There's a bunch ofUtes up near Ouray that still speak the original Ute language. Eddie Box, he's still alive today, he knows some of that ... the old words. There are different words for the same things. There are a few here who are still alive. Clifford Eagle is another one that I know who might know some of those original Ute words. The ones over there at Ute Mountain have more speakers. But, the language has changed; the Ute language has changed its color. Today, according to the young generation (I listen to the radio, the Ute word of the week), parents don't teach their kids the correct way. I was involved with the language. The real Ute language is spoken softly. The suffix in a word is the tricky one. These words sound alike, but the suffix changes. So, when you hear that word you have to be careful with the tail: there's a little sound added to it. �Page 6 of9 *** My father's name was Julius Nash Cloud. He spent most of his time at this Indian school. And, this school during that time only went up to the sixth grade. So, he stayed here year-round, I believe, until he got to the sixth grade. From there he had to go to seventh grade, but there was no seventh grade school nearby. The only place there was a seventh grade was in Santa Fe: Santa Fe Indian School, and that's where he was transferred. So, during the early years he was so far away he had to ride a horse to come back. It wasn't as easy as today, when you can drive a few hours to get down there. But, during that time it took weeks, maybe, just to go the one direction. Well, he stayed there all the years. During the summer, when he didn't have school, they used to take him to the San Luis Valley to make spending money. Over there they used to pick beets. When he was there, that's when World War I broke out. So, during that time he was at the right age to get drafted ... he got drafted into the Army. He never cam home: he was too far away. But, the government made it a point for him to come home. I guess they had the automobile then. But, the government had him come back and say good-bye to his family. I guess he came back for a week, just to see his morn and dad because he was going. He went overseas. That's the part I translated for him, because the Ute Museum has a story on him. I didn't know what he experienced. I read what he wrote. Some of the things that he described weren't really the way he described them in his report. The real thing was that the feelings of the soldiers ... the farmer that he was with, the Anglo farmers, because he was drafted they were all bunched together and they had never been outside of the United States. It was the first time they had ever been in the East. And, they had that funny feeling about being moved over the ocean. They never saw an ocean that big before. Some of them cried and some of them didn't want to go. They were scared: they didn't know where they were going, nobody ever told them where they were going. They were just being herded onto that big ship, like cattle. Maybe, according to his story, it would have been all right if they were told. But, there was a vague idea there was a war going on with Germany, and a lot of them didn't know where Germany was, either. That's the way the soldiers were. That's why they were crying for their families. That's not the way it is today, because we have a lot of tourists. We go touring around the country, to see the country. In the early days it was so hard to travel, so we had to stay within our home area, within a three-mile radius, or five mile or ten mile radius of our homes. Durango was 20 miles away and that was kind of difficult, but the D. & R.G. (that little train that came through here) took some of the people to Durango. It also went all the way around to Alamosa. That was a big help to the families: the train. Yeah, I rode on it too, by the way. It was kind of a smooth ride, but all you could hear was the sound of the wheels: the clink-clink. Kind of neat ... it was better than riding on a wagon: all that rough riding. The train was real smooth, but all you could hear was the wheels all the way to Durango. The clink-clink and then the whistle: that's what I experienced. *** I finished here ... that's when it was called the Ute Vocational School. It was like home to me, because that's where I got adapted to that life. Yes, I did graduate from there. There were Navajos here, also. There was a day school for the parents, and then during that time there was a school bus. Some of those buses would come everyday to the school, but some ofus we stayed there. There were no school buses that went into the areas where some ofus lived. Not like today: now we've got a whole mess of school buses down in Ignacio. There were other kids, �Page 7 of9 Anglo kids, who were in the same fix. They had to come the hard way: they'd walk or they rode a horse in. Some of the lucky ones, if they could drive, had their parents bring them in everyday. It was the same for us up here: the buses brought some of us and dropped us off at the school, and some ofus had to stay; which was easy, because we didn't have to put up with those kinds of hardships. So, I just adapted to it, and that's why I say that it was my home. I got used to the routine. Well, I don't know, it wasn't cruel like what I've been hearing on the news with the other Indian schools in the United States that were really rough. The kids were roughly treated. That must have been before my time. Yes, we were disciplined. The best part of growing up is being disciplined if you can't behave, because there are rules to follow. As ling as you follow those rules, though, you're all right. Well, when I went to the service I had a piece of cake in the service. I went in '55; I was drafted into the Navy. Well, I was in Boulder during that time. I got six deferments. At first it was a police action [in Korea], but then the United States never declared war. During that period they never declared war officially ... not like in World War II. World War II was when I was over here and kids were disappearing. But, I didn't know there was a war with Japan; that's where they were going. And, a lot of the Navajo kids that were here were orphans. During World War II we had to go through their trunks. The matron was here; that's who signed as their parents. So all their belongings, when they got killed in the South Pacific, came back here. Greg Pinto was one that I remember; he was one of the big boys. Greg Pinto and several others never made it back. He was killed overseas and the only thing that came back was his trunk. But, I didn't understand those things really too well: why they [the trunks] were all coming back. That was during World War II. But, the United States declared war on Japan right after December 7th; that was official. That's how I perceived it: the United States didn't declare war on another country [Korea]. There was no chance for us to go over there and fight, because we had no alibi to shoot somebody. That's the way some ofus perceived it. I got on the U.S.S. Conway (aircraft carrier): Seventh Fleet, 10477. That aircraft carrier was a ship that never traveled alone. We had the whole Seventh Fleet, a whole armada; which was like a big city on the sea. We made it as far as the tip of South America going overseas. We got there on Christmas Day until finally we got the dispatch. Then, we had to go to the Philippines. So, we did an about-face. Well, I didn't exactly stay two years like I was supposed to. I came out after 18 months, because the government said we could be dismissed early. Well, I wasn't officially out: I had to be in the Reserves. I am classified A-1, which means I can still be called back. So, even today, I guess if they need me, I could still get in ... in case of an emergency_ I have a friend ... a colonel (retired), and that's what happened to him. That's how I know that the United States government is calling people back. Well, ifwe don't have to go through all that boot camp, then those ofus who are in good physical condition can still go back. According to our aptitude tests those who are up there have to train the others. �Page 8 of9 Well, with most ofus draftees (I was with a Texas Company), most ofus came out of colleges. When we got into the regular Navy, the career sailors just hated our guts. They felt like killing us, because we got in there and took that aptitude test for rank. For most of us we passed it: it was a piece of cake for us, and that was they reason they didn't like us. They wanted us out. Whereas, they had spent 16 years trying to make that same grade over and over. That was the friction. Then, the government says if we re-enlist we'd be given so much rank, be given so much money. It was on some of our minds. But, we would have never survived due to the condition, because that was how they felt [the career sailors]. We didn't want to stay. We'd rather come back home. Those ofus in college could make a living back here, not in the military. Besides, we weren't even at war. Now, that deal with the Marxists in the 60s, I didn't understand that too well in the beginning. The draft-dodgers were right. I came to my senses. If you get drafted, you have to go or spend five years in the penitentiary; which is better than feeling guilty. There was no declaration of war behind your back. We had no justification. If the United States had declared open war on another country, then we'd be justifiable ... have a justifiable condition to back it up. There was no justification for it, and a lot of them got killed for nothing. When I went in I didn't have no insurance, either. If you died at sea, which was supposed to be hazardous duty, you got extra money. I didn't get my G.I. Bill, either. A lot of us didn't get it. We were just there, and when some ofus got out we didn't have no insurance. Nothing ... not even a G.I. Bill. Today you've got to be crippled 30% to get any compensation. But even that much you can't get anything. The Agent Orange guys are creating big hospital bills, the kids are coming out deformed, and the government won't do anything for them ... giving them the run-around. The military is fine all right. The Navajos, the code-talkers, make it sound like it was a violent situation during World War II. But, there was a justification for that: the United States declared war on Japan. Whereas in our situation, there wasn't. So, why? And, besides, we were drafted; we didn't volunteer. That was the first time the Navy ever drafted. We still had to serve our six years. I finally got my discharge in 1961. Well, you have to be pretty tough to get up there on the aircraft carrier. I was in the S-1 Division, which was the backbone of the whole Fleet. I can go anywhere: Dispersement, Personnel. .. I was in the electronics part of it. The ones that really go through strict training are the submarine guys, because they have to know what to do. Well, we were trained the same way. We used to operate almost all the anti-aircraft guns. We had the '58-Dutch' anti-aircraft. I kind ofliked to operate that: the '58-Dutch.' Well, we had the regular anti-aircraft, too. It's funny .. .ifthe man on the radar got shot, we just filled in. That's the way it was. For loading, if one of the men went down, we just switched over and took his place ... until we all got wiped out [laughs]. Well, it was teamwork. I didn't have to be taught all that stuff over again, because I already learned it in the boarding school. I already knew how to wash my clothes. That's why I say it was a piece of cake. If one ofus messed up, we all got punished together. In the Navy, ifwe got punished, we had to go march at two o'clock in the morning all the way up to reveille. By that time we were so sleepy. Then, we were taught in a classroom with a screen, a projector; that's how they lectured us. Well, I tell people, for eight weeks I was a 'dumb Indian,' an 'idiot,' and some other �Page 9of9 Afto..- ts ~rarlna+1·on 1 bu"d "'"ill"'" On+ +l-..,+ nrnc, vvu~ O" 1v .p,....,. 1· ah+ nr.c>olrs uu 1., a11+l-.at r>hang d that'" nrhat vv tell these people. I'm not hot0headed ... I can take it (I took a lot of them). J.J_U, J. \..I~ • .J..IU.L, l,UJU,l, J.J.J.J .l.VJ. 0 V b 1-L VVVVJ."-- • LVJ. L J_ l,J..l. \..IJ..l J.J. 0 V .•• J_ ~ I experienced the military and the boarding school, but that other stuff about Ignacio is just hearsay; I didn't experience it myself People talked about it and I listened to them. Of course, when I was a little guy I didn't listen. I didn't think it was really important. But today, I would k11ow ifl had listened. I didn't do what I was supposed to ... I feel guilty. I though all the people I k11ew and saw were all still going to be alive, forever. That's the way I perceived it. All the people that I had contact with, I thought they were going to be around forever. I thought everything was going to be the same. Come to find out, they're gone. *** Interviewed by Michael G. Miller, VISTA worker, on January 30th, 2004. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael Miller Interviews Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/ Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2003-2004 Subject The topic of the resource Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Collection of twelve biographies written by VISTA worker Michael G. Miller of prominent people in the Ignacio community. Based on interviews conducted by Miller between December 9, 2003 and March 15, 2004. Some contain the additional attribution "for the Ignacio Historical Society." Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Miller, Michael G. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Neil Cloud Biography Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2004-01-30 Subject The topic of the resource Cloud, Neil; Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Biography of Neil Cloud written by VISTA worker Michael Miller and based on an interview conducted by Miller on January 30, 2004. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cloud, Neil Extent The size or duration of the resource. 9 pages https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/0dc8afd160dffc52b9f06aaea4c55faa.pdf 2ea2d30c4a13d884c0044fe3e9132a71 PDF Text Text NELSON & ENOLA (Hansen) MACKEY Ten year old Nelson and his family had bedded down for the night. Their covered wagon was parked beside the trail, its huge wheels braced with rocks on the sloping meadow. The hobbled team was silent. Soft snores came from the tents. Unknown to the family, large flakes of snow had begun to fall. Suddenly, the silence of night was broken by the drumming of hoofs and the clatter of wagon wheels on the rocky mountain trail. A voice out of the night shouted, "Wake up! Wake up! It'll all fall at once. Get off the pass!" The family came alive. By the time cooking utensils and camping gear were thrown into the wagon and the team hitched, several inches of snow had settled on the ground. Though the crest of the pass was only a few hundred yards up the trail, the snow was slick on the rocks and the high altitude made the horses heave for breath. Desperate slow progress was made until one of the young boys, leaning over the right front side of the wagon seat, lost his balance and fell to the ground in front of the wagon wheel, forcing the wagon to stop. Once stopped, Mr. Mackey never moved it again. The sharp crest of the pass was only 40 yards away, but the horses were winded and could do no more. Nelson's father unhitched one of the horses and rode off into the night. Mrs. Mackey and the children gathered rocks as a base for a fire in the wagon and closed the flaps. By mid-morning of the next day, Mr. Mackey and some loggers he found down the mountainside, returned with two teams with bob-sleds. The family unloaded all they could and traveled 30 miles down the pass to the small town of Crooked River, Oregon, where they spent the rest of the winter. Nelson Hamilton Mackey was born in Texas on August 7, 1898. Most Americans have a desire to see new horizons, but Nelson's father had it strong. "He never spent more than one winter in any one place until he was too old to travel anymore," Nelson recalls. Because of the travel Nelson never spent much time in grammar school, but he learned a good deal from his travels. Besides he's been to college, "I went in the front door of one and out the back one day. That was enough for me." When the Mackeys did settle down, they chose the Animas Valley two and a half miles north of Aztec. Nelson went to work for the Pointer and Baldwin Cattle Co. as a cow puncher. Grazing land for the herd was the reservation land in the region of Charcoal Canyon (Chaco Canyon) 70 miles south of Farmington. Before long Nelson was foreman of the outfit and took pride in the rough and ready way of life of the range. One Christmas, Mr. Pointer, Nelson and several other hands went to Farmington for the holidays. Early Christmas morning Nelson's group was pretty well bored and decided to rouse up the town. Their plan included a race down main street with pistols firing, a circle of the Post Office and the Bank and a grand escape across the Bloomfield Bridge into the country. According to Nelson, "it was working fine. We ripped down main, shooting up the town, circled the Post Office and Bank and were off. Every man, woman and child was out in the streets yelling that the Post Office had been robbed." As Nelson went galloping around a corned behind several of the other hands, his horse slipped and threw him. "I slid on one side of my face clear to the other side of the street. Before I could pull myself up Charlie Lewis, the Marshall, had me by the back of the neck and was saying, 'I've got one of em anyway.' Just then, Mr. Pointer came galloping up from another direction and yelled, 'Turn him loose, we just about had them till he fell.' The other hands rode like heck for the river and hid out. The Marshall swallowed our tale. If he had ever found out about our part in it he'd have killed us.'' 106 �When World War I started all of Nelson's cowpunchers were drafted in one day. Nelson was exempted to manage the herd. He was left almost alone with a large herd in an empty land. Mr. Pointer finally brought 12 Navajo boys 10-14 years of age to help him move the cattle. "We managed," Nelson said, "but I told Baldwin if we ever have another war, they aren't going to exempt me. I'd rather go to war." In 1923 an argument among Nelson and some of his buddies resulted In an unexpected and wonderful trip. One of his friends was reading Zane Gray's novel The Riders of the Purple Sage. In it Zane tells about a Mormon settlement in the Grand Canyon and described the geography and unusual features of that area. Nelson and his buddies got into a hot argument about whether the setting of the story was real or not. The dispute got so heated that the whole bunch packed their bed rolls and cooking. gear and set out for the Grand Canyon to see for themselves. Except for the time Nelson and his horse fell down a bluff into the San Juan River and lost all his gear, the trip was a great adventure. "We found everything we went to see" Nelson said. ) ) J ) J _) J J _) _J J _) ._J J ._J ._J .J ...J .J ...) In the summer of 1923 when Nelson was 25, his father told him about a pretty little longhaired girl living on the next place. "He knew I was shy, but I went up to my Dad's place soon after that and my sisters made me acquainted with Enola Hansen. She was 17 years old and pretty. Her hair was all pinned up. I wanted to see how long it was so I pulled a few pins out and took it down. Then I decided I'd kiss her once before she went home. I was shy before that, but I got over it when I met that girl. When her folks heard she had been over here with a wild cowboy, they put a quick stop to that." From then on, Enola and Nelson had to take what chances they could to see each other. The next summer when Enola was 18 Nelson told Mr. Hansen he'd like to marry Enola. Mr. Hansen thought about it a minute and replied, "I don't know what good it would do you kids to get married." One of Enola's sisters replied, "What good did it do you and mama to get married?" He didn't have any answer to that, so Nelson and Enola took the chance, went to Aztec and got married. Shortly afterwards they moved to Arizona for a year. One character they met there, they'll never forget. Coming home one day they found an outlaw in their house. His name was Cotton James (the Cotton came from his pale blond hair). Mr. James said, "I reckon I'll stay here a while." Nelson replied, "I don't see why we can't get along together." The reason Cotton wanted to stay was simple. He had a severe gunshot wound in his upper chest and was treating himself. His unorthodox method of treatment included pouring hot vinegar into the wound and drinking vinegar with sugar. "He cured himself, too," Enola recalls. Nelson never expected to be put in jail for marrying Enola, but it very nearly happened a short time after Cotton came to live with them. Apparently, since Enola was very small and could have passed for younger than her 18 years, someone started the rumor that Nelson was living unmarried with a 12 year old girl. The marshal! pounded on the door1 accused Nelson of living with a minor and was proceeding to arrest him. Cotton stuck a shotgun out a window in the Marshall's face and told him, "I'm sending Mrs. Mackey out with her marriage license. You read it and read it good and then get yourself off this place quick.'' The Marshall did as he was told and appeared very happy to leave . When the Mackeys moved back to the San Juan Valley, autos were beginning to appear in the area. There probably weren't more than 2-3 cars In Aztec at the time, but the town marshal! had put up a 15 mph speed limit sign at each end of town. Nelson was driving his team with a wagon the first time he saw the sign. Immediately he 10 7 �whipped his horses up and whipped them all the way through town, scattering people right and left. The marshal! on his little motorcycle came put-putting after him and stopped Nelson at the other edge of town. After a good cussing, the he asked what was the big idea of racing through town. Nelson replied that he had seen the new speed limit posted and was just trying to make it. The first cussing he got was nothing compared to the one he got then. The Mackeys lived on Yellow Jacket Hill a while, them moved to Spring Creek, then settled on Middle Mesa south of Allison. It was wild country down there in 1935. No road existed. Nelson cut his own road up the mesa. They ran cattle, made hay and raised a little grain on dry land. There was one poor road to Tiffany. Most of their shopping was done with Frank Leonard in Ignacio or with Morris Levy at the store in Tiffany. Occasionally, Nelson and Enola would catch the train at Tiffany for some shopping in Durango. Five children were born to the Mackeys. Allis Enola, 1925, Rose V. 1929; Nelson Pinkie, 1932; Janie Pearl, 1934 (Janie is now deceased); and Jack Melvin, 1937. Living in so isolated a place as Middle Mesa was in those days made the children very shy. "Whenever anyone would ride up, which happened only rarely, the kids would run for the hill above the house and stay there until the strangers were gone." The kids were put to work clearing the land with a grubbing hoe. Nelson followed with the team and chains for the larger shrubs and trees. As each child reached 18, Nelson offered them 40 acres or $40.00. They always took the 40 acres. In 1949 Drummond Proctor, a car salesman, told Nelson it was time for him to trade for a car. Drummond knew that Nelson had never driven a car in his life, but he said "You take your buggy on home and send Pinkie over in a few days. I'll teach him how to drive and he can bring the car home and teach you". The deal was made. Pinkie got his lessons and headed home. The only problem was the road. It was suitable for buggy wheels. The car high centered on a rock. The pan was knocked off and the engine burned up before the car ever got home. Nelson worked for the Trask Lumber Company for five years. The good income was very attractive, but once Middle Mesa became home neither Enola nor Nelson could stay away from it very long. June 21, 1974 was the Mackey's 50th Wedding Anniversary. It is apparent their long years together have not dimmed their affection for one another. "Mister has always liked to kiss the girls, but I never get jealous," Enola says with a smile. What she clearly knows is that no other "girl" will ever catch his eye quite like the little long-haired girl he met at Riverside in the summer of '23; May they both have all the happiness and good memories which 50 years of loyalty and child rearing and hard work can bring. June, 1974 - Shelby Smith 108 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Shelby Smith Interviews Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource https://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-NC/1.0/?language=en Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1973-1980 Subject The topic of the resource Ignacio; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Collection of biographies, predominantly of residents from the Ignacio Senior Center, based on interviews conducted by Shelby Smith from approximately 1973 to 1980. The abridged interviews were originally published as individual entries in The Thoughtful Years newsletter, published by the Ignacio Senior Center, beginning in 1973. They were later published as a whole in Smith's book: Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley, from which the original scans in this collection have been derived. Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Nelson Mackey and Enola (Hansen) Mackey Biography Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1974-06 Subject The topic of the resource Mackey, Nelson; Mackey, Enola (Hansen) Description An account of the resource Biography of Nelson Mackey and Enola (Hansen) Mackey based on an interview conducted by Shelby Smith. Originally included in the June, 1974 issue of "The Thoughtful Years" newsletter published by the Ignacio Senior Center. Later included in the book "Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley" by Shelby Smith. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mackey, Nelson; Mackey, Enola (Hansen) Extent The size or duration of the resource. 3 pages Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NKC/1.0/ Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/17b9951c6baea3ec76b0d39f5df501c7.pdf 6566efc2482fbcb0af3ca79806db3541 PDF Text Text ------ - - - - - - Norman C. Wright (Abridged) I was born in Red Wing, CO, probably southwest of Pueblo 35 miles. I was born there and stayed there until 1937; I was born in 1915. I grew up right around Rye, CO and Rattlesnake Buttes (that's well-named, because there were a lot of rattlesnakes there). My dad homesteaded. He must have homesteaded about 1910. At that time he was a forest ranger. I started school in Rattlesnake Buttes. We left Rattlesnake Buttes and went to Avondale, CO when I was a seventh grader, and we stayed there for five years. Then we went back to Rye, CO. We left Rye in the fall of 1937. My cousin and I came across here on horseback; we drove a bunch of horses. We were raising draft horses, at that time, and were selling teams of horses. My cousin Ralph Brier and I, we were over that pass ... what's the name of that pass? Anyway, the first day we got into the horse trade and traded until we were broke. We stopped and slept in a haystack that night, in Gardner, CO. The next day we went over Musket Pass. We probably had 40 head of horses: colts, mares, and broken horses, saddle horses We came over right above the sand dunes in the San Luis Valley. We stayed there the third night at a ranch, came on through to Alamosa, and stayed the fourth night in Alamosa. Then, one day, my dad started and brought seven milk cows alone to drive with the horses. I just blew my stack Well, the cows went dry on the way over here. We were going to this place over here on the Florida River; it was called the CJ Bar Ranch at that time. We stayed there, let's see, about five years. Then we went back to Pagosa, and I stayed there 18 years. I came down here 46 years ago this fall [2004]. That's all my time. I was all breaking horses, and I never had a tractor until I was 25 years old. They never had any. Tractors didn't come out until after World War II. I bought two little tractors; I thought I would get two. And, I thought it would take them what a horse could do, but they did what four horses could do. So it will be 46 years since I came here this November and I've been here ever since. I bought this place here in 1960 (I had leased it). I have this territory: about 800 acres ... lots of walking, lots of irrigating. I had registered cattle here, registered Herefords. I stayed in that and I had some good bulls, but then the exotic bulls started coming in, the foreign bulls, and we couldn't compete against them. Now we cross breed them [Herefords] with black cattle, and that's a disgrace to me but you have to do it. That's what the people, as well as what the feedlots want. My father was John Washington Wright, and he was born and raised in Wentmore, CO. My mother's maiden name was Ethel Lois Churchill. (My middle name is Churchill, and I am a fourth cousin of Winston Churchill.) She was raised in Wisconsin. She came to Colorado and got her degree to teach at the teachers' school in Wentmore; where she and my dad met. My father was a forest ranger, then he homesteaded a place southeast of Walsenburg out in the dry land around Rattlesnake Buttes. It seemed like I was there forever. But, it was well named: lots of rattlesnakes. We lost three wean-er colts (suckling colts). They are quite inquisitive and they see something. An old horse knows the buzzing of that tail, the rattling, like a person and it will just scare you to death. But the colts, they don't know yet, they're real inquisitive and they'll go sniffing around. Killed three of them. �Page 2 of 4 I have been in the cattle business all my life. I tried shearing sheep here on this place once, but coyotes ... coyotes and dogs. So, one year I got rid of them [the sheep] and got my cattle back. We had a permit, east of Bayfield, for about 1,200 acres. We had 226 head of horse, and I sold that ranch. I sold it because I was hard up: couldn't make ends meet. It wasn't much. You couldn't raise a calf for what you'd get out of it. So, I stayed here and had a chance to sell that place up there for a crazy number: a million and a half [dollars]. That seems crazy, don't it? That was in ... right recently ... about 1998, something like that. I was able to pay back some old debts, but I still wanted to raise cattle. I gave half of the ranch to my youngest son, and this half I've kept after and I will give over to my two grandsons (they're both grown men, now). I also have a great-grandson. Four generations on this ranch, the Wright Ranch. It's still known as the Spanish Forks Ranch, because that's what it was when I bought it. The name came from a man that lived in Spanish Forks, Utah. He loaned money on this place some way or another and foreclosed on it. So, he called it the Spanish Forks Ranch and that was in the 1920s. I have two sons. I had a daughter, but she passed away. My oldest son lives in New Mexico, just on the other side of the line. And, Wayne, my other son, lives here. My oldest son has been more into construction. He's living down here, and he had a heart attack about four years ago. He's getting old too, you know. I'll be 89 this fall, and I feel like a kid. I can't walk; I get to where my legs give out. You've got to have a good spirit. It's kept me going from the times when I thought I was going to lose everything. I believe in the Lord, and I trust in the Lord to see me out just as he saw me in. My mother was a Baptist. My father was a Presbyterian. So, I'm a Baptist now, and there're a lot of differences among Baptists. In 1939, I married and went on my own. But, in 1942 I lost her (she passed away), so I went back home in Pagosa for two or three years. Then, I married a girl and we lived together until she passed away. Then, I met this gal and we've lived together for the past ten years, almost eleven. She's my third wife. Third time's a charm. But, I had to get married both times ... I sold mostly wean-er stock. I sold the weaning calves off of the cows, generally. Somebody else put them in a feedlot. My cattle always did good in the feedlot. I went for the stretch-ier type of beef, rougher type cattle. My dad was more of a smooth, pretty yellow [cattle] feller. But, I thought a Hereford was supposed to be good and wide, so I bred them to be good and wide. Some of the Herefords went to a pretty yellow-red, and they went smaller and smaller. A 1,200-pound bull would be a mature bull. I have cows that are 1,200 pounds. The bulls I used as sires I bought out of Canada, and those are big type cattle, good-doing cattle. They could stand bad weather and everything. So, I had a man in Washington who I bought the bulls through. The Anxiety Fourth was a bull, purebred breeder out in Hereford. But, they went for the short-type. The first Anxiety Fourth were good cattle, but the breeders kept getting them pretty and yellow, and fat and easy. But we don't want fat ... we want muscle. That's how I built cattle: with muscle gain and not fat gain. You don't want fat, because you throw it away. That's what the cattle are today. The Limousine and Charle are both French cattle, and that's what they went for. The Americans learned from those breeders in foreign countries that you've got to raise �Page 3 of 4 muscle instead of fat. The muscle is what you eat and what's good for you. The fat you supposed to throw away. The feedlots are mostly in eastern Colorado, and down through the Arkansas Valley there are lots of feedlots. But my cattle, well it depended on who bought them. A man in Pagosa bought mine and would sell them to the feedlot. They gained 3 1/10 pounds per day on grass all summer long. So, he bought my steers, but he wanted to get them smaller. He put less into them, but we still raised good cattle. We've had to sell off our cattle: two years ago there was not feed in this country, and you couldn't afford to ship it in; it made it too high. The government finally brought it to Alamosa, but that cost us $25 a ton to get it here besides what it already cost. So, that didn't go over very big. Now, the cattle are going out more and they're going to the feedlots. There are not many fed around here: the winters are too bad for them. Down towards Farmington, there's a feedlot or two. Some of them learned that one of the real secrets of raising tender meat is to butcher cattle when ... If they're in a storm, they're going to be tough. That meat is going to be a little tougher than if the weather is good. *** I can remember when I was first going to school. .. the first day of school with my sister. We rode horses there; you didn't dare walk on account of the prairie wolves. The prairie wolf is a smaller wolf than the timber wolf, but they're just as vicious. I remember when I hadn't even gone to school yet, my uncle had trapped one and it broke away from the trap. He and my dad tracked it and I got to go along with them on a horse beside them. I could just barely hold on to the horse. They finally come to it and shot him, and I went over and picked up his tail. It went, "Grrrruff." They said I went and jumped up on my horse. It scared me half to death, and I was about 6 years old (first grader). But, we tracked him. I was on a horse myself; he had a small horse. I learned to ride when I was about five years old ... five or six years old. I learned to ride a horse when I went to school (I started when I was five years old, six that October). It was a one-room schoolhouse. It's still there. My wife and I drove over there, I was writing the story of my life, and I wanted to show her some of those places. That schoolhouse is still standing. That was about three or four years ago. It is in Rattlesnake Buttes. There's a South Rattlesnake Butte and North Rattlesnake Butte. This is North Rattlesnake Butte, near where the post office was. But at the other one, there were rattlesnakes ... they were everywhere. Kids learned to stay out of the brush or anything. My dad homesteaded two canyons close in, but it was right next to the prairie. We had two horses when we came here; we left in the fall of '37. My cousin and I rode; we came over the top of Musket Pass. We couldn't go over Wolf Creek, because Wolf Creek was closed then (they were building a new road). So, we had to go over to Cumbres Pass; which is over here down in New Mexico. We got as far as Ananeda and we heard of a bad storm on the Pass, so my dad put me, the horses and the seven old milk cows on the train. I came over the rest of the way through Lumberton, NM back up right over by the river here, the Pine River (there were some �Page 4 of 4 loading pens there). They got there at 1:00 in the morning, and all day that day and through the next night (it was two days travel by train from way down in New Mexico) I unloaded them here. I got them off the train and got them in a pasture from a farmer/rancher where I stayed one night. The next day I drove them across the Florida River going to the top (as if you were going to Durango). At that time it was all sagebrush; there weren't no farmers and ranchers across there. I drove them hungry cows and horses from early in the morning to 4:00 in the afternoon, and I had just one sandwich to eat that morning. I was hungry when I got there, so there were real nice people, who we were going to lease the place from, and I overate ... I got sick. I puked all over the place. I was so embarrassed. They didn't milk the cows the next night, but they were dry ... the cows went dry. I had tried to talk to my dad that they would all go dry, and they were dry. They just couldn't stand that rough abuse. Ranch cows could have, but milk cows can't stand that abuse. So, I had seven milk cows and about 35 or 40 head of horses, and they wouldn't drive together. I didn't have a dog; I had two horses. I left one horse where I could get a hold of him, and I wore two horses riding them, getting them things to not go anywhere else. They would scatter our, and I couldn't keep them together. I was by myself then; my cousin went back with my dad to get stuff and bring it on over here. That was in the fall of 1937: I would have been 22 that fall. I was 22 when I got there, and I felt as though I was 122. We had that place, I think it was, for five years. Then it sold, Land Management sold it and we could not raise the money. We had so much to do on that place. We were intending to buy it, but a rich guy down in Texas wanted to put his money somewhere, so he blew us out. Dad went back to Pagosa, and I went one year above Durango. I went back to Pagosa, but I couldn't find a place to lease, and I had a few stock and I had to find a place. So, I went there and stayed there, then I came down here. It's been 46 years I've been right here this fall. Well, I bought this place in 1960 and that place up there in '66. There's four generations on it [Spanish Forks Ranch] right now and they ought to last a while. Nathan, my oldest grandson is living up there [northern part of ranch], and he has my great-grandson, who's a little over a year old now. He's the cutest little thing I ever saw. He's got grandpa wrapped around his finger. The two grandsons are going to help Wayne, and they're all going to run it together. Interviewed by Michael G. Miller (VISTA worker) on March 5, 2004 at Spanish Forks Ranch, County Road 322. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Michael Miller Interviews Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/ Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2003-2004 Subject The topic of the resource Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Collection of twelve biographies written by VISTA worker Michael G. Miller of prominent people in the Ignacio community. Based on interviews conducted by Miller between December 9, 2003 and March 15, 2004. Some contain the additional attribution "for the Ignacio Historical Society." Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Miller, Michael G. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Norman Wright Biography Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2004-03-05 Subject The topic of the resource Wright, Norman; Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Biography of Norman Wright written by VISTA worker Michael Miller and based on an interview conducted by Miller on March 5, 2004. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Wright, Norman Extent The size or duration of the resource. 4 pages https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/7aad58cf64d5dad1f3ef09294bd90894.pdf 4fdb4323c4db7632b7987ec665246af7 PDF Text Text 'l ~ , ,, , ,' ~ ·, J ) ) J J l -) ) ) ) PARIS AND MADELINE ENGLER "I went into the asparagus business when I was 5 years old. Mr. Stauffer at the market in Rocky Ford gave me 10 cents a bunch. As long as the asparagus lasted l could walk the mile into town and make a profit. But that was nothing compared to the well-digging business Paul Edwards and I started the next year. We dragged out picks and shovels and started to work. The well was four feet deep and-progressing nicely when Paul's brother George lay down on the edge to watch and promptly got himself hit in the head with the backswing of a pick. We thought we'd killed him. He recovered, but our welldigging business was dead. The scene of all this enterprise was my parent's (Francis and Estella Engler) seven and one half acre truck farm in the Arkansas Valley. I was born in a tent near Rock Ford on July 28, 1898. My parents raised melons, corn, green beans and asparagus in that rich valley soil, selling it from the wagon in Rocky Ford, La Junta, and Lamar." "In 1904 Dad was ready to move on for the same reason he left Ohio. It was getting too crowded. When Dad was 19, he and a friend Ike La Ford drove a spring wagon pulled by a single horse from Ohio to Wyoming where he worked in a sawmill before going on to Colorado. In Denver Francis was hired on the construction crew building Elitch Gardens. It was there he met Estella Bird Beans and they were married in 1897." ) ) ) ) ) ) 1 J _) J ....J J _) ..J J ._) -..J ....J -..J J "In 1904 Dad and I rode the train to Allison, Colorado to locate a homestead. We camped in a tent on Jack Riddle's place until the remainder of our things arrived on the train two weeks later. All we brought to start the farm was a mare and a gelding, a cow and a heifer and two hives of bees. Our mare immediately ran off with a herd of wild horses. After days of chasing and a lot of help from neighbors, we cornered them in a box canyon and got a rope on her. The land was all pinon forest. If you wanted open land you had to clear it. The first year we opened up 9 acres. The one acre we planted to oats we had to cut with a sickle. Fortunately one of our neighbors had a horse-powered threshing machine which he let us use. Our first house was a simpl·e frame building made with lumber we hauled from Bayfield. It had an earthen floor and was not large. I slept in the wagon box filled with straw and later in the barn until we built our permanent house in 1915." 11 After we moved out here my dad was mainly interested in his bee hives, his orchard and his cows. He made a deal with me for clearing the pinons. I got all I could raise off the land I cleared the first year. I remember one year raising hundreds of pounds of potatoes. They sold for 26 cents per sack. Some of them were so large that 3 together weighed up to 1O pounds." "We bought our first hay baler for $6.00. It was in bad shape, but repairable. Most of our hay was shipped by train to the sawmills which used a lot of horse power. We decided to trade hay for the lumber to build our house. I stayed out of school one term to do the transporting. I used three horses to haul 20 bales to the train and returned with 600-700 board feet of lumber each trip. We dug the basement, hauled sand from Spring Creek and quarried rock. Old man Star came down from the mesa to help us lay the rock for the basement. It was a double wall 16 inches thick. We finished in 9 days." J J J J 49 �"Dad's bees did so well here, he decided to ask Lee Pennel's father, whom he had known back in Rocky Ford, to move on out. We raised a lot of comb honey. At times the Pennels and us shipped out several thousand pounds of comb honey on the train. It was my job to pack it in the railroad car just so with straw braced between the boxes." If the engineer bumped the cars too roughly while linking up or switching, he got a good chewing out from my Dad. Once Mr. Bendure, who worked at the station,,.,., ...... (page missing) 50 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Shelby Smith Interviews Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource https://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-NC/1.0/?language=en Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1973-1980 Subject The topic of the resource Ignacio; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Collection of biographies, predominantly of residents from the Ignacio Senior Center, based on interviews conducted by Shelby Smith from approximately 1973 to 1980. The abridged interviews were originally published as individual entries in The Thoughtful Years newsletter, published by the Ignacio Senior Center, beginning in 1973. They were later published as a whole in Smith's book: Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley, from which the original scans in this collection have been derived. Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Paris Engler and Madeline Engler Biography Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1973-1981 Subject The topic of the resource Engler, Paris; Engler, Madeline Description An account of the resource Biography of Paris Engler and Madeline Engler based on an interview conducted by Shelby Smith sometime between 1973 and 1981. Included in the book "Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley" by Shelby Smith. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Engler, Paris; Engler, Madeline Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2 pages Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NKC/1.0/ Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/02aec330cddca7677a20718df7ced206.pdf 7c76b3f613bc852de4b09e0dc159b410 PDF Text Text /") "") "") "") "") PATRICIO & MARIA (Abeyta) MARTINEZ "") ) ' ) i ") } } , ) ) ) ) ) ) .> ) ) ) _) ) _) .J .J J _J _J .J _) ...) ...J ...J J J J J J J "It doesn't seem very long ago that I was a child growing up at Tiffany, Colorado, but many things have changed in those few years. Not only do people own a lot of things they didn't have in those days, their ways are different. My dad occasionally rode the train to Durango, but he never took my mother or any of us children. In fact, I never saw Durango until the day I was married at the age of 20. We didn't feel cheated. That's just the way it was then. Most families didn't travel and didn't expect to travel around. They stayed home and worked and kept busy. I am one of eight children. My parents, Juan and Maria Abeyta, were married at Rosa and lived there until I was about 4 years old. Then we moved to a farm near Tiffany owned by a Mr. Smith or Schmidt {I don't remember which). I can just barely remember loading up the wagons and herding all the animals together for the move. At that time Tiffany had 15-20 homes, a school and a post office in Mr. Davis' store. There was no church and though the train stopped for passengers, there was no depot. Every morning about 11 :00 the train came through headed for Alamosa and every afternoon another train passed through going to Durango. We walked 3 miles to school at Spring Creek. After second grade my parents sent me to live with my aunt in Alamosa because they thought the schools would be better in a larger town. I'm sure their intentions were good, but I was homesick. Every night I covered my head with a blanket and cried. After a month of this my aunt got disgusted and sent me back home." "In the early days Tiffany was a busy farming center, growing all kinds of grains and potatoes and even sugar beets. My dad worked for several farmers as well as for Mr. Morris Levy who operated the store. All of us children worked, too. I can still remember plowing the garden with my brother. While he held the plow, I rode the horse to help keep the rows straight." "The Spanish-speaking settlers at Tiffany formed a club called 'The League to Protect Latins and built a club building which was used for church services on Sunday and for dances and dinners and meetings at other times. It was at church I first saw Patricio Martinez who was to become my husband. He and his sisters and his father had moved to Tiffany from Coyote, N. M. to work in the sugar beet fields. Patricio and I knew one another for two years before we were married. We became interested in one another soon after we met, but our parents were so strict it was not easy to get acquainted. At church we could only glance at one another. At dances we could visit, but only with chaperons right next to us. There was certainly no dating or going out alone. One day Patricio's father and one of his uncles came to ask my fathers' permission for us to get married. He didn't give them an answer right away. In fact, they had to come several times to ask whether he would answer them. He finally said yes. Patricio was working at the smelter in Durango. He bought my trousseau and set a date with the priest for our marriage at Sacred Heart Church in Durango on October 26, 1927. I was 20 and Pat was 27. We drove a Model A Ford to Durango for the wedding and back to Tiffany for the wedding supper at my parent's home followed by an all night dance at the League Building, The wedding dress Patricio bought for me was very fancy and pretty, but also 113 �very daring. II was not a full length dress, but barely reached my knees, for that was the age of the 'flappers'. The next day we rode the train back to Durango to start our new life together," "Marriages arranged by parents must seem very strange lo people today, but ii worked out very well for us. I don't like the way it happens today. Sometimes the parents not only don't have any say about the marriage of their children, they don't even know what's happening until the last minute. Pat and I were married for 42 years. We always loved one another and even though we were always poor, we were happy and satisfied with our lives," "When the smeller closed, Patricio worked for the D. & R.G.W up at Hesperus. Later he worked at the sawmill until he retired. Patricio died in 1970. I continued living at 1425 E, 2nd Ave, in Durango until November of 1978 when I moved to the Senior Center in Ignacio. Patricio and I had 8 children. The oldest is Clorinda, then Irene, Herman, Patricio, Josephine, Chris, Veronica and Jose. I enjoy visiting my children and my sister in Denver. I keep busy sewing and crocheting. Whenever I visit my children, they usually ask me to cook some sopa for them (a traditional Mexican pudding). I am glad to do it, because they enjoy it and because it reminds me of the days when I was a child back in Tiffany March, 1981 - Shelby Smith 114 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Shelby Smith Interviews Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource https://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-NC/1.0/?language=en Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1973-1980 Subject The topic of the resource Ignacio; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Collection of biographies, predominantly of residents from the Ignacio Senior Center, based on interviews conducted by Shelby Smith from approximately 1973 to 1980. The abridged interviews were originally published as individual entries in The Thoughtful Years newsletter, published by the Ignacio Senior Center, beginning in 1973. They were later published as a whole in Smith's book: Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley, from which the original scans in this collection have been derived. Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Patricio Martinez and Maria (Abeyta) Martinez Biography Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1981-03 Subject The topic of the resource Martinez, Joe; Martinez, Natividad (Gallegos); Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Biography of Joe Martinez and Natividad (Gallegos) Martinez based on an interview conducted by Shelby Smith in March, 1981. Included in the book "Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley" by Shelby Smith. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Martinez, Joe; Martinez, Maria (Abeyta) Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2 pages Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NKC/1.0/ Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby