Lost Sopris with author Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen

CC_Genevieve

Benjamin Morris & Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen

Benjamin Morris (00:00):

Genevieve, welcome to Crime Capsule, and congratulations on your new book.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (00:06):

Thank you so much. Thank you for inviting me.

Benjamin Morris (00:09):

I understand that it is coming out very, very soon in just a matter of a few weeks. How are you feeling?

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (00:20):

Excited and anxious and wanting people to like it as much as we hope they will.

Benjamin Morris (00:27):

Well, I can vouch it is excellent, and it is fascinating, and everybody should go and pre-order a copy right now. That is my completely unbiased opinion, I assure you.

Benjamin Morris (00:35):

Tell me this, you have such an interesting personal connection to the subject of this book. Often when we ask our authors, our guests, kind of how something came to be they'll say something like, "Oh, I just stumbled across this case and the local newspaper and no one had ever done anything on it before."

Benjamin Morris (01:00):

Or, "Oh, I used to hear people talking about it down at the old watering hole," or that sort of thing.

Benjamin Morris (01:06):

But this was not stumbling upon. This was not overheard gossip. This was about as personal connection as you can possibly get. So, tell us about Sopris and being from there.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (01:22):

Well, yes, and Sopris is definitely unique and thanks to Loretta Archuleta and Fr. Jim Koenigsfeld for starting the first reunion in 1970. And then Loretta and Mary Jane Incitti continued to plan them. So, while I was states away, my parents were always there and always anxious to regather with people.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (01:44):

And so, when I did come back home to be with my parents for health reasons, I had time in the house. And so, I spent my evenings exploring for things because I mean, it was obvious we were going to be losing them. And so, obviously we're going to have to put the house on the market.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (02:08):

And there were also the, "Where are those pictures of me when I was ..." So, I was digging through albums and boxes and went, "Oh my goodness, look at this treasure trove."

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (02:20):

And my father was like, "None of those pictures leave this house." It's like, "Dad, we can scan them. It doesn't damage them. They're fine. But this is everyone's history. We need to give it back to them." Well, again, he was very protective of them, as he rightly should have been.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (02:36):

But then in time, I was able to scan them. And then before the last Sopris reunion, I volunteered to put up a Facebook page so that I could share them back to people, because they were class sponsors, both mom and dad taught at the high school.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (02:52):

And so, I had these beautiful pictures of every senior class from '52 to '60. And even if they weren't there, so it was like, “No, no, these people's kids need to know what their parents looked like as high schoolers.”

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (03:08):

So, I just was very anxious to get this back to people. And I didn't know these people, so thank goodness, the camp kids were always the camp kids. From the Sopris camp, from Segundo, and Primero, and Aguilar. And so, we grew up with this bond between people my dad had grown up with.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (03:30):

When we had to leave Sopris, he took a job at Pueblo South High School, Joe Bassetti, teaching manual arts and docents there, and all of these people that they grew up with. So, we continued to have a second generation that knew each other.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (03:45):

So, I had these pictures, and Phyllis Bassetti was from Segundo. Primero, Segundo. Phyllis Bassetti was from one of the camps, just to the north, a little bit into the West. And so, and Liz Antista grew up in Sopris Plaza, so they were friends that my parents knew.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (04:07):

So, they came over to the house, it's like, "Who are these?" And Phyllis is like, "Oh, Mr. Benedetti." It's like, "Do you know anyone else in the photo?" Without their help, I would never have been able to identify these people. I'm so grateful to them because without them, I wouldn't have had a story to tell. It would've just been pictures in a box.

Benjamin Morris (05:10):

Absolutely. And it's funny for us here, because as we have undertaken this series on Lost Cities … it's going to be really awkward what I'm about to say, but I mean this with like just all joy and affection. We've looked at lost cities in Alabama, old mining towns that have been gone for generations. We've looked at Indianola, Texas which was wiped out by hurricane 150 years ago.

Benjamin Morris (05:40):

To actually have a guest, to get to speak to you, who is from a lost city. I mean, it feels like I'm speaking almost to like an ancient Carthaginian, you know what I mean? It's sort of like, wait, it's not on the map anymore. And yet here she is, ladies and gentlemen.

Benjamin Morris (05:57):

So, this is extremely exciting for me to get to speak to someone who has a foot both in past and present the way that you do. It's really fascinating.

Benjamin Morris (06:10):

So, part of the story that you were telling here involves a co-author, which is Robert Vigil, and he is also, from the region originally. How did the two of you meet and begin to collaborate on this particular book?

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (06:59):

We really need to give a lot of credit to Facebook because there are so many groups that focus on this aspect or that aspect. And so, there is a Facebook page called Trinidad Historical Photos and Memorabilia. And Sharon Fernandez started it, I believe, and then Robert took it over as the administrator.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (07:19):

And so, they post pretty much daily facts. And so, I was seeing things there that I could contribute more information to. But he had such a breadth of knowledge, and he works for Trinidad Abstract & Title. So, his drawers are full of these wonderful archival documents.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (07:36):

And he is in Trinidad. So, he's boots on the ground, when I'm thousands of miles away. So, there are times when it's like, "Hey, can you check on this for me? Hey, can you go over and look at this?"

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (07:50):

And so, there is a photo person across the street who's willing to scan things for us so he can upload those files to me. And then I can use those maps that he has a hand drawn map of St. Thomas in Red Ink. And so, it was a good partnership. He was there, I was here. We both loved history.

Benjamin Morris (08:13):

Yeah, absolutely. And you even include the old plats in the back of the book. Those are marvelous to look at. I mean, you're just looking at the past right then and there.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (08:22):

Took a bit of research to get ahold of those, but I was thrilled to be able to find them.

Benjamin Morris (08:29):

No, that is remarkable. So, this is your first book, which is very exciting. What kind of research did you have to do in order to kind of get the raw material for the story? Where did you find your threads that you would then weave together?

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (08:49):

So, there was so much that I knew, obviously, and had photos to support, but the ancient history, I mean, someone had uncovered that Elbridge Bright Sopris was the person who was the founder, and someone had uncovered that.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (09:03):

And so, we all grew up knowing that we were CF&I Company town. But then it was really exciting to discover that we were Denver Fuel Company company towns and sold to CF&I as they merged with Colorado Coal and Iron and Colorado Fuel Company to become Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (09:23):

And so, the plats ... and I love a good mystery. When I looked at the plat for Sopris, it was signed by race president, da da da James. And James, I knew to be the name of a street in Sopris.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (09:38):

We never knew there were street names. There was not a stop sign in the town, but I was going through my parents' documents and there was an insurance policy from the school district, but it was addressed on Dexter Street.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (09:55):

And I thought, "That's really unusual. How can there be a Dexter Street? What were they mailing it to?" Because we always had post office boxes, five or six in a row that sat next to the cottage adjacent to the playground and our grandparents. And we all shared Box 360.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (10:10):

And so, then I found a map from Colorado Fuel and Iron that actually showed the street names on it.

Benjamin Morris (10:17):

Oh, look at you.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (10:19):

And it was news to everyone. I know, it's fabulous. It's like mine number 4 1909 or something, I think. And it's like, "Oh my gosh, look at this." And there's Eddie. But I said to my husband, "I bet every one of those streets is named after someone in that company." And so, the more I researched ...

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (10:38):

And I love Colorado historical newspapers. And so, you can put in one thing and it leads you. And I spend hours and I look at the clock and it's 11:00, and I look at the clock and it's 3:00 AM. But I mean, it's fabulous to be able to go back and read the original newspaper articles.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (10:56):

And so, sure enough, it was Wallcot, it was Wood, it was Sullivan, it was James, it was Dexter. All of these people were leading stockholders and board of director members for Denver Fuel Company when that town was founded. And so, every street is named after them.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (11:18):

So, I have since put that on Facebook and everyone's like, "Where do I get a copy of this map?" It's like, “Order it from CF&I, or go to call Steelworks Museum and order it from them, support them.”

Benjamin Morris (11:46):

For the non-historians out there in the crowd, I don't think I'm exaggerating to say this is like a Rosetta Stone. I mean, like that particular document unlocks so many other documents and so many other resources that you have to work with. And it explains them and puts them in a context.

Benjamin Morris (12:12):

To find a map of street names like that, which had never been known to exist before, that really is a major discovery, Genevieve. You must have been ecstatic when you found it.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (12:24):

Oh, I was. In fact, Victoria Miller, who's also, an author for History Press is the curator at Steelworks Museum.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (12:32):

And so, a couple of years ago, we were filming interviews for the documentary that accompanies the book, but she was kind enough to arrange for us to come for an afternoon and worked with their archival people. And we went downstairs and looked at these huge maps on the table, and it was amazing to see what ...

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (12:54):

And one of my other favorite maps has all of the mine tunnels. But then in yellow, you see the houses that were in the Sopris community, not up the Canyon, which were the company homes nearest the mine, and they were in yellow.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (13:10):

And the school is like an I-beam. It has the center, it has a slightly extended front two wings and a more thoroughly extended back two wings. But you can identify that school so easily because of the shape and the size.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (13:24):

And so, my grandparents were right behind the school, and Kamoras were right next door, and Terrys were to the right of them as you face the school.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (13:34):

So, it's like this map is amazing. And I believe it's also, in the book because we can see where we fit into the big picture of where those tunnels were that our grandparents and our dads were going to every day.

Benjamin Morris (13:48):

That's amazing. Well, speaking of that big picture, let's do this, let's zoom out just a little bit and if you would be so kind as just to locate on sort of a map of Colorado, sort of where roughly in the state are we when we're looking at Lost Sopris.

Benjamin Morris (14:06):

And why was it so significant as a mining town at the turn of the last century, sort of between the 1800s and the 1900s?

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (14:18):

So, if you're looking at a map, we are very close to the New Mexico border. You drive down into Raton, 17 miles maybe. You come into Trinidad and then you take Highway 12 to the west called Highway of Legends because so many wonderful historic things happen there. And you pass through Jansen, and then you pass through what was Sopris.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (14:43):

But if you look to the south side, there is a reservoir and the slack dumps were there, the black and orange. They have reclaimed them. They're still somewhat obvious to those of us who know what they are. Some towns, as you drive around the highway, you see a large R on a hillside that tells you're in Rawlings, Wyoming.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (15:04):

Ours had LHS it was very visible from the highway for Lincoln High School. And the classes went up and painted it every year. And growing up, it was very visible. Now, it's become very overgrown with some cedars. So, it's not as visible to us, but we would love for it to always be a beacon.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (15:28):

So, if you continue up, then you go through Valdez and into Primero and Segundo, and you can actually take that clear up and hook up with the highway from Alamosa that connects to I-25 again. But just about five miles to the southwest of Trinidad.

Benjamin Morris (15:48):

So, 150 years ago then when there was no I-25, how did Sopris become such a prominent town in the Colorado Gold Rush?

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (16:03):

There were six things that actually brought people through that area. And one of them was the Santa Fe Trail ran through Trinidad, and the Maxwell Land Grant is claimed to have some of that land there. It's gone into legal questions about just where the perimeters were for that.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (16:26):

And then the rush to the Rockies was in 1859, and people were going more toward Cherry Creek, more toward Denver, but they were still passing through.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (16:37):

Civil War, a lot of ambitious young men, and the battle of Glorieta Pass in New Mexico was a significant battle that turned back the Texans essentially. So, a lot of young men were in that area and saw what was there.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (16:53):

And then the Homestead Act opened up all the land. There was a river that ran through, it was rich agricultural land. People who had been on the Santa Fe Trail were very anxious to apply for land grants there.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (17:05):

And then of course, the trains in 1859 in 1860s, the transcontinental railroad. So, they came into Trinidad in 1879, and it became a very much a hub for railroad travel. So, people who knew the area, knew the wealth of the area.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (17:26):

And then general William Jackson Palmer founded a steel mill in Pueblo, and he needed coal to fire the blast furnaces. And so, other people who were familiar, like Elbridge Bright Sopris bought coal lands and started putting together the pieces to get that coal to Pueblo.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (17:49):

The coal just sticks out. You don't have to go looking for it. The seam are visible. I mean, it's not like you're digging to find it. It's readily available there. And it's a very, very rich vein of coal.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (18:05):

And so, people were able to put in land claims that moved north along that coal seam for a very long time. And with the demand for coal became the demand for labor.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (18:20):

And then we get the immigration from Europe, we get the immigration from Mexico, even though mining stopped in New Mexico first, and then came in and that was what brought it to the attention.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (18:33):

One of my favorite stories. Well, Elbridge Sopris, let's talk about him a little bit. He came to Colorado in 1859 at 17 with his father Richard Sopris. And then the following year, the rest of the family joined them.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (18:50):

But Richard was helping to settle Auraria in the Denver area. And then Denver also, was being settled at the same time. But he was a good person to work with people.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (19:05):

He got into the gold mining and after they had settled some of these things, they went exploring. They found where it became Glenwood Springs and a mountain that seemed to be unnamed, so they chose to name it Mount Sopris over by Boncarbo, by Glenwood Springs.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (19:22):

And so, Elbridge is watching his dad make all these connections and making all this happen. So, he made amazing connections when he was a soldier in the Civil War, in the cavalry.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (19:33):

In fact, at like age 22, he was the person who was sent to represent when Lincoln signed a treaty with the Utah Indians and so on. So, at 23 to have your name on that document is pretty significant.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (19:50):

And then he was appointed by this acting governor of the territory and that acting governor into various positions. And then in 1873, he was made lieutenant surveyor for New Mexico and Colorado.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (20:08):

So, he sees all this land and knows it all well, and he submitted all of his reports. Kind of left out the fact that there was so much coal there, such an abundance of it.

Benjamin Morris (20:19):

What a sneaky little devil. How about that? Yeah.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (20:21):

Yeah, that was kind of my thought. And so, when Palmer comes in and needs coal, he and William Littlefield put in 320 acres of coal land. And that becomes like the first Sopris mine. But within six months, he sells it off, not totally legally to Charles Chase and moves on to other things.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (20:47):

But Muldrow was the Secretary of Interior and he said, "That is fraud. He didn't tell us there was coal there. We need to get this land back."

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (20:59):

And not only was it that one, there were like 21 other applications and the people could never be found. There's an entire lawsuit that I dug up on in my research, because that's what I do, is research. And so, there are all these 21 people.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (21:16):

There's one other person who actually did exist, and he's like, "No, those people never lived here. I don't know any of those." So, they were fictitious people putting together this large amount of coal land. And Porterfield script, are you familiar with Porterfield script?

Benjamin Morris (21:32):

I'm not.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (21:34):

Apparently, it was the VA loan. It was a benefit of being in the Civil War. You had Porterfield script that you could buy land that was public land, but for example, you could be closer to a railhead by buying land in a closer proximity than anyone else was allowed to if you used your Porterfield script to do it.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (21:54):

So, he used his Porterfield script to retain the land, used it in several other situations as well.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (22:02):

His partner, William Littlefield, was another fund discovery. They put in that application, I think it was granted in 1881. But he had been the paymaster for the MKT, the Katy line railroad in Missouri in Sedalia.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (22:21):

And then one weekend he was just distraught and haggard, and everyone had seen him around town and he'd been complaining of a headache and pain. And his doctorate said, "You probably should move like to Colorado or somewhere where it's a drier climate, I think that would be beneficial to you."

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (22:39):

But then he just disappeared. His wife and children had no idea where he was. No one else in town did. And he ended up in Trinidad. And in Missouri, he was William Morrill. In Trinidad, he was William Littlefield, his mom's maiden name.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (22:57):

And because it was such a train hub, people would come through, get off the train, and there was a Harvey House restaurant there. And be around town and they'd see him and say, "Well, he is alive, he's well.” And so, they knew where he was. He was never forced to go back to Missouri and account for abandoning his wife and children.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (23:18):

But between the two of them, they went together on this coal land. And I consider it to be a little bit of two words of a feather.

Benjamin Morris (23:27):

Yeah. Well, there was money to be made. There was absolutely money to be made there. And I can tell you this, very likely the reason that I never learned about Porterfield script growing up in the American South, is because we didn't hear a lot about what you got for participating in the Civil War on the union side.

Benjamin Morris (23:45):

We tended to hear about being lucky enough to make it back to your farm with a horse. That was about the extent.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (23:55):

And to have a farm left that hadn't been burned down.

Benjamin Morris (23:57):

Or from which everything had not been seized by the desperate confederate government trying to requisition whatever it could just to feed itself. So, lot of heartache and destruction there for sure.

Benjamin Morris (24:09):

But let me ask you this, not too long ago here on Crime Capsule, we had the real pleasure of speaking to Jane Bardal, who has written a book with the History Press about Colorado's Mrs. Captain Ellen Jack, who is one of the first female prospectors in Colorado a little bit further north of where you're writing about.

Benjamin Morris (24:29):

But she had a lot to say about what it meant to go off and strike claims in that era. Because there's a good bit of temporal overlap between her subject and yours.

Benjamin Morris (24:43):

I was struck as I was reading your book, Genevieve, about the kind of contrast between these independent minds sometimes called wagon minds and the big sort of corporate outfits.

Benjamin Morris (24:57):

Can you just help to unpack a little bit what it was like for these coal seams in particular, what it was like for just your average Joe to sort of go out and say, "I'll take this parcel, or I'd like that stretch." How did that work in the heyday of Sopris?

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (25:17):

And that is kind of how it worked. There was such an abundance of coal that they would file for these 160 acres or that. And so, we had like the Billy Morgan mine, we had the La Belle mines, there were a couple of those.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (25:32):

My grandmother’s oldest sister and her husband had land up at Riley Canyon for the Martorano Mine. And so, they had their sons involved with that. And in fact, Uncle Charlie was actually killed in that mine from a ceiling fall one day when he wasn't even supposed to be out at work.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (25:57):

But you would harvest the coal and they supplied the Trinidad Electric Company. In fact, the story is, and I truly believe it, Joe, the older one was in the Army and Salvato was the next one, and he was to be in the Army, but the person from Trinidad Electric and Power said, "No, no, I need the coal. He can't go. He's providing a very necessary service here."

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (26:27):

So, he was able to stay and work the mine and provide them with the fuel that they needed instead of going into the service at that time.

Benjamin Morris (26:34):

Yeah, for sure. So, I mean, it was just as simple as sort of purchasing the title or the deed to that acreage and then striking out with your pickax and potentially your dynamite. Simple as that?

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (26:46):

Because that was in the 1930s, so the Homestead Act was still in effect. So, yes. But they'd come from Sicily, from Alia, and so they had worked in the coke ovens and they had worked in the Sopris mines. So, it wasn't that they didn't know how to mine.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (27:03):

But even at that time, it surprised me as I learned from Robert Butero, who is a UMWA regional director (they grew up across the street from me though) that the miners had to go buy their own dynamite, and their own shovels, and their own picks from the company store, of course.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (27:18):

And so, they had everything they needed. And it wasn't like the company was issuing anything to you to do your work each day. So, why don't I just go mine for myself? And just take what I get for the coal and raise my family with it?

Benjamin Morris (27:35):

Yeah. Was there any kind of systematized form of, once you've got the raw material out of the ground, what forms of transport were there to get it back to processing? Were people having to do this by mule, by wagon, by horse? Is there any little dummy lines, railroad lines that could be used for little carts to go back and forth?

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (28:02):

Colorado and Southern is one of the major ones. And I'm trying to think of the name of the second one.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (28:07):

But what would happen was the ore carts would bring it out of the mine. It would all go into the tipple, and it would go through a washery. And then the train cars would pull in under the tipple and they'd load the car and they'd move on and load the next one.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (28:21):

So, in the book, there are some amazing pictures from Piedmont Mine that Boulder's Carnegie Library had, because a lot of the mines that was Rocky Mountain Fuel Company that started out being Shumway, and then eventually became John Roche.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (28:38):

And then came to his daughter Josephine Roche, who unlike her father and all the other industrialists of the time, were very anti-union and anti ...

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (28:52):

She was a woman gone to Vassar, and then she had worked with Jane Adams at Hull House. So, her empathy was with the employees and the miners. So, yeah, quite the turnabout having that change of ownership, even though she came into power after the Sopris Rocky Mountain had closed.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (29:09):

But that's why Boulder has so much of the archival material, because Wells County and up north was a bulk of the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company mines.

Benjamin Morris (29:21):

In the South, we would call a lady like that, a pistol. And I assure you, it is the highest compliment that someone can receive.

Benjamin Morris (29:28):

So, tell me this, your book is so focused on — when I think about the entire arc of the story of Lost Sopris, it's a story about or the raw material, the product and so forth. But really at its heart, this is a story about people, and it's a story of the residents of the town and the communities within the town.

Benjamin Morris (29:56):

And you have so many images and photographs of the folks who used to live there, and just page after page, you really get to feel like you meet the people who were part of this historic community.

Benjamin Morris (30:13):

Now, there's this interesting moment in your book fairly early on where you and Robert together kind of say that this book was in some ways written by the people of Sopris. What do you mean by that?

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (30:29):

It's their history. It's the stories that we heard at the dining room table. It's the gatherings that we were at. I went through the census and analyzed it. And at one point, like 40% of the residents were Italian, but we had Polish people and we had German people, and we had Hispanic people. And so, it wasn't only ...

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (30:51):

But it's interesting because you would have a couple from this town, a couple from that town. My grandfather came from Fonzaso in northern Italy. If you go to Vicenza and head on up and Feltre's the nearest Railhead.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (31:03):

Then I was there in college in 1978. And the cousins, his nephews who were being my guides in picking me up from my college group and then taking me back to my college group, made sure they took me to the cemetery so that I could pay respects.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (31:22):

I kept seeing names. There's the Cambruzzi name, there's the Shiva name, there's the Lira name, there's all of these names I'd grown up with. And I had no idea they had all come from that one community.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (31:31):

And then as I looked at the maps, and I was there a few years ago, and we were walking to Porto Venere, which is this lovely little town, and there's a Zancanero street sign. And it's like, are Zancaneros from here also. And so, yeah, it was amazing.

Benjamin Morris (31:49):

Halfway around the world and you find-

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (31:51):

Well, that's it. And then I discovered that Zancaneros are just at Arsie and it's just up. And so, was Fantin. And so, that was a difference. All of these young men came from these towns that were probably 20 miles from each other and probably didn't know each other at all.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (32:11):

They all ended up in Sopris and then realized how they had grown up in the same part of Italy and had been so close to each other. And they built those friendships after they got to America.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (32:22):

And they often married their wives were the daughters the older coal miners that were born in America. But a few wives came, so I'll go back to the wives in just a minute.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (32:35):

But then when they all had children, these were kids who grew up together from birth. In fact, I have reason to believe, based on the census in 1920 and then in 1930, my grandparents were living on a block that looks like most of it was people from Fonzaso.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (32:59):

And the two Sebben brothers were there and they were next to Incittis. And as I said, my father and, and Sam Incitti were classmates. I think they were sandbox mates as well, living probably next door to each other, or very close to each other, two doors down. And they grew up for life and they stayed in touch for life.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (33:19):

And my dad, I have so many little tracks from funerals because if a friend died, he was there to say goodbye to them. And that went on.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (33:30):

The women, there were basically three types of women. There were three categories of women. The ones who families came, and they were born in Colorado. So, they grew up among friends, daughters of immigrants.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (33:44):

But there were those who were married in Italy. So, the husband would come over and then he'd send for the wife and maybe a child that was already born a year or so later.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (33:54):

And then there were, because of the Homestead Act, the women who basically were from other states that suddenly found themselves in Colorado instead of Missouri, for example.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (34:04):

There's a great newspaper letter. Because this young woman in 1901, her dad had asked her, "Well, tell us about your new home." So, she writes in this very lengthy letter about, “How different this arid land is from the well-groomed farms of Missouri. And I haven't seen any cows.”

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (34:24):

And truly in Sopris, we had our resident dairy cows, but a little bit east, in Hony, my Murphy grandparents raised cattle and stuff, but she hadn't gone that far because horses went by buggy in 1901. So, she was feeling a little bit like she missed home.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (34:44):

And the women who came with children often had more children. But some of them were fortunate enough to be able to go back to Italy to be with their family for a while. And some were not. So, they would try to go back.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (35:00):

And in fact, my grandfather's cousin's wife continue to leave the home. And they actually declared her to need assistance and put her into an institution. And this is a story that other women tell because they were so lonely.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (35:16):

You're at home with 7 children under the age of 10, and the men go to work every day. They have that socialization, they have that contact. But the women were somewhat isolated until they became bonded through church and through school and activities.

Benjamin Morris (35:33):

No, it's important to bring that element of the story to light because often those exact dimensions are the ones that go unrecorded through time. And to have a window onto that experience is very important.

Benjamin Morris (35:45):

Now, let me just ask you this, I mean, you left when you were six. What are some of your memories growing up in this town that is now wiped off the map?

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (36:00):

Yes. Well, no, my leash was pretty short. I'll tell you that. So, my friends were the Butero kids across the street and Jeannie Sebben when she was there before they moved to Colorado Springs. And Beverly, who was the teenage cousin who lived up behind us. And then of course, everyone in that block.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (36:25):

And then next to my grandparents was the Terry family with their children. And so, that was kind of my grandparents, you'd go out the back gate down the alley to the end of the other one. And that was about as far as you could go. I wasn't ever walking down into St. Thomas or over to Garyville to see friends or anything.

Benjamin Morris (36:45):

Or the mines.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (36:46):

Yeah. Well, and that was the thing that Sopris Canyon was gone, the mines were closed. Dad, we'd walk up the Canyon sometimes. The beautiful YMCA clubhouse that's on the cover of the book was a foundation as I knew it as a child.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (37:04):

But dad, there were times when we'd all walk behind and he'd take his 410 and we'd go out and hunt turtle doves after dinner on a summer night or whatever night it's in season. And so, that's about as far as I got up the canyon to the old mines kind of thing.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (37:22):

But no, the school was the heart of the town. And so, we had catechism in school classrooms. It wasn't at the church. And then we had baby showers at the school. We had wedding receptions at the school. School carnivals were the best.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (37:44):

As you'll notice in the book, originally the Colorado Supply Company Store, which was the first one they opened just a few months after they incorporated in September of 1888 was across from what became the school.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (38:01):

There were three schools. The first was a little adobe one, the second one was a two story brick building that was on the corner of Wallcot and Dexter. And then the third one was the I-beam shaped one on Dexter Street.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (38:15):

So, when they eventually took down the Colorado Supply Company Store in the mid-1950s, they put up a gym and it was built into the hillside. So, the basketball court was down below, the stage was to your left, the concessions were in the wings of the stage. And so, people gather there.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (38:37):

I remember when polio vaccine first came out, there were the three. And we were all sitting in lines of chairs waiting our turn in the gym on a Sunday afternoon. And there was always a class play to go to, the basketball teams were always a center of attention, and we loved watching them.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (38:57):

Fortunately, the women in the 1920s had basketball teams and they were amazing athletes. And women that were so beautiful and sophisticated, we can't quite imagine being basketball players. But they were all out there winning championships and playing for championships. By the time the 1940s, the girls didn't play basketball anymore and they didn't have those teams.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (39:20):

But the school between the gym and the school carnival, the best. Things we can't do anymore. Throwing darts at balloons on walls. The fish tank was always my favorite because they could peek out and see who it was and know just switch bag to attach to your fishing pole as you pulled it out.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (39:37):

And so, the school was a heart. Church was important, but it was where you went to worship. And there was no fellowship hall as we all have today. So, the school kind of met that need of the fellowship hall.

Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen (40:30):

And so, it was just a community where everyone was welcome and everyone knew each other and everyone was pretty much related to each other at some level if you went back far enough.