Victor Heritage Society
Working Together to Preserve 
Historic Victor, Colorado
City of Gold MInes
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  • Preservation Successes
  • Activities
  • Landmarks
  • Guidelines & Galleries
    • Guide to Preserving Our Architectural Heritage
    • Photo Gallery of Victor Residential Gems
    • Photo Gallery of Victor Businesses Operating in Historic Buildings
    • Photo Gallery of Historic Victor Homes & Buildings--Then & Now
    • Photo Gallery of Historic Victor Artwork by Fred Shane, Circa 1942
    • Photo Gallery of Historic Gold Mines >
      • Stratton's Independence Mine
      • Restoring the Historic Headframe of Stratton's Independence Mine
      • Gold Coin Mine--Part of the Woods Empire
      • Vindicator Mine
    • Photos From 1903-04 Labor Strike in Cripple Creek & Victor Mining District.
    • Step Back in Time with Glimpses of Historical Photos Featuring Victor, Colorado & the Surrounding Mining District
  • Oral History
    • “The Only Swedish Grocery Store in Victor”: The J.A. “Joseph” Beckman Family in the Cripple Creek Mining District of Colorado, 1896-1915 by Richard "Dick" Markley.
    • Goold Family Historic Ties to Victor, Colorado & Famous Former Residents of the City by Nellie Goold Young.
    • H. L. Turner Story--Part 2: Unique Perspectives About the History of Victor, Colorado & the Cripple Creek Mining District.
    • Memories of H. L. Turner (1882-1967) and His Experiences in the Early Days of the Cripple Creek Mining District.
    • Tragedies When I Was Growing Up In Victor by Charles Spray (AKA Jeep Hack).
    • Memories of James Garth Payne & How He Came to Letter Names on the Original WWII Roll of Honor in Victor and Cripple Creek, Colorado.
    • Winters in Victor, Colorado during the 1940's & 50's by Charles Spray (AKA Jeep Hack)
    • Biking & Hockey in Victor, Colorado -- The Passions of Brian Hayes
    • Sports in Victor, Colorado & Memories of the 1949 Pikes Peak Junior High Basketball Tournament
    • Abbott Family Memories Made in Victor, Colorado: The House & Antiques Shop -- by Debbie Abbott.
    • Abbott Family Memories Made in Victor, Colorado: Digging At the Dump -- by Steve Abbott.
    • Abbott Family Memories Made in Victor, Colorado: Mom & Her Victor Friends -- by Dave Abbott.
    • A History of VICTOR, COLORADO--THE CITY OF MINES, compiled and published in 1933 by S. E. Poet, Superintendent of Public Schools at Victor.
    • Carl Roy's Oral History Videos -- Life in Victor, Colorado
    • The Miner’s Photograph: A Pathway to the Past by Steven Wade Veatch.
    • Recollections of My Life in Victor, Colorado during the Depression, WWII, & After By Charles Norman Spray (AKA Jeep Hack)
    • Memories of Washington Elementary--My First School in Victor, Colorado by Charles Spray (AKA Jeep Hack).
    • Adventures at the Beaver Valley Ranch While Growing up in Victor, Colorado by Charles Spray (AKA Jeep Hack).
    • Memories of the Ina & Henry Cleveland Hack Family by Charles Norman Spray (AKA Jeep Hack).
    • The Lighter Side of a Visit to Hack's Victor Barber Shop by Charles Norman Spray (AKA Jeep Hack).
    • Memories of Margaret & Henry C. "June" Hack, Jr. by Charles Norman Spray (AKA Jeep Hack).
    • Memorabilia from Cripple Creek & Victor High School Bands Directed by Ernest T. Sly from 1939 to 1950.
    • A Day in the Cresson Mine by Charles Spray (AKA Jeep Hack).
    • Firewood For Victor, Colorado by Charles Norman Spray (AKA Jeep Hack).
    • Memories of My Grandfather, John Reed Gardner (1864-1951)--Gardner Mercantile Owner, Bank President, Insurance Company Executive. By John Reed Gardner, II (grandson).
    • Tarie Huber Oral History Videos -- Life in Victor, Colorado
    • 1896 Shooting Affray at Union Theater in Victor, Colorado.
    • Memories of Mrs. Katy Bemore, resident of Independence when the deport was blown up in 1904.
    • Working Underground in the Cripple Creek & Victor Mining District, 1972 to 1979: How I Got the Shaft, the Gas, and the Broken Steel by Randall Stewart.
    • INSTALLMENT #1. Seven Generations In Victor, Colorado and The Mining District—The Way It Was as Recalled by Eleanor Musser Baker.
    • INSTALLMENT #2. Seven Generations In Victor, Colorado and The Mining District—The Way It Was as Recalled by Eleanor Musser Baker.
    • INSTALLMENT #3. Seven Generations In Victor, Colorado and The Mining District—The Way It Was as Recalled by Eleanor Musser Baker.
    • Memories of Edward Franklin Page: Watchman at the Stratton Mines and Subsequently a Mine Manager, Farmer, Retail Businessman, & Banker.
    • Tom Schryver's Memories of Growing Up in Victor, Colorado and His Parents--Mayme & Charles "Bumps" Chapman.
    • McCormick Family Connections to Victor, Colorado (1893-2014) by Mary Ann McCormick Hamm.
    • Paying the Piper by Gertrude Moore McGowan.
    • Gold Camp Celebration--Fourth of July in Victor, Early 1900's by Gertrude Moore McGowan.
    • Memories of Lulu Ella Manson & Harry Gordon Moore by Gertrude Moore McGowan
    • Memories of Fannie & Alfred Osborn by Marge Breth
    • Memories of Cripple Creek & Victor, 1945-62, by Mary Alice Orazen
    • The Story of Axel Olson & His Golden Girl, Betzi Johnson, by Shirley Beach.
    • Memories of Mr. and Mrs. Axel Olson by KC Garver
    • Victor Recollections--Mountain Doctor, Small Town Cop, Gus's Sporting Goods, & Little Toy Pocket Knife by Floyd Frank
    • Memories of Lowell Thomas--Victor"s Most Famous Former Resident
    • Memories of the Gold Rush Era in Victor by Edgar McGowan
    • A Day In the Life of a Miner by Chuck Clark
    • Underground Mining Experiences at the Cresson and Ajax by Myron House
    • Hynes Brothers "Clean Ice" for Victor, Colorado--Memories of Mary Ellen Hynes Chetelat.
    • Marguerite Clark--One of Victor's Angels by Chuck Clark
    • Charlie Clark & the Quality Cash Market by Chuck Clark
    • Pop Sly -- Ernest T. Sly, The Band Man by Chuck Clark
    • Mr. Mortenson--The Victor Shoemaker by Chuck Clark
    • Heninger Family Memories of Victor, Portland Junction, & Independence: 1909-1916, by Virginia & Edgar Heninger
    • Reflections on Goldfield by Carol Roberts
    • Growing Up In Victor in the 1930's by Bob Penman
    • Victor's Welcome to Vice-President Roosevelt
  • Visit
PictureAdelaide, Lynn, and Marguerite Richmond. ©
MEMORIES OF MARGUERITE CLARK--ONE OF VICTOR'S ANGELS
By Charles (Chuck) Clark 
  ©

A woman named Marguerite was born in Aspen, Colorado but moved to Victor as a young girl.  She came with a sister Adelaide, a mother and a miner father.  Hopes were great that they would have a good job and an easier life than that life in Aspen.

That life turned out, though, to be much more difficult than expected.  Marguerite’s mother died during the flu epidemic of 1918 and left Marguerite with a younger sister and a father for whom to care.  They lived in a small house on South 5th Street and when miners were paid $5.00 a day there was not a lot of money to go around. They were a bit more fortunate than many miners in as much as her father had several years experience as a hoist man even though he was in his twenties.

His first steady job at seventeen was as a hoist man on the Smuggler Mine in Aspen and he had a good reputation for being a good worker and for always showing up on time even though some of his evenings were filled with heavy living.  Money was scarce, but many miners frequented the bars as daytime and work was hell on earth and drink helped to ease the pain for some.  It was often and regularly difficult on the dependents, however, as there was little money available for the necessities such as food, clothing, and shelter.

PictureMarguerite (Richmond) Clark, wife of Charlie Clark .©
Marguerite somehow survived this life as a young girl and eventually married a grocer and raised three sons. She spent several years as a teacher in the CCV schools working to help her students succeed in their life pursuits.  Should you ask her students, you will surely get some positive comments.  She spent hours after school to do this, much to the anxiety of her family and the school bus driver.  When the schools were consolidated, Cripple Creek was the location for both Victor and Cripple Creek students. This was much to the dismay of the Victorites!

Marguerite spent most of her life trying and generally speaking, to upgrade Victor and its residents.  The one circumstance that caught my attention was an incident that occurred on a beautiful day after Marguerite had moved to Colorado Springs.  Charlie bought a nice home on Templeton Gap.  She now had modern appliances such as a dish washer and appliances that worked on 60 cycle electricity, a television with many channels, a furnace that heated with natural gas, all of which had been absent in her life in Victor. 

She and Charlie went to town to shop and parked near Acacia Park.  While walking through the park, she encountered an older woman crying on one of the benches.  The woman, whose name was Virginia, related that her son had told her to get out of the house and not to come back.  Virginia was horrified by this, as she had no other place to stay and decided she would sleep in the park until she could find some other place to rest.  She also had a serious physical problem (liver failure) and was on dialysis and hadn’t been able to keep her appointment at Penrose Hospital.  She was two days late for her treatment and was near death if not able to have the dialysis treatment.

Marguerite did not hesitate and told Virginia to get in the car whereupon they drove post haste to Penrose Emergency and were able to get her an immediate appointment for dialysis.  Virginia still had a problem:  She had no place to live after her treatment.  Marguerite went to her church and rounded up some money and made arrangement for a motel room in which Virginia could stay until other arrangements might be made. Virginia survived that episode, but later died of her illness, much to the despair of Marguerite.

That one chapter in Marguerite’s life helped me to understand what an unselfish woman Marguerite was.  She gave clothes to those without and helped on many occasions those needy people in Victor.  Victor seemed to foster and showcase that type of person and made this writer so appreciative of Victorites for the rest of his life.  
                                                                                © Charles (Chuck) Clark

​ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  
     Charles (Chuck) Clark was born in 1933.  He was raised in Victor, Colorado where his father was a grocer and his mother was a teacher.  He graduated from Victor High School in 1951, and four years later graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in English Literature and a Commission as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy.  Later he received a Masters Degree from Colorado College.
     After his service obligation and becoming a pilot, Chuck was a teacher, probation officer, photographer, marketing manager and vice president of several companies.  He traveled to Peru twice and accumulated and sold numerous photographs of the Amazon and its indigenous people.  In 2011, he was elected a Member of the famed National Explorer's Club headquartered in New York city.  He is the second Victorite to gain membership in the exclusive Explorer's Club.  The first was Lowell Thomas. 
     Chuck recorded many of the experiences he had as a child in Victor in a 2011 book titled "Memories of a Wonderful Childhood in Victor, Colorado".  It can be obtained from the gift shop of the Victor~Lowell Thomas Museum or ordered online.   This memory of his mother, "Marguerite Clark -- One of Victor's Angels", (not included in his book) was submitted in February, 2016.​ 

THE PAST MATTERS.  PASS IT ALONG.
The Next Generation Will Only Inherit What We Choose to Save and Make Accessible.
​
Please Share Your Memories and Family Connections to Victor & the World's Greatest Gold Camp by

Contacting Victor Heritage Society, PO Box 424, Victor, CO 80860 or e-mail VictorHeritageSociety@gmail.com.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE MEMORIES AND STORIES OF FAMILY CONNECTIONS TO VICTOR & THE WORLD'S GREATEST GOLD CAMP
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