People

: Ernie Winston; Carpenter who helped build the Ziegel addition to the Plateau Valley Hospital in the 1930's.

: Ervin Merle Ormsbee; He was born in Nebraska to Joseph H. Ormsbee and Edith (Hockett) Ormsbee. His father was a farmer and his mother was a homemaker. US Census records show that the family was living in the Allen area of Mesa County by at least 1910, when Ervin was twelve (the Allen area was between D and E Roads near the current 29 ½ Road, in what is now considered Fruitvale). There the family farmed fruit. Ervin worked on the family farm. He married Esther Brown on August 31, 1917. The 1920 US Census shows them living along the Midland Trail in Fruitvale, where they farmed. By 1940, they had moved to Orchard Mesa along 32 Road, where they raised turkeys. From 1918, Ervin farmed but worked primarily as a carpenter.

: Esma (Eddleman) Lewis; A country school teacher from Dongola, Illinois. She left Illinois at age 19 to teach in Colorado, and continued to teach in Garfield County for sixty years. She first taught at a school on the mouth of Divide Creek near Silt, Colorado. In the Country School Legacy on the Western Slope of Colorado project directed by Dr. Andrew Gulliford, Esma recalls how she was contracted only until Christmas. “…all the parents felt bad because school was going to be out, but they didn’t have any more money.” She bargained with them, accepting $5 per child to teach for six more weeks. She later taught at a school near Mamm Creek. She married Claude Lewis and they had an adopted daughter named Florence.

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