People

: Ann (Reese) Stokes; She was born to Thomas Y. Reese and Elizabeth Williams Reese in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Her father and mother were both immigrants from Wales. They came to Palisade, Colorado in the Winter of 1904, when she was eight years old. Her father had black lung from coal mining and was advised to move to the West for his health. The family settled on a homestead on East Orchard Mesa. She attended school through the ninth grade at the Palisade School, and walked for miles along cow trails from the family’s farm in East Orchard Mesa to get there. After proving up the land, the family bought a smaller orchard and a home in Palisade. After finishing school, she worked for the McNeal family, owners of Cameo, in nursing Mrs. McNeal back to health. After her father passed away from Black Lung, her mother took up her nursing career again, and Ann was often left alone with her sister. She married William Dewar Stokes of Coal Creek, Colorado on April 21, 1917. William was a coal yard operator and coal miner whose family owned the Stokes Coal Mine in Palisade. She raised William’s child from a previous marriage as her own and also a daughter adopted in Denver. She was her mother’s caretaker for 22 years. She taught vocal music at Palisade schools. She sang solos at church and hymns at the Palisade First Baptist Church, which she attended for 75 years. She died at the age of 89.

: Ann Bassett; An associate of Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch who lived in the Brown's Park area. *Public domain photo of Ann Bassett, taken around 1905

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