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Marie Young talks about discrimination that her German American family faced during World Wars I and II. She also talks about her many tasks as a homemaker on a ranch, about helping with the cattle, and doing other ranch work. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries, the Museums of Western Colorado and the Mesa County Historical Society.
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Siblings Ella O'Brien and Earl Foster talk about the demise of their family friend Henry "Indian Henry" Huff at the hands of their stepfather, and the events that followed. They discuss their living situation in Bull Canyon, mentioning the work their parents did for the mine, their chores, education, livestock, and farming. They speak of their move to Utah and their experiences there, including meeting Chipeta. They transition to talking about their...
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Harriet “Muzz” Northrop Webster Johnson recalls growing up in Grand Junction, Colorado and discusses the schools she attended, her father’s job at the Holly Sugar Company, her jobs after high school, her marriages, and the history of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church. She also talks about starting over as a 58-year-old widower, when she lived and worked as a house mother at the Hawaii School for the Deaf and Blind. The interview was conducted...
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Fritz Becker, a former officer in the Grand Junction Police Department, discusses crime in Grand Junction, including: murders, the clean-up of prostitution and vice on Colorado Avenue, gambling houses and bootlegging. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
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Emma Conner talks about the lives of her parents and grandparents, Mesa County pioneers. She speaks about her early schooling at the Franklin School and work in her grandmother’s boardinghouse. She details restrictions that were put into place during the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. She discusses the railroad occupations of her father and husbands, and a rail accident that killed her second husband. She talks about downtown Grand Junction’s dirt...
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In an event at the Museums of Western Colorado, Sylvia Ruland lectures about the Ludlow Massacre: the killing of striking mine workers and their families, including women and children, by the Colorado National Guard and hired strike breakers on April 20, 1914. She describes the poor working conditions for coal miners and the mistreatment of immigrants that led to a coal strike in Colorado in 1913-14. She talks about the men who owned mining interests...
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Nevada Burford discusses the history of her pioneering parents, who came to Grand Junction in 1882 and homesteaded in Kannah Creek. She also talks about the Handy Chapel and Grand Junction’s early African-American community. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries, the Museums of Western Colorado and the Mesa County Historical Society. *Transcript for Tape 2 of 4 only.
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Dorothy Tindall talks about the early days of Whitewater, Colorado as a rail center for cattle and stock. She speaks about the administrative organization of schools prior to the consolidation of Mesa County School District 51, her development of Mesa County’s first school hot lunch program at the Star School, games kids played at recess, about her work educating the children of migrant laborers who lived in La Colonia, and her role in the development...
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Emma Nagel talks in detail about Christmas programs held at the Highpoint School near Fruita, Colorado and about Christmas traditions at home when she was a child. She also discusses her busy life as a homemaker, with information on butchering animals, grinding wheat and making bread, sewing and caring for clothes, caring for chickens and milking the cow. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa...
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Elsie Cockrell talks about her life in the mining town of Idaho Springs, about her career as a beautician and later a teacher, and about the life of her parents as the children of German immigrants and farmers. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries, the Museums of Western Colorado and the Mesa County Historical Society.
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This interview features Joe Peep, an early Fruita farmer, homesteader, and horse enthusiast. He also worked as a cowboy on Albert Turner’s ranch, and won the horse riding competition at Fruita’s Cowpuncher’s Reunion. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
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Susie Mendicelli talks about the life of her Italian-American family in Grand Junction, Colorado, the Mendicelli Bakery, canning and preserving at home, and making sausage and head cheese. She also discusses other Italian-American people and businesses, the history of Grand Junction and the changes she saw in town, and the history of Pitkin Avenue. This recording is made available via signed release by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration...
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Bertha Schlegel discusses growing up in Loma, Colorado and helping her family raise beets for Holly Sugar, and making sauerkraut, pickled apples, pickled watermelon and other ethnic food with her mother, who was a German immigrant from Russia. She also remembers her education and school activities throughout her childhood, including field days at the Fruita Central School and Grand Junction High School. She talks about obtaining a teaching degree,...
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Adrienne Kaga talks about her childhood growing up in Chicago and her early career as a principal in a private equity fund. She discusses the family histories of her mother, who was Chinese-American, and her father, who was Japanese-American, and their lives in the Pacific Northwest. She also talks in detail about the internment of her father’s family in a Japanese relocation center during World War II, about life, school and work at the camp, the...
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Siblings Ella O'Brien and Earl Foster talk about the history of their pioneer family in the Paradox Valley area of Montrose County, Colorado, about living near and working in the mines, about their father John "Peg-leg" Foster and his involvement with labor issues in Telluride's mines, and the murder of Henry "Indian Henry" Huff by their stepfather John Keski. They also discuss the discrimination that Utes and other Native Americans faced from whites...
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Robert Gustafson talks about the Wisemen’s Club, a Mesa County social and charitable organization to which he belonged in the 1930’s and 1940’s. He remembers the local dance halls and the big bands that played them. He describes growing up in a Swedish portion of the Globeville neighborhood in Denver, his educational background, and how he began working at the Public Service Company at the age of fourteen. He discusses his subsequent career...
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Ann Stokes talks about homesteading on East Orchard Mesa after her family moved to Mesa County, Colorado in 1904. She remembers her father working on the “fancy” masonry for the Grand Junction train station. She recalls living in a one-room log cabin and sharing that cabin with a horse for an evening. She speaks about the development of irrigation on East Orchard Mesa and her father’s peach orchard. She describes walking with her siblings four...
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Weston and Nellie Massey discuss their family’s involvement in the earliest days of Gateway, Colorado. The couple also touch on the presence of Indians in the Mesa County area, the system of delivering mail, social activities, cattle herding and cattle thieving, Uranium mining and mining equipment in the Gateway area, and methods of travel via trails and mapped out routes. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration...
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Artist Cecilia Cardman talks about her struggles with the English language and her experience in public schools as a young immigrant from Italy, and about her higher education in both Italy and in Boulder at the University of Colorado. She speaks about teaching art at early Mesa College and what the college was like at that time. She describes the “topnotch” teachers she had at Grand Junction High School. She discusses leaving her teaching career...
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Earl Land talks about the arrival of his German parents in the United States, their lives in Russia prior to relocating, and their lives in the United States after immigrating. He recalls his early life in Colorado and the West and his education as a mining engineer. He remembers his service as a 2nd Lieutenant in an aviation engineer battalion in the US Army during World War II. He speaks in general about the history of Germans from Russia in the...