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Before the Past Fades Away

Growing up in Iowa, I was surprised to learn that I had g.g. grandparents who had lived in Colorado. So after moving to Colorado myself, I wanted to find out more about their lives in Colorado.

Cyrus and Hannah (Dippery) Vangunda homesteaded near Ramah, Colorado in 1906. I found the paperwork, located the land, and I went to see what was there. Even when you can identify a plot of land on a map, it isn't always easy to find it from the road. And this was rural eastern Colorado which doesn't have many people. No doubt the homesteaders filled up the land well in that day, but this wasn't prime farm land and families couldn't make it on 160 acre farms. People moved away, as did Cyrus Vangunda. I wasn't even sure the roads were still passable. But they were.

By carefully watching the map and monitoring the car's odometer I came to the place I thought would have belonged to Cyrus Vangunda, and the land further back, to his daughter and son-in-law, Nancy and Norman Thompson. Here is the farmhouse that I found in 1990. This was just over 1/4 mile south of the road, so I figured it might be the Thompson's house.

1990

To be sure I sent a copy of the picture to Lawrence Thompson in western Colorado to ask him if the house was indeed the one he grew up in. A few weeks passed and finally a letter from him came. This is what he sent back:

1917

I wasn't aware of this picture before Lawrence sent it. But just look at this! It's the same house, nearly the same angle, but with people, with family. Amazing!

This photo was taken in 1917, not long before the Thompsons and Cyrus Vangunda decided to move to a new homestead, this time in northwestern Colorado. From left: Cyrus Vangunda, Edward Thompson, Nancy & Clyde T., Norman T., Elmer T., Lawrence T., Gus and Rachel Seastone, Rhoda Marsh and Chester, Art M., Alice M., and Edna Thompson.

Although I haven't been by there in the last ten years, I'm sure there is nothing standing now. Even by 2004, the harsh wind and weather of the eastern Colorado plains had finally taken their toll and broke the building down.

Lawrence Thompson answered another question for me -  where was Hannah Vangunda's grave? She died in 1907, not long after moving to Colorado, and was buried in the Ramah Cemetery, but there was no marker for her. Lawrence wrote that she was buried next to other relatives, Annette Thompson and Isaac Scott, and confirmed that she had no marker. But fortunately, Isaac Scott and Annette Thompson do have one of sorts. A concrete marker found in the extreme northwest corner of Ramah Cemetery.



Someday, I think a new marker for the three of them is in order... before the past fades away.


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