Agriculture -- Colorado -- Mesa County
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Voice Recording
Harold Zimmerman describes packing fruit during harvest time in the Clifton area, spraying for codling moths, the end of early apple farming in the valley, the train of wagons used to haul fruit on the Midland Trail at harvest time and about a flash flood that devastated Cross Orchards and destroyed 31 Road. He also talks about his career in bookkeeping for Mesa County Valley School District 51 and other organizations, the run on local banks during...
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
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:
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:
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:
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:
Compound
In a three-part interview conducted over three days, Luisa Landini describes her childhood in Montale, Italy and her life after immigrating to the United States. In part one, she talks about life in Italy, working on a farm and in the fields, and her immigration to the United States via ship at the age of twenty-two. She talks about coming to America to marry Pete Landini and her homesickness for Italy when she arrived. She speaks about the family’s...
Format:
Compound
Albert Phillips Jr. talks about the life of his father, a founder of the United Fruit Growers Association, and about his own career working for the cooperative. He discusses the history of the UFGA and other area fruit growers’ cooperatives, and about the history of fruit growing in Palisade, Colorado. He speaks about migrant workers and German prisoners of war used to harvest fruit during the Depression, and about changes in fruit production, packing...
Format:
Voice Recording
Edithe Pryor discusses her upbringing on a farm in Palisade, Colorado in the early Twentieth century as the daughter of a Welsh immigrant father, and the agricultural history of Palisade, Clifton and the east end of the Grand Valley. She also talks about irrigating land, her mother’s homemaking and recipes for apple deserts, using an old wood-fired cook stove, and getting drinking water from an irrigation ditch. The interview was conducted by the...
Format:
Voice Recording
Ann Stokes talks about her parents' arrival in the United States and her childhood in Palisade, Colorado. She recalls her education in the Palisade School. She describes smudging to help prevent frost damage in her family’s peach orchards on East Orchard Mesa. She speaks about working in the Stokes Coal Mine with her husband, about his bouts with pneumonia, and the effects from an accident when he was hit by a bus. The interview was conducted by...
