This promotional postcard for the Silver Dollar Cafe was used to attract and entertain customers with a humorous poem by Rufus Porter (The Hard Rock Poet) which celebrates the colorful history of the establishment. Vacant for many years, the building at 307 Victor Ave (also known as the Doyle Block) is now being renovated. Click on the "Preservation Successes" Page for details. Postcard from 1940s-1950s contributed by LaJean Greeson.
MEMORIES OF GROWING UP IN VICTOR, COLORADO WITH MY PARENTS--MAYME & CHARLES "BUMPS" CHAPMAN.
By Tom Schryver.
My family actually lived in many different houses in Victor from 1949 through 1964 until I graduated from CC-V. The first house I remember we lived in was down in the “gulch” southwest of town just below the “Roman Rocks”. Mom, Mayme Schryver, was raising we three younger kids (Joe, Judy, and me) who were still at home. She raised us by herself at the time, and worked as a cook for Ma Johnson at the Silver Dollar Cafe and took in laundry for the miners in order to make ends meet.
I had a brother who died in Cripple Creek at six months old back in 1936 (Terry), and three other older sisters--Betty, Carol, and Patsy who married and left home in their early teens. Our biological father had left Mom by herself to raise all six of us kids alone in 1946. She did it well! However, by ‘48 the government didn’t think mom was providing “well enough” and we three remaining “at home” kids were shipped to the Myron Stratton Home in Colorado Springs until she could prove that she was keeping good enough care for us. It took her almost three years to “get us back” - but she sure enough did! In 1951 mom traded the house in the gulch for one on 7th. Street, just up the hill. The man she traded houses with was a Mr. Jacobs. I think he owned a lot of property in Victor at the time. I’m not sure how long we lived there because I was only around five years old, but we weren’t on 7th Street very long.
By Tom Schryver.
My family actually lived in many different houses in Victor from 1949 through 1964 until I graduated from CC-V. The first house I remember we lived in was down in the “gulch” southwest of town just below the “Roman Rocks”. Mom, Mayme Schryver, was raising we three younger kids (Joe, Judy, and me) who were still at home. She raised us by herself at the time, and worked as a cook for Ma Johnson at the Silver Dollar Cafe and took in laundry for the miners in order to make ends meet.
I had a brother who died in Cripple Creek at six months old back in 1936 (Terry), and three other older sisters--Betty, Carol, and Patsy who married and left home in their early teens. Our biological father had left Mom by herself to raise all six of us kids alone in 1946. She did it well! However, by ‘48 the government didn’t think mom was providing “well enough” and we three remaining “at home” kids were shipped to the Myron Stratton Home in Colorado Springs until she could prove that she was keeping good enough care for us. It took her almost three years to “get us back” - but she sure enough did! In 1951 mom traded the house in the gulch for one on 7th. Street, just up the hill. The man she traded houses with was a Mr. Jacobs. I think he owned a lot of property in Victor at the time. I’m not sure how long we lived there because I was only around five years old, but we weren’t on 7th Street very long.
In 1954 my parents, Mayme and Charles "Bumps" Chapman, settled our family into the home at 408 Lee Ave where I grew up. In 1971 that home was purchased by Virgil and Kathleen Abbott (2013 photo). See Landmarks Page for a history of the home.
About the next thing I remember was that we kids had a new “dad.” His name was Charles Alva Chapman Jr. A big, big guy! If you didn’t know him, you’d be scared! His nick-name was “Bumps”! Years before he was working in a local mine and didn’t get out of the way quick enough when they blasted in a “stope”. The rocks and gravel hit him in his face, put out his right eye, and left little blue bumps from the imbedded particles. Bumps was a man’s man! Wore a size 15 ring, was as big as a heavy-weight wrestler, could easily lift hundreds of pounds, and scared everybody to death who first saw him -- and was the kindest man I’ve ever met! He’d never been married before and was very humble (a trait that has since gone extinct). Anyway, can you imagine that? A truly humble, kind, “man among men” marrying a woman with six kids! -- none of which were his! Sure enough, only three of us were living at home, but we were a mess! And Bumps volunteered - because he genuinely loved our mom. From the very beginning he called her “Mayme Bell”-- her first two names.
Bumps settled us in our next house on West Portland where we lived until 1954. Then we moved to 408 Lee Avenue. That’s where I spent most of my younger days until I graduated from Cripple Creek - Victor school. Lots of memories there!
Bumps settled us in our next house on West Portland where we lived until 1954. Then we moved to 408 Lee Avenue. That’s where I spent most of my younger days until I graduated from Cripple Creek - Victor school. Lots of memories there!
Our Lee Avenue house in 1954 was just across the alley (east) of Mac McClintick’s house which was originally built and lived in by the Wood’s Brothers of Victor back in 1894. Mr. McClintick, along with Eddie Seal were pharmacists at the Monarch Drug store. Boy! What a beautiful store that was! The old black and white marble tiles on the floor, everything spic-and-span, both pharmacists dressed in sparkle clean white frocks … they were true professionals! When I was about 8 or 9 I used to collect bugs and Mr. McClintick would sell me (cheaply) some formaldehyde to apply to the bugs to preserve them. It’s probably against the law to do that today!
When I was growing up, Mac McClintick's home was just across the alley at 410 Lee Ave. This home is now owned by Dan and Carol Delaney (2017 Photo).
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The Monarch Drug Store was operated by pharmacists Mac McClintick & Eddie Seal. Photo late 1940's / early 1950's contributed by LaJean Greeson.
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Mrs. Heinz, the school principal, lived in the house just across the street from us. As I remember, she was a tall, slim, nice looking older lady -- that everybody gave much respect! I was always on my best behavior when she was around! Maybe that’s one of the reasons she was the school principal!
The house behind hers, on 5th Street belonged to Bob Pedrie. He was the school janitor and was very well liked by everyone. He kept the Victor School in great shape! At noon everyday he’d hit “flies” to us future ball players to keep us in tune. A real nice guy.
The house behind hers, on 5th Street belonged to Bob Pedrie. He was the school janitor and was very well liked by everyone. He kept the Victor School in great shape! At noon everyday he’d hit “flies” to us future ball players to keep us in tune. A real nice guy.
John & Julia Hynes lived at 411 Lee Ave, across the street from our house (1951 Photo). See "This Old Victor House--Then & Now Photo Gallery" for history and current photo of the home.
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Mrs. Julia Hinze was the School Principal. Photo from 1950's contributed by Izana Hynes Davidson.
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Bob Pedrie, the School Janitor, lived at 324 S 5th St. See Landmark Page for history of this home now owned by Terri & Buzz Berry (2013 Photo).
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About once a month a man by the name of Virgil Wilkerson went to Florence to pick up a few tons of coal at the Twin Pines Mine and bring it to the school. I remember his truck backing up to dump the load in the coal chute in the school basement just below our home room. It made so much noise that the whole class would get to take a break because the teacher’s voice would be drowned out!
Bumps, “Pop” must have done pretty well financially in 1957. He and a fellow miner named Johnny Stause partnered in a lease on the 3100 foot level of the Ajax. They must have done pretty well that year because one night he came home with a brand new 1957 Chevy that he and mom had just purchased from the Salida Motor Company. Bumps would drive it for the next 20 years! Back then, the fellow that owned his own car was its’ best mechanic. I can’t remember how many times Pop would rebuild the carburetor on the kitchen table! I can still smell the gas fumes! As I recall, mom never complained.
Bumps, “Pop” must have done pretty well financially in 1957. He and a fellow miner named Johnny Stause partnered in a lease on the 3100 foot level of the Ajax. They must have done pretty well that year because one night he came home with a brand new 1957 Chevy that he and mom had just purchased from the Salida Motor Company. Bumps would drive it for the next 20 years! Back then, the fellow that owned his own car was its’ best mechanic. I can’t remember how many times Pop would rebuild the carburetor on the kitchen table! I can still smell the gas fumes! As I recall, mom never complained.
I remember the time when Lowell Thomas leased some buses to take the Victor residents to a movie venture he’d invested in. It was in a theatre in Denver called “Cinerama”. Movies were photographed with three separate cameras simultaneously. I believe the movie we saw was either “How The West Was Won” or “The Seven Wonders of the World” or something like that. Whatever it was I was completely thrilled to get to go! I remember most of Victor were standing in line across from the Victor Post Office waiting to get on the buses (I think three) that took us to the theater. When we got to Denver, I walked in to the theater, sat down somewhere towards the front, and lo and behold, Mr. Thomas came down and sat right beside me! I can’t remember what other big wigs were there, but I do know that I felt very privileged to have the well-known commentator and world traveler right next to me in that theater! He didn’t know me from Adam! Must have just been a regular guy!
Lowell Thomas (far left with old friends gathered at the Elks Lodge) grew up in Victor, graduated from Victor High School, and launched his journalism career at the Victor Record. After becoming a world famous globe trotting traveler and writer, he was best known as a radio / television news broadcaster (1962 Photo, from James Davidson).
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Lowell Thomas was the first radio news commentator to broadcast for both NBC and CBS. His broadcasting career lasted over 46 years. He was also the voice of Fox-Movietone newsreels and produced three Cinerama films. Thomas arranged for buses to take Victor residents to Denver for a viewing.
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Back then we lived differently than now. I liked it better! I was about 9 or 10 and every so often mom would give me fifty cents for a box of .22 bullets. I enjoyed hunting, and there were plenty of cottontails down by the Victor dump. All she’d say was “Tom, you better be back by dark.” I suppose most people today would be “shocked” that a mom would allow such a thing! To let a child of nine go hunting by himself. Well, things change. It may seem risky today -- even against the law -- but you can have the present! I’ll take the way things were done in the past. I can very confidently say that there’s never been a better, kinder, more protective mother than mine. Be careful not to judge too quickly. I’m still here … 72 years old and alive.
Ivan and Gertrude Harshberger operated Harshies Corner Drug & Variety Store for over 44 years. In those days people said, "If you couldn't find it at Harshies, you didn't need it anyway." In recent times the building has been known as the Fortune Club (2013 Photo).
About the same time when I was around 9 or so, Pop came home with a pogo stick he’d gotten somewhere for me. It was a big old thing and after a few significant crashes I began to get the hang of it! Our house on Lee Avenue is about 6 or 7 blocks from Harshburger’s Drug Store up on Victor Avenue & 3rd and it’s all up hill! But one day I decided I’d see if I could “pogo” all the way up there without stopping. I took off bouncing up and down to 4th Street, continued until I got to Spicer, then turned left to the steep hill of 3rd Street. Now 3rd Street is the steepest and longest street in Victor. When I got to 3rd, I bounced to the left and started my pogo ascent! It was so steep I had to lean forward so much that the stick lost a lot of traction and cut my jumps down to about 4 or 5 inches per jump and slowed me down. It probably took twenty minutes to get up to Portland Street, just a block below Harshies. I was sweatin’ barrels by the time I made it to the store, but I did make it. If “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” would have been there I guess I’d be famous. Oh well!
Victor School House (Photo contributed by LaJean Greeson)
I used to run around with Marvin Wing, Dennis Carter, Bobby Shepherd, and Jim Bielz. Not all at the same time (maybe that was a good thing!) Once, Dennis, Marvin, and me rode our bikes to the grade school. We used to park them in an old dilapidated garage by the band room while we were in class. My bike was an old one that Pop bought me and I’d painted it with some green paint I’d found somewhere. It didn’t have any fenders on it, and it looked a little bad, but I sure was proud of it. Dennis and Marvin had newer fancier bikes than I did, but I’d rather have mine! One afternoon when school was out, I went down to get my bike and Dennis and Marvin had already gotten theirs and went home. When I got to the old garage and went to get on my bike I smelled something really bad! It didn’t take long for me to find out that those two “buddies” of mine had urinated all over my bike! Boy, was I mad! I don’t remember now, but I probably got even with them somehow.
Well, I’ve got lots of stories that happened in the next 8 or 9 years when I finally graduated from CC-V High in 1964. It’d take a lot of paper to write them down and I’m probably the only one left that would find them very interesting. So I’ll call it quits for now.
Well, I’ve got lots of stories that happened in the next 8 or 9 years when I finally graduated from CC-V High in 1964. It’d take a lot of paper to write them down and I’m probably the only one left that would find them very interesting. So I’ll call it quits for now.
When Tom left Victor, he usually came bouncing back--almost like riding his pogo stick to Harshies.
MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR--TOM SCHRYVER
After graduating from Cripple Creek & Victor High School in 1964 I joined the US Air Force. I was first sent to the Philippines and then to Altus, Oklahoma where I met my wife, Gwen. After discharge from the Air Force in 1968, we came to Victor and rented Mr. McClintick's house on Lee Avenue for a year or so. While we loved living right across the alley from the house where I grew up, the company I was working for (Dr. Scholl's of Chicago) felt I needed to live closer to Colorado Springs to be nearer to my sales calls—so we moved there.
But Victor was still calling me home, so we bought the old Townsite of Lawrence from Mr. Bradley and left Dr. Scholl's. Now I knew Lawrence pretty well as a youngster because it was in my hunting area as a kid. Once while hunting there in my youth, I met Mrs. Lewis (as a young hooligan I called her "Old Lady Lewis”). She'd been the wife of the man who had a dairy there in the early 1900's after Lawrence lost out to Victor for convenience to the mines. She caught me out by one of the barns and scared the tar out of me! To my surprise, however, she was a wonderful lady and invited me in for a lunch of fried 'tators and dandilion stems! She told me she was a Seventh Day Adventist and held her services in one of the caves on the road from Victor.
When we bought Lawrence, we lived in Mrs. Lewis' old house. Gwen and my daughter Lori and I fixed it up some. Since there was no city water, I got a couple of old electric poles and set a 350 gallon tank on them above the house so we'd have gravity-fed water inside. I was working for a construction company at the time as a water truck driver and filled the elevated water tank occasionally. We lived without the comfort of electricity for 2 ½ years but enjoyed having chickens, cows, a couple of horses, pigs, turkeys, and a great garden watered by the "gray" water from the house! We all really loved living at Lawrence, but because of its "shantiness" none of our parents were impressed!
To the West of us lived Shorty Bielz and his family! They're still there today! Shorty was a teacher and sometimes my daughter would meet him on the road and he'd give Lori a lift to the school—especially when there was snow on the ground! After we got the opportunity to sell Lawrence at a good profit, we leased Phantom Canyon Ranch (about 5 miles south of Victor) and lived there for a couple of years.
After graduating from Cripple Creek & Victor High School in 1964 I joined the US Air Force. I was first sent to the Philippines and then to Altus, Oklahoma where I met my wife, Gwen. After discharge from the Air Force in 1968, we came to Victor and rented Mr. McClintick's house on Lee Avenue for a year or so. While we loved living right across the alley from the house where I grew up, the company I was working for (Dr. Scholl's of Chicago) felt I needed to live closer to Colorado Springs to be nearer to my sales calls—so we moved there.
But Victor was still calling me home, so we bought the old Townsite of Lawrence from Mr. Bradley and left Dr. Scholl's. Now I knew Lawrence pretty well as a youngster because it was in my hunting area as a kid. Once while hunting there in my youth, I met Mrs. Lewis (as a young hooligan I called her "Old Lady Lewis”). She'd been the wife of the man who had a dairy there in the early 1900's after Lawrence lost out to Victor for convenience to the mines. She caught me out by one of the barns and scared the tar out of me! To my surprise, however, she was a wonderful lady and invited me in for a lunch of fried 'tators and dandilion stems! She told me she was a Seventh Day Adventist and held her services in one of the caves on the road from Victor.
When we bought Lawrence, we lived in Mrs. Lewis' old house. Gwen and my daughter Lori and I fixed it up some. Since there was no city water, I got a couple of old electric poles and set a 350 gallon tank on them above the house so we'd have gravity-fed water inside. I was working for a construction company at the time as a water truck driver and filled the elevated water tank occasionally. We lived without the comfort of electricity for 2 ½ years but enjoyed having chickens, cows, a couple of horses, pigs, turkeys, and a great garden watered by the "gray" water from the house! We all really loved living at Lawrence, but because of its "shantiness" none of our parents were impressed!
To the West of us lived Shorty Bielz and his family! They're still there today! Shorty was a teacher and sometimes my daughter would meet him on the road and he'd give Lori a lift to the school—especially when there was snow on the ground! After we got the opportunity to sell Lawrence at a good profit, we leased Phantom Canyon Ranch (about 5 miles south of Victor) and lived there for a couple of years.
Eventually we felt led to enroll at Arlington Bible College in Texas. We moved down there until I transferred to Denver Baptist College. Later I worked as a Music Minister in Denver and Colorado Springs for a couple of years, and then moved again to the District where I was the music minister for Pastor Jim Royal at Cripple Creek Baptist Church. During that time I also worked as a Crusher Operator at the Mill between Cripple Creek and Victor.
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Since then I've pastored a few churches in the area around Canon City (where we live now). The last church I pastored was the 4-Mile Church (west of Cripple Creek) for seven years. In the last few years I've written and published a few poems in national anthology works and a Bible study workbook, Scriptures in Verse (Crossbooks, 2013), and most recently, Thy Kingdom Come (Westbow Press, 2015).
Submitted by Tom Schryver, December 2017 |
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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.
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.