Mesa County Oral History Project
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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,...
Format:
Voice Recording
Mary talks about her early childhood in Kansas as one of nine children and her family's move to Colorado upon the death of her father. Mary details the train and its passengers during the move, including Russian immigrants coming to work the beet fields, and her mother's outreach. She mentions her mothers career training riding horses as a way to support the family. She talks about her relationships, children, and the struggle she faced trying to...
Format:
Compound
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...
Format:
Voice Recording
Armand de Beque talks about the history of Ravensbeque, Colorado, founded by his father Wallace A.E. De Beque prior to the town’s relocation to the present site of De Beque. He speaks about Wallace De Beque’s training and career as a pioneer doctor, and about the family’s roots in both Canada and France. He talks about his brothers’ service in Europe during World War I and the military service of his sons. He discusses his memories of growing...
Format:
Compound
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...
Format:
Voice Recording
In an interview from May 14, 1981 (audio only, no transcript), Basil T. Knight talks about his youth in Michigan, meeting his wife’s family in Palisade, Colorado and ultimately moving there, operating a fruit farm, and becoming a lifelong teacher and school administrator. He explains the mechanisms that originally funded the many smaller school districts on the Western Slope, including taxes on railroads, and the reasons for the consolidation that...
Format:
Compound
Wayne Aspinall describes his boyhood in Palisade, Colorado, his education at Mt. Lincoln School and the University of Denver, and his career as a schoolteacher, fruit farmer, lawyer, and U.S. Congressman. 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
Shannon Robinson talks about becoming involved in student government at then Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colorado (now Colorado Mesa University), helping to coordinate the campus’s fundraiser in response to Hurricane Katrina, her AIDS activism, and being elected the first minority president of the student body. She discusses racism that she and other African-American students encountered at Mesa State in the early 2000’s and that her...
Format:
Voice Recording
David Combs talks about the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police, the ethnic makeup of Minneapolis (where Mr. Combs grew up), and the history of policing and police brutality there. He discusses the worldwide movement for social justice that grew from protests against Floyd’s killing, the response to Floyd’s killing in Grand Junction, Colorado, and the protest movement that took shape here. He addresses differences within the local African-American...
