Alberta Freshman, Interviews with Jews in Utah, Accn 998

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Alberta Freshman 6-3 p.7 A W€11, it's rath€r odd that we had a relative, a distant relative in Colorado . • We called her -Aunt Ida and she was related on my fathers side and also on my mother's si.d e. My mother and father were very distant cousins. Very distant. ~ We say 52~ cousi~. So my mother was working in New York in the pear·business. And then she decided to go to Washington D.C. and become a millinar which she did. And one of her friends there said she was going to take a trip Re~e to Colorado. And my mother thought she ought to go there on a vacation because she knew she had an aont in Cripple Creek. So when she went out there, of course my Dad had his business and this Aunt Ida knew of my mother.And she was very good looking. ~t 1hey met again and they went a§a~o out and she decided to marry him then. So mother never went back to live in New York. She just ~~ayed there, r 1 1-" ' r . • •• . which must have been quite different for herl becase it was a regular~mining camp at one time. By the time my Daddy got there it wasn't quite as much. By the time I was born, it wasn't at all. And my folks were very interested in our education. ~ ~e didn't have a library thereJbut they would always send for books, like the Harvard Classics and reference books. We had all those things at home. And it waSa custom in those days to give presents to youngsters when ~ey graduated) very different from today--they ~ classic poetry or plays, all beautifully bound in leather. So we had from my brothers a wonderful supply of those. It was different wRat fromwhat they gave as prizes. Too1 when I was a litle girl and went to parties, If you won in putting a puzzle together, you'd get a cup and saucer as a prize to take home. That seems so funny to me now! L You mean a real drinking one. A Ahh. Decorated,of course. L What were some of your father's stories about Cripple Creek. When it was more of A a mining town. Well, my dad wasn't much to talk. He was the silent one in the family. He worked very hard. He Things came hard in the way of finances. He was very conscien·tous. He would go down to the store and wind up the watches that were being repaired, even on Sunday,so that they'd be more accurate. He kept that up all his life. . ~ . ~~t<:- ~-~) But. I just remember my mother saying ho~tJ many~ that a 1 ot of people grigg99 n::::u-L- ""..,.. "f" .. ·c.{ - ~ a 1 ot of bars, and A~ never know \"i he ·~; ·:er he'd see someone in the dark coming down the alley in't!E ~ f~-1 jwhehter it was a drunken man or a cow coming downJbecuse they roamed around in places. We had lots of burros. And you know the sound they make. Somtimes youd get so used to it, it's like a train whistle. And there was a place where wild flowers grew all over. Oh, we had blue bells and hare bells that were on one s+~~--s thin stem. You wondered how it would hold the beautiful bell at the end. And we had so many wild roses all over and little daisies. And wild strawberries. Snow drops. And we had a yellow flower that we used to call Sweet pea~, But I know now they're lupins. And we had