Visiting my Father's Friends and Relatives

After we left Uncle Leonard's, I am not absolutely sure of the sequence of events.

We went to Rocky Mountain National Park

Chipmunk lured out with a PBandJ

and I remember seeing the Rocky Mountain Sheep, but I don't have any photos of them.

Me up on the rocks in Rocky Mountain National Park

Iceberg Lake

I think after that we spent the night at Professor Wallin's cabin. The story behind the Professor's cabin is as follows:

My father went to interview at the University of Colorado Medical School for a job as a teaching assistant. The questions that the professor asked were -Can you clear land? and Can you notch logs? Evidently my father's answers were satisfactory because he was hired. He spent the summer during the week learning how to dissect a human cadaver, and the weekends building a cabin for the professor.

Prof Wallin

My dad and my mother spent part of their honeymoon there, and 16 years later, we all spend the night there too.

Wallin's cabin

We went fishing and we brought home trout which we fried up for breakfast. Our father taught us to eat them tails and fins and all.

We went to Denver

Prismatic Electric Fountain in Ferril Lake - Denver, CO City Park

and my dad took photos of a fountain where the colors were synced to music,

and we visited my little first cousin Margaret - the daughter of my father's younger sister Mary.

Margaret

My father's sister died in 1944 and her husband had remarried.

Margaret, her father, stepmother and half sister

We went up Mt Evans where the University of Denver Cosmic Ray Lab is.

Mount Evans

My dad had an experiment up there last year, to see whether cosmic rays (from the sun) had any effect on cancer. Some of the mice were up here and some were down in a coal mine in Pennsylvania

Then we went to my father's younger brother Harry. Harry managed the State Game Farm in Colorado Springs. My grandmother was there

Granny, Daddy, Mother, me, my sister Aunt Alice and our cousins

along with our Aunt Alice and my three cousins.

Aunt Alice and Uncle Harry and our cousins

Colorado cousins

The oldest of Uncle Harry's daughters

Uncle Harry with his youngest daughter

The four of us cousins had a really good time there - our youngest cousin Beth was still in diapers. Uncle Harry raised game birds - pheasants and quail. Every morning we would gather the eggs which were put in an incubator to hatch.

Eggs hatching

Bird just hatched

Some of the eggs Aunt Alice would fix for breakfast.

Eagle and its prey - Harry shot it

Harry holding eagle

Uncle Harry had to keep predators away from his flock - some of the pens were covered with wire and some were not.

My sister and me holding the eagle

We played on the grain sacks in the barn until we were stopped because it was disintegrating the feed in the sacks.

My sister and I wore dresses most of the time. Usually made by my mother. She would make one for my sister and one for me, and then when my sister grew into my dress, she made another one for me in a bigger size. After I grew out of the dresses, she sent them out to the Colorado cousins - the oldest of them was my sister's age.

Five first cousins - me, my sister and the three Colorado cousins

My sister and the Colorado cousins

Uncle Harry's was a chance for our mother to wash our clothing - I was "helping" with the wash - the washing machine had a wringer, and I was feeding the wringer and got careless and fed my whole arm through. Fortunately it was set for blankets and I did not suffer any injury.

Another of my mother's first cousins (she had 12 of them) was married in the spring. She asked my sister to be a flower girl and this is the dress my mother made for her to be a flower girl in.

My sister in her flower girl dress

Hunters would come across fauns which had been hidden in the woods, and thinking that they were abandoned, they would bring them in to the game farm.

Fawns at Bird Farm

One of our jobs was feeding them.

My sister and cousin feeing fauns

The State Game farm had a really good view of the Garden Of The Gods across the valley.

Front Range of the Rockies

Pikes Peak

We went and saw Balanced Rock with our cousins.

Balanced Rock - Garden of the Gods

Indian at the Garden of the Gods

Indian family - posing for tourist photos for tips. In the movie my father took of them one of the Indians is reaching for a tip from another tourist

Garden of the Gods Trading Post

Our grandmother died on July 16th just before her 70th birthday. My mother and father took us and our two older cousins camping to allow Uncle Harry and Aunt Alice to make the funeral arrangements. We camped as before, on a ground cloth, up on a bluff above a stream. My mother wanted to know why we didn't camp next to the stream so it would be easier to get water. But my father wouldn't do it.

The next morning, the water was up much closer to us - there had been a cloudburst upstream which had filled the dry arroyo.

We went to the funeral service in Canon City.

Walking stick cactus near Canyon City

The obituary in the paper said:

"Many friends from both Fremont and Custer Counties gathered at St. Paul Lutheran church [Canon City] Tuesday to pay respectful tribute to Mrs. Maria B. Figge, well-known resident of both counties.

"Services were held at the church at 10 a.m. with Rev. J. Bundschuh officiating. An abundance of lovely floral tributes were massed around the casket and in the front of the church.

"Mrs. John Ehmke sang " My Faith Looks Up To Thee" and Beautiful Savior" with Mrs. Margaret Bundschuh playing the piano accompaniment

"Casket bearers were Alvin Stroehlke, Herman Hansen, Harry Schulze, Otto Schulze, F. C. Kiesler and Oscar Heerwagen.

"After the services, Mrs. Figge's remains were taken by Holt mortuary to the cemetery in Silver Cliff for interment."

Grave (Bertha was a nickname)

She died July 16, 1948 and was buried July 20, 1948.
Her youngest son Harry purchased a painting of the Good Shepherd for Canon City's St. Paul Church.