1125 Pine Street
Boulder, CO 80302
303-441-3110
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Call Number OH3064Date 2021Contents Single recording; 59 minutes, 20 secondsDescription Helen Davis talks about how her career was jump-started by the absence of men on the home front during WWII. She describes her job as Coordinator of Art for Boulder Valley Schools in the 1970s. She speaks about how she dealt with feminism, sexual harassment and male domination. She was one of the original organizers of the Handweavers’ Guild of Boulder, and she talks about how that organization worked with Boulder’s schools. Helen also talks about the gallery at the Boulder Library and the building of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. In addition, she recalls aspects of her childhood in the 1920s and 1930s, including having had smallpox and other diseases of the time, and compares that time to the COVID pandemic that was happening at the time of this interview.
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Call Number OH3063Date 2021Contents Single recording; 58 minutes, 13 secondsDescription Anne Dyni talks about moving to Boulder County after buying farmland at Valmont and 95th Street in 1978. She recalls the beginning and development of the Maria Rogers Oral History Program and her friendship with Maria Rogers. She talks about the interviews she did for MROHP and for the Boulder County Parks and Open Space department, some of her most interesting interviews, and how the stories she heard while recording these oral histories inspired her to write numerous books about pioneer schools in Boulder County, Boulder County agriculture, and the history of the county. She discusses the preservation of open space, the history and historic preservation of Niwot, and her volunteer service on the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Advisory Committee and the Boulder County Historic Preservation Advisory Board.
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Call Number OH3062Date 2020Contents Single recording; 51 minutes, 34 secondsDescription Yolanda Lopez had been homeless in Boulder for two-plus years and had just obtained an apartment when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Boulder County in the spring of 2020. As a formerly homeless person with many ties to people in that community, Yolanda speaks about the experience of being homeless and being on the financial edge during the pandemic. She talks about how the pandemic has negatively affected her—as the house-cleaning jobs she had before the pandemic dried up—and about the isolation of being far from her family in Durango during a time when travel by public transportation is risky. She also speaks positively about assistance she has received through a mentoring program, a peer-to-peer counseling program, and a housing voucher program that helped her get back on her feet and fulfill her goals of helping others. She reflects on the good aspects of services in Boulder County for people who are homeless, and she notes the places in which those services fall short, especially during the pandemic.
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Call Number OH3061Date 2020Contents Single recording; 68 minutes, 38 secondsDescription Sam Endor, a twenty-one-year-old dishwasher at Trident Café in Boulder, is interviewed about the experience of “home” during the COVID-19 pandemic. In February of 2020, Sam left their parents’ home and moved in with their partner and her family in Longmont. After losing a job due to the pandemic, Sam collected unemployment for a while before starting work at the Trident. Despite a language barrier with their partner’s Spanish-speaking family, Sam describes their new home as a comfortable place where Sam has felt able to grow into their identity as non-binary in a way that they couldn’t at their parents’ home. Sam discusses the challenges of being quarantined with their partner and her school-age sister, who suddenly had to do online school. Generally, Sam feels lucky compared to others who lost relationships, weren’t able to get unemployment, or are missing social interactions. Sam talks about the ways they have been able to find space in a full house by doing artwork, taking online classes, and drinking a lot of tea, which is a particularly comforting ritual. Sam also stresses a love for their work, particularly the customer service aspect. They close out the interview by talking about a deeply impactful experience volunteering with Boulder SAFE [Safe Access For Everyone] and advocating for Boulder’s homeless community who were being evicted from camps by the police.
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Call Number OH3060Date 2020Contents Single recording; 65 minutes, 52 secondsDescription Crista de la Garza is a 42-year-old massage therapist and yoga instructor who lives in Lafayette, CO. This interview focuses on her new home—which includes her 13-year-old son, a dog, a cat, a conure, and a canary—and changes that have come from the COVID-19 pandemic: changes to her work/profession, changes of pace, and other adaptations. Crista talks about the comfort she feels now, compared to her prior living situation in Boulder, in affordable housing, where she observed increasingly volatile behavior from individuals camping, sleeping, and moving about in areas around her building. From her experience as a board member of Thistle (though not representing Thistle) and her own research, Crista reflects on the issue of homelessness and the complexity of addressing the underlying causes. While still feeling shut out of home ownership in the Boulder area, Crista ultimately is extremely grateful for what she has and the level of stability she and her son enjoy together.
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Call Number OH3059Date 2020Contents Single recording; 68 minutes, 07 secondsDescription Katherine Millersdaughter talks about living in the Ostara Cooperative housing complex, with her two teenage children, during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. As a woman in her 50s with an auto-immune disorder, living in cooperative housing during this time presented special challenges, in terms of protecting her health while living in close proximity to approximately eighteen other people. She discusses how the co-op members approached coming up with pandemic protocols, and the challenges that group living presented. She also discusses the Boulder co-op housing movement in general, including its history, other co-operative houses in Boulder, and the experiences she and her children have had over the years while living in the Ostara Co-op.
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Call Number OH3057Date 2020Contents Single recording; 53 minutes, 42 secondsDescription Becky Rex is a single mother who lives with her one-and-a-half-year-old son in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Denver and works for the University of Colorado, Boulder. She discusses what it had been like to work from home while taking care of her toddler son during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly during the Stay-at-Home orders that were issued in the spring of 2020. She also talks about her experience of the protests for social justice, which coalesced around the Colorado capitol building after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May of 2020. These protests happened only a few blocks from her apartment. She reflects on encounters that she and others have had with police officers, ranging from positive personal interactions to challenging encounters that others experienced during the protests.
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Call Number OH3056Date 2020Contents Zoom web recording; 48 minutes, 44 secondsDescription Amanda talks about volunteering at Boulder's COVID-19 Recovery Center.
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Call Number OH3055Date 2020Contents Single recording; 65 minutes, 39 secondsDescription This interview is part of the Apple Tree Project series of interviews. Troy Waycott has lived in Lyons since 1996, on a property whose orchard was begun in the 1870s. He talks about the 30 surviving apple trees on his property (originally there may have been more than 100); apple tree varieties and cultivation; the history of his property; the history of fruit-growing in the region; ditch history, ownership, and operation; and the history of both the town of Lyons and of area families. He also talks about homesteading in the area, the uses of apple wood, the effects of the 2013 flood, water rights, and the geography of the Lyons area.
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Call Number OH3054Date 2020Contents Single recording; 46 minutes, 58 secondsDescription This interview was conducted four to five months into the COVID-19 pandemic in Boulder. [The pandemic began in Boulder in March of 2020; the interview was recorded toward the end of July of 2020.] Nora Schlosser talks about the formation and operation of the Covid Recovery Center (CRC) in Boulder and her work as assistant manager. The CRC served as a safe place for people in the homeless community (and other low-income people) who had contracted Covid to heal and also helped to limit spread of Covid in Boulder County homeless shelters and in the community at large. She also discusses how the Covid pandemic has changed her and the community.
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Call Number OH3053Date 2020Contents Single recording; 47 minutes, 22 secondsDescription This is interview is one of a series about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on life during 2020. Lea Yancey talks about how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected her work, travel plans, a move to a new house, and especially her pregnancy. She discusses her experience of being pregnant during the pandemic, how the hospital changed its rules over time for maternity patients, how her everyday life has changed during the pandemic, and what she has learned from this experience. [Note: At the time this interview was conducted, scientists were concerned that COVID could be spread easily through touching surfaces, and the public was still 9 to 12 months away (depending on age and medical conditions) from being able to be vaccinated against COVID.]
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Call Number OH3052Date 2020Contents Single recording; 34 minutes, 21 secondsDescription Andrea Tilstra is a graduate student and teacher at the University of Colorado in Boulder. This interview was conducted about two months after the appearance of coronavirus in Boulder and the issuing of stay-at-home orders. She discusses the ways in which her lifestyle and work have been impacted, including the upending of routines that formerly gave her life structure and the ways in which it has curtailed her in-person interaction with others. She talks about the challenges of online teaching, the positive and responsible response of the Boulder community in general, and the less-responsive attitude of some university students. She reflects on how the pandemic has helped her become more accepting of uncertainty in her life, things that have been positive changes brought on by the challenges of the pandemic, and what might be lasting lessons from this time. She concludes with observations about the public’s use of the Pearl Street Mall and how it has changed during the first two months of the pandemic in Boulder.