Evelyn Foster Tamlin Interview

Evelyn Foster Tamlin Interview
With her daughter Amy Tamlin, whose comments are in italics
July 9, 2010, Age 84
At Aspen House, Loveland, Colorado
Interview and transcription by Linda Bell
[Interview available as PDF file]

Evelyn Foster Tamlin
Evelyn Foster Tamlin, 84

Table of Contents

Born in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado

Evelyn’s birth certificate

I was the youngest in the family and I was born at Red Feather. There was no hospital, so I was born there on May 19, 1926. Dr. Honstein delivered me. He came from Fort Collins. My mother was German, Dr. Honstein was German and, you know, they felt comfortable. So Dr. Honstein I’m sure lived in Fort Collins and came up and waited for me. I can’t remember off hand where Fred was born. He was born in 1920, my older sister Jean was born in 1923. I was the only one born in Red Feather.

I was born in a cabin my father had built. Back then they didn’t have doctors’ offices per se, and the doctor came to you. It’s not like today. I’m not sure my mother thought it was such a hot idea … and I don’t know if my great mother just always kind of went along with what dad wanted to do.

My father built a cabin and we intended to live there year round. That’s where his job was. He actually was an auto mechanic, my dad. When we went up to Red Feather he would take any job. He worked on cars and then he worked for the water company. (Laramie- Poudre Irrigation Company, see Frydendall Interview, pages 5, 6, 7; Focus on western, state, and local water issues and early growth of Red Feather Lakes Community)

He worked for the water company and he did a little bit of everything. He had a lot to do with the fish hatchery. I don’t know if he took care of it, but he had a lot to do with it. We knew how many fish were there and how many got released, that sort of thing.

I’m trying to think where our cabin was… We lived in the water company house. Dad took care of letting water out of one lake and into the next. He took care of all of the lakes. They are situated so the higher lakes feed the lower lakes. He walked wherever he needed to go. You could drive only so close, and then you had to walk.

That house is still standing.

Amy; One time my aunt Jean talked about all the different places they had lived while they lived in Red Feather. Mom and I drove around and took pictures of every place they lived, and I’ve got those somewhere. Sometimes the cabin wasn’t there anymore – didn’t you live at Dowdy for a little while?

Yes, we lived down by Dowdy, but mostly we lived up – well, I can take you to it, but I can’t describe where it is….

Amy; I think it was east of Hiawatha.

We called it the water company house, because that’s who it belonged to. I spent a good share of my childhood in Red Feather Lakes. At least until Fred got to the 8th grade, then mother and us kids moved down and dad stayed up there and worked, because he still worked for the water company. It’s been so long ago. Dad had the job up there. Mother had to bring us down for school.

West Lake School Days

Before that we all went to the West Lake School. It was a one-room schoolhouse. I can almost tell you – there were three Fosters, and four Sanborns and two Wickershams. Their dad had the “state lake” (possibly Bellaire Lake was known as the “state lake”) because that’s where he worked. They had June and Jim. That’s really taxing my memory!

The first teacher I can remember was Arrie Ann Easley, I think it was. She came up there to teach. She stayed at Wallace’s Store, that’s where she got room and board. From there we all walked to school and back home together. It was a little more than a mile. Most of us came right home (afterwards) because our parents told us to – they had no way of coming and looking for us. Weather, it didn’t matter, no one every picked us up and brought us, I can tell you that. We all walked to school. Sanborns were Don, Bob, Earl and Ramona-Meryl – Ramona was the youngest.

In the winter, how else would you get to school if you didn’t walk? I can remember many times walking through the snow to school. Fred, was the tallest, so he made the trail, then Jean, and I was at the tail end. I was the littlest. I can remember Fred saying to me; “Don’t you let go, don’t you let go.” He didn’t want to worry about us when he was trying to get us home. He depended on us to do what he told us to do.

Amy; Mom also used to tell a story about the school. You had a pump organ so they … and they had a phonograph collection so you could listen to classical music. One time they took a field trip to Lady Moon’s cabin and she talks about having seen one of those fancy lamps with fringe around it, and there was a surrey in a shed that the boys brought out to give everybody a ride.

I don’t know if it was the same one that Lafi Miller restored. It could be used both as a sleigh and a wagon. I know way back then, they didn’t throw anything away – if you found an old wagon wheel you kept it because you’d find another wagon wheel some day.

Fun and Family Life, Winter and Summer

My mother just did everything. She sewed on the sewing machine and made all our clothes. She canned peaches, dill pickles, cherries and elk and deer meat during canning season. They drove to Fort Collins, but not very often. To buy from the stores up there was about twice the price. They maybe went to Fort Collins once a month. We used the wild currents. My father was a hunter and a fisherman.

Amy; And to this day, you really don’t like to eat so much fish, do you?

We went to school with the same kids we played with. As far as kids – the Fox Farm was over here, and we were in the village. We had Saturday night dances. Those were in the clubhouse. My mom did a lot of the cooking for those. That was a big project, but then, there weren’t that many people either.

Later on in years, we went to the Dowdy Lake dance hall, but we mostly used the old hotel on top of the hill. We used that first, until the other was built.

Sanborns played music in their house, I can’t really remember what. Anyone that had an instrument was willing to play. For the dances, sometimes the musicians would come from Fort Collins, or someone up at Red Feather that played an instrument, you know, like a violin, or whatever, would play at the dances. Then they got a little more sophisticated for the CCC camp that was up there. The people were a lot younger, so that kind of changed things, because those fellows had families and stuff. I was still quite young at that time.

In Red Feather, my mom, let’s face it, she knew everybody, and many a time, she would get a message from someone saying they were having a picnic and it didn’t matter whose picnic it was. We just would all take our plate and go – it was that kind of neighborhood.

Amy; I remember some of what you’ve said about having fun. Didn’t Uncle Fred build a race car? He convinced mom to ride in it down a hill, and was there a little bump?

There were several bumps. He was always building something. He was five years older. I would do anything he said, so he would say, do this, so then that’s the way it went along. Jean was more petite and she didn’t do some of the dumb things Fred and I did. I think I was the dumb-head. He would tell me to do something, and I did it. Jean wasn’t so gullible. All in all, we had a good time.

We ice-skated on the lakes as kids, with strap-on skates. Usually you got somebody’s leftovers that were way too long for you, but you’d try anything once. Then my dad was quite a crafty person and I can remember one year, he made skis. We didn’t buy things, you know. We made them. Dad made them. The only thing that really stands out in my mind was the fact that he’d made them straight but fix them by weighing them down at one end so they would turn up. They would have to be wet to make that curve up at the front, and you’d have to do it little by little, very gradually. I can remember him doing that. My brother got to use them most. I never tried it much because I was the youngest, and I think Jean tried it a couple of times. You’d be at the top of the hill and Fred would say, “Have you got the skis strapped on?” Then Fred would say, “Keep your feet close together.” How close? Then down the hill you’d go. We didn’t have any ski poles. Later on Fred did, but at the beginning he didn’t. Fred would stand at the top and say, “OK, you’re on your way,” and whoosh, away we’d go! We had a four-foot snow, and then we couldn’t go to school. We did a lot of creative things, making big snowmen, and things like that….

Amy; And your dad cleaned the roof off?

Dad went up on the roof and was going to get the snow off. The roof, it wasn’t built for that. So, what happened was, he scooped and here comes dad and the snow and it covered him. My brother and sister and I just thought it was a ball because we had to dig him out. The kids are laughing and giggling and all and I’m sure dad didn’t think it was very funny. And he went right back up on the roof.

Amy; For entertainment Uncle Fred put you on top of the car and told you to jump – in the snow, when it was four-feet high.

And I wasn’t four feet yet, you know, so I jumped around and it would bury me, then he’d have to dig me out. Then we would do it again.

My sister who is older, she didn’t think much of these antics, but if Fred told me to do it, I did it – dumb kid. I always think how now-days kids have to have a new wagon and everything. I can remember my brother going to the dump to look for wagon wheels so he could build himself a cart or a wagon. He was pretty creative too – he always was.

We did have a kind-of communal dump, but there was very little thrown out then. I mean, you couldn’t afford to, you know. If you had potatoes left-over here, and something else left over, you mixed them together. There was a place, but I can’t remember where it was. When I went, there was nothing but junk. You really had to hunt for something.

Amy; Do you want to tell about the tobogganing? Oh, and there was a ski jump. It was built by CPA or the WPA, or….

That was up on Ramona Lake. There would be air between the skis or toboggan. Can you imagine a toboggan going off? A bunch of kids on a lake that had open water? We had to be really ready to bail. We’d come down the hill and then hit the lake. Of course, a lake with ice is a lot slicker, and a ways out, there was open water. So the guy in front was supposed to holler, “Bail out, bail out!” And you were supposed to bail off and the guy in the front had to hang onto the ropes so we wouldn’t lose the toboggan. I think about it now – if my kids did that, I’d die. I don’t know how my mother put up with it. Nothing every happened, but….

The summer residents didn’t have much to do with us. They had more money and everything else, you know. I mean, our families made a living off of Red Feather. We didn’t much – well some of them did – but most of us just stuck with our own group, the kids that were in the school.

Amy; I remember hearing some stories about baseball games.

Oh yeah, we had baseball games. When we got together it depended on how many (kids) we had to make two teams. Sometimes we would play where the public golf course is now and sometimes we would play where the (West Lake) school was. It was flatter there.

Some of the kids went swimming in the lakes, but my mother wasn’t too hot on that because in all those lakes up there, you would have to be darned careful. It looks like there is solid ground under there, but it isn’t always, and you could hit a sink hole and go down. I never learned to swim.

Amy; In her 50s or 60s or something, she decided it was time to learn. She started taking swimming lessons and then we all did it, because I’d never learned to swim either.

Fred, he knew how to swim, and Don Sanborn was about the same age as Fred and Wickershams, Julie was about the same age as the boys were. (The problem was) you didn’t have hundreds of friends. Your little group is – it was just who they were. Sometimes we would go off exploring together, but not often. We would sometimes go to pick up rocks, or just to goof off. We were warned against the bears, that you don’t tease a bear because they will come after you. We were all pretty shy of that. I’ve seen bear, but not up close.

Amy; Mom has a story about the time they were all on an adventure and they got a little bit lost. Uncle Fred left them and went up on a hill to see where they were so he could find the way home. He told them, “Now, everybody stay put, stay together.” He wasn’t sure either.

But he got us home …. It’s easy to get lost in the rocks and even if we grew up there, you didn’t get so far away that you couldn’t see your house or close to it. But that was fun.

Amy; Mom also tells the story – I guess they watched a lot of cattle drives… so there were cowboys up there. One time, her mom and the school teacher played a practical joke on the cowboys. They had these little cabins they would stay in, so they short-sheeted the beds and things like that. They thought they were so smart, so do you remember what did the cowboys do to retaliate? They put barbed wire around Wallace’s store so the teacher couldn’t get out!

Oh, it didn’t take them long to undo it. But she knew it was retaliation….

The cattle stayed up Deadman Mountain in the summer. The only people who had animals in the village were the Sanborns. They had the fox farm. But we were in Red Feather by the lake. We didn’t horses, oh no. I can’t even remember anyone having a horse. We had a dog, but not chickens, or anything like that. The dog’s name was Sport. Sport was black, some kind of a water spaniel, but that’s all we knew about him.

Daily Life in the Cabins and around the Village

We used wood stoves to heat in the winter, and cooked on them. There wasn’t any electric, so we used kerosene lanterns. I can’t remember that anyone ever had a house fire. In later years they had fires, but I think those of us who grew up there, knew better. Don’t throw out a cigarette out or light a match when you’re not supposed to, and things like that. Instead of indoor plumbing, we had a trail. A cold trail.

Amy; And they hauled water – there is a picture somewhere…. They hauled water on a wagon.

They hauled water came from springs, two springs. We would have to get the water when we lived in that house behind Hilltop. I could show you better where it was if I could take you up there.

Amy; And was there a time Uncle Fred was hauling water or running an errand in town and there was a place called Emma’s Café? He was gone for a really long time, without you. He wasn’t supposed to do that, but it turns out, Emma was feeding him when he would go into Red Feather.

Emma Phipps had the only restaurant that there was, and a bakery. She made pies and she also cooked. They loved Emma’s cooking – she was quite the cook. She was the one that everyone looked up to because she could cook. She could do almost anything. She did a lot of cinnamon rolls, where now days it’s not a big thing. I never saw a “mister.” I don’t remember how she ended up there.

At the beginning there was only one store in Red Feather, a grocery store. I think Hill Top was the first and only, and Wallace’s had that. Then Hastings built the one down below. Those were the only two grocery stores we had. I often went on errands to the store. We mostly bought from Wallace’s store at the Hill Top. We had to a go a little further to Hastings’.

We had “a” car – most of the families had “a” car. But then, most of us didn’t drive miles to work. You worked right there close by, but we had to go into Fort Collins.

We didn’t have any refrigerator, no, no, no; later, but not to begin with. We did have an icebox. Dad would hunt for deer and butcher it himself, and then there was a place in town where they could freeze it. Then when you went to town, you picked up what you needed. Mom cooked everything on the wood stove, even when she was making food for the dances. They mostly used their own homes to prepare the food, and not the hotel.

During the war, we knew there were prisoners up at the old lumber camp on Deadman. Our parents didn’t warn us off them; we knew they were prisoners. They were just human beings, and they spoke, and they were nice. They didn’t come into town much. It really didn’t make a big difference. There was a safe-gap in-between. They didn’t bother us, and we didn’t bother them.

Move to Fort Collins and Beyond

We all finished our educations in Fort Collins. The school in Red Feather only went up through 8th grade. And I didn’t end up marrying one of those cowboys, nor did my sister. We’d been in Fort Collins. We would stay in Fort Collins for school, but we went back up to Red Feather in the summertime because dad was still working up there. He took care of all the lakes, that was his job. He was (also) an auto mechanic so he eventually left the water company and moved down to Fort Collins to be with the rest of the family.

All my family comes from Colorado.

Amy; Her mom’s parents were German-Russians, and they farmed. Grandma was born in Keota, near Greeley. Her grandparents farmed over in the Greeley area. Eventually they lost the farm maybe?

I don’t know why they moved.

Amy; But they were quite elderly by then too, and they lived over at 512 E. Magnolia, in Fort Collins. Her grandfather would walk downtown. When they couldn’t find him they finally found out his stopping place was the Northern Hotel and he’d take a nap in the lobby – he’d fall asleep in a chair there where he’d stopped to rest.

She mentioned that when they first moved down to Fort Collins they lived in an apartment catty-corner to Library Park. She says her mother just about went crazy trying to keep them quiet. Well, they were used to total freedom and they were living in an apartment. Was it a second-floor apartment?

Yeah….

Amy; Mom said it was a blessing that the Library Park was across the street. Did the dog stay with your dad?

Most of the time…. My mother wasn’t up to having a dog in the house. We used to coax him in at night, on cold nights. And he knew too that he wasn’t meant to be in there.

Amy; Uncle Fred said it was quite a shock to go from a place where it was just green and rocks and trees to paved streets and gray buildings everywhere you looked.

And at Red Feather we knew everybody.

Amy; She went from 12 to 15 kids in a one-room school house …

To 30 in a room!

Other kids from Red Feather were in the same schools. I kept track of a lot of the kids that were at Red Feather afterwards. In later years, especially the Wickershams who were at the State Lake, they would call and get everyone together for a picnic at Red Feather. When we came back between postings in the military, I tried to keep up with the ones that were still around. It was kind of hard then because it’s hard to keep connections with that kind of life, but over the years we kept in touch – about our children, how many kids they had, like that. As kids, even in Fort Collins, we didn’t live too far from the others.

In town at least we had electricity, but not necessarily plumbing. We had a house … and we had the outside john.

Amy; On Lake Street…?

On Mathews, 620 Mathews….

Amy; Eventually they took apart some building, some garage that was attached to a fraternity. They took the garage apart in exchange for the material, then their dad built the house on Mathews.

He was, he was very creative. I remember many a time dad would bring home a pile of wood and we’d take it apart and he’d build something from it.

Amy; And your mom always had a job too, it wasn’t just their father having a job. She cleaned houses when they moved to Fort Collins.

I think about that now and I’m not sure I could have done what she did. She worked very, very hard.

Amy; Yes, you’ve said you’re glad you didn’t marry a farmer.

My husband had a career in the military. After WWII there were no jobs for kids growing up, so…. We lived in Germany.

Amy; I don’t remember much about it. I remember gum on the windows, being afraid inside of a windmill, and being afraid of the ocean.

I used to tell the girls, you know, I used to say; “We’ve got to see everything we can see here because we’ll never be back to the same base twice.” So we did do a lot of sightseeing. Then too, it was an experience in the service moving every two to two and a half years.

I have two girls; they’re both special and 10 years apart. My eldest daughter is named Henrietta.

Amy; She is named after my dad, because my dad’s name – and he was named for his father – was Henry. As the first-born she got stuck being Henrietta, so you notice my name has three letters in it. She helped name me so that I could learn how to spell my name before I got to school. Nine letters verses three My sister lives in Ault. She couldn’t be here today, but I kind of wish she had been because she’s a little bit older and she remembers more. When my sister was a child, mom’s father was still alive and as a big family they would go up to Red Feather a little more often than when I came along. For a while they lived in Fort Collins.

My parents lived a fairly long life – I think they did.

Amy; But didn’t (your dad) die before he was 60?

Yes, he did.

Amy; But I found out later from Uncle Fred that he smoked.

Yeah, dad smoked.

Amy; My grandmother was at least 85 when she died. She lived in the same place they had eventually moved to, 320 or 312 Laurel Street, I don’t remember.

I don’t remember either….

Amy; It was right across from Ammons Hall on the CSU campus. It was a duplex. I was laughing because there is a picture of my sister in here, roller skating on Meldrum with clamp-on roller skates. Then when I was six, I roller skated on the same street with the same skates. Our parents brought us back here in between every duty station. We lived near or with mom’s mother whenever daddy would get posted overseas, so actually sometimes we would actually live and go to school here in Fort Collins. Dad’s folks were from Bellvue and that was another great place to go.

I don’t see (my sister) Jean often, not any more….

Amy; It’s getting hard for everybody to get around. Jean came up to Fort Collins for mom’s 80th birthday party. I got a picture of that – mom was just thrilled. That was 2006. It was a fun day. Jean is blind now. She can’t see and she can’t drive. She does have a friend that still drives, but just around Denver.

Evelyn Foster Tamlin with daughter Amy
Evelyn Foster Tamlin with daughter Amy

Evelyn Foster Tamlin’s own writings about her childhood in Red Feather Lakes, written between 1996 and 2000

I was born at Red Feather Lakes, Colorado, on May 19, 1926, in a cabin my father had built. The doctor came from Fort Collins to take care of Mother and wait for my arrival. Mother had not named me when the doctor was ready to leave but he assured her that he would name me Princess Red Feather which is exactly how he made out the birth certificate. Most of the older people at Red Feather called me Princess. I joined an older brother Fred and older sister Jean.

When I was a year old, Lou Young taught me how to walk by playing Indians – putting our hands on our knees and saying Ki Yi as we walked around the round table. Lou Young, Ed Walcott, and Andy Andrews were old bachelors who spent a lot of time at our house. Our door was always open. Mother was a good cook and Dad was an easy going person.

When I was between two and three years, the folks were running the Old Hotel. Mother made all the eats for Saturday night dances so was very busy and Dad wanted to go fishing. Mother told him to take us kids. Fred and Dad were fishing and Jean and I were playing. Mother always put our white panties on and black panties over the white ones so we wouldn’t get the white ones dirty. Mother did her wash on the board. Jean and I wanted to wade so we did. Dad told us to sit down so we did. Needless to say, Mother wasn’t too happy with Dad or us.

The next year we lived at Log Cabin. Fred and Jean went to school there. I remember sitting on a rock a ways from the house and waiting for Jean and Fred to come home from school. It was lonely during the day. Mother used to make us stay on the screened in porch while we watched the big cattle drives up to the high country in the spring and back down in the fall.

We later moved back up to Red Feather and lived in the water company house. Dad worked for the water district and ran the fish hatchery. The house was up on the hill and the well was down the hill. We used to go down to fill milk cans with water. Fred would pull it up in the wagon and we would push. We had to carry all water for both washing and drinking.

I started first grade at West Lake School along with about eight other children in a one-room school house. We were about a mile from school and we always walked. The teacher lived at Wallace’s Store and walked to school with us. My first teacher was Miss Lemon – she only stayed a year. Second grade Arrie Ann [Easley] was our teacher. She was young, tall and thin, and a lot of fun. However, I remember that she was reading Winnie the Pooh to the whole class. Out of it Fred decided to call me Heffalump. So everyone did for awhile. Then they wore that out and Fred decided to call me Pesky. I never said too much, but I complained to Mother. All she said was, “Well, you don’t have to answer because that isn’t your name.” So who should call me that the next morning but the teacher. Well, I just kept walking. She caught on pretty fast and put her arm around me and then she wouldn’t let anyone call me Pesky. At school we had an old pump organ and sang. We also had a phonograph and listened to selections of classical music. We really had high adventures as we went on field trips – such good times. Once when we were playing baseball, I was pitcher and Fred was batting. I told him the ball would come right at me. He explained that he’d hit it right over my head. Well, I pitched and the ball came right at me. I didn’t duck and I got the ball in the eye. Fred ran and caught me before I fell to the ground. As he was carrying me back to the school house, I came to and told him I wouldn’t pitch any more balls to him. He laughed, I guess because he knew I was okay.

One year it started snowing and we left school early but the snow was about three feet deep. Fred walked ahead and we hung on to each other like a train, Fred breaking the trail. Finally I was so tired and Fred carried me the rest of the way home. The snow topped 4 ½ feet. We were out of school for over a week. Roads were never plowed then, so we thought it was great. Fred would put me on top of the car and then he’d tell me to jump. I’d jump and then he’d dig me out and we’d do it all over. Jean was never much for these kinds of games. The only way we could get over to the grocery store – Fred would find the fence line and walk over by it.

Dad made most of our Christmas gifts. Dad made us a cabinet for dishes, a replica of what Mother had – cupboards up above, counters, drawers, and doors below. Jean and I shared but it was such fun. At Christmas we always had the Christmas program at the Clubhouse. Santa Claus arrived after our school program with a big sack filled with apples, oranges, candy, and nuts – such a treat. Dad always made something for every child in school. The boys got wood trucks that held a load of logs. The girls all got doll cradles made of cedar. It was always a night to remember. I don’t remember any other parents doing as much as ours did for everyone and there were a lot that had more money than our family did. Dad worked for the water company and controlled water in all the lakes. Mother took in washing and did ironing. Hard working family.

Summers were spent climbing and hiking and we were really just pretty free. When Mother would call us to come in, we wouldn’t always answer or come. But Dad would step out on the front porch and whistle and believe me the three Foster kids beat it for home. And really Dad wasn’t the disciplinarian. Mother, when we went to town, would usually get us a toy or a nickel’s worth of candy to eat on the way home. Once Mother got Jean and I little rubber dolls seven or eight inches high.

Next day Mother was helping Mrs. Sanborn and Dad was taking care of us. We asked him if we could have a piece of rope. Well, he gave us some but he didn’t ask what we were going to do with it. We cut the rope – it was nice and soft – so we made our rubber dolls wigs and took curlers and curled their hair. Dad never said anything about his rope, but it was sort of a rare commodity and expensive to be used for doll wigs. He told Mother he wasn’t going to scold us because he didn’t ask us what we were going to do with it. But I’ll be he could have tanned us for cutting up his rope.

So many times we made our own entertainment. We used to make paper dolls from old catalogs – cut out a doll and then their clothes that almost fit.

Hikes and outings were usually a community affair. We’d gather all the kids from school and picnic, climb, or whatever. In the summer time there would be more kids as Red Feather was a resort and they’d come back each year.

We moved to Fort Collins when Fred reached high school age. Mother came down with three kids as Dad’s job was still in Red Feather. We got an apartment catty-corner from the Library Park in Fort Collins. We felt caged in and Mother had a terrible time keeping us quiet. It was really a blessing the Library Park was so close. Also, Mrs. Sanborn had moved down also with her four kids, so we still had picnics and suppers together.

Black Bear

My father was well known in Red Feather as a great fly fisherman and hunting guide. Rob and John were from Chicago and worked at Marshall-Fields. They were seldom out of three-piece suits. They came to Red Feather in the summer and Dad had taught them how to fly fish. They enjoyed being around my Dad and stories of the great outdoors, hunting, hiking, and sitting still and watching the deer graze. They asked Dad if they came back in the fall would he take them hunting. The big desire was to get a bear and have it made into a rug – impress their friends. Dad agreed to all their plans. They really wanted to rough it – get a tent and cook over a campfire, dad warned that it really got very cold and the roads would be bad and they might even need chains. They returned to Chicago all aglow and really anxious for the months to go by.

When deer season came around, it was very cold with two feet of snow on the ground. Rob and John arrived and it was so cold, but they were not discouraged. They made it to their destination over the treacherous roads. They set to work clearing a place for their tent, and fixed a place for their campfire. No problem with their tent. They fixed a tripod over their campfire for the coffee pot – a huge Trail Riders coffee pot. They told Dad they were going to eat their supper and get to bed early to prepare for an early start the next morning.

Early the next morning, we saw our big, black dog sniffing around the tent. But we knew that’s all he would do. All of a sudden we heard this awful commotion. The coffee pot on the tripod went flying, and Rob and John in their long johns and bare feet were running with all their might yelling, “It’s a bear! It’s a bear!” We looked out the window and laughed so hard. Dad stepped out the door and whistled for Sport, and then he turned around and sauntered back toward the house. John and Rob finally turned around, red-faced and with very cold feet. They hurried back up to the tent, got dressed, and then went out and picked up their belongings. Dad called to them and told them to come on down for breakfast. We didn’t mention the incident as they ate their breakfast and went off hunting. They did not get a deer or the much-wanted bear.They still came out and went fishing in the summer time, but never hunting. They enjoyed having their tame bear follow them – their tame bear named Sport.

From Red Feather Lakes; the first hundred years by Evadene Burris Swanson, with assistance from Ted Dunning, 1986 reprint, p. 14.

“Fred Foster, a mechanic, was hired by the company so he brought his wife and two children to the mountains. On May 19, 1926, when their new baby girl was born, the doctor suggested naming her Princess Redfeather. Members of the family called her Evelyn May, but years later when she needed a birth certificate, they found the doctor’s registration exactly what he had proposed.”

Amy Tamlin’s summary of Evelyn’s siblings, Jean and Fred

Fred married Norma and had two children, John and Pat. He graduated from CSU and taught high school shop in Littleton, CO. Because he had such a way with kids, he was encouraged to become a counselor. Norma worked for the state of Colorado. They lived in Littleton in an area where his daughter, Pat, could have a horse. Pat attended CSU and still lives in Littleton where she raises champion horses. I don’t know if she kept her married name – and I can’t remember offhand what it even is! (My Grandma Tamlin would be appalled!) John was, according to William Griswold at Colorado State University (Dept. of History), brilliant. John graduated from CSU, served in Viet Nam and currently lives in Carpenter, WY. After Norma died as a result of a car accident sometime in the 1990s, Fred married Caroline Calloway Moss. Fred kept a cabin in Red Feather Lakes for many years, but the family sold it after his death.

Jean married Casey Houser and had four children while also working as a farm wife in areas around Wellington and Loveland. They divorced in the 1960s. Jean had a small commercial cleaning business for a while then moved to one of the Dakotas and operated a place like a Dairy Queen. She worked until she was in her late 70s and advised me just last week (circa 9/01/2010) to “keep working as long as you can” because it keeps you out in the world with people and sharp.

Some details researched and later told to the interviewer, by Amy Tamlin

In April and September, 1948, Fred C. Foster got building permits to enclose a porch and add to a house at 620 Mathews. Apparently this address is now apartments or condos. In 1920 it was a barn that was transformed into a dwelling.

Fred C. Foster was a veteran and died July 6, 1956 at the age of 63. Marie Foster died Sept. 23, 1983, at the age of 85.

Uncle Fred was also Fred C. Foster.

The Tamlins purchased land in Red Feather Lakes in the 1990s and put a shed on it as a “starter cabin.” Evelyn Foster Tamlin still owns this property. After Henry Tamlin retired the family bought some land up in North Park prior to buying the land in Red Feather Lakes.