People

: Fannie Ruth (Gordon) Susman; She was born in Denver, Colorado and grew up as part of a large Jewish population in West Denver. Her parents were Jews from Russia who immigrated to the United States and then to Denver in 1898. Her father, Eli Gordon, was a building contractor. Her mother was Carrie Gordon. Fannie did her schooling in Denver (including the BMH Sunday School). Her parents died while she was still young, and she moved to Trinidad to live with an older sister. She subsequently lived in New York for a few years and then moved back to Denver. There she married Rudy Susman on June 9, 1925. She and Rudy moved to Durango, CO in 1925 and joined Gordon Stores, a line of stores founded by her brother Ben Gordon. She was on a buying trip to New York for the store when the banks closed due to the Great Depression and she was temporarily trapped there and unable to cash a check. The Susmans moved to Grand Junction in 1938 to operate that branch of Gordon’s. She and her husband purchased the Grand Junction branch and operated it privately until 1965, when then they sold it to Kaufman’s of Wilmington.

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