1125 Pine Street
Boulder, CO 80302
303-441-3110
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Call Number OH3051Date 2020Contents Single recording; 28 minutes, 58 secondsDescription This is interview is one of a series about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on life during 2020. Nicole Christensen and her husband are the owners of a Crossfit gym and the parents of two young daughters, who were 6 and 4 at the time of this interview. The interview was conducted in May 2020, seven weeks after the pandemic initially caused the shutdown of many businesses and schools. Ms. Christensen reflects on her first experiences after learning about the pandemic (in February of 2020) and discusses ways that she and her employees pivoted their business (beginning in March of 2020) to virtual platforms and the impacts of the pandemic on their family life—both the challenges and the silver linings. She also discusses the impact of the pandemic on the community at large.
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Call Number OH3050Date 2020Contents Single recording; 1 hour, 14 minutes, 03 secondsDescription Steven Griffith grew up on Magnolia Road in Boulder County during a time when children had a lot of freedom to roam the foothills independently. He talks about his family’s long history in the area, his uncles’ involvement in hard rock mining, and his father’s store Boot Hill. In addition, the interview covers many topics from eccentric uncles to weightlifters, wild dogs, wild parties, music celebrities, local teachers, the Hill, and hippies, as Griffith describes watching a parade of unusual people making their way through Boulder in the 1970s. He talks about the more permissive attitudes people had at that time toward things like underage drinking, gun ownership, and teacher/student interactions. He also reminisces about stores, restaurants, and entertainment venues in Boulder during the 1970s.
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Call Number OH3048Date 2020Contents Single recording; 57 minutes, 34 secondsDescription Jack Bowes, a retired third-generation farmer in the Louisville area, talks about his family’s long history with coal mining, farming, and ranching after they arrived in the area from England in the 1880s. Initially coming to the area to mine coal, they quickly transitioned to a homestead at 9182 Dillon Road, where they raised hay, grains, and livestock. He describes his childhood on the farm, both his early days and how, after his father died when Jack was 13, he had to help his mother with the farming. Jack discusses ways in which farming has changed since his childhood, from the days of horse-drawn farming. Much of the water for their homestead came from the South Boulder & Coal Creek Irrigation Ditch, and in the 1990s Jack became president of the ditch company, as his father and grandfather had been before him. He describes the changes in the job responsibilities since his father’s time, and also changes in how the ditch was operated. He talks about his grandparents’ and father’s memberships in local fraternal organizations, his aunt telling stories of seeing Native Americans camping on Coal Creek in the 1890s, family picnics and parties in the apple orchard, the sale of part of his family’s property to Boulder County Parks and Open Space and Louisville Open Space, and the death of many of the apple trees. He closes with a story his father told him about being 13 years old in 1914 and watching the Colorado militia get off the train to deal with conflicts between mining companies and striking miners in Louisville.
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Call Number OH3047Date 2020Contents Single recording; 67 minutes, 11 secondsDescription Following a widely publicized instance in Boulder of child abuse resulting in death, and the associated public health failure to effectively intervene, Janet Dean and others established what became the Community Infant Program. Dean drew on her education with the Henry Kempe Center and the writings of Selma Fraiberg to develop an organization and methodology for identifying and resolving cases of infant neglect and abuse through home visits and psychotherapeutic techniques that improved parenting skills. She delves into the history of the program, some of the innovative approaches that it used, and reflects on some of the challenges confronted and reasons for the program’s success. She also discusses recent advances in the field of neuroscience that contribute to the understanding of infant brain development and early intervention strategies.
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Call Number OH3046Date 2020Contents Single recording; 1 hour, 10 minutes, 31 secondsDescription Linda Trahern describes her childhood growing up in Martin Acres in the 1950s and ‘60s. She lived in a small house with her parents and eight brothers and sisters, and attended Sacred Heart Catholic School and then Boulder High School. Her world revolved around doing chores at her home at 29th and Moorhead, attending church at Sacred Heart, going to Duckworth’s Five and Dime at Base-Mar Shopping Center, and playing in the fields near her home with her siblings and neighborhood friends. Later, when she started high school at Boulder High and got a job at the Fox Theatre, her horizons expanded to watching drag races in Longmont and at Lakeside Amusement Park, skipping school to eat burgers and fries at Azar’s Big Boy, dancing at the Devil’s Thumb bar, and making trips to Lafayette to watch the Louisville and Lafayette boys get into rumbles. She speaks fondly of attending the annual Pow Wow Days, which drew people from all over to see the rodeos. Her memories paint a picture of Boulder before the influx of people in the ‘60s and ‘70s, decades that caused a small town at the edge of the mountains to transform into a busy, expensive city. At 18, Linda met her husband Lynn (OH3043), and they left Boulder when he went into the Air Force, returning to the area in the late 1970s to find a very changed town.
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Call Number OH3045Date 2019Contents Single recording; 1 hour, 04 minutes, 48 secondsDescription Jenny LePage discusses the difficulties of finding affordable, safe housing in Boulder. She recounts her experience of living in a poorly maintained and unhealthy rental unit, which contained asbestos and mold, as well as having insect and rodent infestations. She feared that these conditions were impacting her health. When her landlord failed to address these issues, she tried to work with a mediator and learned about the legal aspects of landlord responsibilities, but she was unable to get the landlord to fix the problems. Finally, she decided she had to move out. She talks about her desire to live in a stable situation, where she might be able to own a home and live near her work location, but fears that the housing prices in Boulder make that impossible.
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Call Number OH3043Date 2019Contents Single recording; 47 minutes, 01 secondsDescription Lynn Trahern talks about IBM in Boulder and about his 40-year career there. He discusses what it was like to work at IBM in the 1970s and later years. He delves into how corporate practices, management, and the nature of the company have changed over the years. He talks about company layoffs, retraining programs, and the impact of moving employment offshore. He discusses how the presence of IBM has impacted the Boulder community, and the impact of Boulder’s rules and regulations on housing and the cost of living in Boulder.
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Call Number OH3042Date 2019Contents single recording; 22 minutes, 29 secondsDescription This interview is part of a series focusing on the history of apples in Boulder County. Judy Dayhoff talks about growing up on the farm that has been in her family for over 100 years. Her great-grandfather homesteaded the property in 1881. She discusses her family’s history, life as a farm child, the life of the community, what the farm produced, and the apple orchards on the property. She also mentions her involvement, with other local authors, in researching and writing the book "If These Stones Could Talk: Tales from Columbia Cemetery."
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Call Number OH3040Date 2019Contents Single recording; 1 hour, 42 minutes, 22 secondsDescription Willie Knierim talks about being a teacher in the Boulder Valley School District beginning in the 1960s. He taught at Centennial Junior High School, Lafayette High School, Centaurus High School, Nevin Platt Junior High School, and Fairview High School. Willie discusses the consolidation of small school districts into the Boulder Valley School District; his term as president of the Boulder Valley Education Association (BVEA); controversies in education administration that involved the BVEA, the school board, various superintendents, and parents; and changes he has seen in Boulder County over the years. Topics covered in addition to those centered on schools and education include the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Pearl Street Pedestrian Mall, the Pow Wow Rodeo, IBM coming to Boulder, race relations, and conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War.
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Call Number OH3039Date 2019Contents Single recording; 47 minutes, 43 secondsDescription Mark Welker is a mechanical engineer who began working for International Business Machines (IBM) at the IBM Space Guidance Center in Owego, New York, in 1963. He transferred to IBM's new site in Boulder in 1966, worked in the tape drive and printer divisions, and held various positions in engineering, product management, business services, and market intelligence over the course of his 43-year career at IBM. He discusses changes at IBM over four decades, including women in engineering and alcohol policies in the workplace; mentions other high-tech companies in Boulder and Denver; and talks about the impact of IBM on the community. He briefly describes social life and family life in Boulder, plus the elements that make Boulder a desirable place to live, from the 1960s-1990s.
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Call Number OH3038Date 2019Contents single recording; 49 minutes, 32 secondsDescription Jim Bender taught biology for 30 years in the Boulder Valley School District. He started out at Southern Hills Junior High, moved to Nevin Platt Junior High when it was first formed, and after about twelve years at Platt, began teaching at Boulder High School, where he remained for the remainder of his teaching career. He discusses the increase in attention and funding for science education during the Sputnik era of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, cultural influences on the schools during the ‘60s and ‘70s, the administrative styles of some of the principals and superintendents for whom he worked, the Boulder Valley Credit Union, union activity through the Boulder Valley Education Association, the PERA retirement system, and living at Frasier Meadows retirement community.
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Call Number OH3037Date 2019Contents two recordings merged to one audio file; 95 minutes, 32 secondsDescription Timothy Schabacker describes the history of his Longmont property, beginning with settlement by Swedish immigrants in the 1800s and the founding of the Ryssby settlement. He also describes an orchard in Pella Crossing that existed in the 1860s and that was partially cut down for a county right-of-way. His property, including a house built between 1880 and 1885, was originally part of a 320-acre Swedish immigrant family farm. He details the history of the Johnson family on the land. He also describes an extensive orchard that once was there and that is almost gone now, with only two apple trees remaining after the rest disappeared due to land sales, sheepherding and development. He also talks about other trees on his property, the history of water rights in Colorado, and ditch irrigation on his property.