Helen Johnson talks about moving to Denver, Colorado from Cleveland, Ohio at a young age and growing up in different places in Colorado. She talks about the fraudulent land sale that first brought her family to Delta County, Colorado in 1910, and that took her father’s life savings. She discusses living in a rented log cabin in Hotchkiss, her mother working as a hired washerwoman and housekeeper, and her father’s difficulty finding gainful employment there. She speaks about the childhood of she and her siblings in Hotchkiss, and about being picked on because they were from Back East, with darker complexions and nicer clothes. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
