https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/ce88ed1ee303d6859ea58d297fb116f6.pdf 5a8b82d7c736f2755e672187391b718a PDF Text Text EVA MARIAN (Wright) WORFORD The girl, 15 and the boy 13, stood beside a tall pile of luggage, trunks, cases and boxes on the railroad platform. Suddenly, the boy ducked behind the pile and hissed at his sister to do the same. A tall man in blue pants and coat examined the luggage and the children closely as he rode by on a chestnut horse. The boy said "Don't you know that's a policeman?" Marian and Ethan had just arrived in Chicago with their mother. Everything was unfamiliar and a little frightening. Like many country people of that era the children were nervous and suspicious of town people. Their mother had left them to watch the luggage while she looked for a means of transporting it from one railway station to another across town. Moving was not a new experience for the Wrights, but they had never moved so far. The family had lived in many different places in Michigan. Now they were going to Colorado. Eva Marian Wright was born August 13, 1902 in Cass County, Southern Michigan. It was hilly, very green, forested country full of clear, flowing streams and "lots of bugs", Marian remembers. Her father, Carlton Eugene Wright and her mother, Myrta (Hogue) Wright moved frequently doing carpenter work and sales in various communities in southern Michigan. The home Marian remembers best is the country mill her father bought. The mill was four stories high. The upper two stories were for grinding flour and the lower two were for grinding feed grist for cattle and chickens. The mill was powered by a turbine fed by flumes running from the three streams in the valley. It was a beautiful place. When the children were not needed to work in the mill they were assigned to fish in the nearby streams to supply meat for the family. Marian and Ethan never became bored with this assignment. Since Mr. Wright was not licensed to grind flour, most of his time was spent grinding grist feed for animals. Most of his business came in the fall, but a few farmers came during the rest of the year. The Wrights acquired two prized animals with the mill. One was a horse which was especially good natured. No one needed to even touch the reins to get him to town. There was, however, one place he would not pull the buggy. He had fallen through a bridge once and he would not cross a bridge unless someone walked across before him. The other prized animal was a tiger striped mother cat and her litters. They were essential in keeping down the rodent population around the grain in the mill. One of the tomcats liked to go fishing with the children. If they were slow to catch a fish to throw to him, the tomcat would wade out into the stream, hook a fish with his claws and enjoy his feast. School was only about 1 and 1/2 miles away, but when the snow stood 3-4 feet deep, it was sometimes difficult to make the trip. Nobody seemed to know anything about skis or snowshoes in that area at that time. At 5 years of age Marian started to pre-school, which in those days was called primer class. Children weren't expected to learn to read in primer class but Marian was. Her father had instilled in her a love for reading from an early age. Coal was expensive in southern Michigan, so the Wrights chopped a lot of wood for the winter. On the land adjacent lo the mill, Mr. Wright raised oats and a little barley and wheat. Occasionally, he raised buckwheat for cakes. When the crops were ripe, Carlton would hire a steam powered thrashing machine and its crew. Marian and Ethan were 180 �"l """' '1 '1 '1 '1 ' ' '1 ') J 1 ) J ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) J _) .) ..) ...) ...) ...) J ...) ..J ..J ..J J fascinated by the steam powered machinery and often would follow the thrashing machines from field to field to watch the crews at work. They can remember getting up at 3:00 a.m. one morning to stoke the steam engine for the crew. Always, Carlton had bees for honey and a good garden for produce. The mill and the garden provided for the needs of the family. A little extra cash, however is always useful. Ethan had a part time job which was the envy of other young boys in the areas. One of the neighbor ladies operated a bird farm. She had 200 kinds of unusual American birds, various game birds and exotic foreign kinds. The bird lady could not possibly fill all the orders she received. Ethan received one dollar per day for feeding, watering and cleaning cages. Occasional heavy rainy periods had caused floods which threatened the mill, but none did any real damage until 1917. A hefty flood that year destroyed all the flumes leading to the mill. Carlton said, "That's enough. We're going to Colorado." Colorado had been on their minds for sometime. Marian's mother had a cousin living at Tiffany who had been urging them to move out here. Carlton sold the place, boxed all their possessions and put the family on the train. Carlton himself went by auto by way of Wyoming to visit relatives before coming on to meet the family at Tiffany. The Wrights had never seen real mountains until they reached the plains east of Denver on the train. Marian still remembers that first day she saw them. "I couldn't keep my eyes off them. I loved the mountains from that first day I saw them and I still do." The family changed to the narrow gauge at Alamosa and traveled over Cumbres Pass to Chama and Pagosa Junction to Tiffany. Marian thought she knew quite a bit about farming, but one practice at Tiffany baffled her. Coming from the lush, green countryside of Michigan, she had never seen irrigation before. Mr. Wright bought Jake McJunkin's farm located just west of the present day slaughter house including his crop and animals. A year or two later Carlton acquired some ranch land several miles on west of Ignacio where Marian still lives. If you've visited Marian's house, you know it sits on a considerable hill. Her dad enjoyed telling visitors that their house originally was at no higher elevation than the surrounding area. They acquired an elevated view only because of the gumbo mud the Oxford/Ignacio area is famous for. Everybody who came to the house on a muddy day and cleaned their shoes, contributed to the building up of the hill on which their home is now located . Marian completed her sophomore and junior years here. The end of her junior year was disturbed by a dispute which seems quite ridiculous today, but which reflects the attitudes of that time. Marian and her classmates heard that one of their favorite teachers, Ravenna Groat, was being refused reemployment by the school board. Marian and Virginia Russell and others In their class met with the board to ask whether this was so. The board said yes, they had fired Ravenna Groat for riding a horse in riding britches instead of a riding Skirt. The junior class told the board they would not return to school if the board persisted in this action. The school board members doubted the students could afford to attend school in Durango, but most of them got jobs, saved their money and did manage to enroll in Durango for their senior year. Actually this was a wise thing for them to do as the Ignacio School was not accredited at that time. · ..J J ....) -..,,) 181 �Following graduation Marian attended a two week teacher's institute at Pagosa Springs and then took a stiff exam to receive a country teacher's certificate. This may seem like very little training (which ii was), but Marian says it was a stiff exam and many people had to lake the exam more than once to pass. Marian taught in various schools around the country. She loved the work, though conditions were often less than ideal. Some of the buildings were not insulated and had poor heaters. When Cedar Grove school was closed against Marian's objections, she started a "bootleg school" in her home on the ranch. "Some of the students were walking 7 miles to Cedar Grove. How could they go several more miles to another school? Some families would send one child to stay with me for a week and then they would take that child home and send another one to learn all they could for a week." The school Marian remembers with most affection was the school in Thompson Park just this side of Mancos Hill. "The students there were so intelligent and decent and nice. I really enjoyed the time I taught school over there." In 1928 the Frank Harmon family asked Marian to go with them to Michigan and to help take care of the Harmon children on the trip. Marian was very happy to do this since she had not been able to return to visit relatives of to see her birthplace since she had moved. On the return trip the Harmons stopped in Hamilton, Kansas, to see some of their family. There Marian met a young man named Bowen Worford. He spent quite a little time driving the Harmon kids around to see their relatives in the area and Marian accompanied them. Before she left, Bowen got Marian's address and wrote to her during that summer and fall. Bowen had lived in Montana for a while before returning to Kansas and was eager to return to the mountains. At Christmas time Marian returned to Kansas and she and Bowen were married. The following April they came out to La Plata County. Shortly after Bowen and Marian were married, Mrs. Harmon died. After a while the court asked Marian and Bowen to lake care of the two Harmon girls. The girls stayed with the Warlords until they were grown. Marian remembers with a chuckle the time their dog tried to "herd" Bowen's Ford Coupe. Bowen and Marian took the coupe over to Spring Creek to get a cow they had bought. Their dog, a shepherd and collie mix went along. One of them was driving the coupe and the other was out with the dog herding the cow. When the cow made a sudden turn lo escape, Bowen yelled "get her" to the dog. Somehow 'ale Shep's doggy brain got its wires crossed, apparently thinking Bowen meant the coupe instead of the cow. The dog made a ferocious leap and bit the tire of the moving car. Of course, he got thrown for a loop by the wheel and that was the last time old Shep tried to herd a coupe. Bowen died in 1967, but Marian slays on the ranch. It's in a remote area and there are times it's a little difficult to gel in or out, so many people have urged Marian to move to town. So far she has refused. She loves her animals and the wildlife and the peace and quiet of the land. Beyond that the place is full of memories of Bowen and her parents and of her first years here. For these reasons Marian's ties to the ranch are strong. We wish her many more years of happiness and peace. September, 1974 -- Shelby Smith 182 � 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 Eva Marian (Wright) Worford Biography Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1974-09 Subject The topic of the resource Worford, Eva Marian (Wright); Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Biography of Eva Marian (Wright) Worford based on an interview conducted by Shelby Smith. Originally included in the September, 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 Worford, Eva Marian (Wright) 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