Colorado

I am a Colorado Girl.

I was raised at the foot of the beautiful Pikes Peak.

I like to think it was the first thing I saw as I left the hospital after I was born.

Mountains, I loved them all of my life.

On this day in 1876, Colorado became a State. She is known as the Centennial State because Colorado officially joined the Union one hundred years after the founding of the United States.

I’m rare Coloradan because members of my family have been living in this beautiful State for generations. I am also a proud third generation citizen of El Paso County, the county in which my hometown, the place of my birth, Colorado Springs, is located.

Since my birth, I’ve lived in several places in Colorado, and I love each place in which I have lived, but if you were to ask which place had the greatest impact on me during my formative years, I would have have to say it would be Leadville, Colorado, the place where I came of age, the place I spent the last days of my youth, and the place where I graduated from high school.

Memories of A Colorado Mountain Girl from
Leadville

The Setting for My Youth

Leadville, at two miles high, is the highest incorporated city in the United States. The average snowfall in Leadville is 127 inches a year. It also averages 310 days of sunshine a year. It is a beautiful place to live. It also is a challenging place to live because of the altitude and the snow.

That Means I am a true mountain girl.

 Anyone who has lived two miles high deserves that distinction.  

I loved everything about living in this old mining town in the heart of the Colorado mountains.  

Living in Leadville, Colorado is an "On Top of the World Experience."

When I was just beginning my senior year in high school, my father was given a promotion when he became agent for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad in Leadville. This meant he moved our family from the flatlands of Pueblo, Colorado, to the rarified air of Leadville, Colorado. I was heartbroken when I had to make this move at this time of my life. Little did I know how much Leadville would figure with such prominence when I recall the happiest times of my life.

Recently, I came across an old journal where, inspired by artwork in the journal, I remembered and recorded some memories of my time in Leadville.

This picture brings back memories of Leadville and the many pines out on the road toward Turquoise Lake. It must have been February and we were decorating for a school dance - "Winter Wonderland." We went out collecting pine branches & tumble weeds - the tumble weeds to be sprayed white and decorated with tiny lights. We must have gone after school - it was cold! The world was white and glittery, the sky was black, clear, and starry as only a Leadville night can be. I still remember crunchy footsteps in the snow and dragging branches and tumble weeds along the snow. It was perfectly quiet except for this sound and the laughter from the excitement of being young and gathering natural decorations for a dance.

I remember: the cold, my feet felt like they were frozen to the ground, the peaceful beauty that surrounded us, and the freedom of youth. Also, I remember the power and the faith that I felt at that age.

Nothing is more beautiful than a Colorado blue spruce being covered with soft, thumb nail size snow flakes in a light snow storm in early evening.

February, 1963, I turned 18. I wanted to stay there forever. The future seemed bright. The past was happy. I had nothing to regret or sorrow about. The present was perfect. I was living in a small mountain town. In fact, I was new in town, and everyone had been so friendly. I was popular and had many friends who were fun and intelligent.

The entire town was ours to roam. It had a colorful past, and it fascinated me. There were old houses that were from the silver boom days. Some of the sidewalks were still wooden. The hardware shop, the barbershop, the church, the school were all functioning museums. Up on the hills were abandoned mines. At night we would go up there and tell ghost stories about them. They were pretty scary too.

The scenery was out of this world..

I was the lucky one who lived in this place in the early 1960’s. It had not been discovered yet, and was in many ways a sleepy mining town that as teens we roamed at will. I’ve made a short list of some of my memories of that time.

Some More Memories of Leadville

• Being the new girl in town.

• Hiking over Mosquito Pass right after I moved to town with my dear friend Mary Carson who passed away in 2010. (Mary deserves an entire blog post.)

• Remembering when Mary first met me she said: "My dad once had a mule named Sal."

• Being crowned homecoming queen of Leadville High School.

• Mary was my competition. She was also the yearbook editor. She made sure the photo of me being crowned as queen showed her and the viewer could not see my face. 😂

• We later became the dearest of friends and went to college together.

• Jeep rides with friends all over those surrounding mountains.

• Making the best friends ever.

• Listening to "true" ghost stories at night while we sat in cars parked at the foot abandoned mines.

• Listening to "true" ghost stories in the cemetery.

• Driving to the top of Vail Mountain before Vail was a ski mountain and a resort.

• Our senior trip to Denver to see "How The West Was Won."

• Senior skip day to Glenwood Springs that was nearly canceled because we had tied beer bottles on the bottom of the bus.

• The bus full of Seniors coming home from Glenwood Spring broke down on our trip over Battle Mountain. We got out and walked for a while, and then we were all loaded onto a single bus to head home.

• Walking through knee deep snow in my Bermuda shorts on my way to my father's office in the depot behind our house so I could type my senior paper.

• Listening to Pete Seeger sing This Land is Your Land and Where have All The Flowers Gone? and thinking folk music spoke my language.

• Reading Dr. Zhivago in my English class and falling in love with Russian literature.

• Starring in several school plays, and having a supportive role in others.

• Building scenery for those plays.

• Taking my ACT test on the coldest day ever and having to walk from the high school to the barbershop to me my father so he could take me home. It felt like my feet were walking on ice even though I had on thick boots and and thick socks!

• Graduating with 67 others in my class.

• Being awarded a scholarship to Colorado State College. (Now The University of Northern Colorado.)

• Reading War and Peace for the first time right after high school graduation.

• Working as a carhop at the local A&W which was across the street from my house. (I kept my tip money in a heart shaped box I’d received full of candy on Valentine’s Day.)

• Hearing Barry Sadler sing The Green Beret for the first time while we were playing pool at a beer joint. Barry Sadler was a Leadville boy.

• There are so many memories, but mostly I remember the beauty of this place. Who wouldn't want to live there? This photo was taken where our house used to stand a few years back. My youngest sister and I are standing in front of what was the view from our living room window.

Colorado, I’m so thankful to be one of your daughters. I would never want to live anywhere else!

Happy Birthday, Colorado! I love you.