https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/e3bb4533135bb9fe432bb2bab98d39ac.pdf a5ee6245f83d649be4757f3e964f26a8 PDF Text Text LENA (Bowman) WITT Lena Elizabeth Bowman was born June 6, 1894, in Durango at her parents home at 760 Third Avenue, Her mother, Etta Louisa Summers, came to Durango from Ohio in 1889 to teach school. She stayed with her sister Margaret Coffman, whose husband, James Coffman, was the Methodist minister in Durango, In 1890 Etta married Thomas Bowman, a metallurgist at the smelter, Thomas, who was 19 years older than Etta, was a civil War veteran. After the war he obtained his degree in Metallurgy at the University of Wisconsin, then came west to Silverton to work in the smelter which was later moved to Durango, Thomas' first wife died of typhoid fever in Denver in 1889. When he married Etta, he not only worked at the smelter, but also owned a stationery store on Main Street in Durango. Lena, her brother Bill, and her sister Margaret all took their turns working in the store and all of them, as Lena recalls, took turns raiding the candy counter quite often. Lena started school at Longfellow in 1901 and graduated from Durango High school in 1913. Emory Smiley was the superintendent during those years, "When I was a child, we had to make our own pastimes," Lena remembers. "I can recall the long summer evenings when we'd ride our bikes under the arc lights on 3rd Avenue until late at night. One of our favorite pastimes was picnics. We'd walk up Junction Creek or Lightner Creek or ride the streetcar to Brookside Park. The first silent movies in Durango were shown outside at the park. Looking back I realize the pictures were not top quality and the movements of the actors were jerky, but we didn't notice that. We thought it was wonderful. Sometimes we rode the train to Tremble Springs 10 miles north of Durango, where we'd stay in the hotel, take hot baths and enjoy the good food. All the children in town liked the 4th of July because of the fireworks. My dad sold them at the store, so we usually had our choice of the rockets and Roman candles." Lena stayed home one year after high school, but in the summer of 1914 her parents sent her to a teaching institute in Silverton. The purpose of the institutes was to explain teaching careers to young people. Lena stayed with a family named Lamont. Mr. Lamont, she remembers, was a rather aristocratic man of English extraction. Along with the school, entertainments and outings were provided for the participants Lena and her group traveled north of Silverton to visit a mill and mine and to ride the cable car between them. The cable car turned out to be an ore bucket swinging along a cable over an enormous ravine. All Lena knew to do was grit her teeth and hang on, Lena attended teacher training at the college in Greeley, received her degree after two years and returned to teach grades 1-6 at Tremble Springs. Her wages of $65.00 per month were good for that time. The widow Schluter provided a room and marvelous meals for $15.00 a month. Lillian Thompson taught grades 7-10 in the same building. Though Lillian had lost an arm in an accident, she preformed her school duties well and drove her Model T to school every day. In spite of the good wages and pleasant living conditions, Lena says it was a difficult year. Some of the students, especially the older students in Lillian's room, were serious discipline problems. During the next two years Lena taught at Cottonwood School on Florida Mesa where she walked to school from the Gram's farm. Some of her students were Howard and Ray Self, Emily Cicily and the Perino and Gerardi children. She can still remember the school Christmas programs staged at the Florida Mesa Grange Hall. 178 �~ " '1 "l '1 '1 '1 ' ' ' ") ) J ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) _) _) ..J ....) _) _) ....) J J J While Lena was teaching at Ridges Basin, she met Ray Pierce, who owned a dry farm nearby. They were married and moved to Durango. Ray drove a big team hauling coal and Lena worked in Hunter's Music Store. The marriage did not last long. After they were separated, Lena got a job teaching grades 3-5 at Animas City. At a teaching institute at Mancos the following summer, Lena met the superintendent of schools from Yuma, Colorado. He needed a 4th grade teacher and hired Lena on the spot. Lena was settled in Yuma when her father died December 6, 1923. She resigned her job intending to stay home with her mother for several months. However the superintendent at Bayfield soon learned Lena was not working and convinced her to teach 3rd and 4th grades in Bayfield. While working in Bayfield, Lena met Jack Garrish, a World War I veteran. They were married on Christmas Day in 1925. They stayed in Bayfield until 1926, then moved to Ignacio. Jack built a blacksmith shop behind Mr. Anderson's filling station. When Jack's brother-in-law died, he and Lena moved back to Bayfield to help his sister operate a Silver Fox farm. In 1933 they moved to Durango for three years and then moved to Canon City where Jack worked as a guard at the prison and later worked as overseer at the prison blacksmith shop. Lena had an active, fun life in canon City with many friends. In 1940 Jack was very ill at home for three weeks. Lena took him to Fitzsimmons Military Hospital in Denver for treatment. Jack died the first night there. In January of 1941 Lena returned to school at Greeley for three semesters to update her teaching methods. In 1942 she took a job northeast of Wray, Colorado, at the Alvin School. Teachers were expected to stage a ;Literary' onGe a month. This was a program consisting of music, readings and plays. Almost the whole community turned out because there was little entertainment in the lonely sand hill country. At first Lena viewed these programs with apprehension, but later learned to enjoy and take pride in them. One of the most memorable ones featured a Steven Foster minstrel show. In 1943 Lena married Guy Doyle. In subsequent years Lena taught at Laird, Colorado, at Haigler, Nebraska, at a country school near Vernon, Colorado and at Iliff north of Sterling. Guy worked at various jobs during those years. About 1954 Guy and Lena decided it was time to quit working, so they settled at Wray. Guy had asthma pretty bad and in 1958 he died of a coronary attack. Lena moved to Ignacio in the summer of 1959. During the next 10 years, she worked as a substitute teacher in Ignacio and lived on Browning Street in the house next to Tommy King's house. Lena never expected to leave Ignacio again, but she became acquainted with Bill Witt and they were married on July 27, 1969. He was 78 and Lena was 75. Bill owned a nice home in a good neighborhood in northwest Denver. Bill died 14 months after they were married. Lena loved her home in Denver. She left only for occasional trips. One of her favorites was a trip to visit relatives in Washington State. While there Lena got to ride the ferry to Victoria, British Columbia, to see the world famous Butchart Gardens and to have tea at the Empress Hotel, one of the old hotels still following the English traditions. In 1978 Lena's sister Margaret Wiseman invited her to return to Ignacio so that they could spend their last years together. Lena moved in November of 78. Margaret became very ill that winter and died in January of 1979. Today Lena enjoys a pleasant association with her nephew, Tom Wiseman and Beverly and also has numerous friends and old acquaintances in Ignacio. We wish her many more years of happiness and peaceful life. J J J ....) J -....) October, 1980 -- Shelby Smith 1 79 � 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 Lena (Bowman) Witt Biography Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1980-10 Subject The topic of the resource Witt, Lena (Bowman); Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Biography of Lena (Bowman) Witt based on an interview conducted by Shelby Smith. Originally included in the October, 1980 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 Witt, Lena (Bowman) 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