People

: Marie (Becker) Young; An early settler of Mesa County, fruit farmer, and ranch homemaker. Marie was born in Central City, Colorado, and moved to the Western slope when her father decided to raise fruit in the area. The family moved to Orchard Mesa in 1903 when Marie was nine years old. Her father was a German immigrant, and Marie and her family were subjected to discrimination during the period from World I to World War II. She was married in Moab, Utah, to Lew Young, and after living there for four years, moved to Fruita in 1928. She was a homemaker on a ranch and spent busy days taking care of her children, cooking and cleaning for the cowboys, and doing chores around the house. The family alternated time between their home in Fruita and rangelands on the Bookcliffs. She was a member of the Colorado Cow Belles and an organizer and president of the Frontier Belles.

: Marie (Dunston) Bittle; She was born to Henry A. Dunston and Ella May (Ruger) Dunston in Kansas. Her father was a farmer and her mother was a homemaker. The 1920 US Census shows the family living on their own farm in Weld County, Colorado, when Marie was 12 years old. The family homesteaded in Cisco, Utah in 1923. They bought a home in Loma, Colorado at that time. She married Henry Trollie Bittle of Loma on November 19, 1924. US Census records show that he was a laborer for the US Department of Reclamation and a janitor. In 1942, they purchased what had been a resettlement home for people fleeing the dustbowl. There, they ran a dairy farm for seventeen years. She was the sister-in-law of oral history interviewee Sterling Bittle.

: Marie (Geier) Spomer; She was born in a German community in Nicoliaska, Russia. Her father, John Geier, was a blacksmith. Her mother, Katherin Elisabath Zitterkopf, was a homemaker. She lived in Russia until the family moved to the United States in 1912, when she was twelve years old, and rented a home in Lincoln, Nebraska. She left school at age 16 to work; her jobs included those at a dime store, a cigar factory, and multiple sugar beet fields. She met her husband while working on a farm and they moved to Grand Junction, Colorado with several other Germans from Russia to partake in the abundance of beet farming with several other farm families. US Census records show them living in the Pomona area of Mesa County by 1930. While the other families they moved with left Grand Junction, the Spomers stayed and raised their children there. Marie liked to crochet and knit. As a child in Lincoln she attended the Lutheran Church, with masses in High German.

: Marie (Pate) Edwards Marshall; She was born in Leadville, Colorado to Austrian immigrants Jake Pate and Mary (Truk) Pate. Her father was a farmer. According to U.S. Census Records, she was living with her parents in Cortez by 1910. She married George Marshall in Chaffee County on December 12, 1917. During World War II, she and her husband worked in Camp Hale, the training facility for the 10th Mountain Division, where she cooked for the women telephone operators. At the end of the war she moved to Red Cliff where she worked in a restaurant for one year. She later worked in the tailoring shop in Ft. Carson, Colorado.

: Marie (Werner) Drew; Early Twentieth century resident of the Grand Valley. She moved with her husband Alston P. Drew from New England in 1902. Was active in St. Matthew's Episcopal Church.

: Marie (de Lavillette) de Beque; A French woman who married Dr. W.A.E de Beque in 1911 in De Beque, Colorado. They met in Mexico City where W.A.E worked as an investigator for the New York Life Insurance Company. She came from a "cultured" background, and had grown up with servants and many amenities. She was shocked by the lack of electric lights and plumbing in De Beque, and had never done housework prior to her move to Colorado. One humorous story included her cooking a chicken whole without bothering to remove or the entrails.

: Marie Beauprez; Marie (Stengel) Beauprez married Joseph Beauprez on June 5, 1940. They had four children. Together, Marie and Joe owned and operated a farming and cattle business in Lafayette, CO.

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