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Adams Family

Amanda Holt MillerTelegram Staff Writer
Kara K. Pearson / Citizen Telegram PhotoTed and Cheryl Morgan pose on July 19 with 100-plus years of family photos in their Rifle kitchen. The Morgans have family lineage in Rifle dating back more than a century.
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Cheryl Morgan lives in the same house her grandparents and parents lived in before her. Its a big two-story place on Second Street. It used to be a one-bedroom farmhouse with acreage stretching west, and all the way to the Colorado River. Now Highway 6&24 and Interstate 70 intersect land they used to own.Sidney and Alice Adams, Cheryls grandparents, were both born in Missouri in 1874. They moved to New Castle sometime before Cheryls mother, Gladys, was born in 1902.Sidney worked first for the railroad and later at the vanadium mill just east of Rifle.When Gladys was older, she moved with her parents back to Missouri for a short time. Many of Gladys aunts and uncles stayed in Colorado, however.They were moving back and forth in wagons in those days, Cheryl said about her nomadic family.When they returned to Rifle, sometime around 1922, Sidney and Alice opened the Adams Cafe on Third Street. The cafe later expanded, and a bar was added. After the Adams family sold the restaurant, it became the Base Camp Cafe, and The Texan Bar.Gladys went to Western State College in Gunnison, where she earned her teaching degree. She taught at rural schools like Rio Blanco, Wallace Creek, Silt and Dolores.In those days they didnt have big schoolhouses, Cheryl said. Families would get together and build a schoolhouse and hire a teacher. She lived with the families that hired her.Gladys married William Murray, Cheryls father. He was a pharmacist, but didnt work in the field. Instead, he worked for the Texas Oil Company.The Adams family lived in a little house behind the cafe until they bought a one-bedroom farmhouse with an outdoor bath and no running water on what is now Second Street. The house was built sometime around 1906.The Adamses added onto the building. Most of the expansion, however, didnt happen until Cheryl and her husband, Ted Morgan, bought the place from Gladys after living with and caring for her.Today, Cheryl keeps the family history alive, lining her walls with old photographs and retelling the stories of her mother and grandparents.Thank you to Cheryl and Ted Morgan for sharing family information for this story.


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