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August Lenke
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ENLARGE
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Bonnie Lenke Smeltzer
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Bonnie Smeltzer was born Bonnie Lenke. Her grandparents came to the United States from Germany in 1903 with their two young sons August and Oswald. They started work in the Black Diamond Mine, a coal mine just above Four Mile Road in Glenwood Springs. The family eventually moved to the mine at Sunlight, Colorado, just below what is now the Sunlight Ski Area, so the boys could go to school. Bonnie's dad, August, and his brother, Oswald, grew up in Sunlight.
Coal mining was a major player in the Lenke family history. Bonnie was born in a coal mining camp. It gave the family work but it took its toll.
Smeltzer: I gave my dad a journal for Christmas in 1977 and asked him to fill the empty pages with some of his childhood memories. For Christmas in 1981, a few years before he died, he gave it back to me. Here is one of the journal's first entries:
August Lenke: Most of the jobs I had in life were short jobs except for two long ones. My first job was in the summer of 1917 during World War I. After school was out, I got a job on the Colorado Midland Railroad as a section hand. But, after a month and a half on the job, I was too weak to continue, on account of my many illnesses. I was malnourished and always tired.
My mom had been sick for years with rheumatoid arthritis and she was unable to do any cooking or any of the chores around the house. While my dad was working in the mine, I was responsible for taking care of her and doing the housework, baking bread, scrubbing the clothes.
Most of my pastime days in Sunlight, Colorado were spent outside of the log house sitting on a log bench made of quakies (aspens) thinking about what the future had in store for me. My folks figured manual labor would be too hard for me. I had gotten papers from the Fort Collins Agricultural School urging me to apply. They had a program where I could work for room and board, and I think my folks would have paid the tuition, but I was scared to apply for admittance.
The Depression for us was coming on in 1918. The mine at Sunlight closed and most of the families moved away except for a few that were left to operate the mine on a standby basis. Everyone was hoping that the Colorado Midland Railroad would get back on a sound financial basis and the mine would open full time again.
The Midland went bankrupt and the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad took it over and ran the trains into Sunlight three times a week. That kept about five miners employed. My dad was lucky to be one of those working full time. I remember him getting paid in gold and silver. He was getting a salary of $3.15 per hour operating the hoist and firing the boilers.
The mine closed in 1919, and I was hired to watch the premises while my dad and some of the other miners started dismantling the property, pulling up rails, stripping out the wiring and removing the mine's water pumps.
I received $2.50 per shift until they didn't need a night watchman and then I helped in the dismantling process, which lasted for another two weeks. Then we packed all that we were taking in two trunks and gave all of our other things to the families that were staying. Dad had decided that our future looked better in Denver or in one of the mines near Lafayette, Colorado.
In December of 1920 my dad and mom and my brother Oswald and I left for Denver. We lived in Denver for three months while my dad searched for work. My uncle Martin talked my folks into letting me learn the barber trade. I took a two-month program that cost $75. I passed my apprentice course and worked in the 10-cent shave and 15-cent haircut shop and barely made enough for expenses.
Dad couldn't find work in the mines. One was on strike and the other one wasn't open yet. It was a new mine in Serene, Colorado, three miles from Lafayette. We really couldn't wait for the mine to open. We needed work and our relatives in Germany talked us into coming back and settling there. They told us there was plenty of work. We left for Germany in February of 1921.
We lived in Duesberg, Germany, the town where I was born, for about six months. We found work but housing was very hard to come by and we were all homesick for America. My dad had me write the mine manager at the new mine in Serene to see if there was work. We got word two weeks later that my dad had a job if he wanted it. We came back in July of 1921.
We moved into one of the new houses the mine had built there in Serene and my dad and my brother and I all went to work in the Columbine Mine. Things went along pretty well for a couple of years until April 9, 1923. That was the day my brother Oswald was killed under the mine tipple. He was overcome by mine gas fumes and died. We didn't find him until the next day. He was 17.
A little over a year later on July 23, 1924, my mom died from complications in surgery. The doctors were taking her tonsils out because they thought it had something to do with what was ailing her. Her death and the death of my brother pretty much broke our spirits, and my dad and I decided it was time to quit and go back to Glenwood Springs.
Next Week: Bonnie Lenke Smeltzer talks about the Columbine Mine Massacre and summer in the Civilian Conservation Corps camp at Marvine Lake.
Immigrant Stories runs every Monday in the Post Independent.
Coal mining was a major player in the Lenke family history. Bonnie was born in a coal mining camp. It gave the family work but it took its toll.
Smeltzer: I gave my dad a journal for Christmas in 1977 and asked him to fill the empty pages with some of his childhood memories. For Christmas in 1981, a few years before he died, he gave it back to me. Here is one of the journal's first entries:
August Lenke: Most of the jobs I had in life were short jobs except for two long ones. My first job was in the summer of 1917 during World War I. After school was out, I got a job on the Colorado Midland Railroad as a section hand. But, after a month and a half on the job, I was too weak to continue, on account of my many illnesses. I was malnourished and always tired.
My mom had been sick for years with rheumatoid arthritis and she was unable to do any cooking or any of the chores around the house. While my dad was working in the mine, I was responsible for taking care of her and doing the housework, baking bread, scrubbing the clothes.
Most of my pastime days in Sunlight, Colorado were spent outside of the log house sitting on a log bench made of quakies (aspens) thinking about what the future had in store for me. My folks figured manual labor would be too hard for me. I had gotten papers from the Fort Collins Agricultural School urging me to apply. They had a program where I could work for room and board, and I think my folks would have paid the tuition, but I was scared to apply for admittance.
The Depression for us was coming on in 1918. The mine at Sunlight closed and most of the families moved away except for a few that were left to operate the mine on a standby basis. Everyone was hoping that the Colorado Midland Railroad would get back on a sound financial basis and the mine would open full time again.
The Midland went bankrupt and the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad took it over and ran the trains into Sunlight three times a week. That kept about five miners employed. My dad was lucky to be one of those working full time. I remember him getting paid in gold and silver. He was getting a salary of $3.15 per hour operating the hoist and firing the boilers.
The mine closed in 1919, and I was hired to watch the premises while my dad and some of the other miners started dismantling the property, pulling up rails, stripping out the wiring and removing the mine's water pumps.
I received $2.50 per shift until they didn't need a night watchman and then I helped in the dismantling process, which lasted for another two weeks. Then we packed all that we were taking in two trunks and gave all of our other things to the families that were staying. Dad had decided that our future looked better in Denver or in one of the mines near Lafayette, Colorado.
In December of 1920 my dad and mom and my brother Oswald and I left for Denver. We lived in Denver for three months while my dad searched for work. My uncle Martin talked my folks into letting me learn the barber trade. I took a two-month program that cost $75. I passed my apprentice course and worked in the 10-cent shave and 15-cent haircut shop and barely made enough for expenses.
Dad couldn't find work in the mines. One was on strike and the other one wasn't open yet. It was a new mine in Serene, Colorado, three miles from Lafayette. We really couldn't wait for the mine to open. We needed work and our relatives in Germany talked us into coming back and settling there. They told us there was plenty of work. We left for Germany in February of 1921.
We lived in Duesberg, Germany, the town where I was born, for about six months. We found work but housing was very hard to come by and we were all homesick for America. My dad had me write the mine manager at the new mine in Serene to see if there was work. We got word two weeks later that my dad had a job if he wanted it. We came back in July of 1921.
We moved into one of the new houses the mine had built there in Serene and my dad and my brother and I all went to work in the Columbine Mine. Things went along pretty well for a couple of years until April 9, 1923. That was the day my brother Oswald was killed under the mine tipple. He was overcome by mine gas fumes and died. We didn't find him until the next day. He was 17.
A little over a year later on July 23, 1924, my mom died from complications in surgery. The doctors were taking her tonsils out because they thought it had something to do with what was ailing her. Her death and the death of my brother pretty much broke our spirits, and my dad and I decided it was time to quit and go back to Glenwood Springs.
Next Week: Bonnie Lenke Smeltzer talks about the Columbine Mine Massacre and summer in the Civilian Conservation Corps camp at Marvine Lake.
Immigrant Stories runs every Monday in the Post Independent.
