My Growing Up Memories of the Uncompaghre and Gateway, Colorado

CHAPTER ONE

The Viola Craig Story

Matriarch of the Craig Family

Born Viola Cynthia Jane White, but known as “Grandma Casto” to the family, Viola was an honest, hard-working, good woman who had a tendency to argue. She loved her family and spent her life providing the best care she could for them.

Viola’s parents, Joshua Reason and Susan Rebecca Hannah Keeler White, lived in Kansas when Viola was born. Viola Cynthia Jane White was born on the fifth day of February of 1873 on a homestead in Denmark, in the vicinity of Lincoln Center, Kansas. She was the oldest child. Her brother, Frank Edgar White, was born four years later in 1877.

We know very little about Viola’s mother Susan Keeler White. She was born in Canada and moved to Kansas. She married Joshua Reason White on November 30, 1869, in Illinois. He was in the Civil War and his records show he was injured and was hospitalized for months several times on different occasions. He went in August 30, 1861 and mustered out November 19, 1864 at the age of twenty-five. He had gotten a hernia, and was losing his eyesight. He incurred the hernia with a big log that he was carrying with another soldier. He fell on the log, which caused the hernia, and been afflicted ever since; he could not lift anything after. His eyesight was injured the next day at Chickamauga, and he tried for twenty years to get a pension from the government. He traveled a lot. In 1913, he was paid $13.00 a month and in 1915, he got $25.00 a month. He died in 1915.

Viola spent her first ten years in Kansas. Part of the time, Viola and Frank lived with their aunt and uncle, Elsie and Edgar F. Randall, because of their mother’s ill health. In 1880, the parents went to Pueblo, Colorado to live. Later, in 1882, they moved to Mesa County, where Joshua worked as an engineer for the Braddish and Rice Sawmill Company, located on Pinon Mesa. Mr. Rice had a daughter, May, who was a few years younger than Viola. May became a lifelong friend of Viola’s.

In March of 1883, when Viola was ten and her brother Frank was six, they went by train to join their parents in Grand Junction, Colorado. On that trip in March, a snow slide in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River blocked the train and delayed it for several hours. Everyone worried about how long it would take to free the train. People shared their food with others. The experience made a deep impression on the two children.

The White’s first home was an apartment over the general store and grocery, which was operated by Major J.R. Elliot at Fourth and Main Street in Grand Junction. Viola and Frank went to school, which was at the southeast corner of Fifth and Main Streets. The teacher was Nannie Blaine. Viola and Frank also attended school in the old Lowell Elementary School building, located on Fifth Street, between Rood and White Avenue.

While Viola went to school in Grand Junction, she worked for her board and room and lived with George Curry and his wife. Viola also attended school for a few years at the Loback School. Later, the family lived on the P.A. Rice farm near Pomona, and it was here that Viola’s youngest sister, Gertrude, was born on the fourth of March, 1887. The following year, the family moved to Whitewater, and her mother, Susan Rebecca Keeler White, died of typhoid pneumonia on March 8, 1888 at the age of thirty-seven. Viola was only fifteen, and baby Gertrude just a year old. Viola took care of her baby sister and the rest of the family for about six months, until their aunt, Elsie Randall, came from Kansas, and took Gertrude home with her to raise. In Whitewater, Mrs. Mary Snyder, a good neighbor, helped Viola with managing the family. After aunt Elsie Randall took Gertrude back to Kansas with her, Viola stayed at the J. R. Snyder home. Mr. Snyder owned and ran the Whitewater General Merchandise store.

Viola met her first love (a very handsome fellow in her eyes) at the Snyder’s home. Mary Snyder had been married to Ambrose Craig (Adelbert’s father) before she married J. R. Snyder. Adelbert Jerome Craig and Viola Cynthia Jane White were married at Whitewater, Colorado on August 31, 1890, by Justice of the Peace Daniel Virden and their witnesses were J. R. Snyder and T. C. Denney.

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