Immigrants -- West (U.S.)
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Voice Recording
Sara Kruh talks about growing up near Collbran and in Grand Junction, Colorado, and about her schooling. She also discusses teaching in the Molina School on the Grand Mesa and her teaching career, her role in the origins of the Mesa County Teachers Federal Credit Union, and high button shoes. This recording is made available via signed release by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western...
Format:
Compound
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...
Format:
Voice Recording
Early Mesa County resident Asunta Violeta “Susie” Mendicelli remembers her time spent in Atchee, Colorado, Italian American life in Grand Junction, and taking the train and riding bicycles into Grand Junction, Colorado. She also discusses life in Italy, the process of making sausages and capocollo, relationships between immigrants in Mesa County, the usage of midwives during childbirth, and riding the Interurban Line between Grand Junction and...
Format:
Compound
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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Compound
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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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
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...
Format:
Voice Recording
To mark the centennial celebration of the town of Grand Junction, Colorado in 1981, the Mesa County Oral History Project wrote and recorded several radio plays about local history. Beginning on September 26, 1981, local radio stations KSTR, KREX-AM, KREX-FM, and KMSA broadcast the plays. Authors of the plays used interviews recorded by the Mesa County Oral History Project as inspiration. This archival recording contains the play Straayer Trek, about...
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...
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Voice Recording
Frank Mancuso talks about his early life in the Riverside neighborhood of Grand Junction, Colorado after immigrating from Italy, and about Grand Junction’s Italian American community. He also discusses his long-time employment working for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, fires to the ice house, D&RG roundhouse and the freight depot, playing baseball under the Fifth Street viaduct, several local people and buildings, and other aspects of area...
Format:
Voice Recording
Frank Simonetti Sr. talks about his arrival in the United States from southern Italy in 1914 and his eventual arrival in Grand Junction, Colorado in 1918, where he began a long career with the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. He remembers a fire that burnt down the D&RG icehouse, the railroad shop strike in 1922, and working a seven-day work week for thirty years. He recalls different kinds of locomotives. Angela Simonetti recalls growing up in the...
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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...
Format:
Compound
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...
Format:
Voice Recording
Clarence Prinster talks about his father’s meat market and grocery store in La Junta, and about the Prinster brothers moving to Grand Junction in the 1920’s to start a grocery store at their father’s urging. He talks about the founding of the first City Market grocery store at 400 Main Street in 1922, the Prinster’s purchase of the store in 1924, and renovations made. He speaks about the lard rendering business housed first in a shed behind...
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Voice Recording
Carl Swanson talks about his early life and school days near Loma, Colorado, where his family settled and farmed. He recalls working for the Mesa County Road Department for 36 years, beginning in 1941, and becoming a foreman in 1953. He remembers road damage caused by mudslides on Douglas Pass that took two weeks to repair. He recalls the gilsonite mining boom and local coal mining. He speaks about clearing irrigation ditches and serving on the board...
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
Marie Spomer describes her younger years living in a German settlement in Russia, including homemaking tasks and funeral ceremonies. Marie also recalls what it was like moving to America, the jobs she took on after leaving school, meeting her husband, and moving to Mesa County to work on a sugar beet farm. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado....
Format:
Compound
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...
Format:
Voice Recording
Effie (Johnson) Silzell discusses the pioneering history of her immigrant family in Mesa County, and the history of Whitewater. 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
Chet Enstrom, producer of the locally famed Enstrom’s Toffee, talks about his life in the candy and ice cream business, his career in the Colorado State Senate, his volunteerism, and his impressions of Grand Junction, Colorado, his longtime home. 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.
