People

: Velda Lorraine (Kelly) Bittle; She was born in Colorado to Calvin F. Kelly and Ida (Lasater) Kelly. Her father was a farmer. Her mother was a homemaker. US Census records from 1910 and 1920 indicate that she grew up on the Rhone Plateau in Mesa County, and in Missouri. She married Sterling Price Bittle in Grand Junction, Colorado on December 25, 1925. By 1930, the US Census shows them living in Loma, Colorado. They had two children. She was a homemaker and an active member of the Loma Presbyterian Church and the United Presbyterian Women.

: Velma E. (Borschell) Budin; Social worker, 4H participant, and early Twentieth century resident of Fruitvale, Colorado. She was born in Lincoln, Nebraska to William Henry Borschell and Edith Eliza (Jaynes) Borschell. US Census records indicate that the family had moved to the Fruitvale area of Mesa County, Colorado by at least 1910, when Velma was seven years old. There, they lived on and ran a fruit farm. She grew up helping her father in the orchards. She graduated from Fruitvale High School in 1921. She attended Colorado Agricultural College in Ft. Collins (now known as Colorado State University), where she studied Home Economics. While in college she belonged to Beta Phi Alpha, Alpha Phi Epsilon, the Philo Athenian Literary Society, the YWCA, and the Home Economics Club. In 1930, the US Census shows that she was rooming in a family’s home in Roswell, New Mexico, where she worked as an extension agent affiliated with the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts. She married Rudolph I. Budin in Grand Junction on April 2, 1933. The 1940 US Census shows them living with a hired hand in Logan, Colorado, where they farmed. They eventually returned to Mesa County. There, she was involved in the Mount Garfield Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She was also involved extensively in the Mesa County Oral History Project. *Photograph from the 1925 Colorado Agricultural College yearbook.

: Velma V. (Roe) Knight; She was born in Union City, Indiana to Frank Roe and Mattie (Cobleny) Roe. Her father was a teacher and her mother was a homemaker. Her father intended to move the family to Oregon, but was persuaded by a Grand Junction real estate agent to purchase a peach orchard in Palisade instead. US Census records show the family living in Palisade, Colorado by 1910, when Velma was fifteen. She attended high school at the Mt. Lincoln School, where her classmates included Wayne Aspinall. She went to the Michigan Agricultural College for school, where she met her husband Basil T. Knight. They married in Detroit in 1922. During her adult years she worked as a Home Economics teacher at Central High School in Grand Junction, Colorado. *Photo from 1922 Michigan Agricultural School yearbook.

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