The author\'s granddad Thomas Keown was a man of many sorrows.
Dad married Bernice Gage December 1, 1934 and took her to their Rico home near the Dolores County Courthouse..
The Great Depression had begun when Mom was the Peel School teacher with fifty-four students.
With belongings and six children in the back of an old truck, and camping along the road, they arrived at their desolate homestead on Halloween, 1923.
Doctors advised they move to an arid climate to save their youngest son from an early death from rheumatic fever.
With only a tenth grade education, he said he was elected because he could "hit the ball." Meanwhile, in Thayer, Missouri, the John Gage family with six children, prepared to leave for Dove Creek.
As an impoverished homesteader, then a miner, Dad was elected Dolores County Treasurer.
Games were played on the holy Sabbath.
For their devout Christian mother their path was unblessed.
In Blanca, Herald and his brother became passionate baseball players.
The town development failed and they moved on to homestead near Dove Creek, Colorado.
Having been prosperous he went broke in Kansas, and with his second wife Mary and sons, Herald and Urban, they joined 4,000 other holders of $150 land drawing certificates August 8, 1908 at the site of the new town-to-be of Blanca, in the San Luis Valley of Colorado.
His first wife died in childbirth and their daughter Sarah died young of diphtheria.
The author\'s granddad Thomas Keown was a man of many sorrows
