People

: Thomas W. Secrest; He was a National Park Service engineer in charge of the Civilian Conservation Corps, Colorado National Monument camp (1930's). He was sent out from Seattle to survey and build Rim Rock Drive over the Colorado National Monument after helping to build the Alaska Railroad. Civilian Conservation Corps commanding officer Marshall “Mike” Revelle Douglass was brought in to counter the influence that Secrest had on the CCC men under his command, and to raise the moral of the Monument CCC camp. Douglas accused Secrest of cruelty to CCC members, and even implicated him in the deaths of CCC members who were blasting a tunnel under bad working conditions. Secrest eventually left the camp, and, according to Douglass, may have been involved in the theft of CCC property.

: Thomas Wayne Beede; Wayne Beede was born to Rosanna Anna “Rosa” (Chamberlain) Beede and Elias Thomas Beede in Osceola, Iowa. His father was a farmer and his mother was a homemaker. US Census records show that the family had moved to Rio Grande County, Colorado by 1910, when Wayne was eight years old. By 1920, they had moved to Loveland. He married Marguerite Elizabeth Miller on November 14, 1925 in Greeley, where she had been a college student. They lived in Dover, Colorado, a town on the edge of the Dust Bowl, and were able to buy a home in Loma through the government’s resettlement program in 1937. There, they farmed on 180 acres on 15 Road between P and Q Roads. He was a lifelong farmer and also worked at the dump for supplementary income. He was elected state representative in 1948, but died the following year. He was the president of the Farmer’s Union and a member of the local school board.

: Thomas Wedell; A fruit farmer from Montezuma County, Colorado. He was born in Lebanon, Colorado, about ten miles north of Cortez. His father, Frank Wedell, was a farmer and had been a miner in Cripple Creek, where he was born. His mother, Clara Wedell was born in Utah, and had been a cook for a mining firm in Cripple Creek. Thomas Wedell attended a one-room school house for grade school and went to high school in Dolores, five miles by foot or horseback. Wedell and his two brothers worked for a neighbor helping to clear his land. In payment, the neighbor gave the brothers eighty acres of pinon forest, which they cleared in order to plant apple trees. He ran the ranch for his mother and brothers until World War II, when, along with all of his brothers, he enlisted in the Navy. Upon their return, they found Clara had sold the farm. Wedell bought 65 acres near Lebanon and once again grew apples, raising five varieties until 1973, when he sold out and moved to Paonia. In Paonia, he married and worked in a fruit packing plant and for the County Road Commission, until health problems made it impossible for him to work.

: Thomas William "Bill" Echternach; He was born to Ruth and Marion Echternach in Palisade, Colorado. After graduating from local schools, he moved to Rochester, New York, went to college, and worked for a place called ‘Gleason’s’. He joined the Navy during WWII and transferred to California as WWII drew to a close. He then returned to Mesa County with his wife, Sylvia. They had a daughter. He became an electrician, following in his father’s footsteps. He moved to Nucla and then to Tucson, Arizona.

: Thomas Williams; Early resident of Crested Butte, Colorado. Died in the Jokerville Mine Explosion on January 24, 1884.

: Thomas Y. Reese; He was a Welsh immigrant, born in Pembra, Wales, who came to the United States after spending his honeymoon in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Elizabeth (Williams) Reese, soon moved to Scranton. Around 1902, Reese was advised to go West as a cure for his black lung disease. He spent a year living in Colorado Springs with his brother, where his health dramatically improved. He then visited Welsh friend Arthur Reed Lloyd in Palisade, Colorado, and agreed to purchase a homestead on East Orchard Mesa. In the meantime, he did masonry work on both the Grand Junction train depot and the YMCA building there, and the family lived in the Welsh Apartments on Colorado Avenue, one of two tan apartment houses just behind the Avalon Theater. He and his family had moved to the homestead by 1904. Despite his declining health, he sang in the Baptist Church in Palisade. He also sang at funerals and in the First Baptist Church in Grand Junction. Prior to moving to Colorado, he sang with his church group at a festival in Atlantic City each year. When his health declined, he was the main babysitter for his children while his wife worked as a nurse.

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