Edna

Edna Chinberg Calabrese

Edna Marie Chinberg Calabrese was born on the family farm near Kanorado, Kansas on July 12, 1915. She was the youngest child of Henry and Rose Chinburg and their only daughter. (For reasons unknown, Edna changed the spelling of her last name.) From all accounts, she was a lonely child who had a vivid imagination and enjoyed school above all else. She attended a one-room school where children of all ages were taught together and finished high school at age 16.

We don’t have much information about Edna from the time she graduated from high school until her parents relocated to Boulder in 1945. What is known is that Edna was married during this period and had three children; two boys and a girl, one of whom died at an early age. The children all attended Whittier School and her youngest son, Ivan, became a trumpet player and music teacher. Sometime before her parents relocated to Boulder in 1945, Edna was divorced from her husband.

Edna’s father, Henry, had passed away June 20, 1963 and Edna moved into 1937 Spruce Street with her 82 year old mother, Ruby, on 1/4/1965. She married her long-time beau, Raymond Paul Calabrese, on December 12, 1965 and together they cared for Edna’s mother until her death April 30, 1966.

Edna signing her marriage certificate in the dining room
at 1937 Spruce Street.

Ray signing his marriage certificate in the dining room
at 1937 Spruce Street.

The Calabrese Wedding Party
December 12, 1965

Edna worked for the telephone company in Denver until 1987 and Ray worked at a large brick and block plant east of Boulder. Edna would take the bus to and from Denver and Ray would pick her up at the bus stop each evening. Not wanting Edna to have to cook when she came home, they would go out to eat – usually at the King’s Table (now the Country Buffet) in Longmont.

They went to church regularly and, like her mother, Edna enjoyed sewing and playing the organ. She was in the habit of reading aloud to Ray and keeping calendar notes of daily activities. Mundane as they were, the notations provide a glimpse of her daily life:

“Danny called, they got a pup”; “good news – mammogram clear – all tests normal – thank the Lord”; “sun out”; “mailed letters”; “laundry, home all day”; “snow”; “went to Leo’s Restaurant for lunch – food good, waitress not”; “the rhododendron gets more beautiful every day”; “half of the living room painted”; “called Marsha – wish I hadn’t”; “canned 21 pints of tomatoes”; “Ray covered porch rug – I picked pears – he mowed – I watered”.

And she wrote in her journal: “If anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I had a stock answer for them. I wanted a home of my own, a good husband and children. I can see that I have realized all that.”

Edna died in 1994.

A New Beginning

Ruby Gladys Yake was born on December 21st, 1884 on the old Stone Ranch near Culbertson, Nebraska where her father was foreman. When Ruby was about two years old, the family left Nebraska by covered wagon and settled in Wallace County, Kansas and her father became a successful rancher. Ruby’s father, John, passed away suddenly at the young age of 56 of an apparent heart attack on May 25, 1902. Four months later and just 17 years old, Ruby married Henry Amel Chinburg, a ranch employee.

Henry was born in Altona, Illinois on December 1875. Henry’s family also came west by covered wagon pulled by oxen and settled in Wallace County, a “pioneer community” with a school that kept an irregular schedule. Speaking only Swedish at home, Henry learned English at the little school and would successfully complete McGuffy’s Fifth Reader.

Henry worked at the railroad roundhouse for awhile, but wanting something for himself, began to farm in western Kansas seven miles from the Kansas/Colorado state line near Kanorado, Kansas. Around 1910, the young family homesteaded in Colorado where their first home was a “dug-out” in the earth that they later used as a vegetable cellar. Henry eventually moved a “high-front store building” from Kanorado and began a decade-long renovation turning the building into a home. Henry said “he was going to add a bathroom, and build the rest of the house around it.” The little building became a two bedroom home with a living room, dining room, kitchen, pantry, bath and a screened in porch along the east side of the house.

Dust Bowl in Southeastern Colorado

In the 1930s, like other farmers acting under Roosevelt’s Agricultural Adjustment Agreement, Henry was paid not to raise crops or livestock. Fields were supposed to lie idle and tilled to keep them free from weeds. The affect of this Act along with what is considered one of the worst climatic events in the history of the United States is described by Henry: “the fine drift dirt sifted into the best of houses. The weeds in the fence rows caught the dirt and piled up fencepost high. The static electricity in the dirt stalled cars and burned vegetation. The cattle died and people died from dust pneumonia.”

Henry and Ruby were not getting any younger and Henry’s health was failing, so in 1945 he began to look for a place to buy in Boulder, Colorado. When he saw the house at 1937 Spruce Street, he realized that it had the same room arrangement as the farm house (only lacking the screened porch). Henry sold the farm, auctioned off personal belongings and purchased the house on Spruce in the winter of 1945.

Ruby and Henry moved into their new home where their greatest pleasure was spending time in their yard where Henry planted fruit trees, grapes and roses. They took walks downtown and Henry became acquainted with other older men whom he entertained with his stories of the past. Ruby loved to sew and used a treadle machine -- she said she "got hungry to sew".  She loved to read to her husband and play the organ.  It was Ruby who furnished the music for neighborhood dances.  Speaking of her father, their daughter Edna said, “In spite of the many hardships he encountered in his lifetime, he had an optimistic outlook on life and whistled as he went about his work.” Those were happy days.

From Out of the Shadows

I'm like a ghost some people can't see

Others drive by and stare

A shadow that drifts by the side of the road

It's like I'm not even there

~ Wonder this World ~

Jonny Lang

The heirs to Mollie Whiteley’s estate were scattered far and wide and had no interest in keeping the house. A trustee was named and the property was sold. The house was first sold to neighbors, J. A. and Julie Nelson, who lived at 21st and Pine Street. Used as a rental property, they would keep the property until 1944. The house would then be sold two more times – first to C. F. Hixson and his wife Bertha and again to Leslie and Clara Graham in 1945 before stability returned on December 17, 1945.

While previous owners seemed to have little connection to the house, the Chinburgs would make it their home for the next 21 years. Henry Amel Chinburg passed away on June 20, 1963 at the age of 87; his wife Ruby continued to live in the house until her death in 1966.

Calm After the Storm

Mollie G. Strickland Whiteley
courtesy of the Carnegie Branch Library for Local History
Boulder Historical Society Collection

Around the time that Mollie purchased the house at 1937 Spruce Street, she also purchased other properties. While it is unknown whether she maintained residence at the Spruce Street property, it remained in her name for most of the 36 years preceeding her death.

Mollie sold the house to Katherine Augustus on August 20, 1919 and Katherine immediately subdivided the lot, keeping the South 95 feet of Lot 10, where the house stands. She kept the property until October 11, 1920 when she sold it to Thomas Earl Williams. The following day, Williams took out a loan against the property.

The property was reacquired by Mollie Whiteley in 1922. Since the deed indicates that there was a Successor in Trust to Mr. Williams, it is likely that Williams defaulted on the loan and a Trustee’s sale was ordered.

Mollie passed away on October 28, 1936. Her Will left her property, including 1937 Spruce Street, to her sisters and their heirs.

If You Knew Mollie . . .

Who really knew Mollie Strickland? According to accounts, Margaret Whiteley did not know her well, maybe not at all. We do know that she was the oldest daughter of Wade H. and Elizabeth Strickland who lived in Magnolia, a mining community near Boulder. Was she a prostitute or did her social standing, questionable morals, and age influence public opinion? The town took the side of the wronged Margaret and condemned Richard and Mollie as evidenced in the divorce settlement. Margaret was awarded everything except Richard Whiteley’s library of books, a trunk and clothing. With that, he moved out of the family home on Whiteley Hill.

Professionally, Whiteley showed no signs of slowing down and the political power he wielded in the community was undiminished. On October 29, 1885, Whiteley purchased the home at 646 Pearl Street, the home built for William Arnett (aka the Arnett-Fullen house) and considered to be “the gem of the city”, and together Richard and Mollie retreated from social life. By 1890, after a series of successful court cases and lucrative investments, he had regained a measure of social respectability. When Richard died on September 26th of that year, Mollie was not yet 30 years old.

As a fatherless, Irish immigrant, Richard H. Whiteley would become an accomplished man remembered for his empathy and compassion for those who had hard lives, providing legal services to the poor for free. Those who have written about Richard Whiteley consider him a man of contradictions. They say he was a churchgoing man yet fathered an illegitimate child; he supported the rights of women yet physically abused his wife; he was a man of position in society yet he defied convention by marrying a younger woman with a questionable past. Maybe Richard was not a man of contradictions. Perhaps Mollie’s past is what attracted Richard to her. Maybe Mollie was everything Margaret was not.

Mollie continued to live in the Arnett-Fullen house until November 16,1899; she purchased the house at 1937 Spruce on December 2, 1899.

Yes, the Lady Has a Past

With the country recovering from the depression of ’93 and prosperity returning to Boulder, Benjamin Nelson sold his house at 1937 Spruce for $2200. His $300 property investment provided him a whopping 600% profit! Not bad for a four-year investment! How well would the next owner fair? The buyer, Mollie G. Whiteley, would own the home until her death in 1936.

Mollie was the second wife of powerful Boulder lawyer, Richard H. Whiteley. Richard’s divorce from Margaret Devine Whiteley, his wife of 33 years on August 12, 1884 stunned the people of Boulder. Even more shocking was his marriage to Mary Strickland (aka Mollie) within two hours of the divorce. Here is an account of what precipitated the divorce as published in A Scalawag in Georgia: Richard Whiteley and the Politics of Reconstruction by William Warren Rogers:

“With cause, Margaret suspected (or knew) that her husband was involved in a relationship with Mollie Strickland, a local woman. On the evening of July 15, 1884, finding the two walking together, Margaret approached them. Whiteley knocked her down, and when she got up, struck her to the ground again. Some witnessed the altercation, and the incident became the object of considerable gossip.”

Richard and Mollie were married by a justice of the peace because no local clergymen would agree to perform the ceremony. Mollie, the 21-year old daughter of a miner, was 33 years younger than Richard and there is evidence indicating she was a prostitute. The community was so outraged that, fearing violence against Whiteley, the sheriff and several policemen were called in to provide protection to the couple.

What a fiery start to this young woman’s life.

Location, location, location

Pine Street School 1900
(from Whittier International School website)

It was a prime location for a home site – particularly for a family with children. Opened in 1882, Pine Street School (renamed Whittier Elementary School in 1903) is located just across the street.

Was Benjamin Nelson a family man or a speculator who considered the property an investment? On the day that he purchased the property, he took out a loan against it. I don’t believe it was to be used to finance construction of the house, but rather to invest in mining technology developed by Bertrand C. Hinman. Hinman graduated from Columbia University in 1892 and was awarded several patents related to geology and mining between 1892 – 1897. In an article published in the Jefferson County Journal, Adams, New York, January 28, 1896, Hinman is clearly attempting to generate interest in new methods of mining “that may revolutionize the present plans of separation of gold from the rock.”

Nelson used his property at 1937 Spruce Street again in 1896 as security “To secure Nancy J. Gooding for $750 at 8% payable semiannually. Acting Sheriff of Boulder County successor in trust.” The questions remain, ‘Who was Benjamin Nelson and what was his relationship to Nancy J. Gooding?”

Shingles in a modified sawtooth pattern

Full entablature window casing surrounds

Open frieze work along the porch

Clearly, Nelson was a person of some means as evidenced by the level of detail lavished on the house. The unusually ornate architectural detailing included decorative shingle work in a modified sawtooth pattern, horizontal wood clapboard siding on the top and bottom of the wall, full entablature window casing surrounds and open frieze work along the porch. Benjamin Nelson was a man of style!