People
Collection for person entities.
Pages
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- Marian Fletcher
- An employee of Walter Walker who worked for The Daily Sentinel newspaper.
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- Marian Melville
- Though he grew up in Massachusetts and graduated from Dartmouth with a degree in physics, Ralph Melville always wanted a ski lodge. A friend, Olympic Ski Teamer Brookie Dodge, encouraged Melville to consider Aspen. And so he did, to ski bum, in the winter of 1951. “I thought the place was overbuilt,” Melville says today. “Lodges had been built for the FIS race in 1950, but now they were all empty.” Melville wanted to stay and ski, so he got a job working at the soda fountain in Matthews Drug (now Carl’s Pharmacy) and at the Sundeck. The latter assured him a ski pass. Melville headed back to Massachusetts to learn to be a builder but returned to Aspen in the winter of 1953. He promptly broke his leg skiing, which gave him ample time to ponder his ski-lodge dream. He considered purchasing the seven lots where the St. Regis sits today, but the $4,500 price was out of reach. His opportunity came through Edna Salisbury, who owned two lots on the corner of Durant and Mill. Melville bought them for $2,000 and began building the Mountain Chalet in 1954. He opened the lodge for Christmas 1954 with three usable rooms. By the end of winter the lodge had expanded to nine. Marian Melville (née Headley) came to Aspen, at friend Dottie Kelleher’s recommendation, to ski bum for the winter of 1955-1956. A whirlwind courtship with Ralph ensued. They met in June of 1956 and married that August in Marian’s hometown of Pittsburgh. Back in Aspen, the inn-keeping couple oversaw additions to the lodge at a steady pace. 1958 to 1963 witnessed expansions in every direction: basements, wings and floors were all tacked on. Through the years, adjoining lots were purchased, until there were five in all, to accommodate the chalet’s rambling enlargement. The Melvilles created a hubbub in 1966 (some things never change) when they secured a permit to expand to eight-stories (though they never went that high). They built the swimming pool in 1972. Rooms were continually upgraded, bringing more private baths. Explains Ralph, “The early ski bums weren’t fussy. They just wanted a room to crash in after a day of skiing. But then things changed; our rooms kept becoming nicer.” The Ritz-Carlton (now the St. Regis) began construction just above the Mountain Chalet in 1989—on the same seven lots Ralph had eyed back in 1953. Mohammed Hadid, who was building the Ritz, tried to buy Ralph out but he wouldn’t sell. With his impish grin, he remembers he thought about waiting until the Ritz was about to open and then renaming the Mountain Chalet “Main Entrance.” From 1989 to 1990, Ralph built another major addition—a conference room, an exercise room and parking. In 2002 and 2003, the Melvilles added the fourth and fifth floors. As the lodge grew over the years, so did the Melville family. There are six Melville children: Julie, Frank, Nancy, Susan, Karen and Craig, and two adopted children, Riley Pond and Kai Ginter. For years the family lived in the lodge. “The lobby was the children’s living room,” says Marian. “They started helping as soon as they could. They loved the switchboard.” Craig says he started working in the lodge when he was 11 or 12. “I’d sit at the desk in summer, answering the phone,” he recalls. “It’s all we knew.” The Melville brood has assumed increasing responsibility at the lodge. Susan ran it for 12 years; Craig is now the manager, with his wife Teresa helping—though Ralph is usually around to help keep the mechanical stuff going. Today, the Mountain Chalet stands as a testament to what’s increasingly becoming an anomaly in Aspen: the classic ski lodge. A rambling five floors with 59 rooms, including four apartments, across the five lots, it boasts one of the best locations in Aspen—right at the bottom of Aspen Mountain facing Wagner Park. On an exterior corner of the building, there is a painting of a couple dancing. And for the past several years, Rosemary Ranck has been painting flowers and vines on all the walls, giving the Mountain Chalet a European flair. Breakfast is served to guests every morning. The two lobbies are relaxed, with big wood-burning fireplaces. There is always coffee. Every Monday, there’s a gluhwein après-ski party for guests. “It’s been a wonderful 54 years with the lodge.” says Marian, who, along with Ralph, thinks they may be the oldest lodge in Aspen with original owners. “But it’s also wonderful having the kids take over,” says Ralph. Wonderful for the Melvilles, but even more so for Aspen. — Aspen Sojourner, Photo: aspenspin.com
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- Marie (Becker) Young
- An early settler of Mesa County, fruit farmer, and ranch homemaker. Marie was born in Central City, Colorado, and moved to the Western slope when her father decided to raise fruit in the area. The family moved to Orchard Mesa in 1903 when Marie was nine years old. Her father was a German immigrant, and Marie and her family were subjected to discrimination during the period from World I to World War II. She was married in Moab, Utah, to Lew Young, and after living there for four years, moved to Fruita in 1928. She was a homemaker on a ranch and spent busy days taking care of her children, cooking and cleaning for the cowboys, and doing chores around the house. The family alternated time between their home in Fruita and rangelands on the Bookcliffs. She was a member of the Colorado Cow Belles and an organizer and president of the Frontier Belles.
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- Marie (Dunston) Bittle
- She was born to Henry A. Dunston and Ella May (Ruger) Dunston in Kansas. Her father was a farmer and her mother was a homemaker. The 1920 US Census shows the family living on their own farm in Weld County, Colorado, when Marie was 12 years old. The family homesteaded in Cisco, Utah in 1923. They bought a home in Loma, Colorado at that time. She married Henry Trollie Bittle of Loma on November 19, 1924. US Census records show that he was a laborer for the US Department of Reclamation and a janitor. In 1942, they purchased what had been a resettlement home for people fleeing the dustbowl. There, they ran a dairy farm for seventeen years. She was the sister-in-law of oral history interviewee Sterling Bittle.
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- Marie (Geier) Spomer
- She was born in a German community in Nicoliaska, Russia. Her father, John Geier, was a blacksmith. Her mother, Katherin Elisabath Zitterkopf, was a homemaker. She lived in Russia until the family moved to the United States in 1912, when she was twelve years old, and rented a home in Lincoln, Nebraska. She left school at age 16 to work; her jobs included those at a dime store, a cigar factory, and multiple sugar beet fields. She met her husband while working on a farm and they moved to Grand Junction, Colorado with several other Germans from Russia to partake in the abundance of beet farming with several other farm families. US Census records show them living in the Pomona area of Mesa County by 1930. While the other families they moved with left Grand Junction, the Spomers stayed and raised their children there. Marie liked to crochet and knit. As a child in Lincoln she attended the Lutheran Church, with masses in High German.
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- Marie (Pate) Edwards Marshall
- She was born in Leadville, Colorado to Austrian immigrants Jake Pate and Mary (Truk) Pate. Her father was a farmer. According to U.S. Census Records, she was living with her parents in Cortez by 1910. She married George Marshall in Chaffee County on December 12, 1917. During World War II, she and her husband worked in Camp Hale, the training facility for the 10th Mountain Division, where she cooked for the women telephone operators. At the end of the war she moved to Red Cliff where she worked in a restaurant for one year. She later worked in the tailoring shop in Ft. Carson, Colorado.
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- Marie (Werner) Drew
- Early Twentieth century resident of the Grand Valley. She moved with her husband Alston P. Drew from New England in 1902. Was active in St. Matthew's Episcopal Church.
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- Marie (de Lavillette) de Beque
- A French woman who married Dr. W.A.E de Beque in 1911 in De Beque, Colorado. They met in Mexico City where W.A.E worked as an investigator for the New York Life Insurance Company. She came from a "cultured" background, and had grown up with servants and many amenities. She was shocked by the lack of electric lights and plumbing in De Beque, and had never done housework prior to her move to Colorado. One humorous story included her cooking a chicken whole without bothering to remove or the entrails.