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Gertrude Rader talks about the profession and lives of teachers, who were primarily women, in Western Colorado during the early Twentieth century. She discusses how, in small communities, women were expected to be much more than teachers including: Doctors’ assistants in a pinch, de facto members of the families that they boarded with in cases of illness or maternity, and moral pillars of the community. She includes many anecdotes from her own teaching...

Alice Olsen discusses her training as a nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado, her subsequent career at the Glenwood Hospital in Glenwood Springs, and early doctors in the area. She also talks about her childhood in Palisade and about her family’s activities and traditions. 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...

Laird Smith talks about his grandfather Frank Smith’s severe case of Tuberculosis that caused the doctor to move with his family to Grand Junction, Colorado. He describes the apartment next to a saloon where the family lived on Main Street, where drunken men would sometimes crawl in through the windows by mistake. He discusses his father Silmon Smith’s “spartan” upbringing, his camping alone on the Grand Mesa for long stretches when he was...