Alma Barnie
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Transcribed from the typed transcript held by HCHS. Spelling and punctuation are as typed. Struck text is struck through on the page; [handwritten: …] marks later ink; [p. N] marks the top of each page.
[p. 1]
Interviewee: Alma (Marta) Barnie
Interviewer: Elaine Henderson
Date: January 11, 1986
Elaine: Alma, what was your mother's name?
Alma Margaret Badini Marta
Elaine: Where was she born?
Alma: She was born 1877, April the 23rd , in Colasca, Italy. And she passed away on February the 18th, 1948 at the age of seventy-one.
El And, what was your father's name?
Alma My father's name was Peter Marta. And he was born 1868 on August 22 at Colasca , Italy, and he died April the 20th, 1949, age 81.
El And when did they come to the United States?
Alma Dad came to the United States about 1900, and Mother came about 1902.
El They didn't come together, then?
Alma No
El Did they know each other before they came?
Alma They had three children before they came.
El You just told me they didn't know each other. They were married in Italy, then?
Alma Yes, and then Dad came to the States in 1900 to find work and see where to settle down. And mother had three little children (unintelligible)
El She stayed in Italy
Alma Italy. And then two years later her brother and her came to Colorado, and settled in Somerset.
El O.K. we'll stop there, Alma.
(End of first side)
[p. 2]
ELAINE (Begin side two) (Predates side one) November 9th, 1985 This tape is being made at a regular meeting of the Hotchkiss-Crawford Historical Society at the Hotchkiss Library. Elaine Henderson is interviewing Alma Marta Barnie.
Elaine I do want her to tell you about her parents. Can you tell us a little about your parents, Alma?
Alma O.K. My folks came from Italy; Colasca, Italy. Dad came first in, let's see, 1900 and he left Mother and three children there. So he came to Colorado. He landed up at Telluride. He worked in the mines up there, but he didn't like it...to bring his family up there with all the saloons and everything, so he landed back out here and he lived at Somerset and he went to work in the mines. As soon as he'd got enough money, right then, he sent for Mother and the three kids. So they came and they went to Somerset. The only housing they had, it was in these tents. There wasn't no homes hardly then, there was no road to Somerset. Only thing was the Fire Mountain Canal and the railroad, so they didn't have many homes and they lived in these tents. And then, why after they lived in Somerset a good many years, several years, why, the railroad, these boxcars with these big doors they'd fall off. Dad could pick them up and the railroad man helped him pick them up and they said "where do you want us.....?" Dad filed on a piece of land up toward Bowie/Somerset; in between. Dad filed on a piece of land, and so they asked him "Where do you want to throw these boxcar doors?" He said "The easiest place you can slide them off the hill." and that's where he built the house, the little cabin. And he used box cars to build the cabin. And to line up those....to put the roof on it, and the siding he took these 25 pound carbide cans that they used in the mine for the lights and he lined the whole house on the outside. And us girls used to use the outside for a blackboard. (Transcriber's best guess on the last sentence.....garbled.)
And then well, later on, once he built this cabin and all that Mother and the kids moved home. Then my two brothers were born in Somerset. John and Joe were born in Somerset. And then when Dad had the house built down there in the valley (?) Why I was the first one born down there. Then Margaret and Edith was born, and later on they added more house to it and moved this here building off on the side. And we kept it for a good many years.
El Tell me where it was, Alma.
Alma It was between Bowie and Somerset. Halfway; two miles East of Bowie and two miles West of Somerset. So we lived there; folks was building a nice little house then, and then the folks homesteaded, Clay, up to Hubbard Creek, and that was the Summer ranch. So they got two milk cows, and Mother and two brothers went to the hills for the Summer and they had to live there seven months of the year in order to prove up on the claim. They milked the cows. Well when I was thirteen, I had to quit school, 'cuz I had warts in my squawkbox and I didn't have very much of a speech; at times I didn't have any, so I took care of the homest.... that place in the valley (unintelligible). Well I fed three coal
[p. 3]
miners. My Dad, my brother, and my uncle worked in the mine and then I had two sisters went to school, and I had to pack lunches for all of them, which meant, I had to bake all the bread; never bought a loaf of bakery bread, it all had to be baked and it took 25 pounds of flour a week to bake this bread. Sister Margaret, she was the one that baked cakes...no, pies and my sister Edith, the youngest one, she made the cakes, and I baked the bread and the cinnamon rolls for the lunches. And I had to do the washing for all of them on a washboard. At that time they took and made a kitchen built onto the house and then they put that little first building on the side of the place there. I remember that and it was there not too many years ago. And so that's where they put that into (interference in background) and I did the washing down there...on a washboard for all of them. Sometimes it was eleven, twelve o'clock before I got through. And I did all the canning. Mother told me to can apricots with cold packer and she says "When they start cooking; don't cook them too long" she says "and cold pack 'em." But she didn't tell me how long to cook them, so when they started boiling, I took them off and I put 'em down in the cellar. So my mother came down from up there, the hills, and she says "What's that poppin' downstairs?" She went down to see. It was my apricots that I did not cook long enough. So she said "I don't want to lose all the jars, we'd better empty them. Sure, we emptied them, but here comes all the chickens. They ate the apricots....talk about drunk chickens! So that's how I learned to can. I had to pick the fruit and can it. I'd can a hundred quarts of peaches a day and bake bread; twelve loaves at a time. How I did it, I don't know, but I did. So daddy always called me his little boss, and Mother was his big boss.
El Tell them about the butter
Alma O.K. And then Mother was up at the homestead. Joe and Johnny went up with her in the Summer, and they milked cows and Mother made butter and she made fifty pounds a week....
El I thought it was twice a week...
Alma Fifty pounds a week and she brought it down on horseback. Well Daddy was the Fire Mountain ditch walker at that time and they sold the butter to Somerset. Well they sent me up there. I was only nine then, and I couldn't carry that butter, so Daddy carried it to Somerset; he walked up there with me and then he walked to (?) Fire Mountain Ditch. And he took the butter to a friend's house up there and she took out six pounds for her and fixed it so I could carry it. I didn't go very far round there. I got rid of the butter at fifty cents a pound, and after I sold the butter and Mother said "Well they're good people in Somerset." she said "You come home every time and don't miss a penny." 'Cuz they made the change...I didn't know how to make change for when they give me big bills (?). They did, and I had to walk back by myself.
El You told me something about one of the men who wanted the butter.
[p. 4]
Alma I sold the butter in the first part of the town, just the first half and the policeman in Somerset, he got a'hold of me one day. He says, very rough talkin' to me, he says "All right young lady. Next time you come up, if you don't bring me butter, I', gonna cut your ears off and make soup." and I thought "Oh my God, I'll bring you some butter!" and that was another half a mile North toward the other end of town and half a mile back to deliver him three pounds of butter a week. Which, I did it. I was scared of him. (Laughter) And then, when I was seventeen.......
El Well let's not get to that yet. Uh, how about the schools, can you tell us about the schools?
Alma O.K. When I started....it was schools with my three oldest ones at Bowie...the one school, and that is the one that's in Paonia at the bridge. My brothers and sisters went to school there, and then I went to school there. It is the only one side of the building. It is one building. One side was the kindergarten, and the first grade and second, then the other side was third and fourth and fifth. And later on, they built another building, and that was for sixth, seventh, and eighth. And that building is at Bowie. It's a fruit stand now, I think it's called, and it has remained at Bowie. And we had to walk the two miles to school each day.
El And tell them about the set-up in the school.
Alma All right. They had a old-fashioned school desk and we had those (?) (?) desks, the old-fashioned ones and then for heat, we had one of these here great big furnace like they have in the basements, now, each room had one of those, and a janitor was the one that built up the fire in the morning and had it fixed so it lasted all day.
El And then, what about the subjects that you had in school?
Alma We had arithmetic and the books, and the answers was in the back, and then we had spelling, and reading. And then penmanship; we really had to write: that was certain. And I didn't do much reading as I had those warts in my throat which I didn't talk very much at a time, so when I was about fifteen and mother took me to Delta and I spent six weeks there and they burned 'em out with acid. So I still have that problem.
El Do you recall your teachers and their names?
Alma Yes, I uh, no I really don't remember. When I was in the first grade, I didn't do much talking on account of my throat, but I was gonna "help" the teacher when she went to help the others, and when I went to school in the morning, she had a little rope, and she'd tie me to my desk. So I didn't help her anymore.
El: Unintelligible...gap in tape)
[p. 5]
Alma And they were in cartons. The bigger heavy cartons, butter was. And then she'd wet tea towels and put them in bucket and covered it, and when the lady had them, she'd put them in a cold room.
El You said cartons. Was it more like crocks?
Alma No, it was the heavy plaster board with the wax inside, and each pound of butter had its own container. And once you got them cold and wrapped, the butter didn't melt. One time it did. I had three pounds and I figured I'm going to take them home, but a lady said "Nope, I'll take them." so I never have brought any butter home. But the butter was (unintelligible).
El Grant, did you have a question?
Grant I wanted to know what butter cost in those days.
Alma Fifty cents.
El In what year about was that?
Alma Oh, let's see. It was about nineteen twenty.
El Any other questions? June?
June Had a questions about the parents names. Elaine said that they were going to fill that in on another day as they couldn't do it all today.
Questions from the floor re family names and dates which are answered on page one.
Question from floor about children born in Italy "Which three children?"
Alma The three was born in Colasca, Italy. It was my brother Jim. Jim was born in Colasca, Italy. Born August the 22, and died 27 of February, 1974. He lived to be 78.. And Virginia, she married a Bayer (sp?), she was born also in Colasca, August the 23rd, and died March 10th, 1973, and she lived to be 75. And Santina, she changed her name to Nina, now, but she married a Sheraz (?), and then she married a Richard. She also was born in Colasca. Born September 11th, 1900. Then Edith, Margaret, and she married a Shipman, and she was born in Bowie. She was born March the 2nd and died July 13th, 1955, she passed away at age forty. Then Joe, he was born at Somerset; May the 11th, 1904. John Marta was born in Somerset on March the 2nd, 1907. And Alma Barnie, I was born at Bowie on the new place, April the 15th, 1910. Margaret, married a White, and she was born there on March the 2nd, 1912. Edith, who married a Shipman, she was born in Bowie, March the 2nd, and died 1955.
[p. 6]
Voice from floor Now, Nina is living now in California, isn't she?
Alma Yes, in California.
El The story about Nina is interesting. Tell them about Nina getting married.
Alma She was married about fourteen and she had two children, and one, the boy,.... of the two kids Harriet was the oldest girl and then she had Betty, a second girl, and a little boy, Eddy. And she was married and she had those sweet children. She was in Paonia, she was working at the hotel. Well she took a notion to go with them to California, she left her three children, deserted them, and so her husband picked them up, and between the oldest sister, Mrs. Behr (sp?), she took the children, and then also Mrs. Irma Cheraz (sp) took the children, and Mother then, took the children but it was up to Mother up at the homestead for seven months of the year, and then it was up to me with three more young ones to care for. So finally I sent all of them to school and the little boy is still small. I took care of him at home.
And then, at the age of seventeen, I got married. I married (unintelligible..possibly a name? Not Barnie, though.) And then my sister took the kids. Her husband provided for them. He was there near my sister's and had a place above them. So then, we took the folk's place out there at Bowie, and my folks moved out here on Rogers Mesa. Johnny and Sereny (?) Bought the place and they went to California.....my folks did. And Howard and I, we homesteaded a place up Hubbard Creek which is ten miles up the creek, up the Hubbard. Up next to Jay Crawford and the Wade place. And we had to build fence in order to prove up on this government land. We didn't have the money, but there's a lot of jack oaks up on the hills, so he took the jack oaks and built a fence three or four different sections on that land up there; and they were sheep tight. And there is a picture of it down at the courthouse, I think. I saw it once. Where the airplane took the pictures of a fence. And the government o.k.ed it. So then, in the Summer time we'd go up in the hills and he rode fence and I'd go around early in the Spring to every sheep outfit on the mountain up there, sometimes I didn't get home 'til nine or ten o'clock, they was so far away, I went and gathered up bum lambs and came home and milked my cows and fed my lambs. I did that for a number of years. Then, when I got 250 ewe lambs, there was a sheep outfit up there by the name of Gus Osborne (?). He said "Alma, in the Fall, I'll take all your wether lambs and I'll give you ewe lambs, pound for pound." Well, I got two lambs for one. I soon built up.... Then I finally built up a nice little herd. Then we went into.....then I had 250 lambs. Then we mortgaged them and Shipley, a sheep outfit, out here on Rogers Mesa, he had 300 head to sell with allotment for $3,000. We went to the bank and got the $3,000 and we took up that Payne's Siding outfit dow there to run them for the Winter and we had lambs up there on the government land, too. And then later on, Reynolds, had a buch of sheep that got into alfalfa and they lost a bunch of ewes and they notified me, and I bought those for eighty-five cents apiece....sixty head, and I took care of them down at the place down there before we went to the hills that Summer. And Howard had built me fences in the orchard, in different sections and he says, "Every day, after you feed
[p. 7]
them, you drive those lambs around from one place to another, because when you go up to the hills, you're going to have to drive them up ten miles." So when I fed 'em I'd drive them around the orchard with that whole herd in the morning and in the afternoon, Howard and I and Bill, we drove my little herd up. Ten miles...it was fun!
And then, Howard took care of the allotment, but the only had three hundred and different ones had two or five hundred and that allotment had to be up to a thousand head to call the allotment, that many sheep on each allotment. So then after that......, they call that a "pool" allotment. So my husband went. He herded sheep in the Summer and I took care of the place up there and took care of my 200 head that was left at the house. Me and my little lambs. And to take care of the camp when he was herding, I had my horses that I packed, and I took care of the camp, and moved his tent, cook tent, once a week and he moved his bed tent every day because sheep slept in a different place every day, and I did that for three years...I moved camp. And then, after that, why we came down, and then his mother moved back from California, and she said "Alma, you married my baby and he's not living here with you, he's moving in and taking care of me." I says "Fine." So I asked him and said "How do you agree on it.?" He said "Mother comes first." I said "Fine, you know, it's a darn poor chicken that can't scratch for herself." So what did I do? He left me the place in the hills and I sold that to Dean Allen for $2,700 and I took that and I bought a car and I went to California and I scratched for myself. I moved in with my sister, my folks lived there, so I was all right, so I lived with my sister and I left on Thanksgiving Day and on January 19th, I remember that, his mother and him came to California and says "Please come back, we'll give you everything in your name." I said "You tore the playhouse up. Now you go back. I'll stay. I'm working every day at the wire company and instead of working 18 hours, I work eight, and last week I got a check!" So later on then, I married Earl Adams, he was a serviceman, and we stayed in California four years, and then the war was over and we moved to Kentucky. He was a Kentucky man. We went to old Kentucky, and we stayed there four years. While we was there we adopted a little boy and he was about two years old. And we stayed in Kentucky and he drove a truck and they built coal mines. And the way they took the coal out of the mines; they had the littlest Shetland ponies that you can find. That's what they'd pull the coal out, and the men worked in there on their knees, in the mine. And their pony, that pulled the coal out of the mine, they'd open their car door at night, and it rode in the back seat, back and forth. So then that went on where they shut down these coal mines on account the wasn't keeping up with government rules. So then we sold out and we left there and went to Indiana and we bought a forty acre farm there, and he went and worked at Biltwell at the roofing company in asphalt roofing and we took what we had with that big truck that he hauled coal with, well, we took that and bought a Ford tractor with all the plows and discs and everything. He worked with the mine and I farmed the land. I plowed and got the land all ready to put the corn in and the neighbor said "I better come and plant your corn. I'm afraid you might not do a right job, and you've been working so hard, I'm gonna give you the corn planter. Mine's a good one." So I used it and planted the corn and I cultivated it and I put in an acre of tomatoes each year and when the tomato season come, that was up to me. When he went to work, I went and picked tomatoes. And I brought them down to
[p. 8]
where we could take them in a truck to the canning factory. And after that, when he come home, he'd load the tomatoes and he went to the canning factory and I'd in and cook his supper. Then I'd go get in my pick-up and I'd go to the canning factory and give him the pick-up and tell him to go home and then I stayed there sometimes after mid-night until my truck was in line to get unloaded. And I did that for three years planting tomatoes. And then we had the little boy.
And then we got a letter from a young girl and she wanted to know if we would like to adopt another baby. She says this is her second one and she didn't get a penny for it. And I said maybe it'll be my little red-headed freckled girl that I've been a'wishing for. And then I went to the hospital and had surgery for gall bladder, the 8th of February and the 15th, she was born and I had her baby give to me. So that stopped my farming for a while, so then we went and got her from Kentucky and brought her back and so I got my little girl. My freckle-faced red-head, and I've always wanted a large family, and I only had one son, so I've got ...uh...my son has two kids, Lemoine Nation and Linda Ferrier, the two are my grandkids. Then the boy I adopted, he has two girls, and then Fran, the one here with me, she's got four. I have their pictures.
(Several false starts, then...) I run a filling station, did I say that? While we was in Kentucky........well I better skip that hadn't I?
El Let's give them a chance to ask about Somerset. Any more questions now? I was looking here, tell them about where you swam in the river.
Alma Yes, you know the river's real high in those days and my folks lived....that place at Bowie was right next to the creek where it made a circle, made a bib, big pool there. My that was a wonderful place where people could come and go swimming, but I never got to go because I had this little boy and he said "You'd drowned."
Floor Did a lot of adults swim there too?
Alma Yeah, they came up from Bowie and Somerset. That was a big swimming pool.
El Is there a landmark that you can......?
Alma Not now, it's all washed different. I noticed it. There's none of it there now.
El You mentioned there was a whirlpool and........
Alma But that was then, it's all washed different...... the river's washed different channels now.
El What was it close to that we might recognize?
Alma Well it is....after you pass where the house was; it's just down over the hill.
[p. 9]
El O.K. about mid-way between Bowie and Somerset, then?
Alma Yes, it's still there by the place there. It was still on the homestead land.
El You told me, I believe, that you didn't recognize the milk rancher and you didn't swim there, right?
Alma This is where the pool was.
Floor There's no ranches where the swimming hole was?
Alma No, it was on my folk's property at the time. The river's changed around the channels so much that there's nothing like the way it was then.
Floor But at your old home there part of the Dillons (?) Still have those sidings for the railroad cars, doesn't it?
Alma No, no we discarded that when we took over. Then you see the old.... the home that the folks had, it burned down while I was living there. It burned down.
Floor I heard you say "The milk ranch". What was the milk ranch?
Alma That was about a mile from the West end of the place, the folks' place and they.... Revanchicks (?) Was their name. And they had a lot of cows, and this land, as you go to Somerset, you probably remember, there used to be a kind of a parking lot there. Well that was the milk ranch at that time. And the ex-Somerset land.
Floor They called it the milk ranch because....?
Alma It was the milk ranch because these people, they milk the cows, and then he took the....with a one horse wagon..took the milk to Somerset, and he delivered the milk in his horse took it to the next house....... he didn't drive it and that was called the milk ranch. Later on in the years, then Somerset took that land back and they built across the river from the East side of the milk ranch. Across the river. You've probably been up that way. You'll notice the swinging bridge. They built the place over on the other side, they moved over there, the old folks did.
El That's why there's no house at milk ranch, huh?
Alma Yeah
El I see. That's interesting.
[p. 10]
Alma That was a beautiful place because..... it was interesting; she did all the bottle washing and she had a horse in a big fifty gallon barrel and she went to the river and got her water and brought it in.
Floor Milk ranch, that's just about a mile this side of Somerset...that big park down there?
Alma MmmHmmm (affirnative)
Floor They used to have 4th of July big (?) And softball games.
Alma Next to the highway, there was a barn clear across and then the house was all in there. She had the most beautiful sweet Williams, flowers, all over and she'd water them with the water that she had washed her bottles in.
Floor Unintelligible (sounds like a question about who lives there now?)
Alma Her son, after they died, well, his father died, and they had to carry him across the swinging bridge, and later on, their son got married and they moved in. The son's wife still lives there.
Floor How many people lived in Somerset in those days?
Alma That town was large. I'd imagine about two hundred or more people there.
Floor I noticed that we had a picture of the old store there.
Alma MmmmHmm (Affirmative)
Floor (unintelligible)
El She made some interesting remarks about it. Look at it and tell them "This is the Delta County Independent; Monday, December 14th, 1981" and it's a picture of the Stuarthatch(?) Store at Somerset. Tell them about the guards and all.
Alma O.K. Daddy was working there and their money, pay day, came in on the passenger train, is all cash. And then when they paid them they had to take so much out in scrip, and when the money came in on the train, there was guards there with guns to guard this money and then when they took it up in the upstairs, here, there was a guard on every window. I happened to get one of the guns, that was my hunting gun.
El I notice the stairs go up in front and down in back, did they go up and get their money and go out the other door?
[p. 11]
Alma No....and then underneath there was the meat market and the store; it had everything. It was a real good store, and then on the side of the store here was a (?) (Interviewer is apparently re-folding the newspaper or shaking it. Too much background noise.)
Floor When you were paid in money, cash, U.S. money, then did the store take your money and give you scrip and then you gave it to the store and paid what you owed?
Alma No, when they give you the money, so much was cash and then so much scrip goes with it.
Floor You had to take the scrip so you had to buy at the store?
Alma MmmHmm (affirmative) You had to buy at the store.
El The Company Store
Alma And then, they also had a hospital up there. Half of it is still there.
El Where is that?
Alma The first house is where the boss lived..the foreman of the mine, and then there was a long hospital there..half of it is still there.
El And tell them where the store was.
Alma The store is where the silos?......that's where it was. And then up on the hill right back of the store at bone hill there, right in front of the mine here, there was a boarding house there. A great big boarding house there.
El Do you remember when they put the road in along the didtch?
Alma I really don't.
El Tell them about how you got in and out of Somerset.
Alma Well to get in and out of Somerset, we'd walk the track (R.R.); there was no road there was Fire Mountain Ditch and then the tracks. That's the only way you got in and out. I don't know when they built the road. I don't remember that.My Dad was telling us "There's no road."
Floor When your Daddy went in there there must have been a trail.
Alma (Response covered by questioner...unintelligible)
[p. 12]
Alma It's all Railroad.
Floor The railroad didn't go in until 1908, did it?
Alma No, it was there in 1902.
Floor It was????
(Background noise and discussion from floor. Something about maybe passenger service?)
Alma No, the freight train came and got coal because Daddy worked at the mine.
Floor The only way they could get in to Redstone and Marble was the train.
Alma True
El And obviously, there were passenger trains, even then, because because of the box cars and all that you talk about. It wasn't all coal cars.
Alma The boxcars, and then the passenger trains came in at night and out in the morning, and that was the transportation in and out. If you went to town, you had to stay all day.
El Do you want to mention this other picture?
Alma Now this picture here is the big Capitol house there at Bowie. It's still there, and it was built, in Bowie, in 1911. I did have some more of these but a lot of them "I'd like to take the paper and read it.." but I didn't get 'em back, so. And then this is the way that Bowie houses was built. This is there start.
El Do you remember any activities at the big house? At this one?
Alma Well, it sits up there up on the hill.
El But did you ever go to parties there or have any occasion to go there?
Alma There's nothing there. I went there many a times because there was Mrs. Tippy Sneddon (?), she lived there, too. And then I was sick and had this trouble and they was all real good to me. I went there many a times.
El Was the post office there?
Alma The Post Office set right over here (pointing to picture?)
[p. 13]
Floor That was the big boss' house? Is that what you call that?
Alma This was a Company house. Let's see, Jeff Bowie was the one that run the Post Office. The first house was Jeff Bowie's home. The second house was Elliot Bowie's home. The third house was Bill Bowie's home. And those was three that's married. And then Wallace, he lived at the big house. He never did get married. And then.......
Floor Were they all brothers? Four brothers?
Alma Yes
Floor Wasn't Wallace an uncle of Elizabeth (?) Sneddon?
Alma She's from (?) Sneddon, yes. And then Wallace and those boys' father and Agnes and Ann, Mrs. Sneddon, their father was a doctor. Company (?) Doctor and was the one that delivered me at Bowie, and my two sisters.
Floor Do you remember Dr. McConnel; was the Company doctor up there?
Alma Yes. Bill when he was a little baby, he always had earache, and Dr. McConnel at Somerset was the doctor, gave him a little bitty bottle of medicine and put it in his ear a drop at a time, and he has never had a earache since. But what it was, I don't know.
El You mentioned another doctor to me, too. Do you remember who that was?
Alma I said it was Dr. Crawford, but it isn't. It was Dr. Bowie. I checked it.
El So there were doctors in Somerset, then?
Alma Doctor in Somerset had the hospital and was the Company doctor. He was the one that my sister took me to because Dad was working in the mine. He's the one sent me to Delta, and they burned those warts out with acid.
Floor Is it true that Teddy Roosevelt hunted bear up there on the land you had at Hubbard Creek?
Alma Now that, I don't know.
(Floor discussion about where Roosevelt hunted, garbled)
Floor When your Dad worked in the mines up there, were they Unionized?
Alma Yes......wait a minute.......
[p. 14]
Floor Aha! You had a Company doctor, a Company store, you had the whole show, and scrip.
El But did you need a Union if you were working for a company? I bet they weren't.
Floor What difference does it make? (Garbled comments from floor)
El Not when you're getting paid by....... (Garbled floor discussion)
Floor (question about dentist..garbled)
Alma No, the dentist was in Paonia, and visited Somerset every so often.
Floor Did they come up on a road then or on the railroad?
Alma Well, by that time they had roads, see.
Floor They come in cars then?
Alma Well there wasn't many cars then, but they built the highway along the ditch bank.
Floor Was there anything there in the town besides.... There was the store, and the school and the houses. Was there any other business, or was that it?
Alma No
Floor Did you have dances someplace and fun things.....?
Alma They had a good (?) At the school building, but I don't remember dances or anything.
(Floor discussion about get-togethers. Garbled due to multiple speakers.)
El We have to remember her family was separated so much of the time between the mine and the homestead and the other place that they weren't able to do a lot of things together in that way.
Floor Did you ever have a disaster in the mines when your folks were working there?
Alma Well.....I wasn't very old at that time........ (End of Tape)