A Few of the Eminent WOMEN OF COLORADO
Chipeta
By Lilian White Spencer
(Writer of verse and well known journalist)
Since mine is the happy privilege of contributing a brief word-picture to the shining gallery of Colorado’s eminent women, I choose, as subject, one who stands at the threshold of our state history, Chipeta, whose story is a tragic poem in red and white.
She was of the Utes, that proud Rocky Mountain tribe, and the cherished wife of their wise and famous chief, Ouray, "the Arrow," who held out an unflinching hand of brotherhood to pioneers and doom:
This Moses of high summits led his braves
Out of free ages to captivity.
"They come as mighty waters, sons," said he,
"And desert sands are less. All men are slaves
to fate, that buries as in rising waves
Of these pale tribes. So, let their Chieftain be
Our great White Father too! What matter? We
Are dead and strangers trample on our graves."
There is no fairer romance than the idyl of Chipeta and Ouray. She was seventeen and he, twenty-six, when the white man's shadow fell upon these wedded lovers in 1859. They walked together through darkening days till he died in her arms in 1880.
During those twenty years, Ouray protected the settlers from his own people, who were restive under the inevitable, negotiated a treaty with the government and was received with the honors due a statesman at Washington. His portrait hangs beside illustrious white heroes of the early Colorado days in the State Capitol at Denver.
During the cruel times of adjustment, Chipeta was always at his side. They were one through supreme sorrow as well as mighty love. In 1863, while following the run of buffalo, they camped on the plains close to the foothills. Their baby son and only child was swinging in his sheepskin-lined, lattice-board cradle, outside their tepee when he was stolen by members of an enemy tribe. It is believed that the infant was brought up by his kidnappers as their own and, no doubt, in later life, went on the warpath against the Utes, but Chipeta and Ouray always maintained that their little Loquito was dead. To them, this thought was less terrible.
In 1879, at a time when their chief was not by to curb and counsel, a band of enraged Utes fell upon an Indian agent, Nathan Meeker, at his post, massacred him and all the other white men there and dragged the women and the three-year-old child of one of them off into the hills. Ouray heard of it. He was a sick man but his wife was still young and strong. At his command, she rode swiftly through that savage country bearing their chief's orders to his murderous braves to release the Meeker survivors and to leave the warpath. They dared not disobey. When those suffering women and the baby were brought to Chipeta and Ouray in their comfortable cabin far above the plains, they were received with sympathy by their host and by their hostess, with tears. Chipeta fed, clothed and comforted them and the little one was mothered by her aching heart. Red and white wept together till the latter were restored to their own people.
Eugene Field wrote a poem, "Chipeta's Ride," celebrating this gallant deed of an alien woman for her sisters of the usurping race.
Chipeta's lonely path was hard and long. She saw the day of the Utes depart forever and thanked the Christian God, whom she and Ouray had received with His people, that her dear one had been spared this bitter sunset. Through nearly half a century of widowhood, Ouray slept in a secret place, that no disrespect might ever visit his tomb. His grave was unknown to all but the few brother-chiefs who had left him there.
The years went on and on, for Chipeta, in poverty, in age, in neglect till, on a reservation to the southwest, in August, 1924, what was once a queen of warriors and now, a withered, weary, forgotten squaw of eighty, reached the end of the trail.
Then, the white people remembered. Much honor was paid to that bit of Indian clay. She was interred with ceremony and encomium in the reservation cemetery at Ignacio. In the minds of Coloradans, the nobility of Ouray, the goodness of Chipeta, lived again. The commonwealth was ashamed. The state legislature appropriated a thousand dollars for a monument to their memory.
This granite tribute was unveiled by the Daughters of the American Revolution (who had already made a gracious commemoration of their own) in May, 1927, above their united dust.
For the grateful recognition paid to dead Chipeta, belated though it was, melted the reserve of a brother, the last on earth of Ouray's funeral train. The old chief led the way to his grave and reverent white men brought his bones to rest beside his wife.
There was splendor in Ignacio that day. Several thousand white men and women were present and Utes, Navajos, and Apaches, in the regalia of glory that had passed, performed colorful rites. Their chants mingled with Christian prayers. They danced, as in the old years, to the old, old red gods, to honor the father of the Utes and his beloved, who, at last, in death as in life, were again side by side.
Mesa Verde National Park
By Virginia Donaghe McClurg
(Regent General of the Colorado Cliff Dwellings Association)
The movement which made Mesa Verde a National Park, containing "the most spectacular and representative area of cliff-dwellings known" (according to Dr. J. Walter Fewkes of the Bureau of Ethnology), had its inception in the visit of a young woman correspondent of the New York Daily Graphic to the ruins of Mancos Cañon, Mesa Verde, in 1882.
With the accounts of the Government Expeditions (Holmes) published in '75-'76, and Frank Cushing at Zuni, establishing the links which bound the vanished people to the race of Pueblo Indians, the world was beginning to realize that in and on mesas of the southwest United States, the phase of life which scientists call "middle barbarism" could be studied in its entirety, especially on the green tableland, honeycombed with side cañons, where were clustered cliff-homes, like swallows' nests over the precipices. For here, the Age of Polished Stone lingered long.
As there was an Indian uprising, the trip of the correspondent was undertaken under special escort of United States soldiers. Sandal House on the Mancos river, the watchtower of Navajo Cañon and some minor ruins were explored. "From that day to this, Mrs. Gilbert McClurg's interest in Mesa Verde has never flagged, and that Colorado, today, is in proud possession of this National Park is due in largest measure to her patient, continued and self-changing work, covering a quarter of a century."—(Denver Times.)
In 1886, Miss Donaghé (now Mrs. McClurg) fitted out her own expedition, consisting, besides herself, of a guide, photographer, companion-housekeeper, pack animals and saddle horses. Driven from the Mancos river by Indians, the party camped three weeks in Cliff Cañon. Here were discovered, in climbing from below, the "Three-Tiered House," "Echo Cliff House" and "Balcony House," as the explorers named them; Balcony House was found Oct. 4, 1886. In a subterranean room, was the only cliff-dwellers' loom as yet discovered in Situ.
In October, 1897, the Colorado Cliff Dwellings Association came into being, as a committee of the Colorado State Federation of Women's Clubs, Mrs. Gilbert McClurg, chairman, incorporated in 1900, with chapters also in New York and California.
Mesa Verde was made a National Park by Act of Congress, approved June 9, 1906,—the crystallization of a quarter of a century of woman's work. When the government was at last stirred to action, the boundaries of its selected lands did not include the ruin area. The women of the Association again rallied and through their influence, was passed by Congress what is popularly known as the Brooks-Leupp Amendment, providing for safety of the ruins.
Some of the labors and achievements of the Colorado Cliff Dwellings Association include:
The first practical map of Mesa Verde made at the instance and expense of that body; the first wagon-road through the cañon; the trip of anthropologists (of the American Association for the Advancement of Science) as their guests, September 4 to 7, 1901, to interest scientists in the field—Dr. and Mrs. J. Walter Fewkes thus made their first trip as the Association's guests; inducing visits to Mesa Verde of men prominent in political life, to arouse national interest; at Spruce Tree House, the opening of the present Hammond Spring by dynamite, making the water supply accessible; a lease from the Weeminuche Utés (negotiated by Mrs. McClurg as special Indian Commissioner, under Commissioner Jones), for the land on which the ruins stand,—devised as a temporary means of protection from squatters; unceasing propaganda by means of pictures, books, newspapers and magazine articles, Indian music, relic displays and approximately a thousand lectures; influencing Congress for the bills appropriating $1,000 for the first survey of Mesa Verde and $7,500 for first improvements; September 4, 1917, presenting a pageant at Spruce Tree House, "The Marriage of the Dawn and the Moon"; repairing "Balcony House" (at the Association's expense of $1000.) which, as Director Edgar Hewitt of the Archaeological Institute of America said: "is a splendid ruin which will stand for all time as a monument to the patriotism of the Colorado Cliff Dwellings Association."
Women in Music
By Catharine E. Van Valkenburg
(Chairman, Division of Music, Idaho Federation of Women's Clubs)
From the very beginnings of music, back of every musical impulse is found a woman. Every lullaby was heard in some mother's arms, be she savage or civilized, every love song had its inception in the feeling of one man for one woman. The reveries are but recollections of evenings within the home circle and the war songs, just a challenge against the invader who would desecrate that home. If we read the lives of the great composers, we cannot fail to be impressed by the influence of some woman in each life.
Bach's second wife was the youngest daughter of a court musician, and fifteen years younger than the composer. Though they had but sixty-five dollars a year, their union has been described as the happiest in musical history, because through her encouragement, Bach touched the heights in composition and then paid his tribute by signing his manuscripts, "To God and my wife."
Handel opened his heart to no woman but his mother, and to her he dedicated the loftiest of his works.
Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" was inspired by his love for one of his pupils, whose parents forced her to marry a wealthy count.
Every composition of Mozart's written after his marriage to Constance Weber, shows the influence of her love. He says: "She brightened all my days with her loving care and all of my music with her cheerfulness through poverty. She took care of my health and spurred me on to fulfill my engagements. How small a return my poor music is."
Now let us come to our own music. I want to tell you the story of the American Musical Clubs as I have gathered it from the journals of our pioneer club musicians.
First, the question, "Why belong to a musical club?" The answer, "No man liveth unto himself and no man dieth unto himself." The desire to join one's individual efforts to those of the group is as old as the race. The tribal unit has been recognized in all savage life and even insects, birds and beasts centralize for safety and efficiency, so the musical people of early America sought others of like talents and the first result was the old-fashioned singing school, which began about 1717 in New England. A direct outgrowth of the singing school was the musical convention which flourished through the last half of the nineteenth century and which finally gave place to the musical clubs.
The earliest women's musical clubs were: The St. Cecelia Club of Grand Rapids, Michigan; The Union Music Club of St. Louis; The Fortnightly Club of Cleveland; The Tuesday Musical Club of St. Paul; The Amateur Musicians of Chicago; The Tuesday Club of Akron, Ohio; The Matinee Musical of Indianapolis and The Mendelssohn Club of Rockford, Illinois. These clubs are all in existence at the present time.
The National Federation of Musical Clubs was effected in 1897 through the influence of Mrs. Russell Dorr, Miss Marion Ralston and Mrs. Chandler Starr of New York. Mrs. Edwin F. Uhl of Grand Rapids, Michigan, was the first president, with Mrs. Theodore Thomas, wife of the famous conductor, as honorary president.
To tell the work of these women is too lengthy a story, but we may touch briefly upon their aims and accomplishments. Their slogan is: "Music in every state, city, town and home in America."
To this end they annually offer prizes for amateur compositions; they compile musical programs with phonograph records which may be had for the cost of express or mail only, for the use of clubs, schools and churches, in small communities. These programs always include an excellent and authentic paper on the music sent.
They award scholarships in conservatories as prizes in musical memory contests.
Through their efforts, the pupils of the accredited private music teacher of today receive credit for their work. And finally, they preached music, sang music, played and talked music, until the world was forced to listen.
Why should club women, in particular, sponsor its development?
It is a widely known fact that there is a section of every human brain devoted specifically to music. All of us try at some time to express ourselves musically, whether it be to play, sing, whistle, or even mark time. Have any of you ever tried to play any instrument while angry? It can't be done. Have you ever seen a frown on the face of a whistling boy? Of course not. Where there is music, there is peace and harmony that fill the mind, leaving no room for bitterness, jealousy, or kindred evils.
The mayor of a large eastern city had this to say to the convention of Federated Music Teachers: "I believe you are second in importance only to the clergy of our city, because I feel that music is next to religion in the uplifting of human souls."
Mr. Robert Laurence, for three years song leader at Sing Sing, says that during the entire time of his service in musical work at this great New York prison, it was impossible to find among the inmates a pianist good enough to play ordinary accompaniments well. The situation was so amusing that a sign was hung in one of the corridors bearing this inscription: "Study piano and dodge the hoosgow" and one of the inmates wrote a letter to the district judge requesting that if a good pianist was ever brought up for sentence to give him life.
Very little musical effort is ever really wasted. If you will share your community song book, your church hymn book, your phonograph or radio with the neighbor you can't quite understand, you will soon be exchanging favorite recipes, flower bulbs, dress patterns and home remedies.
Why should women, in particular, sponsor the study and development of music in the community?
We women of today are the mothers of the Bachs and Mozarts of the future. Let us teach our children good music, encourage it in our community and keep our lives and theirs full of harmony.
Do you know—
"I am the laughter of children's voices; I am the joy of early youth; I am the pleasure and recreation of busy middle age; I am the peace and comfort of life's sunset; I am the lullaby at the cradle and the hymn of God's eternal peace at the grave. I am Music."
COLORADO
BIGELOW, May Tower (Mrs.), B. L., M. D., born in Minnesota, April 13, 1866, daughter of Myron and Lucretia Tower, a resident of Colorado for thirty-four years. Married to Charles Wesley Bigelow. Children: Maurice, Florence, Ruth, Lucretia. Physician. On Board of City Fed. of Women's Clubs; Chairman, Sanitation Woman's Bureau. Past Matron, O. E. S. Former member of State Legislature. Holds office in several organizations. Past president, West Side Woman's Club. Fallon, American Medical Society. Member: State and County Medical Ass'n, Denver Art Ass'n., Denver Woman's Club, American Art Ass'n, American Ass'n of University Women, etc. Home: 15 Pearl St., Denver, Colorado.
BLACK, Helen Marie (Miss), born in Washington, D. C,, daughter of H. M. and Palma Black, a resident of Denver for seventeen years. Dramatic critic. Rocky Mountain News. Specializes in feature writing and dramatic criticism. Lectures on journalism, dramatics and famous people. Has been a radio lecturer and now conducts a weekly radio movie club. Member: Denver Women's Press Club, Denver Community Players, Little Theater, Research Discussion Club. Home: 1302 Williams St., Denver, Colorado.
BROOKS, Nona L. Rev., (Miss), native of Kentucky, former resident of West Virginia, living in Colorado for forty-six years. Pastor of Denver First Divine Science Church. For fourteen years. President Colorado College of Divine Science; President Federation of Divine Scientists; nine years' actively in International New Thought Alliance. For seven years secretary of Colorado Prison Ass'n. Studied at Wellesley College, Boston University, and Home College, San Francisco. Graduate of Southern College. Has established an enviable reputation as a woman theologian. Home: 645 Lafayette St., Denver, Colorado.
COLLINS, Marie Richey (Mrs.), born in Leadville, Colorado, May 16, 1896, daughter of John Charles and Mona Richey, a resident of Denver for ten years. Married to Lawrence Collins. Advertising Manager, Daniels & Fishers Stores Co. Formerly a reporter on Denver Times. Attended University of Colorado. Press agent in United War Work Campaign. Chairman, Women's Division International Advertising Convention which was held in Denver in 1927. On the Board of Directors of Denver Advertising Club. Member: Denver Women's Press Club, Denver Advertising Club, Quota Club. Home: 1174 St. Paul, Denver, Colorado.
DIEMAN, Clara Leonard Sorensen (Mrs. Chas. A.), born in Indianapolis, Indiana, daughter of Stoughton G. and Caroline Barth Leonard, a resident of Denver, Colorado, temporarily residing in Houston, Texas. Married to Charles A. Dieman, architect. Children: Niels Leonard Sorensen. Sculptor. Lecturer on art before clubs and schools. At present, executing all sculpture decorations for exterior of new Denver Nat'l Bank Bldg. for Fisher and Fisher, architects. Secretary, Denver Civic Art Commission (2 years). Member: Chicago Art Institute (alumnae), member of Indiana and Colorado Artists Societies. Address: 3901 Main St., Houston, Texas. Home: 720 Logan St., Denver, Colorado.
FLYNN, Sopha Nelson (Mrs. M. H.), born in Sweden, January 25, 1873, a resident of Colorado for 31 years. Married to Martin Henry Flynn. Very active in church and fraternal work; at present Worthy Grand Matron, O. E. S., State of Colorado, the highest office in the state. Member: O. E. S., Grand Junction Woman's Club, Western Federation of Women's Clubs. Home: 1221 Ouray Ave., Grand Junction, Colorado.
GILMORE, Iris Pavey, (Mrs.), a native of Villa Ridge, Illinois, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. W. B. Pavey, a resident of Colorado for the last eight years. Married to Harold McKinley Gilmore. Dramatic Teacher and Director. Educated at Schuster-Martin Dramatic School, Cincinnati, Ohio. Dramatic Director, Radio Station, KOA, Denver, for 4 years. Teacher, Lamont School of Music. Member: Altrusa Club (National), Sigma Alpha Lata (National Music Fraternity), P. E. O. Sisterhood. Home: 1316 E. Eleventh Ave., Denver, Colorado.
GILPIN, Laura, (Miss), born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, April 22, 1891, daughter of Frank and Emma Miller Gilpin. Artist. Photographer. Graduate from Clarence White School, New York City; exhibits in photographic exhibits, here and abroad, since 1917. Print division of the Congressional library owns 10 prints of photography in permanent collection. Specializes in portrait and landscape work; has published two books of photography: "The Pikes Peak Region," "Mesa Verde National Park." Member of several photographic organizations in this country and in Europe, Home: 317 Cheyenne Road, Colorado Springs, Colorado.