Catherine was born in Canon City in 1901. Her mother died when she was three and her father remarried. They moved to the Colorado Western Slope and lived on ranches in the Steamboat Springs and Craig areas. She talks about: cooking, caring for children, hauling water, play, rural schools, household chores, and transportation. After three years of high school she qualified for a second grade teaching certificate and taught at the Pagoda one-room school. She talks about the students and teaching experiences. She married her husband, Russell Coles, at age twenty-two. They spent their early married years on the Coles ranch in southeastern Moffat County and had five children. She talks about rural dances. Russell left the ranch and moved to Craig to become the County Treasurer, a post he held until retirement. She talks about the depression, Roosevelt's social programs, and World War II. Catharine died in 1994.
Oral histories were collected by Julie Jones-Eddy in 1983-1986. Permission forms were obtained at the time of interviews. This oral history collection of forty-seven interviews with women between the ages of sixty-five and ninety-five years of age is the result of a two year project begun in 1984. It was supported by a grant from the Colorado Endowment for the Humanities. In addition to the tape collection, the grant also funded the production of a videotape program which highlights selective portions from some of the interviews. "Women of Northwestern Colorado, 1890-1940: Glimpses of Our Lives" is available at Tutt Libray and other libraries around the state.The original files are housed in Special Collections, Tutt Library, Colorado College, R1000. Audio files: WAV and MP3 were processed from original cassette tapes using Soundforge; a Marantz 221 PMD cassette player/recorder. Settings recommended by the Colorado Digitization Project, Digital Audio Best Practices. Each tape is set at 96kHZ, 24 bits. Images: Scanned from photos and slides to JPEG. Text materials: Scanned to PDF and processed to PDF/A using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
Oral histories were collected by Julie Jones-Eddy in 1983-1986. Permission forms were obtained at the time of interviews. This oral history collection of forty-seven interviews with women between the ages of sixty-five and ninety-five years of age is the result of a two year project begun in 1984. It was supported by a grant from the Colorado Endowment for the Humanities. In addition to the tape collection, the grant also funded the production of a videotape program which highlights selective portions from some of the interviews. "Women of Northwestern Colorado, 1890-1940: Glimpses of Our Lives" is available at Tutt Libray and other libraries around the state.The original files are housed in Special Collections, Tutt Library, Colorado College, R1000. Audio files: WAV and MP3 were processed from original cassette tapes using Soundforge; a Marantz 221 PMD cassette player/recorder. Settings recommended by the Colorado Digitization Project, Digital Audio Best Practices. Each tape is set at 96kHZ, 24 bits. Images: Scanned from photos and slides to JPEG. Text materials: Scanned to PDF and processed to PDF/A using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
