Youth -- Social life and customs
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Al Look talks about his father’s grocery store in the early Twentieth century, an incident involving his cat, and a shipment of butter. He mentions his family’s move from Nebraska to Stockton, Kansas. He speaks about the various jobs he had, his education, and the dangers of the open prairie. He also recalls the activities the children would participate in for fun. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration...
Format:
Voice Recording
Al Look talks about driving a team of mules for a laundry wagon, playing hooky from school and stealing watermelons in Stockton, Kansas. He discusses duck hunting and teaching his son gun safety. He speaks about working and then selling his homestead in Dove Creek, and about his experiences in the Four Corners area. He talks about playing high school football on a championship team, and attending the University of Nebraska. He relates working as an...
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Voice Recording
Dudley Mitchell talks about the election campaigns of U.S. Representative Wayne Aspinall, and the campaign caravans they held in Western Colorado. Mitchell also discusses his work as the “ribbon candy expert” at the Miller Candy Factory in Grand Junction, the history of the Grand Valley’s Interurban line and the Grand Junction streetcar line, working at the Lyceum Theater on Main Street as a young man, and teenage escapades, such as causing...
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Compound
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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Voice Recording
Carl Gesberg discusses life growing up on Orchard Mesa and the history of that area. He talks about dating, camping and other youthful activities, holidays, curing meats, and the region’s development. 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.
Format:
Voice Recording
Chuck Thomas recalls growing up in Cedaredge, where he hunted rabbits from horseback as a kid, and where he learned his future trade as a tightrope walker by walking on top of barbed wire fences on his way to and from Cedaredge High School. He also talks about his high wire act for the Happy Day Rides carnival, doing Houdini’s straight jacket stunt on a Ferris Wheel, being a vaudeville actor and musician in traveling tent shows, and hypnotizing...
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Voice Recording
Dorothy Green talks about growing up as the child of a Congregational minister and a kindergarten teacher in Wisconsin, about her own teaching career, and about life as the wife of a Congregational minister. She also talks about working as a substitute teacher and tutor for Mesa County Valley School District 51, and about her husband’s career as a principal and teacher for Mesa County schools. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral...
Format:
Voice Recording
George Knowles talks about the history of his father’s carpentry and construction business in Fruita, about fighting as a soldier in World War I, and aspects of early Mesa County life. Esther Knowles discusses her family and early Twentieth century life in Plateau Valley. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
Format:
Voice Recording
Frieda Miller talks about her pioneer ranching family’s arrival in Palisade, Colorado, and about the exploits of her colorful father, Eben “Mac” Miller. She speaks about her school days in Palisade and Grand Junction, and about childhood games she played (such as Duck on a Rock). She discusses her later life and marriage with farmer and carpenter George Weaver, and her long period as a vegetarian. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County...
Format:
Compound
Grace Wade talks about her childhood growing up in Cripple Creek, Colorado. She goes into detail explaining the layout of the town, the street car system, the red light district, her school, and her home. She mentions her studious piano practice that led to her advanced playing ability, her yearly trips to Texas and Denver to see her family, and her family’s tradition of going to University of Texas. She describes her teaching career in Cripple...
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Compound
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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Voice Recording
Helen Johnson talks about moving to Denver, Colorado from Cleveland, Ohio at a young age and growing up in different places in Colorado. She talks about the fraudulent land sale that first brought her family to Delta County, Colorado in 1910, and that took her father’s life savings. She discusses living in a rented log cabin in Hotchkiss, her mother working as a hired washerwoman and housekeeper, and her father’s difficulty finding gainful employment...
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Voice Recording
Josephine Dickey, an early African-American resident of Grand Junction, talks about her mother’s illness and stepping in to care for her siblings after her mother’s death. She remembers her mother’s doctor and other doctors that cared for the family. She recalls her father William Wesley Taylor III and how he worked to put his brother and sister through college. She talks about African-Americans as portrayed in television programs, especially...
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Compound
Julia Harris discusses her family’s pioneer history and its move westward, including the journey of her grandfather, who was a member of the 1st Colorado Cavalry Regiment before homesteading in Western Colorado. She talks about early life in De Beque, Colorado, including social life and various places they lived, the railroad, sheep trails, De Beque businesses and landmarks, and her work in the local Republican Party. The interview was conducted...
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Voice Recording
Kenneth Thompson describes his life growing up on a farm on Glade Park, Colorado during the early 1900s. Kenneth also discusses the working conditions while employed for the National Park Service during the early days of the Colorado National Monument, the slow pace of life and the social aspects of living on Glade Park, hunting and killing a bear, and stories of the Indians who lived in Mesa County. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County...
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Voice Recording
Marie (Becker) Young talks about her experience living in Germany for a year, and the early days of fruit farming in Mesa County, Colorado. Marie also discusses the early history of Orchard Mesa, her social and work life as a teenager, the business of cattle driving and roundups with her husband in Utah, and her life as a homemaker. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries, the...
Format:
Compound
Mary Cox talks about her education at the Bryant School and elsewhere in Grand Junction, about corsets and other aspects of school fashion, the history of the Riverside Neighborhood, attending community dances and Glenwood Springs’ Strawberry Days, and boys swimming in the Colorado River. She also discusses old downtown businesses, going to movies at the Majestic Theater, a brothel that advertised at the Mesa County Fairgrounds during a baseball...
Format:
Compound
Oscar Jaynes discusses childhood memories of Clifton, Colorado, including life on his family’s homestead, a time he climbed inside a giant tire and rolled down a desert hill, and a boxing match at school with future Colorado Supreme Court justice Jim Groves. He then relates tales of traveling the country on freight cars trying to find work during the Great Depression. Oscar also talks a great deal about the fruit business, specifically the peach...
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Voice Recording
Richard Williams talks about his family’s arrival in Grand Junction, Colorado in 1908. He speaks about his father’s purchase of the Independent Abstract Company and about his own involvement with several abstract and title companies in town. He discusses the formation of the Grand Junction Lions Club, the Grand Junction Lions Club Carnival, and the club’s fundraising for Grand Junction Junior College and other local causes. He speaks about his...
Format:
Voice Recording
Shannon Robinson talks about attending grade school in Gunnison, Colorado, where she was largely shunned or bullied by white students as the first African-American student to attend her elementary school. She speaks about living in Aurora, Colorado, where she made friends with other Black children, but also experienced bullying from children of all ethnic backgrounds because of her mixed race. She discusses getting to know other members of her African...
