People

: Rena Mary (Gramps Burdick) Taylor; She was born in New York State to James H. Gramps and Abia Elizabeth Gramps. Her father was a preacher at the Presbyterian Church of Delta and the Palisade Presbyterian Church, and her mother was a homemaker. The 1900 US Census shows the family living in Summit, New York when Rena was eight years old. Rena had a younger brother named Howard. By 1920, the family lived in Saratoga Springs. She married Victor Burdick in Grafton on June 3, 1911. They had two children. They apparently moved to Delta, Colorado not long after, where she worked as a school teacher. They divorced in 1920. The 1920 census shows Rena living with her parents and her children at 113 4th Street in Delta. She remarried on December 24, 1921, this time to Avon Edson Taylor Sr., the principal at Palisade High School. She and her children moved to Palisade, where she continued her teaching career at the Palisade School and Palisade Elementary School. She taught for twenty-six years in Palisade. She was elected to the Colorado State Legislature from 1950 to 1962. She worked in the legislature to provide better care and education for children with disabilities. She was active in the Presbyterian Church. She died at the age of eighty-seven and is buried in the Palisade Cemetery.

: Rena Richardson; She was a teacher at Tope Elementary School who taught in the Palisade Migrant School from 1958-1960 at least.

: Rena Schofield; Rena (Chapman) Schofield was born in Greer Canyon. She married William "Oz" Osborn Schofield in 1901 and they moved to Lafayette, CO. Rena and William began a milk delivery service in 1912 that later expanded into a general trucking business. They had three children.

: Reuben A. Pitts; He was born in Beulah, Colorado and his pioneering family came to the Collbran area when he was three years old. His father, C.B. Pitts, was the editor of the Plateau Valley Voice newspaper in Collbran, and Reuben worked for a time as a typesetter for the newspaper. Also, he was a cattle rancher and stayed in that line of work until 1966. On top of that, Reuben played with a dance band that toured around the Western Slope for 60 years.

Main menu