News
ENLARGE
October is my favorite month, for couple of reasons. One, I love fall and the colors and the weather and the harvest time.
Two, I love Halloween. I spend most of the month thinking about it. Planning my costume, my husband's costume and my friends' costumes. I have a revolving collection of vintage attire and I'm usually the “go to” place for those trick or treaters in a bind. I don't like the really gory, scary stuff. I have nightmares if I'm exposed to it.
I like the idea that Halloween is a traditional pagan holiday. It's All Hallows Eve or the night when our dearly departed come back to haunt us in good ways and bad. All Saints Day and All Souls Day is celebrated all over the world. Our neighbors to the south call it the Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead and observe it by going to the cemeteries with provisions like beer and candy and say prayers and leave behind photos, writings and religious artifacts, along with the treats.
Far be it from me to debunk a religious holiday. My sister and her kids and grandkids and I and mine go visit my parents' graves at the Orchard Mesa Cemetery around Christmastime. We take muffins and hot cocoa and a variety of decorations for the grave. Some are symbolic and some are just plain tacky but we know mother would love them, especially knowing they came from a Great American Antiques Estate Sales.
So I'm no stranger to the graveyard. Long before I had anyone there to go visit, it was a place of entertainment whether just to make out and drink beer or to marvel at the beauty and intrigue of the headstones.
The grave of “Father of Grand Junction” always held a special interest and it used to be you could actually go right up to it and pay your respects. Not anymore. It's fenced off, unkempt and shows no signs of civic pride.
Over the years this group or that group has made an effort to spruce up the plot. Not any more. George Addison Crawford might be rolling in his grave come Oct. 31. If he's actually in there. There was a rumor going around at one time that in the 1930s a certain Samuel “Bucky” Parker and some friends had gotten into the grave as a Halloween prank and played with the bones. Bad, bad Bucky.
Just below Gov. George A. Crawford's elaborate sandstone mausoleum, at the base of Reservoir Hill, is a family plot made of local sandstone and set in its natural habitat of sagebrush and cactus. The primary departed entombed there are the Kent and McClintock families.
The Kents were one of the valley's first pioneer families —personal friends of and invited West by George A. Crawford to settle the new town of Grand Junction. James and Amanda Kent had four daughters — daughter Fannie having married a Frank McClintock.
Frank and Fannie and their 2-year-old daughter Merle came to Grand Junction with the Kents in 1881. Grandpa Kent had Kent and Campbell Hardware and Lumber Company with a couple of his sons-in-law before the turn of the century. The Kents owned a remarkable home on the northeast corner of Sixth and Rood. Built in 1888 and made of the best materials hand-picked by Kent. The city landmark was demolished in 1946 to make way for an elaborate stadium-type theater that was to be erected. Plans were drawn up by The Chief Investment Co., then owners of the Mesa Theater but it was obviously never built.
But back to the Kent/McClintock mausoleum. Amanda and James Kent, grandson James and wife Yna McClintock are buried there. Frank and Fannie McClintock are buried down the hill in the Municipal Cemetery as was daughter Merle. Maybe there just wasn't room in the sandstone tomb.
Miss Merle McClintock lived her entire life in Grand Junction and wrote for The Daily Sentinel. Her history-related columns have now become treasures; gems of first-hand recollections from the original pioneers and contain nuggets of priceless information for historians. I am one of her fans.
Our dearly departed. We remember them on Memorial/Decoration Day and Labor Day but don't forget All Saints Day and All Hallows Eve. In fact, just for fun… travel up to Crawford's grave. Get out of your car and yell over to him: “George Crawford, George Crawford, what do you have to say tonight?”
After an eerie silence you will hear his ghost say faintly and almost unintelligibly. . . “Nothing, nothing, nothing at all ...”
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Reach Priscilla at 970-260-5226, or email priscilla.mangnall@gmail.com.
Two, I love Halloween. I spend most of the month thinking about it. Planning my costume, my husband's costume and my friends' costumes. I have a revolving collection of vintage attire and I'm usually the “go to” place for those trick or treaters in a bind. I don't like the really gory, scary stuff. I have nightmares if I'm exposed to it.
I like the idea that Halloween is a traditional pagan holiday. It's All Hallows Eve or the night when our dearly departed come back to haunt us in good ways and bad. All Saints Day and All Souls Day is celebrated all over the world. Our neighbors to the south call it the Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead and observe it by going to the cemeteries with provisions like beer and candy and say prayers and leave behind photos, writings and religious artifacts, along with the treats.
Far be it from me to debunk a religious holiday. My sister and her kids and grandkids and I and mine go visit my parents' graves at the Orchard Mesa Cemetery around Christmastime. We take muffins and hot cocoa and a variety of decorations for the grave. Some are symbolic and some are just plain tacky but we know mother would love them, especially knowing they came from a Great American Antiques Estate Sales.
So I'm no stranger to the graveyard. Long before I had anyone there to go visit, it was a place of entertainment whether just to make out and drink beer or to marvel at the beauty and intrigue of the headstones.
The grave of “Father of Grand Junction” always held a special interest and it used to be you could actually go right up to it and pay your respects. Not anymore. It's fenced off, unkempt and shows no signs of civic pride.
Over the years this group or that group has made an effort to spruce up the plot. Not any more. George Addison Crawford might be rolling in his grave come Oct. 31. If he's actually in there. There was a rumor going around at one time that in the 1930s a certain Samuel “Bucky” Parker and some friends had gotten into the grave as a Halloween prank and played with the bones. Bad, bad Bucky.
Just below Gov. George A. Crawford's elaborate sandstone mausoleum, at the base of Reservoir Hill, is a family plot made of local sandstone and set in its natural habitat of sagebrush and cactus. The primary departed entombed there are the Kent and McClintock families.
The Kents were one of the valley's first pioneer families —personal friends of and invited West by George A. Crawford to settle the new town of Grand Junction. James and Amanda Kent had four daughters — daughter Fannie having married a Frank McClintock.
Frank and Fannie and their 2-year-old daughter Merle came to Grand Junction with the Kents in 1881. Grandpa Kent had Kent and Campbell Hardware and Lumber Company with a couple of his sons-in-law before the turn of the century. The Kents owned a remarkable home on the northeast corner of Sixth and Rood. Built in 1888 and made of the best materials hand-picked by Kent. The city landmark was demolished in 1946 to make way for an elaborate stadium-type theater that was to be erected. Plans were drawn up by The Chief Investment Co., then owners of the Mesa Theater but it was obviously never built.
But back to the Kent/McClintock mausoleum. Amanda and James Kent, grandson James and wife Yna McClintock are buried there. Frank and Fannie McClintock are buried down the hill in the Municipal Cemetery as was daughter Merle. Maybe there just wasn't room in the sandstone tomb.
Miss Merle McClintock lived her entire life in Grand Junction and wrote for The Daily Sentinel. Her history-related columns have now become treasures; gems of first-hand recollections from the original pioneers and contain nuggets of priceless information for historians. I am one of her fans.
Our dearly departed. We remember them on Memorial/Decoration Day and Labor Day but don't forget All Saints Day and All Hallows Eve. In fact, just for fun… travel up to Crawford's grave. Get out of your car and yell over to him: “George Crawford, George Crawford, what do you have to say tonight?”
After an eerie silence you will hear his ghost say faintly and almost unintelligibly. . . “Nothing, nothing, nothing at all ...”
--------------------------
Reach Priscilla at 970-260-5226, or email priscilla.mangnall@gmail.com.
