PANEL DISCUSSION OF EARLY PIONEER DESCENDANTS OF LAFAYETTE AREA. Summary of OH0530. Recorded on May 6, 1990 at the Boulder Historical Society s Harbeck House. Recorded by: Anne Dyni. Participants: Margaret Gibson, Dorothy Barber, Blanche Moon, Henry Amicarella, Effie Amicarella, Sally Martinez, Virginia Amicarella Simon, Chuck Waneka, Jim Hutchison, and Diane Moon Nelson. Intro of program by Adrienne Harber, Boulder Historical Society. Introduction of Panel by Joanna Sampson (Gives brief biographical sketch of each member and their spouses, and describes the town of Columbine where some of members once lived). [A]. 001 Adrienne asks panel to remember family life and community when they were children. Margaret Gibson described her grandmother's boarding house for coal miners and her generosity in providing meals for anyone who came by. Those who could not pay, gave her worthless jewelry for payment. Dorothy Barber described how and why Moon family came to Louisville, ca-1879, then to Lafayette in 1889. Blanche Moon described how Moon brothers came to mine gold. Arrived at Golden by rail and took stage to Boulder. When they came to coal mine area, they lived in the mine. Timothy Moon barn in tent house (print on file at Lafayette Library). Describes tent houses. Were also used as bath houses for miners at Mitchell Mine. Timothy also farmed. Shows photos of family in their beet field, also. Henry Amicarella talks about his immigrant parents who couldn't read or write English. Came from Italy with 6 children and had 6 more in Colorado. Described researching the Italian towns where parents came from and their humble background. Henry's father first came to U.S. in 1888. In 1901, he returned with his 6 children, wife, his father Henry DiMaggio, and several others, and they settled in Newcastle, Colorado. 511 Henry continues describing coal mines at Newcastle and Sunlight where family lived before coming to work in Columbine Mine east of Lafayette. Describes working conditions and pay scale of mines, and how family survived by raising own food. 527 Henry continues with family's move to Lafayette then Columbine. Discusses rabbit hunting, recreation, Fourth of July, Christmas, dances. Describes fear in coal camps, carried guns, drunken fights, the mine whistles which blew for disasters. [B]. 000 Henry describes mine conditions in early 1920s (before mine strike), canaries in mine, no women allowed, 400-500 men working in Columbine. Describes how payment was determined by chips system. Gambling in town. Children games.
033 3-room schoolhouse. School games. 041 Effie Amicarella elaborates on details. Henry's father was paid 75 cents a day at Sunlight Mine. Describes delivering her own baby. 051 Virginia adds comments about severe rainstorms at Sunlight. Recalls severe cold at Sunlight and at Columbine, so cold that shoes froze to the floor. Hard work began as young children. 078 Henry describes the Columbine Massacre which his family endured. He builds up to the fateful day by describing their home, the militia with machine guns on the tipple, the barbed wire around the camp. November 21, 1927, about 6:15 AM, the shooting began between Amicarella home and the tipple. Tore sheets apart to bandage wounded whom they pulled into the house from the street. 183 Effie Amicarella married Claude in 1944. Describes taking a "temporary" job at Lafayette library for $20 a month. Stayed for 23 years. Effie began classifying all the books in library started by the Wednesday Study Club. City gave $50 a year to buy books. Began oral taping early residents like Jim Lord and Mr. Harry about the mines. 239 Blanche Moon tells of helping Effie gather historical information which eventually become part of the library s collection. She also describes Moon boarding house in Lafayette. 284 Henry describes playing with Sally Martinez as children. 299 Chuck Waneka describes knowing everyone in town. All ethnic groups. No discrimination in town. Nicknames given to all the kids. Gives examples. 325 Sally Martinez describes her grandfather Thomas Acino Rivera coming from Barcelona, Spain with his parents and 5 brothers in early 1800s. Went on to serve as legislator representing Huerfano County from 1883-1885. Bills were presented to Legislature at that time in Spanish, English and German. Describes his coming to legislature meetings in Denver with an interpreter. He later married Victoria Martinez. Sally's mother married Benito Salazar, a coal miner. Describes the courtship of her parents and how the dowry money her father gave to Victoria's parents was squandered by the grandfather on another woman. 368 Sally describes living in Walsenburg at time of Ludlow Massacre. 375 Her family moved to Columbine Mine in 1924. Describes 1926 when strikers came to mine area and how she and Virginia Amicarella thought it was exciting fun until the shooting began. Describes the scene of the massacre. 419 Sally talks of discrimination as a youngster. School children made fun of her language and the tortillas she brought for lunch. Describes catechism taught on
Saturdays. Talks of KKK crosses burned. Discrimination in 1933 when Lafayette built a public swimming pool. All community helped with it but when it was completed, Spanish were not allowed to use it. Spanish hired lawyer and fought the ruling but town filled it with dirt and it was never used. Recently, it cost the city $8000 to dig out the old cement when new Bob Burger Recreation Center was built. Sally's daughter is now on Lafayette City Council. 496 Effie interjects that Virginia and Henry Amicarella used to take fried pepper sandwiches to school when they were children and everyone wanted to trade them lunches because they'd never seen them prepared that way before. 501 Henry added that he and some of the Mexican and Japanese children ate their lunches by the creek to avoid teasing by the other students. 516 Margaret Abson adds that her mother prepared fried bread and honey for lunches on the days that she baked. 519 Chuck Waneka described taking lunch in paper bag and saving the bag. You could see the folded-up bags in each boy's hip pocket after lunch. Waneka quoted Sarah Brillhart as remembering Chuck's uncles bringing their lunches in a 5-lb lard bucket in the 1890s. 543 Henry describes how well his family ate and what they ate... Including eels purchased from market in North Denver. 553 Waneka described what farm families ate and this lead to a group discussion of using all parts of the carcass for food, including cracklings from rendering process, the bladders, head cheese. [C]. 004 Virginia Amicarella Simon came to Columbine from Western slope in 1922. Talks about haircuts she always got in the fall before school. Shaved and had to wear stocking cap to school. Describes hard winters. Worked at company store earning $13 a week. Divorced Louisville man and married pharmacist from Greeley. 040 Chuck Waneka brought photos of his great-grandfather, Henry Adolph Waneka, who came to area in 1860. Describes Adolph s arrival and how he lived in a cave along Coal Creek near Murphy Hill south of Louisville that first winter. Talks of his uncle Pete Murphy and the stories he told of earlier days. There were three Henry Wanekas in succession and none ever went by that name. First went by Adolf, his son went by "Boy", and the grandson was called "Dutch". Adolf's wife, Anna, and their three children joined him the following year driving a team of mules and some omen. Lived in log house by Coal Creek and Adolf hired a teacher to come in to teach his children. Then built a rack house (sandstone) which stood until Len Lawson tore it down for the stone.
124 Describes Adolf's original homestead boundaries. The last 40 acres were sold off recently. Adolf filed on water rights and dug a lake around a natural spring. It is today's Waneka Lake in the center of Lafayette. Power Company later built a power plant, on its shores. It was known for years as the "Plant" Lake. 175 Chuck tells a story told to him by his uncle Pete Murphy of the day in 1880 when the Murphy family arrived in Golden, by train. Pete was 4 years old, and his father put family up in a Golden hotel while he rode on to Louisville. Mother shoved the furniture up against the door and windows and paced and cried all night. Outside, they were hanging two horse thieves from the railroad trestle. 196 Chuck displays a cavalry sword found on Waneka property in 1868. 239 Displays photo of his great-aunt Ada's funeral in 1908, and describes the funeral. Displays a trunk which his great-grandfather brought across the prairie, containing tools, concertina. Displays certificate awarded to his relatives, the Egglestons, in 1877 for an entry to the Boulder County Industrial Society Fair. 368 Jim Hutchison's grandfather came to U.S. from Scotland and was killed by explosion in an Illinois mine. Jim's, father was in third grade at that time, and at that time he began working in a coal mine. Continued working coal mines until he broke his back in the Monarch Mine after the 1936 Monarch Mine explosion. Maternal grandfather born in Kentucky in 1853. His grandfather Jim Hood came to Colorado in 1886. Tried gold mining at Cripple Creek, then to the tungsten mines at Tungsten. Came to Boulder County. And sank the Hecla Mine near Louisville. At NW corner of Hwy 42 and South Boulder Road. Moved to Superior and sank the Industrial Mine on Hake property. Then in 1905, moved to Lafayette and lived at old Waneka stone house on Coal Creek till their own home was built on SW corner of South Boulder Road and Hwy 267. Jim passes around photos from Lafayette Miner Museum including school, business buildings, the Monarch Mine, and photo of the 16 miners arrested during strike for "assembling" on the grounds. 570 Jim talks a bit about the Lafayette Miners' Museum which he and his wife manage for the Lafayette Historical Society. 586 Henry Amicarella throws out a topic for discussion: "Does anyone have any ideas on the relation of the City of Boulder to the coal mines?" Jim Hutchison told of a Boulder statute which stated that "a man could not carry a lunch pail in town. Miners, in general, were considered troublemakers whom the people of Boulder despised." According to Jim, that attitude has been perpetuated to this day. [D]. 000 Waneka said that some of the clothing stores in Boulder would not sell a pair of overalls or work shoes to working men. Reinert's store employees would not wait on a working man if he was in working clothes.
018 Chuck Waneka tells of two coal companies bidding on leases for land near Rocky Flats, but because of the environmental regulations imposed by Boulder County, they left the area. 035 Discussion of the Klan in Lafayette; the swimming pool, burning crosses in town on lawns of Spanish and Catholics. The mayor was said to be a member of the Klan. Klansmen would walk into church services and demonstrate. Blanche explains that miners joined the Klan for the fellowship. 071 Discussion of IWW (Wobblies) Independent Workers of the World. Henry discusses Josephine Roach whose father owned Rocky Mountain Fuel Company. She later took control of that company. Ran for governor against Adams.