https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/e14e14edfb22871f56916380bf8cb06e.pdf 2105be8e535755314dfc28d91ec87934 PDF Text Text Ethel Smith I was born in Collbran, CO, Mesa County, September 1i 11, 1908. I went to a country school, one room school, and then I road three miles horseback to high school. And, I graduated from Collbran Union High School in 1926. [After high school] I started in school in Gunnison, CO, and I went five and half weeks. I road on the train from Grand Junction to Montrose, and then on to Gunnison. I was homesick at the end of one semester, so I went back to Grand Junction, and then on to Collbran in the fall. My parents sold their property and we moved to Missouri. I went to school at Missouri Teachers' College in Springfield, MO. My friend came down from Collbran to MO. In the spring we decided to quit school and go to Marysville to pick strawberries. We found out from the school that they needed teachers. So, we decided to take the teachers' exam. The last exam was on MO history-I looked at her [my friend] and she looked at me, and we got up and walked out. My folks came back to Collbran, after a year in MO. I took the CO state teachers' exam, and taught my first school north ofDebeque, CO. Then, the next year I went to Hayden and taught at a rural school on a cattle ranch. That's where I met my cowboy boyfriend. We were married in 1931. I taught at rural schools, here and there, for the next eight years. Then I taught my last year of school in Uravan. My husband was working in the mines down in Arizona, and our son was 18 months old. So I went down to AZ, and we lived there until 1944. In 1944, we traded our house in AZ for a ranch southeast ofBayfield, CO. My husband was in a later draft [for WWII], but he was "frozen" in the mines. He worked in the copper mines in Jerome, AZ. If you worked in that big copper mine, you were "frozen" [from the draft]. When we moved to CO, then he had to get an agricultural status or he would have been drafted. In the fall [of 1944 ?], somebody had heard that I had taught school. And, so, the school board came up and wanted to know if I wanted to teach at the Pink school, which was about two miles south of our ranch. My son was in the fourth grade [at that time]. I taught there for two years. Stuck in the mud, rode horse back. .. I taught all grades, one through eight. One of my students, who was in the fifth grade, sent me some pictures. I had one picture from when I taught there (from '44-' 45 and '45-' 46). She sent me some pictures, because she went to school there in '41-'42 and '42-'43. Then, I went to Bayfield. There [in Bayfield] I had the seventh grade. Then they unified the districts, and the students started corning in on buses from out towards Pagosa Springs. I had the seventh grade for two years upstairs in the old Bayfield building. When the gym was finished there were two rooms above it. So, I taught over the gym for nine years. You know, the kids never paid any attention to the noise, and I never paid any attention to the noise. There were basketballs-Bang, Bang, music downstairs (under the two rooms), but I don't think anyone ever said anything about the noise. �I did go to Mesa College in Grand Junction one semester, when we came back from MO. So, I had no college credits you might say. College teachers came from University of CO, CO State University, from Western State, from Adams State. There were classes at Fort Lewis [College], and I just started taking classes. So, in 1957 I had a degree: BA degree. They paid $1,000 more in Ignacio, and we were still on the ranch. So, it was about halfway between Ignacio and Bayfield, and I came to Ignacio. And, do you know the story about Benjamin Franklin paying too much for his whistle? Well, I paid too much for my whistle when I came to Ignacio [to teach]. It was the second year that Ignacio schools had been consolidated, and the buses had started to bring the kids in. At the end of the first week I told my husband I wasn't going back. I told the principal that I was not going back. I had one raunchy class: over age Spanish kids. They had been retained in the first grade, they had probably been retained in the third or fourth. At the junior high up here, if you failed two classes, then you were retained in that grade. I had Spanish kids (junior high) sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old. Five teachers had resigned the year before. So, I told the principal, "I'm not coming back Monday," and he said, "Oh yes you are!" So, I went back on Monday, and a Mr. Ackerd from MO met me at the door. He said, "I'm taking that raunchy class of yours upstairs, and I'm sending you ninth graders that don't know enough to tie their shoes and come to school. You won't have any trouble with them." And, I had a tough principal, I'll tell you, a tough principal. I was in junior high [in Ignacio] until 1961. I saw a bulletin in the teachers' room that said there was an institute over at the University of Nebraska in Guidance and Counseling. I had no idea what it was all about. But, I applied for it, and I had told the superintendent that I had applied for it. And, he said, "Well, go ahead and apply for it, but you won't get it." That [the institute] was for second semester. I applied for it and was accepted. I called him [the superintendent] and told him I was accepted, and he said, "You can't go unless you get somebody to take your place." I was teaching math in seventh, eighth, and ninth grades. Jake Candeleria, who owns Candeleria Heights up here, went to high school with my son. He came up and said that he had just finished college at Adams State, and was wondering where Larry [Ethel's son] was. I told him that he was working over in Mancos, and Jack said that he was desperately in need of a job. He said, "I'm so angry with Mr. Powell (the superintendent). I went down to talk with him, and he said that he didn't have any job for me." I said to Mr. Candeleria, "Well, what's your major?" He said, "Math." So, I let him have my job so that I could go to the institute in Nebraska. That was in '61, and the institute didn't start until February. I was on my way the last day of January, and we didn't get out 'til the last of June. When I came back, Mr. Powell gave me the job to start a guidance program. After Sputnik, these institutes were set up by the government in science and math. After that ran the gamut, they thought that all of these people needed guidance and counseling. So, the government started these guidance and counseling institutes, and �they paid us $7 5 per week. I had no more idea of what I was doing than the man on the moon. But, I started the [guidance] program in elementary clear on through high school. Then I was high school counselor. The most that I did was to find out where money came from for kids to go on to school. And, I worked a lot with minority students. I worked with the Indian students a lot. Mr. Dietz, the superintendent at the time, called me and said that Mr. Scott was going to take the Indian students, he was to be my cocounselor and he would take the Indian kids. Mr. Dietz told me to set up meetings with the students and find out who wants to go to Mr. Scott; who was Navajo married to a Ute. He never got an Indian kid, I got all the Indians and he got all the white kids. I would say to them, "why don't you go to Mr. Scott?" They replied, "we don't want to work with an Indian." I retired in '74. I have belonged for many years to Delta Kappa Gamma, an international teachers' organization. They send out a bulletin, and in one bulletin they advertised for a social studies and English teacher at Navajo Community College. You know, I didn't even know what a resume was. You never heard of the word "resume". So, I sent an application in, but they hired a teacher from Canada who had had ESL [English as a Second Language training]. In two years, shwe decided to go back to Canada, anfd the chairperson at the college asked me to come for an interview. I was substituting at the high school [at the time], so I didn't go [for the interview] until spring vacation. I was hired, and was there for 20 years. Well, I'm 95 now and I stayed there 'til I was 88, I'll let you do your math. I came home every two weeks for 20 years. And, you know, I never thought anything about the roads, I never had a flat tire-I couldn't have changed it ifI did. I had my first one up here about two months ago. I have the one son, and he left school when he was a junior and went into the Navy. His ship helped to evacuate the French when they were leaving Indochina. There was a French soldier who had been there for seven years, hadn't been home for seven years, and he traded Larry a gun for a can of beans. He said they were starving. And then, he helped evacuate the Chinese-Cheng Kaichek, you know? He has a lot of pictures. He has a picture of a little girl, who had died, and they dressed her, put her in a chute, and buried her in the ocean. He has pictures where the ship was just crammed with Chinese. He went in when he was 17 and got out three years later. After he got out he went into an agricultural program. He had a friend, who had a shoe shop, and he persuaded Larry to learn to do shoe repair. So, Larry went to Denver (he was married then), to the Emily Griffith Opportunity School, which is a famous school. He went there almost a year, and came back and had his shoe shop. Then he wanted to learn how to make cowboy boots, so he sent to Oklahoma to a junior college. He was there almost a year, then came back. We had the shop over here where the Peddler's is located. My parents farmed, dad was a good farmer. My dad came from the Indian Territory in 1898. He sold his farm, and his older sister, his older brother, and his older sister's daughter and her baby came to Glenwood Springs (on up from Grand Junction). �In the middle of the winter they came to Glenwood Springs, and the climate is about like Durango. I don't know how they got to Collbran, but he played the violin or he played the fiddle, and that's where he met my mother. My mother was born in Boulder. She was 34 when I was born. She was 28 when they were married and my dad was 37. We can't find anything out about my dad's ancestors, because we didn't listen. I didn't listen to my dad. And, I didn't know until long after he was gone, but he grew up with blacks and Indians. I didn't know that after the Civil War, the blacks were encouraged to settle in Oklahoma, to homestead in OK. But, what I remember was they would swim in the creeks, and there was a small pox epidemic. They would line up along the banks and keep the Indians and the blacks from going in the water. Because, you know, then they wouldn't break out, and a lot of them died. There was an old, old Indian who lived up from where my dad lived, and it wasn't derogatory then to say "nigger". My dad always called him "Nigger John", and never thought anything about it. But, the reason my dad came to CO, he had an older brother who came to the San Luis Valley (over by Alamosa). I don't know why [the brother] came to Alamosa. There he met a Mormon woman, got married, had 12 children over the years, and moved to Collbran. I don't know why he came to CO [the older brother?]. But, people did move about. I have a book on both sides of my mother's family. All I know is that she was Pennsylvania Dutch, but German from way back. My grandmother's grandmother, I think it was, her husband was killed by the nobility in Germany. She escaped, she had an older child who had come to America, but she escaped into France and Switzerland. A single woman couldn't come on the ship to America, so she married a Hessian soldier. But, she couldn't pay the passage for her youngest child, so he was bound out to somebody for the passage. My mother's maiden name was Strock, my maiden name is Barker. I joined the D.A.R. [Daughters of the American Revolution] about 35 years ago. I can go back on either side of my mom's family: her father was a Tylson, and her mother's side, which was Strock. But, Strock had been three different spellings: Strauck, Strack, and Strock. So, it was easier to go back on her mother's side, on the Strock side. My grandfather was English. I go back to the Mayflower on the English side. My genealogy goes back to when they first came to America, and that was the first generation. I'm about the eleventh generation, I think. There is a Tylson reunion in NY every year. They have Larry's name and my sister's four children's names. I had one ancestor who fought at Valley Forge, it could have been a Tylson or a Strock. My dad was born in Coles [?] County, Illinois. His dad was a horse trader, so they moved from one place to another. I can remember that my dad had a brother named Red, because my dad said that he was the only redheaded one in the family. He also had a brother who settled in MO. There was a big family in the Barkers. My son looks like a Barker in the face: they have thin noses and faces. There are no fat ones in that family. My grandson, Kenny, has red hair, and will be 24 on the 31 st of January [2004]. He was born on my way to Nebraska. �I know that this house was hauled up here in 1948 [the house was ordered from a Montgomery Ward catalog]. Thank God that the woodwork has never been painted-this is the original woodwork. There are doors in this house you can't believe. I think there are about 11 doors in here. Interviewed by Michael Miller, Americorps*VISTA for the Ignacio Historical Society, December 9th, 2003. � 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 Ethel Smith Biography Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2003-12-09 Subject The topic of the resource Smith, Ethel; Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Biography of Ethel Smith written by VISTA worker Michael Miller and based on an interview conducted by Miller on December 9, 2003. 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 Smith, Ethel Extent The size or duration of the resource. 5 pages