Review by Martha Quillen
Local History – July 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
Images of the Past – Volume IV
Published in 2001 by the Saguache County Museum
ISBN 0-965-1079-4-9
THE SAGUACHE COUNTY MUSEUM’s fourth volume of Images of the Past is out and available at the museum (719-655-2557).
The museum publishes Images in order to “collect, maintain, and preserve the history of Saguache County,” and the book includes pioneer histories and pictures previously submitted to the museum by family members and also articles patched together and/or collected by museum volunteers.
These volumes are quite obviously put out for citizens of Saguache County, and they’re definitely more interesting if you know the people. At least — since much of the material consists of lists of who begat whom — I usually found myself following along better when I knew someone in the family.
But even so, I actually did start to worry about the fates of Werners, Howards and Hazards, Nolands, Ogdens, and Burches, Armentas, Quintanas and Nelsons and numerous other complete strangers — many of them long dead. Though some of the material can be a bit slow and difficult to follow, cumulatively it tells an interesting story.
Reading Images Volume IV is a bit like reading a collection of obituaries of inter-related people. The same people keep showing up in different histories, a Werner marries a Hazard, an Armenta works for a Noland, etc. etc. etc. — until the different accounts start to make you feel like you know both the people and the place.
Also different writers tell their stories differently:
Cecil Hall tends to tell anecdotes about his relatives — the Halls and the Burches.
Whereas the story about H. Raymond Nelson tends to read like a résumé. “Raymond Nelson served as President of the Stanley School Board for about ten years … Raymond led the 4-H Livestock Club … Raymond raised Registered Polled Herefords … He was sales manager for six years, and … He helped organize a Potato Organization….”
Some writers are matter-of-fact with information, while others tend toward flattery as does William Twyman Lockett who writes, “Edgar B. ‘Bud’ Noland … was a cattle rancher and one of Colorado’s greatest horsemen and finest gentlemen.” And “Agnes Noland (1893-1986) was widely acclaimed as one of America’s most beautiful women. She was exquisite, elegant.”
While other writers tend to cite fond memories as does Irene Gray. “After a particularly hard winter,” she recalls, “Mother decided our hair would grow thicker if it was cut short; so to the barbershop we went, our hair was cut with clippers. In the summer as Marie and I were sitting on the fence in the front yard, a man went by and said, ‘Hello, Boys.’ Marie piped up with, ‘We were girls once!'”
As history goes, this material is probably not particularly accurate, since the memories of family members is not always as infallible as court records. But this material does gives a better sense of who these people were and what Saguache was (and is) like than dry certificates could, so the consequent errors can be excused.
Curiously, though, the most notable inaccuracy in the volume comes from the account of a journalist rather than a family member. Included in the book is a story written by John C. Klein which was published in the Saguache Crescent in 1928. Klein is identified as someone who’d once lived in Saguache County before going on to work for the Denver Tribune, the Denver Times, The Chicago Tribune, The New York World, the New York Herald, The Sun, The Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Yet even assuming all of that’s true, his account of Alferd Packer definitely isn’t. He writes, “In 1885 he succeeded in getting another trial and was sentenced to forty years imprisonment. He was taken to Cañon City prison but died there several years later.
“And so, this arch criminal succeeded in evading full justice, after all. It is said that every fellow prisoner of his, even the most hardened, regarded him with loathing and like the prison guards themselves, never spoke to the cannibal murderer unless compelled to.”
Well, that part about evading justice might be true, I guess, but Packer didn’t die in prison. He was released after a public outcry claimed he was judged unfairly. By many people in his era, including the influential Denver Post columnist “Polly Pry,” Packer was regarded not as a hardened criminal, but as a victim of circumstances. The forensic evidence, however, suggests that Packer really did murder his friends before he ate them.
All in all, I think Images is a great idea; a way to preserve local history and to help finance the museum’s projects, and I actually liked this volume a little more than the others.
But this year’s Images also seems a little rougher than its predecessors, with a lot of typographical errors. Especially common are extra spaces before and after punctuation (which leaves a lot of commas, periods and quote marks hanging out there all by themselves).
Also — although this is not a problem common to only Images — it was often impossible to match the people in the pictures with their names. (It seems that people are always getting their pictures taken in bunches, but cutline writers are always labeling them in rows.)
Plus, it would be nice if the pictures in Images were bigger. Many of them are not really big enough to see anything but the general outline of people.
But even so, I suspect that most readers will find this volume more interesting than it’s brethren because this Images is primarily about people — rather than defunct businesses, partnerships, buildings or town plats. And though yesterday’s commercial developments have their place in history…. Yesterday’s births, deaths, marriages, divorces and family lore — that’s the stuff we’ll remember.
–Martha Quillen