In 1955 Snowmass, was part of the cattle ranch.
WESTERN FOOTPRINTS
By Anna Lee Ames Frohlich
My family’s stories lurked in the recesses of my consciousness until I became friends with Sam Arnold, creator and proprietor of The Fort Restaurant in Morrison. Sam, the great raconteur, and I used to sit and tell each other stories from our pasts and the histories of our families.
He said to me, “You have to tell these stories.”
In my first column I shared a story that my grandmother wrote about growing up in Wyoming and her trips in the Union Pacific Railroad. This week I will tell about my own experiences moving to the West as a child.
Next I will tell WHY our family moved west. After that I will take my readers back to 1804 when the first of my ancestors began moving westward. I am fortunate to have many western family stories to tell.
My thanks go to my mother, Betty Allen, an avid genealogist whose work forms the backbone of my research (and fills a 9 X 9 room in our basement).
In 1952 I considered myself a pioneer, the first in my immediate family to move West. It was much later that I would learn that I was by no means the first in my family to “go West.” My family, though few actually lived here in the 1800s, had a lasting influence on the history of the West.
This horse at the Trading Post on Lookout Mountain had many riders, along with Anna Lee c. 1955.
The rest of my family would be following, but I was being sent ahead to go to Perry Mansfield Camp in Steamboat Springs. My father picked me up at my grandparents’ summer home in Massachusetts and drove me into Boston where I was able to get a view of my newborn brother as mother held him up to the hospital window.
Dad then drove me to Grand Central Station in New York to board a train to the Wild West. He gave all my money for the summer to the representative of the camp assuming that she would be chaperoning on the same train. She was not. That was how, at 8 years old, I traveled west without a dime in my pocket. The kind porters took care of me, keeping me fed with hot dogs and Coke.
Anna Lee at Perry Mansfield camp, Steamboat Springs, in 1952
Perry Mansfield was a wonderful camp with much variety in their program. They had a liberal dose of the arts: music, dance, visual arts and theatre, my favorite. All that was mixed in with western activities. We attended the rodeo, took riding lessons, and had our own in camp rodeo, or gymkhana. Of course western saddles were the norm, but I spied one English saddle in the tack room. Turning my New England nose right up in the air, I insisted that it was mine. That was fine until we went on a pack trip for several days. I quickly learned the value of a more comfortable saddle. After the pack trip, they took us to the local hot springs to unkink. I must have been the kinkiest one of all and was very grateful for the soothing hot waters.
The end of the summer I joined my family at our new home in Denver. Much later I asked my mother how she had flown across the country with four young children, including an infant, with out any help. Her answer … “Green syrup.” I was afraid to ask more. I think that I had a better deal eating hot dogs.
Summers at Perry Mansfield Camp continued for several years and enriched my life in several ways. The highlight of my experience there was playing the role of Ariel in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The play is set on an island, and the large multi-level terrace outside the camp’s main lodge became that island. As the sprite Ariel, I would leap from level to level as I encountered various characters. I remember shedding tears of joy when the play was successfully completed. Ever since, there has been a theatrical bent to my nature.
The other very special result of my time at Perry Mansfield was my friendship with another camper. She lived on a ranch near Carbondale that had a beautiful view of Mt. Sopris. I was invited to stay at the ranch for several weeks each summer until I was about 13 years old. Those visits sold me on a Colorado way of life.
Being young, we were given only minimal chores to do, and I experienced a wonderful kind of freedom that I had not known before. How great it was to go horseback riding … not in an arena or corral and not on a trail ride looking at the rear of the horse in front of you. Sometimes we brought picnics on our rides, or we had a breakfast cookout, wrapping our eggs in newspaper to protect them. Once I scrambled my eggs in the lid to the orange juice thermos. While waiting for my turn to use the skillet, I got thirsty and took a swig of what looked like orange juice. It was so bad that I haven’t forgotten it in all these years.
Another time we got wild and chased some of the cattle on horseback. We had fun, but got in trouble for that one.
The quarry for Yule marble above Marble, c. 1955.
An interesting place to visit in the vicinity was the old marble quarry across the Crystal River and a hike uphill from the crumbling town of Marble. Beautiful white Yule marble was mined there, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is made of Yule marble. We would stand on the then unfenced edge looking down into the depths of the quarry with water at the bottom, a rickety wooden stairway hanging there, barely attached. Our knees would turn to Jello.
Another beautiful spot was part of their ranch that was at Snowmass. It is hardly recognizable now that the area has become a large ski resort. It was a privilege to know it in its earlier pristine beauty.
At 13, my friend talked of growing up to become a nurse in the city and marrying a doctor. I dreamed of growing up and marrying a rancher (preferably my friend’s older brother). Today, she and her husband are ranchers, and I live in the city married to an investment advisor, and writing, studying history, and dreaming about the West.
I love my life in Colorado. To me it is “the center of the universe.”
