THE ROGERS
FAMILY IN WAR AND DEPRESSION
The Gun at The Table
by Chet Rogers
p. ii
DEDICATION
I dedicate this book to my wonderful and loving wife, Shirley, who has supported me before, and
during, the at times, frustrating days of this endeavor.
p. iii
CONTENTS
ii Dedication
iii Contents
iv Introduction
Chapter I Courtship and Marriage and Before World War II p. 2
Chapter II The War Years p. 26
Chapter III After The War p. 36
Abbreviated Genealogy of Rogers Family p. 75
Supplement I - The Story of John Rogers I and His Descendants p. 78
Supplement II - The Story of William B. Hill and His Descendants p. 92
p. iv
I, Chester L. Rogers, Jr., wrote this book because of my love for my family and to set down some
of the happenings, particularly of our folks, Chester L. Rogers, Sr. and Beulah E. Hill Rogers and
their immediate family consisting of Charles [Chuck], Julius [Bud], Nellie [Toni], Chester [Chet],
William [Bill], and Russell [Rusty].
It is my hope that any reader will find the account interesting and can understand what shaped our
lives during those years from 1905 to 1985.
I have also included short histories of the Rogers and Hill families back to as far as the 18th
century.
p. 2
CHAPTER I
The year was 1910, the place, Carr, Colorado at the Colgin Hotel and Bar. The hotel was the
gathering place for the young unmarried men for their weekly poker game. In the picture, the man
holding the gun is our father, Chester L. Rogers Sr. [Chet]. Chet is evidently trying to get a rise out
of the others by displaying the gun. The others are : the one on Dad's right is Pate Woolston [the
one our brother Bud is named after]; the one on Dad's left is Clifford Colgin, the owner of the
place; the next one is a stranger, the next one is Julius Hill, our mother's brother [another one who
Bud is named after making his given name Julius Woolston, which he never would let anybody
call him].
Evidently the whole scenario, or gag, was instigated by Dad for the benefit of the stranger who
had just ridden into town.
This picture gives any reader of this book a glimpse into the character of our father which helps to
explain some of the events and happenings which occurred over the next 70 years and are
described in this book.
COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE AND BEFORE WORLD WAR II
Our parents, Chester L. Rogers and Beulah Euphemia Hill, met in Carr, Colorado in about 1915.
This was a small railroad town in a remote area 30 miles north of Fort Collins and 30 miles south
of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Transportation consisted of the railroad, a few cars and horse and
buggy.
p. 4
Chet and Beulah started dating and going to dances and social gatherings.
Dad was a young blade 30 years of age who had a swashbuckling reputation in the Carr area.
however when he met our mother, Beulah, I'm sure he got serious in a hurry. One can only
wonder about the turbulent courtship that took place between them.
In looking back to the time of the marriage of our parents, I make an attempt to rationalize some
reasons why the marriage came about. In appearance, I can readily accept the fact that they were
physically attracted to each other.
Mom was a lovely young woman, age 24, well educated with expressive brown eyes and black
hair, a demure smile and a precocious air about her. Dad, age 32, was of astounding build with
wide shoulders and long waist. His facial features consisted of high brow, blue-gray eyes and a
shock of brown hair parted in the middle.
One would have to assume that he fell for her immediately and being of a practical nature, set
about to court her very seriously. I'm sure Mom returned his love but perhaps was a little more coy
about it.
Dad came from a background that took religion, as far as we know, in an inactive,
apathetic, let it [p. 5] alone manner. Whereas Mom was from a very structured, straightlaced,
Seventh Day Adventist family. Mom was well educated for the time having attended college for
two years at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Dad never said much about his education, however we all think he went at least to the 8th grade
which was the level most children went to at the time. both had a high level of intelligence and
were able to fit into the society of the communities they lived in at acceptable levels. Dad was very
conservative as to government, politics and fiscal matters. Mom was just the opposite. I received
my first lesson in economics from her at the age of about 10 years. She was a very enthusiastic
supporter of the ''Townsend Plan.'' This plan, named after the author, Townsend, would give each
person over the age of 50 a certain amount of money, say $100. Mom said, ''Just imagine what a
stimulus that would give to our economy.'' The only requirement would be those receiving it would
have to spend it all every month. The plan did not come about much to the disappointment of
Mom.
The marriage took place on August 8, 1916 at Mom's sister and brother- in-law, Nellie and C.R.
Kite's house in Wellington, Colorado. They spent their honeymoon in Denver.
They moved to a wheat farm near Dad's folks place south of Carr where they took up farming and
milking cows.
Mom gave birth to Charles Reuben on March 5, 1918 in the Boulder Sanitorium. On January 29,
1919 Mom took Charles [Chuck] to Lincoln, Nebraska to her folks. She gave birth there to Julius
Woolston [Bud] on January 19, 1919.
p. 6
These were very difficult years for the young family and it was frustrating and dull for Mom. Dad
kept busy farming, milking cows and feeding young calves on the skim milk which was obtained
after separation of the milk. The cream was put in cans and taken to Carr and sold. They also
raised chickens and sold the extra eggs in order to make a living.
During this time a near fatal happening occurred to first-born Charles [Chuck]. Our mother
Beulah, had let him play near the back door of the house while she was working in the kitchen and
Dad was working in the field nearby when she heard Chuck scream. She ran out and saw a
rattlesnake slithering away. She grabbed a shovel and quickly killed the snake. Dad heard Mom
scream and ran to the house. Mom took a knife and cut across the bite and sucked as hard as
she could to try to get the poison out.
They called on the phone to the doctor in Wellington who said, ``Bring him in as soon as
possible!'' the phone was a party line and everyone in the community soon knew what had
happened.
Luckily Mom and Dad had a car at that time and they bundled Chuck and Bud into the car and got
to Wellington in record time. When they arrived, Chuck's leg was black and blue and the doctor
said, ``It's a good thing you got here when you did or Chuck would have been
dead!''
p. 7
Another incident at this time
involved Dad. He was working in a field
with horses and a one-way low when he noticed a neighbor boy had started a fire in the weeds,
grass and bushes along the road to clear the area for farming. All of a sudden the wind changed
and the fire was out of control and had engulfed the boy. Dad ran to the fire and was able to drag
the boy from the fire. The boy was badly burned, particularly on one leg and was crippled the rest
of his life. In 1975 I received a call from that boy [now an old man] who said, ''I wish to thank your
Dad for his quick action which saved my life.'' Dad, of course, had died in December 1971, so was
unable to enjoy this tribute to him.
The low wheat and cattle prices of 1920 caused Dad and Mom to sell out and leave the Carr
area.
They moved to Wellington and Dad got a job taking care of cattle and farming for Mom's brother-
in-law, C.R. Kite who had married Mom's older sister, Nellie. In a year, the Kites had to quit too, so
Dad and Mom had to move to find another job.
During this time Nellie was born on April 14, 1921 in the house at 3901 Roosevelt in Wellington.
The house is still here as of February 1999. The big house which Nellie and C.R. Kite lived in is
still here too, and is located at 3922 Cleveland Avenue.
Dad and Mom moved to Cheyenne and he started working on the Union Pacific Railroad and she
started running a boarding house. Dad had to work very hard shoveling coal into the furnace going
up Sherman Hill and Cheyenne Ridge to Laramie. However, coming back down the hill to
Cheyenne it wasn't so bad. Mom had good luck running the boarding house as she was an
excellent cook, a good manager and [p. 8] got along well with her customers. She had some
trouble collecting money for food and rent. However, when Dad came home, he was able to
collect.
From Cheyenne they moved to a farm at Lingle, Wyoming which was about 50 miles north of
Cheyenne. At this time, there were Chuck, Bud, and Nellie. They got a farm where they raised
wonderful potatoes. They had a wagon and four mules to do the digging, cultivating and
harvesting. However it was an early wet fall and the spuds were frozen in the ground and the price
was so low that Dad abandoned the crop and left. Dad traded the wagon and four mules for a
Model-T Ford car and they returned to Cheyenne where Dad again worked for the railroad as a
roundhouse foreman and Mom again ran a boarding house. I remember Bud telling us many
years later that it was so cold coming down from Lingle that the folks wrapped the kids' feet in
gunny sacks [potato sacks] to keep them warm.
It was during these years that Dad became involved in bootlegging. Of course it was prohibition
time and you couldn't get liquor in the stores. It was made in stills and distributed around to the
customers. It seems Dad was one of those distributors. Before condemning Dad, let's think about
the circumstances he and the family were in. [Of course, I absolve Mom of any involvement in this
as I'm sure she knew nothing about it!] He had a family of three kids to take care of on a minimum
wage or less while working for Kite and the railroad. He was offered this part-time job by a man by
the name of Teiters who lived in the Wellington area. Dad must have been engaged in this part-
time work for several years.
p. 9
In 1922 the family moved to a better farm in the Berthoud area. Of course all the beet work
[preparing the land, planting] was all done with horses. After the beets were up, the hard stooping,
back- breaking work began. First they had to thin the beets by crawling along the rows and saving
just one small plant about every 8-12 inches apart. Then they had to block the beets which means
hoe between the saved plants, cutting out the weeds and discarded beets. After the beets were
irrigated about six times, they reached maturity and were ready for harvest. This was done by the
horses pulling a beet digger down each row which threw the beets out on top of the ground. Then
came topping and cutting the root off.
This was done by using a heavy beet knife. They were finally shoveled into the wagon and hauled
off to the beet dump at Loveland. I can imagine the boys, Chuck four years old and Bud, three
years old, riding on the wagon seat with our Dad--- a welcome break after helping with the beet
work.
On a hot summer day on July 28, 1923, I was born. They say I was a breach baby and the doctor
and mid-wife had a terrible time delivering me. Mom was quite sick for several months. So starting
with my birth, as you will see, I was a pain in the neck for my Dad until I went into the service in
the war in 1943.
It was necessary for Dad to hire a baby sitter [nanny] to take care of the family since Mom was
sick. After a few months, the nanny was fired because she had left me out too long and I caught a
bad cold. Nellie told me later that Dad told the nanny, ``Here's a bus ticket and your wages; you
are no longer needed.''
p. 10
Evidently, about this time, Dad found his bootlegging past was catching up with him and after
discussing the situation with Mom, they decided to pack up and take a trip to Arkansas and
Missouri where Dad's brother, Charlie, was now living.
My very first memory was an event that took place on this trip. They drove two vehicles, a truck
and a long car of some kind. I remember Mom was driving the car and somehow she got off the
road and this is what I remember as a very serious situation. Dad had to come back and pull the
car out of the ditch.
I had nightmares about it for a long time. Also they came to a bridge to cross with very narrow
treads. Mom was too scared to drive the car across, so Dad had to come back and drive the car
across. All our young lives we have heard about the glories of that trip and Mom was always
saying, ``I wish we had stayed in Arkansas; it's so warm down there and we could pick raspberries
and strawberries which grew everywhere. We wouldn't have to work so hard to make a living.'' On
the trip back to Loveland, Dad picked corn to make enough to get back.
Dad went into the business of wholesaling and retailing of all kinds of vegetables and fruits
sending them into Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming. During this time, Mom would rent a big
house and take in renters and boarders, thus supplimenting the income. Chuck and Bud helped
Dad in the business and got to drive the truck and go from house to house selling
produce.
p. 11
William B. [Bill] was born on March 8, 1927 in Loveland. Times were very hard and Dad, in 1930,
decided to move to a very poor farm of 40 acres six miles west of Loveland at the Berthoud cutoff.
Dad went back to farming and raising livestock which he knew and loved. The only good thing
about the farm was that it had a very big house which we needed now for a family of nine. The Big
Thompson school was about three miles away and we children rode the bus to school or
walked.
When I was eight years old, I was riding a Shetland pony, herding cows out on the road where
there was quite a bit of grass. The saddle was too big for me, as well as the pony. As I was
hearding the cows, something scared the pony and I was thrown. The next thing I knew, I woke up
in the hospital. Mom and Dad described what happened as they were watching from a fourth of a
mile away. My foot caught in the stirrup and the pony galloped down the road along the fence. My
arms were flailing and right arm was caught in the barbed wire fence as the pony ran tearing the
flesh on the forearm. The pony came to a bridge and turned just enough for my foot to slip out of
the stirrup. When Dad got to me, I was a bloody mess. They got the truck and rushed me to the
hospital. The doctor said I had a fractured skull and numerous cuts, but that being so young and
tough, I would survive. I was unconscious for three days [Bill and Nellie say, two weeks]. The cuts
on my right arm, when they healed, were in the shape of 11Y [11 lazy Y] which I requested as my
brand for cattle and used many years.
p. 12
This was the time of the Depression and there was no work anywhere. Dad and Chuck managed
to get the spring crop in and harvested enough feed in the fall to get a few cows and the horses
through the winter. Dad got a job as a thresher foreman from Forest Benson and thus was able to
earn enough to provide food and money for clothes. In about 1932, Dad, Chuck and Bud also got
a job cleaning up after the construction crews when they were laying the REA lines. This brought
the rural areas the first electricity. I remember the thrill of having a light in the living room to read
by instead of the old kerosene or gas lamp.
Our mother always dressed us kids in good, clean clothes for school. She and sister Nellie had to
push and pull the handle washing machine and a big wash tub. This tub was used at least every
week by all of us to take baths. I remember our sister, Nellie, always got to bathe first and we
boys bathed last.
The last child, Russell Ray, was born on January 3, 1931. We boys were all so tickled to have
another brother, however I imagine our sister and the folks would have liked to have had a
girl.
The days on the farm were all hard work with very little fun for kids growing up. In 1934 during one
very cold day in the winter, I decided the chicken house must be very cold for the chickens, so I
took the ashes out of the coal and wood stove and put them in the chicken house to keep the
chickens warm.
Needless to say, the ashes set the chicken house on fire and killed about 50
chickens.
p. 14
The only time we got to go to the town of Loveland was on Saturdays. We got to walk around 4th
Street and go to the drug store and get a cold drink and see all the lights and mingle a little with
the town kids. It was always a big day for me as I was eleven and also for Bill, who was eight. This
one Saturday, Mom and Dad said we couldn't go and it was like a death sentence. Consequently
we decided to go out by the haystack and roll our own cigarettes out of hay leaves and smoke
them. Before we realized it, the stack was on fire and it burned completely. The neighbors all
came running, including Harold C. Sutton, my wife Shirley's father. they brought gunny sacks and
soaked them in water to bring the fire under control.
I can't remember what Dad did to me, however I'm sure he was able to forgive me, but I'm sure he
never forgot it. He never brought it up specifically that I remember. He did say several times,
``Chet was more trouble to me than all the rest of the kids!''
In 1934 Dad got a job as a bouncer at the Montrose Inn dance hall in Big Thompson Canyon. He
and Mom used to take all the kids in the neighborhood and go to the dance every Saturday night
in the summer time. It was fun for Chuck, Bud, and Nellie, but Bill, Rusty and I stayed home with
Grandpa.
p. 15
These were very hard years for the Rogers family, however by 1936 we had managed to have a
few head of cattle, some good horses and wonder of wonders, a small Ford tractor, about a 1930
model.
Because of this relatively good financial position, Dad and Mom in 1935 decided to make the risky
move to a larger farm and to the great pleasure for Mom and us kids, the farm had a nice modern
frame house. By modern, I mean running water, flush toilet, bathtub and some other amenities. It
had a large barn and other good outbuildings and was located quite near to the Big Thompson
river. The farm was owned by Jim Neville, one of the seemingly very well-off land owners in the
Big Thompson Valley.
Dad had a lot to do to get the land ready for planting and the little tractor was instrumental in these
endeavors. However, the year proved out to be so very dry that the small supply of irrigation water
proved inadequate. I remember one incident where Dad almost came to blows over the use of an
irrigation ditch to bring water to the sixty acres of corn. There were some very harsh words
exchanged and Dad lost out and the corn didn't get watered and ended up a field of Russian
thistles. There is one incident where Dad and I were stacking these green thistles on a hayrack,
[yes, they made quite good feed when you had nothing else to feed the cows!!]. I was in the
wagon and Dad was throwing them up to me and the front part of the wagon was covered with
thistles. He finally said, ``Okay, Chet, that's enough stacked now. Stick your fork into the top board
on the rack so I can crawl up to the top.''
p. 16
I reached over and got my (fork and stuck it into the top board. Dad had) put his hand on the
board to crawl up. He hollered, ``Pull it out! You have stuck me!'' He got off the stack and sat
down and leaned against the wagon wheel. He said, ``I don't know how bad it is; unhitch the
horses and ride old Rex down to the house and tell Chuck to drive the truck up here and take me
to the doctor.'' I was so afraid, consequently old Rex was given a hard ride the mile or so to the
house. Chuck got the truck and made a quick trip to Loveland to the hospital. Luckily one fork tine
had stuck through the palm of his right hand and hadn't hit a muscle or blood vessel. The doctor
disinfected it, wrapped the hand up and sent Dad home. In a few days it was all healed and he
was back to work. I don't remember what else he said to me, but I never got on a hay rack wagon
to stack hay again.
Granddad [Charles Sumner Rogers] died that fall and I remember viewing his body at the Kibby
Funeral Home. Since it was the first death for us kids, it was very traumatic and I can still see him
lying in the casket with his white hair and beard and prominent nose.
Dad and Mom had to have a farm auction. They sold all the cattle except for a few milk cows and
the horses. Of course the machinery [including our prized tractor] was sold too. The fall of 1936
we pulled up stakes and moved to the Noel Ranch up the Big Thompson. Nellie and I rode the
horses, Beauty and Belle, and herded the cattle about 15 miles up the canyon to the ranch. Some
tourists stopped us and [p. 18] asked if they could take a picture of us on our horses. We said,
``Okay, if you will send copies of the pictures to us.'' The tourists obliged and a few months later
we received the pictures, one of which I have treasured ever since.
Chuck and Bud were both in the CC Camp and as I remember, were gone when we made this
move. Each of them received $30 per month most of which they sent home. I think this money got
us through during this difficult time.
Mrs. Noel was a very good friend of our parents and I'm sure we got free rent while we lived on
this small ranch. It consisted of a ramshackle cabin and a small barn with enough stations to put
the eight cows into for milking and a side shed to put the Model-A Ford car in.
It was that winter that precipitated Mom's frustration and she decided to leave and go to her
niece's, Moneta Anderson's home. Our family and the Anderson family had always been very
close since Mom and Dad were married and Moneta had always been there for us kids at
Christmas time. This was a disturbing time for all of us. Mom came home in a week or two so all
was well again.
Many things happened for the good on this ranch. Although we were poor as church mice, it was
a wonderful experience for kids our age. We had horses and we could ride them for miles in the
beautiful and glorious scenery. We even were able to catch two runaway horses and use them.
One of them we named Pat and she was so gentle and full of energy that she made a good match
for our other excellent horse, Belle. [p. 19]
Belle was such an all-around horse we could ride her, she could pull a plow, disc or planter, and
snake fresh cut trees [logs] out of the woods. Then, of course, we had Beauty, Babe and Brigham.
During the summer of 1937 and '38, I started at age 14 saddling up a string of about four horses
and taking them down to the highway to Cedarmont. I put up a tie rack and proceeded to hire
myself out as a guide and the horses for riding to the tourists. I charged a dollar for each hour for
each horse. Most of the rides were just for an hour, but at least once I had a full days ride over to
the Castle. This was Roy Freeman's little ranch which we used off and on for tourists and hunting
parties. On one of these tourist rides we got to the Castle at noon and I proceeded to feed the
tourists hot pork and beans and bread and butter which we always kept there in the summer. I
was in such a hurry I just stacked the dishes, still dirty, in the sink and left. The next time Dad
went up there he had to clean up the dishes. Needless to say, I was bawled out good and plenty
when he returned.
We raised potatoes at the Castle and Nellie, Dad and I went up to pick them up in the fall. They
were very small, about the size of marbles, with some as big as tennis balls. I felt that they just
were not big enough to pay us to pick them and I said so to Dad. he said, ''Chet, you bend your
back and pick them up as they will taste damn good next winter.'' So Nellie and I picked them up
and I have to say they did taste good that winter.
p. 20
Chuck, Bud and Dad did the deer hunting. They would kill the deer, dress it out, wrap it in canvas
tight and hang it up in a tree. I think they had several hung up every winter and we always had
fresh meat and potatoes all winter. Of course, we were always on the lookout for the Game
Warden because we were breaking the law in having that deer meat, Dad said,
''Keep any deer leg bones, horns or other signs of deer, picked up and buried.'' he had heard the
Warden was out checking all the places for signs. Dad was very inventive. He built a false end on
the outside of the garage and this is where he cut up all the deer meat and stored it. When the
Game Warden came, he didn't find a thing!
As I have indicated, we were strapped for cash, so Mom and Dad decided to start a milk route in
the summer to supply fresh milk to the men and their families who worked on the new highway in
the Big Thompson Canyon. This was in 1937 and 1938. We had eight cows which we milked two
times a day. After milking, we strained the milk and then we put it into the top of a cooling type
barrel which was full of ice cold spring water. The milk leaked out of some kind of ring we had in
the top of the barrel and it ran down the side of the barrel for about 2 1/2 feet and gathered at the
bottom in a spout with which we filled the glass milk bottles. Every morning real early we took the
bottles and delivered them to the homes of the workers and to several of the tourist camps. We
collected the money right then as the workers were a very mobile bunch and moved often. We
charged about 20 cents a bottle. Of course, Mom and Nellie [p. 21] were the ones that kept the
bottles and cooler washed and scalded and kept an eye on Bill and me when we milked the cows
and helped in the cooling and bottling of the milk.
These are the years when my future wife Shirley's Dad, Harold, was peddling fruits and
vegetables up the canyon. He and Georgia started a fruit stand at Beaver Point in 1936 which
later turned into a fine full-line of groceries, fruits and vegetables and a good-sized store.
While we were at Noel's we saw all kinds of wild life, including a few bears and lions. We had a
dog, Shep, for many years and a little dog, Dixie, and they always kept us informed of the animals
prowling around our cabin and barns. One very early spring morning, we heard Shep barking just
off our porch and he just kept it up. Finally Dad went out and as he stepped out the door he saw
Shep barking up at the porch roof. Dad stepped on out, looked up and there was a bear staring
him in the face. Dad reached for a mop stick and started to bring it around to hit him; the bear
backed off and started down the tree by our cooler where we kept the bacon. Dad yelled, ''Chet,
get the gun. There's a bear on the roof.'' I got the rifle, ran to the back window and just saw the
hind legs and tail going over the little hill next to the house.
Dad never tired of telling that story with several variations and
embellishments.
p. 22
In the fall of 1938 we moved the cattle and machinery back down the canyon to a little farm on the
Buck Horn lake just a few miles north of the Big Thompson school. Nellie [by this time she
changed her name to ''Toni''] wanted to stay at Estes Park and finish high school. So Toni and I
stayed there during the school year [fall of 1938 and spring of 1939] when she graduated. Toni
was one of the most popular girls in high school. She not only was popular, she was the most
talented basket ball player they ever had there. I was reminded of that when at the last reunion of
graduates of Estes Park, George Hurt, one of her classmates, said, ''Toni was undoubtedly the
best girl basket ball player the school ever had!'' This coming from George, was a great tribute, as
he was no slouch himself as a football player as I can attest to having played football with him for
two years. Nellie became an accomplished painter and also dabbled in poetry.
During the winter of 1939 when Nellie and I were staying in the Foster Cabin, one cold morning
our pump froze up, so I went down to the river and got some buckets of water out of the rushing
stream--- What I thought was pure water. That summer I caught typhoid fever and ended up in the hospital
in Fort Collins for a couple of weeks. Doctor Little told Mom at one point that I probably wouldn't
live much longer. She said, ''Doctor, can I move in with him and take care of him personally?'' He
said,''Yes, of course, but you might catch it!'' Mom moved in and stayed with me for several days.
When I got a high fever, she would put ice packs on me. When I got the shivers, she'd wrap me in
warm blankets. She did save my life and she did catch the fever. Because they diagnosed her in
the early stages, she wasn't as bad as I so [p. 23] she was able to leave the hospital about when I
did. This is just one of the many reasons I loved our mother so dearly and considered her the
saint in our family.
One summer night, Bill, Dad and I were milking in the barn at Noel's and the sun was shining
through the open west doorway when suddenly, it was blotted out by an old man standing there.
Of course Bill and I didn't know what to think but Dad jumped up off the milk stool and yelled,
''Teiters, what are you doing here?'' It turned out to be Dad's old bootlegging buddy from their
bootlegging days at Wellington. Dad said for us to finish the milking because he wanted to visit
with Teiters. Bill and I noticed that the old man limped and saw that he was missing half of his foot
on the right leg. We had fun speculating about how that happened.
Teiters evidently had walked about one mile from the highway carrying a bottle of whiskey to
share with Dad. Anyway they sat up most of the night talking about their experiences bootlegging
and telling jokes. Bill and I imagined that they talked about their whiskey hideout in the Big
Thompson river. There was a good-sized hole in a rock in the river and no one knew about it
because you couldn't see into it from the old road. However, when they put in the new highway in
1935 it went on the other side of the river and Dad's and Teiters' hide-away was exposed. Dad
always enjoyed telling his grand kids about that hiding place, much to their delight. Dad must have
taken Teiters home that night because we didn't see him again and Dad never spoke about
it.
p. 24
After Toni graduated, we moved back down with the folks who were living in the house on the
Buckhorn Lake. The farm was about 50 acres and Dad immediately got a crop going and in
addition to the cows and horses, he bought hogs and turkeys. The economy was coming out of
the Depression and our own financial situation was improving. Dad eventually did real well in
raising turkeys over the next few years, especially starting in 1943 during the war.
Toni was seeing a lot of Norris ''Red'' Kitchen and before I knew what was going on, Toni and Red
had run off together and gotten married in August, 1939. I think Mom and Dad were very
surprised when they found out about it. We kids were all happy because now we had another
brother to join the family. He proved to be a wonderful addition to the family and was especially
close to Bud and Chuck. Toni had worked during the summers at Dicks Harbor and at the Stanley
Hotel. She was the only one of our family to climb Long's Peak which she did in 1938
accomplishing something very few girls had done up to that time.
After we moved to the Buckhorn Lake place I finished high school in Loveland in 1941 and in the
fall I started to Colorado A&M. I had about $100 saved that I had earned by working in the hay at
Walden, Colorado and at Neville's Cherry Factory near Loveland. This paid for my tuition
and books. I got a job [p. 25] at the Northern hotel for $6 a week and my meals. Bruce Strickland,
a fellow graduate from Loveland and I rented a room which had one electric light and a double
bed. Each of us paid $6 per week for the room.
Through my cousin, Moneta Anderson, I was able to purchase the College Student Window
Cleaners in December, 1941. This proved to be very lucrative and I began to make about $1 per
hour. I bought an old 1934 Chevy sedan from Chuck and from then on I was doing very well. My
school work suffered but my social life sure improved!!
p. 26