Eldred B. Tresize Narative Part 7 Settling in

This is a narrative that covers the history of the family of Edward John Tresize and their immigration to America from England. It was originally posted on http://www.usgw.org/co/lake/trezise.htm but is not avail. May have been posted by his children.

We finally worked our way across Eastern Colorado and Western Kansas and ended up in Hutchinson, Kansas. My father found work there and so did the rest of us. My step mother, Helena, made several trips by train to Leadville to visit her old girlfriend, Baby Doe McCourt.

My stepmother finally moved to San Antonio, Texas. My father married Mary Bloom. She died shortly after my father and is buried in East Side Cemetery in Hutchinson, Kansas near the Reformatory Wall. My father died the day after New Year's Day in 1930 in San Antonio, Texas. I had his body brought back to Hutchinson and he is buried in Fairlawn Cemetery. His headstone is just a hundred feet west of the Mausoleum. I bought a headstone for my mother and my baby sister who died in Leadville. Their graves had remained unmarked for almost eighty years.

I joined the Navy in World War I and returned to marry my sweetheart, Grace May Hiestand. We had one daughter, Carol June and twin sons, Harris and Farris. I worked for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. I have had a good life and have many more stories to tell.

Excerpts from a letter dated 5/13/1906 written from Leadville by my father Eldred to his sister Charlotte:

"Lewis had a birthday party the 12th of May. His birthday was on the 8th but there was school. He had been told that he could have a party on no Saturday. Saturday morning, we had a picnic and not a party. We took our baskets and went up to pa's mine, and no sooner had we got there till it began to snow. We went in the shaft house and sat down on some wooden benches all the morning till the bell rang for the miners to come up out of the mine and when the door opened for the men to come in we looked out and saw that the ground was all covered with snow. In the afternoon the sun came out and some of the snow melted and so it was very wet and muddy but we did not care, we wanted to have some fun anyway, but we could not. Pa let us down the mine so that we would not get wet. So we went over to the cage and got on. A cage is a thing that looks like an elevator. The mine is only 300 feet deep. When we got to the bottom, we all had a candle and marched off in the tunnels, but when we came home, we were all tired out. Was not that a nice picnic? We call it a picnic in the storm. You hoped that we are all well but we are not. All of us are kind of sick. We have 9 birds but they are not all ours. Two birds got 3 little birds. Well, I think you are well. it's time for me to close now. From your loving brother, Eldred Trezise, 514 E. 9th St. Leadville, Colorado."