Letter from Peter O’brien
Colorado Central – February 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dear Martha and Ed,
We enjoy the intelligent writing and choice of subject matter in the magazine. I’ve been on the verge of responding to some of your letters from the editors and correspondence etc., but unfortunately my natural reticence and time constraints have kept me from doing so so far. Keep up the good work in times like these.
I may perhaps offer a bit of a complaint. Your cover story for December, “The Angel of Shavano,” while it did have local interest etc., was on the verge of being offensive. I am a little surprised that you, with your admirable attention to historical accuracy and detail, could print lines such as “The buffalo gradually disappeared, the Indians moved on to other grounds….”
Still 99% great work.
Peter O’Brien
Gardiner
Dear Peter,
Thanks for writing.
Our aim in the December issue was merely to collect old legends, not to change or edit them, and the Legend of the Angel is one of Salida’s most oft told tales.
Corinne Harpending’s Legend of the Angel of Shavano has appeared on thousands of Salida postcards and in countless tourist pamphlets. It has been rewritten, retold, and reworked repeatedly, and published in various versions. We printed Harrington’s fresh wording, because Harpending’s account is perhaps too familiar to many Salidans. But Harrington’s story-line is virtually identical to the original, and as such we consider it fairly historical — although definitely not very PC.
In Harpending’s original, which was first penned during the Roaring Twenties, the section you refer to read:
For ages and ages she lived in contentment. She saw wondrous changes wrought on the land. Indians diminished and then were gone entirely, bison roamed no more, strange people came to the land. They, too, were thrifty and hard working but didn’t roam the hills like the Indians or dance around camp fires in primitive abandonment.
The Angel grew to look upon these people with possessive pride. They were hers. The Angel was contented and pleased with the lot that Jupiter had dealt her.
Although you probably won’t find this any less offensive, in the interest of historical accuracy and detail, we thought you and perhaps others might be interested.
Martha Quillen
