Monday Is for Mothers: Anna (Webb) Slater - Dry Creek, Niwot, Colorado

Obviously on this particular day Dry Creek wasn't living up to its name.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

In 2012 Dry Creek Trail was opened to hikers, bikers and equestrians. You can learn more about the area here.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: Niwot High - 1934

As you can see from the list on the back of this class photo, my uncle James Slater is in the middle of the back row, right behind the principal H.D. Parrett.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

Last month I posted another 1934 class picture from Niwot that included my other maternal uncle Jack Slater.

This paragraph describing Niwot is taken from the 1932 Polk's Boulder County (Colorado) Directory.

[Ancestry.com - U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: Niwot 6-7-8th Grades, 1934

My uncle Jack Slater is in the front row, third from the left, as you can tell from the writing on the back of this multi-class picture that lists everyone.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

The teacher's name is given as Miss Stromquist--looking through local records, I believe her full name was Lillian Stromquist, born in Colorado of immigrant Swedish parents.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Creating a List of People By Location

Can't do this on Ancestry!  A list of the people in my tree who lived in or had a life event in Niwot, Boulder, Colorado, birthplace of my biological grandmother Alta Mae Slater.

One big reason I purchased stand-alone genealogy software (in this case Legacy 9) was to create lists of people to research by location, or by any other specific criteria.  Although Ancestry is a giant database it doesn't allow the user to create this type of report.

This is so fun!


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Monday Is for Mothers: "Alta - lap full of chicks (gray house)"

This snapshot of my birth mother Alta Mae Slater (1917-1986) seems to have been taken about 100 years ago in Niwot, Colorado.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

I believe the note was written by her mother, my maternal grandmother, Anna Delilah Webb Slater.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Monday Is for Mothers: Anna Delilah Webb (1891 - 1973)

We know from her obituaries that my maternal grandmother was a charter member of the Niwot Garden Club which was founded in 1938.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

This photograph seems to date from 1946 when the club decided to create a community garden across from the train depot. (Note that Anna is the shortest woman in this group.)

[Page 83, Around Niwot by Anne Quinby Dyni, Arcadia Publishing, 2015.]

From the Slater family collection we have this 1963 group photo of Garden Club members out in a chrysanthemum field. (Anna appears to have some competition for the shortest person here.)

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Bookshelf: "Niwot, Colorado: Birth of a Railroad Town" by Anne Quinby Dyni

Image taken from Amazon.

Just received my copy of "Niwot, Colorado: Birth of a Railroad Town," one of Arcadia Publishings and History Press "American Chronicle" series.  My mother's biological mother Alta Mae Slater was born in Niwot in 1917.

Niwot is in Boulder County, north of Denver.

The first census record I ever saw was this image of Alta and her family there in 1920:

1920 U.S. Census, Boulder County, Colorado, population schedule, Precinct No. 20 (Niwot), enumeration district (ED) 29, p. 10A, dwelling 201, family 201; Alta May Slater; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 15 Nov 2016); citing NARA microfilm publication T625, roll 156.

An interesting tidbit I had not known before was about Alta's youngest brother, my grand uncle John "Jack" Slater (page 114):

"John Nelson's Conoco station is now occupied by Wise Buys Antiques.  Nelson built it in 1907, shortly after completing Nelson Hall across the street. Since his summers were often spent at the mineral baths in Hot Sulphur Springs, Colorado, Nelson hired fifteen-year-old Jack Slater to run the business in his absence."

Talk about work experience!  How many fifteen-year-olds nowadays get the opportunity to run a business over the summer?







© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday: Slater

I love this picture of my Uncle Jim* taken in Niwot, Colorado, about 1921.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

And here he is some twenty years later.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

*James Robert Slater (1919-1984)

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Slater

When she handed this uncaptioned photo over to me to scan back in 2011, Cousin Sue said to me, "If you can figure out what this one is, you're a genius."

Alas, if that's the test of genius, I fail miserably. But there are some things I've been able to discover.

First, since the car parked closest to the viewer appears to be a 1940 Chevrolet which doesn't look particularly new, the photo must have been taken after that model's release.* 

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

The next snapshot seems to have been taken at the same time and shows a group of little girls posed in front of their school.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

City directories for 1940 and 1943 Boulder area list Alta as a resident of Niwot though no occupation is given.** And her brother Jack's obituary published in January of 1944 includes the information that she was teaching in Arizona at that time.***

So I'm guessing that these two photos were taken while she was teaching in the Boulder area before Alta left for Arizona, probably in time for the start of school in September, 1943.

Maybe someone will recognize the school.


*The vehicle parked next to it is a 1939 Chevy. The last car is at least a decade older and there's not enough of it showing for me to identify its make. The angle of the cars makes it very difficult to recognize the license plates.
**From her 1983 interview in Casa Grande we learned that Alta  "When I got out of school there wasn't anything I could do," Alta laughed, "so I had to go back and get teaching credentials." Records show that Alta was gaining experience as a teacher as early as October 1938.
***Only the state is mentioned.



© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Working on Wednesday: Alta Mae Slater (1917 - 1986), Teacher - Part 1, to April 1947

After attending the local grammar school in Niwot and Longemont High School, my birth mother majored in History, with minors in American Government, Latin, and Geography at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She graduated in 1938.

[Alta Mae, seated second from right, 8th grade graduation. Courtesy of Olive Slate-Kennedy]

[Alta Mae at Longemont High, courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

[Coloradan Yearbook, 1938. Ancestry.com. U.S., School Yearbooks, 1880-2012 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA:

Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.]

She's listed as a resident of Niwot in a 1940 city directory but isn't enumerated with the rest of her family in the U.S. Census of that year.*

When her youngest brother Jack was killed off the French coast in 1943, his obituary stated that Alta was teaching school in Arizona, but we haven't found any further information about the exact location.

By July of 1946 Alta was teaching school here in Coronado** and "hooked up" with a handsome young sailor who had just been transferred to the Naval Amphibious Base also in Coronado, awaiting his discharge so he could return home to Texas.*** I was born nine months later.

[Courtesy of James Turnbull]

[Source:The National Archives Publication Title: U.S. World War II Navy Muster Rolls, 1938-1949; Fold3 Publication Year: 2012. National Archives Catalog ID: 594996; National Archives Catalog Title: Muster Rolls of U.S. Navy Ships, Stations, and Other Naval Activities, 01/01/1939-01/01/1949. Short Description: Muster rolls of U.S. Navy ships, stations, and other naval activities, 1939-1949. Ship Station Or Activity: Eldorado-Hull Designation: AGC-11; Muster Date: 24-Jul-1946; Year: 1946]

*Could she have been visiting her paternal grandmother Rufina Ellen Tomlinson Slater and her aunt Opal as there's no sign of them in the 1940 U.S. Census either?
**What we little we know about Alta's life here in southern California comes from my birth certificate. The address listed here is that of the attending physician, W. B. Oster, who operated a home for unwed mothers.

[From my personal collection]

***We'll never know how they met. As far as we know Alta never told anyone in her family about this incident and its aftermath (although I think Pete must have known because she had a c-section which leaves a prominent scar), and Tracy, when my daughter spoke with him about 15 years ago, had no recollection of her at all. I'm sure it was a crazy time here in San Diego.

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Monday Is for Mothers: Slater/Webb

Here's a snapshot of my maternal grandmother Anna Delilah Webb Slater posed with 2-year-old Alta Mae (my birth mother) and baby James under a tree at the "house on corner" in Niwot sometime during the summer of 1919.*

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

*James was born on May 24, 1919.


© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Nelson's Hall in Niwot, Colorado, 1910

Although this is one of Aunt Olive's Slater family photos, I don't think any of the people gathered together for this 1910 picture are relatives of mine.  It's a popular image that's also found on the Niwot Historical Society website which has this to say about the building:

"Nelson's Hall was built by John Nelson in 1905, it housed businesses with a meeting hall upstairs. 

Nelson’s hall stood at the east end of the block, housing various businesses on the first floor and a meeting room upstairs for the Odd Fellows, Rebekahs, Royal Neighbors, and Modern Woodmen. 

The Left Hand Grange #9 purchased Nelson's Hall in 1945."

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

The Left Hand Grange still owns it and says it's the oldest active grange in Colorado.* They completely renovated it in 2009 and here's what it looks like now.

[Source: Left Hand Grange #9 Website]

*You can read about it here. The National Grange's website is here.




© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Tranquility Road

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

I think the comments on this undated photograph of the road west of Niwot, Colorado, were written by my maternal grandmother Anna Delilah Webb Slater (1891-1973).


© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday: Slater

My birth mother Alta Mae (1917-1986) and her brother James Robert Slater (1919-1984) with their Christmas tree on the porch of their house in Niwot, Colorado, taken about 1925.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Working on Wednesday: Harry Allen Slater (1888 - 1956), Pharmacist, Farmer, Contractor

His widowed mother Rufina Ellen Tomlinson Slater wanted her children to seek professional careers (like their father Lewis Logan Slater, the lawyer) so my paternal grandfather Harry Allen Slater trained as a pharmacist while he was still living in Kansas, receiving his license in 1908. 

[The National Druggist, Volume 38; Publisher: H. R. Strong, 1908.

Original from the University of Michigan. Digitized: Nov 5, 2009]

According to the 1910 U.S. Census, 22-year-old Harry was boarding in the township of Greenfield in Elk County, Kansas, and working as a pharmacist.

[Year: 1910; Census Place: Greenfield, Elk, Kansas; Roll: T624_439; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 0119; FHL microfilm: 1374452. Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Original data: Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910 (NARA microfilm publication T624, 1,178 rolls).

Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C. ]

We know that Harry played baseball for his employer's team in Kansas. (Unfortunately I haven't been able to decipher what the drugstore's name was.)

[Harry-second row center, Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

By 1916 Harry moved to Colorado, probably following his Tomlinson relatives, and he was working as a registered pharmacist as noted in the newspaper announcement of his marriage to Anna Delilah Webb (1891-1973) on September 15th of that year.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

But Harry wasn't happy with a job that kept him indoors and he left the pharmacy behind soon after his marriage.* He listed his occupation as a self-employed farmer in Niwot, Colorado, on his June 5, 1917, World War I Draft Registration Card.

[Ancestry.com. U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005. Original data: United States, Selective Service System. World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. M1509, 4,582 rolls. Imaged from Family History Library microfilm.]

Just as Harry was entering into farm life, a lot of  national attention was being given to the advantages of building silos out of concrete. It's clear from the pictures below that Harry was familiar with the silo building techniques shown in this bulletin from the Agricultural Experiment Station of the Colorado Agricultural Station published three years earlier.**

[Silos and Silage in Colorado, H. E. Dvorachek, Agricultural Experiment Station of the Agricultural College of Colorado, 1914.

Source: Google Books. ]

[Harry (right) building a silo 1917. Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

And that draft registration form is the only time I've found that Harry called himself a farmer. I think he found a contracting business more rewarding than farming.

After his brother Pete returned from serving in the Marines in 1919, they went into business together.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

In the 1920 U.S. Census, the focus of Harry's occupation is building silos "etc."

[Year: 1920; Census Place: Niwot, Boulder, Colorado; Roll: T625_156; Page: 10A; Enumeration District: 29; Image: 51. Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.

Original data: Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. (NARA microfilm publication T625, 2076 rolls).

Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C. ]

[Detail of above]

But by the 1930 federal enumeration the Slater Brothers had left silos behind.

[Year: 1930; Census Place: Niwot, Boulder, Colorado; Roll: 230; Page: 7B; Enumeration District: 0025; Image: 957.0; FHL microfilm: 2339965. Ancestry.com. 1930 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2002.

Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1930. T626, 2,667 rolls.]

[Detail of above]

In the 1940 U.S. Census, Harry and Pete were living on the same street; both were engaged in plastering. From the columns on the far right, we can see that Harry worked 29 weeks during 1939 (and earned $800) while Pete only worked 12 weeks during the same period for $350.***

[Year: 1940; Census Place: Niwot, Boulder, Colorado; Roll: T627_457; Page: 7B; Enumeration District: 7-24. Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1940. T627, 4,643 rolls.]

[Detail of above]

The Harry and Pete are listed in Polk's Boulder City Directory for 1951.

[Residence date: 1951 Residence place: Boulder, Colorado. Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.]

My grandfather died from stomach cancer on October 8, 1956 at the age of 68 and is buried in Mountain View Memorial Park in Boulder. Apparently some of the walls he built are still standing in Niwot.


*And apparently his mother Fina never forgave his wife Annie for letting him do this.
**Google Books lists a number of other titles on the subject.
***Family stories tell us that Harry also became a stone mason and that he "bossed" a crew of workers in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the Great Depression. (There are several photos and a description of the CCC camp in Boulder here. To read a short history of the CCC in Colorado, look here. (PDF)

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday: Slater

These two photos of my great aunt Opal May Slater (1890-1973) and her oldest brother George Logan "Pete" Slater (1886-1957) was obviously taken on the same day, probably in Niwot, Colorado. Sadly we have no information about the boy and dog in the second picture.

[Both photos courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday: Webb/Slater

According to the information we have, this 1918 photograph of my maternal grandmother Anna Delilah (Webb) Slater (1871-1973) holding my mother Alta Mae (1917-1986) was taken at Dry Creek in Niwot, Colorado.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.