Obituary of Kenneth Dantice

Funeral services held Monday for Kenneth Dantice

Monte Vista, Oct. 22--(Special)

--Last services for Kenneth Dantice, well-known Sargent boy, were held Monday afternoon at 2 o'clock in the Methodist church with the Rev. A. H. Dillon of the Sargent church officiating. The Rev. George Berry of the Methodist church assisted the Rev. Mr. Dillon with the services. Interment took place in the Monte Vista cemetery beside the grave of his younger brother, Donald, who died a few years ago.

Kenneth, a member of last year's graduating class from the Sargent high school, was 19 years of age at the time of his death. He died Thursday morning in the Del Norte hospital, where he had been receiving medical care since Monday.

His is survived by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Dantice; one older brother, Dale; and three younger sisters, Evelyn, Lenore and Loris.

Graveside services were conducted by members of the DeMolay origanization, of which he was a member. Members of the Rainbow girls and DeMolay Mothers club attended the services in a body.

Pallbearers included Fred Odgers Jr., Bill Leck, Ray Howard, Roy Howard, Bill Kistler and Minor Lentfer.

Music at the services included vocal duets by Mrs. Max Richardson and Harold Robers, who sang "In the Garden," "Goodnight Here, and Goodmorning Up There." Mrs. John Hedges accompanied on the organ.

The Woods mortuary had charge of arrangements.

Obituary of Barbara Mae Dantice

Child Accidentally Drowns in Small Pool last Thursday

Tragedy took the life of Barbara Mae Dantice, nineteen months old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Dale Dantice, Thursday afternoon, August 2, when the child accidentally drowned in a pool of water near her home.

The baby was rushed to the Community hospital after being found a few minutes after she had fallen into the water. The hospital attendants worked with a doctor for more than three hours giving the child artificial respiration and oxygen, but failed to revive her. Fire Chief Paul Barger assisted in attempting to revive her.

The accident happened when Barbara Mae and an older brother were playing in the yard and while running, Barbara fell into a ditch near a culvert. the ditch was dry but some water had formed in a pool under the culvert and in falling, the child had worked her way into the water.

funeral services were held Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 o'clock from the Woods chapel with Father Thomas Forrest in charge. Interment took place in the Monte Vista cemetery.

Barbara Mae was born in Monte Vista January 1, 1944. Besides many family friends and relatives left to mourn her early passing, she is survived by her parents; one brother, Donald, and two sisters, Jean and Arleen. Also her grandparents, Mrs. John L. Dantice and Mr. and Mrs. Fred K. Hoff of Canon City.

Obituary(1) of Levi Jenkins

Obituary(2) of Levi Jenkins

JENKINS--At his home in Kalamazoo precinct, Madison county, Neb., Tuesday, Dec. 14, 1886, at 8 p.m., Levi Jenkins, aged 69 years, 5 months and 8 days.

Mr. Jenkins was born at Canadaigua, New York, in 1817. In 1841 he married Miss Julia Gilpin. Mrs. Jenkins and two sons, Charles and Edward, remain to mourn the loss of husband and father. For some years the deceased resided in Michigan. In 1866 he came west to Iowa, thence in a few years, to Nebraska, where he has since made his home in Kalamazoo precinct, Madison county. In 1863 he joined the 13th Michigan Infantry, remaining with his regiment till the close of the war, when but four hundred of the eleven who formed the regiment, returned to their homes. He was with Sherman in his famous March to the Sea, and fought in the last battle of the war. He entered the army with that loyalty which he displayed through life, to his friend, his home and his country. He was a man strong in character, generous and sympathetic in mind and heart. During the past few months he has been a sufferer from Bright's disease of the kidneys.

Obituary of Julia (Gilpin) Jenkins

JENKINS--Monday evening, Sept. 16, after an illness of many weeks, Julia Gilpin Jenkins. Mrs. Jenkins was born in Pennsylvania, Nov. 26, 1824; was married to Levi Jenkins Feb. 26, 1841. Several states they resided in, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, removing in 1871 to a lovely valley in south Madison county, this state, where her home was for many years, and until she came here to live with her son, E. H., who with his brother Charles, now of Norfolk, survive her, her husband dying December, 1886, and her children, Ursula, Maria, Alice and Ella preceding her to the spirit land. Services were held at the residence of E. H. Jenkins yesterday afternoon at four, Rev. Pulis officiating. The remains will be taken this (Wednesday) morning to Madison and placed beside those of her late husband. Grandma Jenkins was universally beloved and was well worthy the fond affection of those who knew her intimately. To answer the good purposes of a human life for a score of years even, is much to accompish, but to do as Grandma did, embody christian principles in a life of usefulness for seventy-one years, is a very great work to do, and she has, at last, after many weeks of suffering, fallen asleep, to awaken, hale and well and free from pain, among friends long gone to the other shore.

Some Mathias and Wright Family History

Your father's parents both were born in Pennsylvania, which makes 3 of your four grandparents Pennsylvanians. There was quite a bit of German ancestry in his family too, and they too had been in America since before the American Revolution. Your grandfather Mathias's mother was Eve Ann Miller before her marriage. She told how she remembered as a child sitting on the knee of her grandfather Geyer. He had been a drummer boy in the Revolutionary War. So that relationship spans the whole history of the United States for you. We are not a very old nation, after all. Your Grandpa Mathias was born in 1854. He remembered as a boy of 9 hearing the cannonading during the battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War. Gettysburg was about 35 or 40 miles away from Burnt Cabins, Pennsylvania where he lived. His father David Hershey Mathias was a soldier in the Civil War, but was not in the Battle of Gettysburg. He was in Richmond, Virginia, when Lee surrendered at the close of the war, however.

Grandpa Mathias (Abram) was born at Burnt Cabins, which is a tiny country town in Fulton Country very close to the present Pennsylvania Turnpike. In fact the little town is on one side of the turnpike, and you have to go through an underpass beneath the highway to get to the town's cemetery on a hillside near by. Abram's father had a shop in the town for metal and wood working, and a home on the same street which is about the only street in the town proper. We saw the house when we visitied there with Bob and Mary Lou, as well as the graves of Abe's parents and grandparents, the Conrad Mathias's, and others. Abe's father made wagons and repaired them, and farm implements. He also made coffins, and was the town undertaker. He likely also did some farming. When we were in Burnt Cabins his distant relative Newt Mathias, pointed out a small white church which David had engineered moving from a location out of town, to the town itself.

Abe was the eldest of a family of seven. Sylvester, one of his brothers, died at 12 years of age, but the others all grew up and had families. They were, in order of age, Abram, Clarissa, Albert, Edward (Gerald's middle name comes from his), Annie Wright, (mother of Pearl, Ethel and Lyman), Mattie Waters (mother of Alton, Lawrence, Ed, Dean, Vernon, and Florence). Clarissa was the only one who never came west. The others all lived here in the San Luis Valley at some time or other. When they were little they went to a small country-type school at Burnt Cabins, and usually the boys, at least, quit as soon as they were able to work. Abe worked with his father in the shop, but also got jobs on farms nearby, and worked in a local saw mill. He also did farm work at times at some distance from home in Maryland and even in Illinois. They attended the local church, probably Methodist, and the one Abe's father had moved. Abe's mother seemed to have been rigorous about their attendance, for Abe always said that the reason he did not attend church later was because he had been forced to go so much as a child.

Abe's father, David Hershey, died in 1885. No doubt his children were not all grown. His wife, Eve Ann, was a firm, sharp-tongued, severe sort of person. Maybe she got that way in the effort to finish rearing a big family single-handed. Her husband had been a more lenient sort of parent. Part of the estate he left his wife was a Civil War widow's pension of $12 per month, which she drew for the rest of her life. In 1907 or 1908, her children all grown, she came to Colorado. Clarissa was the only one of her family not already here. Clarissa died a few year later in Pennsylvania. Abe urged his mother to come, and upon her request, promised that when she died, he would take her body back to Burnt Cabins for burial beside her husband's. Here she lived much of the time in Annie and Ellard Wright's home, and was fairly active until, at the age of 86, she broke a hip in a fall. She died here in 1916, and Abe took her body to Pennsylvania as he had promised.

Your father's mother, like her husband, was the eldest of a good sized family. She was Lucinda (Lucy) Wright, born in 1856. The others in the family, in order, were Ad, Jesse, Joe, Mattie Beckman, Lyman, Mary Bailey, Ellard, Gertie Stevens, and Carrie Anson. Their original home was in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, some miles from Abe's birth place. They were farming people. The boys as they left school, worked for their father, or for other farmers, or in the local coal mines. Lucy's father was Steven Wright and her mother was Sarah. Steven died in the early 1900's, and in 1909 or 1910, Sarah came here, where all her children save Jesse, Mattie, and Mary, already lived. The youngest, Carrie Brumbaugh and her small daughter Elma had come a few years earlier. Carrie had separated from her husband. He had become an abusive, hard drinker. She was making her living doing housework for other people. When her mother came, they made a home together in a small tennant house on a farm owned by Ellard Wright and operated by their oldest brother Ad. Ad and his family lived in the big farm house on the place. This was the farm known as the Worth place where Francis Hardins lived northwest of Sargent. Here Carrie continued to go out working. During Grandma Wright's last days, she and Carrie and Elma lived with Abe and Lucy in Monte Vista, Carrie helping care for both her mother and Lucy. The latter died of cancer in May 1912, and their mother died the following fall. Carrie and Elma stayed on in Abe's home, as housekeeper until the next year, Abe married a second time, this wife being Mrs. Brownell, a widow and business woman, the mother of Harvey Brownell. At the time she operated the La Veta Hotel in Monte Vista. Carrie herself married a second time a year or so afterward, her new husband being Charlie Anson, and in 1918, the flu year, Elma contracted that disease and died.

Grandma Sarah Wright was a small, dark-haired lady, very much like her granddaughter, Mrs. Roy David. She was energetic, very much interested in people, warm-hearted, and deeply religious. After her death, her sons Lyman Sr. and Ellard took her body back to Pennsylvania where she was buried beside her husband in a cemetery in Newburgh. Her big family had musical leanings. Most of them could sing, and many of them played some instrument, usually entirely by ear. Grandpa Steven Wright was more easy-going, quite shrewd -- a horse-trader type of person.

Lucy was a very sympathetic mother, kind and loving. Her family was her first interest, and her church next. I never knew her, but can judge what she was like by the many old friends who have told me what a wonderful woman my mother-in-law was. Hers was a busy and hard-working life. She not only kept house, cooked, and sewed for her family, canned fruit, made butter, raised poultry, and made soap for family use, but most of the time there were several hired men to do for too. Abe was gregarious, and often brought home for dinner, men with whom he did business -- so the cooking alone, with few of the conveniences we have now, must have been quite a job. For a good many years before her death she was in poor health, unable to eat with comfort. Still she was faithful to all her home duties, church attendance, and letter-writing to her sons when they were away from home.

Abe was a man's man, a good business man, and always had many friends, although he was a pretty stern disciplinarian to his sons. While he paid slight attention to church, he always made it possible for his wife and sons to attend. He prospered in the Valley, and after his second marriage, traded his interest in the hardwear store for a fruit acreage in Oregon, where they lived a short time. He sold the Oregon land and invested in property in Southern California where they had a nice home for several years. While there he often would come back to the Valley in the fall, buy some feeder lambs and some pea pasture to fatten them. This was quite a profitable business at times, but subject to disaster if the market dropped at the wrong time. He fed sheep in partnership with Bert several years. But during the depression his investments went like many others. He sold out in California, and bought a home in Aztec, New Mexico near Farmington, where they lived a few years. Eventually they came back to the Valley where his wife died in the 1930's in Monte Vista. Afterwards he bought farm land near Alamosa, and after selling this, owned a home in Monte Vista. In his last year or more, he lived at the farm with Harvey and Lurah. He had a little apartment in the "old house" in the back yard, where he died in December 1940, just after you Gerald had started to college.

Your father does not know how his parents became acquainted in the first place. they grew up in communities possibly 20 miles apart. It may be Abe had worked in her area. At any rate they were married on February 1, 1877, and set up their home in Burnt Cabins, where exactly nine months later, November 1, Uncle Harvey was born. Their first home was in an addition Abe's father had built to his own house on the main street of the town. Newt Mathias pointed it out to us when we were there. Here they lived for a year and a half or more, and then moved to Kansas in the fall of 1878. Kansas seemed a long way from Pennsylvania, but Abe's uncle Frank Mathias, a big, congenial handsome man everyone liked, had gone out there earlier and settled in Crawford County near McCune. Abe worked for his Uncle Frank for a while, then started farming on his own, in the same area. Their son Bert was born there near McCune January 18, 1880, Clarence in March 1882, and Chester in December 1883. Later they rented a farm from Dr. Neeley, a physician of Parsons, Kansas, and it was on this place that Dave was born in August 1886. They lived on the Neeley place 6 years. Dr Neeley's wife took a great interest in the Mathias boys, sometimes bringing them treats when they were sick. She is the Mrs. Neeley who used to come out from Parsons every summer to visit Grandpa, and all his sons and families. She was in her 80's then. She lived to be nearly 87.

The older boys went to school first at the Hog Ring(!), a one-room country school, Bert starting at five years of age. From the Neeley place they went to Urbana school. Urbana was a tiny cross-roads town, one store, a blacksmith shop, a post-office, and a 2-room school. It was two miles away, and the boys sometimes walked, sometimes rode horses, or drove a buggy.

In 1892 Abe and Lucy rented the Race place near Thayer, where they lived 8 years. Here the school was across the road from the farm on which they lived, but three quarters of a mile from the house. This was the Post School. From here the three older boys, Harvey, Bert and Clarence later went to high school in Thayer about 3 miles away. This was a combined grade and high school with 2 teachers taking care of all high school subjects. One of your Dad's teachers there was Mr. Crabbe, who later came to Denver and taught for years in East Denver High. His home was in Westminster where I was acquanted with his daughters. When he retired he bought a home in the country right next to my father's. Then when your Dad came to see me there the summer before we were married, he met Mr. Crabbe again.

As soon as the boys were big enough to do farm work they went to school only in winter. during the early fall they had to help harvest, and in spring they stayed out to get the crop in. This was the custom of the time and not at all unusual. So Harvey had one year of high school before coming to Colorado in 1898 -- he preceded the rest of the family by 2 years. Bert had 3 winters in high school in Thayer, and Clarence 2.

Various other members of both the Wright and Mathias families came to Kansas after Abe and Lucy came, and many of them stayed for a period with them. Ed, Abe's brother, came and worked for Abe for a time, and then farmed for himself in Kansas. He married his first wife there but she died, leaving no living children. Ed had been to Colorado also before Abe came, and went back to help the family move out. Ed married again here, a sister of Mrs. Adam Dietrick, long time mayor of Center. They had one daughter, Rose, now Rose Grey and living in Phoenix. Ed's second wife died, and he married a third time, Sarah Cooney. They had two daughters. Ed died the same month we were married. He once owned the farm where Pearl and Harry Burkhart live. The old red brick school building near there called the Mathias school was named after Uncle Albert who owned the quarter on which it stands.

Albert had married in Pennsylvania, and was something of a sophisticated person. He had lived in New York city for a while and was a telegraph operator there. His relatives sometimes thought he affected an eastern acent on account of this. He is reputed to have written the finest hand of any Mathias of his generation, and I guess it could apply to the present generation too. He also had for at least part of a term taught school. It was a rough country school -- Hog Ring school in Kansas, where a teachers certificate was not necessary, but the ability to discipine the big boys was essential. They had run out the last teacher and were all set to repeat. Uncle Albert, however, went to school the first day (so the story goes) with a gun, which he laid in plain sight on his desk, and had no trouble with discipline!

Uncle Albert and his wife had four daughters, Nettie, Elsie, Helen, and Hilda. Two of them, Nettie Christiansen and Hilda Rudolph, you and Frances met in Ft. Collins, I think. Elsie, who died 8 or 10 years ago, was the wife of Otto Adams, who taught at Aggies long ago, but was Dean of the college of Engineering at Texas A & M, Lubbock until he retired. Uncle Albert built and lived in the brick house which the George McConnels, Roy Sr.'s father and mother, owned and lived in so long, just north of the mill in Monte Vista. Albert, after his wife died, married a widow Laura King, from south of town. So for quite a while you had three aunts all Mathias's, named Aunt Laura, Aunt Lora, and Lurah, respectively.

Abe's sister Annie also came to Kansas from Pennsylvania to work for Lucy in the house. She stayed with them until she was married. Her husband was Lucy's brother Ellard Wright who had come from Pennsylvania to work for Abe on the farm. Their wedding took place in Abe and Lucy's home. Later they moved to Colorado and lived first in a little house on the Alamosa highway. Then they bought and built the house on the place where Lyman Jr. lives.

Mattie, Lucy's sister, also came out to Kansas to help Lucy with housework. She met and married a local young man, Jim Beckman. They raised a family of six, and she died in the '20's.

Gertie, another sister of Lucy's, also worked for her for a time. She married a physician, Dr. John Stevens, who had also come to Kansas from Pennsylvania, the wedding being in the Beckman home. Dr. Stevens practiced in Kansas, then moved to Iowa where he practiced until he retired. He was quite a bit older than Aunt Gertie. After his retirement they moved to the Valley and invested in land. Their two daughters, Mildred, who was still in high school, and Gladys, married to Lawrence (Tod) Warner, and their small daughter Vernelle, came with them. the doctor and his wife bought the quarter now belonging to Gillillan. Is is a mile east of Elllard's corner and had a big brick house on it at the time. Warners farmed a mile west of Ellards. Mildred graduated from Sargent in 1921, but died of heart trouble when she was 20. aunt Gertie now lives in Denver. She is pretty well up in the 80's, and is the only remaining one of your Dad's aunts or uncles.

Abe had his ups and downs in his farming in Kansas. One time the farm and home were flooded from the overflowing Neosha River, and the family had to be taken from the house in a boat. He used to tell us of one time when they moved into a house so rickety that "you could throw a dog through the cracks!" However, between farming and cattle feeding, he must have prospered, for in the fall of 1897, at Ed's suggestion, he came to the Valley and bought 3 quarters of land, the quarter where Harvey's house was, and the two across the road east of that.

The following spring Harvey was sent out to farm the new land. He was 20 years old, and lived with Uncle Albert on the farm and they worked it together. The next year Harvey wanted to go to school, so he left the farm and lived and worked in Monte Vista, where he attended high school.

The rest of the family moved to the Valley in 1900. Dad came on the the train with his mother, but the other 3 boys came with Uncle Ed, riding in the freight train with their goods and stock. Abe had stayed behind to finish feeding out some cattle on the Race place. Some day you'll have to get the uncles to tell you about their trip on the freight train. It's good for a whole evening of laughs, but they wouldn't like me to relate it.

The family moved into a tar-roofed house, or rather two of them set at an ell. The roofs were covered with a heavy layer of dirt for insulation. this must have helped to keep them warm, but when the roof started to leak, to their mother's dismay, what came through was very muddy water! Later Abe built a peaked roof over the tar roofs, and faced the building all around with brick. Part of this was the "old house" that always stood in the back yard after the big house was built.

The family lived and farmed here for five or six years, the younger boys attending grade school at Eureka School, which is the small tennant house just west of the Pope house, a mile east of the Experiment corner. They also attended at North Farm School which was on the Fred Wright corner. All of them at one time or another went to high school in Monte Vista. Clarence graduated in 1903, and Chester and Dave in 1906. It was in the Monte high school that Clarence and Chester met their wives. Clarence spent one year in Denver Univesity. He worked part time for the janitor of one of the grade schools in Denver that year. Also he had a bad sick spell when ho contracted measles, which he had never had before. After his year of college he came home and married Lora Knapp of Bowen in 1909. She was an aunt to the Knapp boy you knew. Chester and Dave both went to Aggies in 1906. Chester stayed only one year, and then came home to farm, and married Nanella Malmsbury in December 1908.

Chester and Nanella set up housekeeping on Abe's farm, living first in the old house. While they were there--in 1909--Abe built the new brick house, and the following year also built the house just like it except a bit smaller, on the other side of the highway, where Clarence and Lora lived for a time. Then both Chester and Clarence bought their own farms out west and moved to them.

Abe and Lucy when they moved to town first lived in a house on the corner of Washington and 1st Avenue, where the La Veta Hotel is now. Then they bough a house on the corner of Dennis and 2nd. They rented the farm, or farmed it on shares, when Clarence or Chester were not farming it.

Harvey, after some schooling in Monte Vista, got a country teaching certificate, and taught at the Milner school, which was located where Meade David's house is now. The building is now used as a tennant house on the farm across the corner. It was in this school that he met Aunt Lurah who was one of his pupils. Her name was Lurah Milner and her home was the original house on the Sawyer place across the road and north of Joe Selters'. She later attended high school one year in Monte Vista. They were married in December 1903, and rented the farm where La Rue's live now, which then belonged to Uncle Ed Mathias, where they began farming and housekeeping. Velma was born there in April 1906. They moved a few years later to a house no longer standing 1-1/2 miles west of Lyman's. Here Donald was born in 1910. Then in 1911 Harvey quit farming and took his family to Westminster, so that he could go to college. That is where I met them, and through them, met your Dad.

Bert, when he first came to the Valley in 1900, helped on the farm. He wanted to get an education, but had not graduated from high school. So in the spring of 1902 he went to Monte high school to brush up on high school subjects, particularly mathematics. He then took entrance examinations for Colorado School of Mines, and passed them, which must have been quite a feat, as Mines has always been pretty stiff. Before fall, however, he decided to go to Aggies instead. Having passed Mines' entrance exams, Aggies did not require any examination of him, although he still had never received a high school diploma. He was graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree in 1906. He worked one summer while he was in college helping build the first sugar factory in Ft. Collins.

After he graduated he came home, farmed, and worked for his father for a time in the hardwear store. One year he farmed the whole section of land where Fred Wright lives. It was hard packed land and he hired the plowing done by tractor--an immense steam-powered machine. Modern farm tractors powered by gasoline did not appear until ten years or more later. Another two years he farmed the quarter where young Charlie Monter's house is. He then had a sale and afterward worked 2-1/2 years for his father in the hardwear store.

In 1912 his mother died, and the following year his father remarried. That same year he and Dave, shortly after I had met them at Harvey's home in Westminster, went to Minneapolis to put their engineering degrees to work in a construction business. They built concrete silos and grain storage, mainly in and around the Minneapolis area. It was here at an Epworth League rally that Dave met Jetta Hurdle, whom he married in 1916. They all attended Wesley M.E. Church in Minneapolis.

In 1918 Harvey asked Bert to come out to help him with his harvest. Crops were good and help hard to find. There I met him again, after five years and a half, and he still seemed pretty special to me. Although I was in Harvey's home often, we had no dates that year, and after harvest he went back to Minniapolis, where there was another "interest." There he worked in a machine shop for the Link Belt & Supply company, which is still in that city and grown to a large plant. But the next fall Bert came back again for harvest, and this time he stayed. He bought two quarters of unimproved land near the Alamosa County line, one east of Dick Worfe's south quarter, and the other across the corner west of Dick's south quarter. He did some work on these pieces of land, living in a tent part of the time. Then in 1920 and 1921 he noticed me, and there were dates. He rented the Hood farm, and now had a house. But what is a farm and a house without a housekeeper? So----we were married and lived happily ever after!