People
Collection for person entities.
Pages
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- Giovanni "John" Mancuso
- He was born in Cosenza, Italy and came to Grand Junction, Colorado with his wife and children in 1909, when he was 25 years old. He worked for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad.
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- Giovanni Battista "John" "Bonny" Bonforte
- He was born in Brooklyn, New York to Paolo “Paul” Bonforte and Mattia “Mary” Bonforte, both immigrants from Sicily, Italy. He attended New Utrecht High School there, and then went to New York University, completing his B.S. in Aeronautics. On January 5, 1918, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. His application for an appointment at West Point was rejected. He was assigned instead to a medical corps that served in the Vosges Mountains in France on the German border. He later served in Germany and Poland. He was an engineer working in the construction field, his lifelong career, although he did spend two years selling securities. Those two years corresponded with his brief stay in Grand Junction, from 1937 to 1939. While in Grand Junction, he joined the Last Squad Club, a group of World War I veterans. He again served in the U.S. Army during World War II, this time in the Aleutian Islands. During his service from January 3, 1941 to November 20, 1945, he attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Bonforte also wrote two books on the Greek thinker Epictetus: The Philosophy of Epictetus (1955), and Epictetus: A Dialogue in Common Sense (1974). Both books were published by Philosophical Library, and are still read today. He married Mary Louise Gamble on March 28, 1982. Together they had two children. He was a member of the Rotary Club, Lions Club, the A.F.A. Officers Association, and the director of the National Association of Home Builders. The most vivid memory he could recall was "standing under a 6-inch gun aboard the Northern Pacific in March 1918 while it was firing at a German submarine."
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- Giuseppe "Joseph" Pepe
- An Italian immigrant and farmer who settled in the Loma and Fruita areas in the early Twentieth century. He came in 1885 as a railroad worker for D&RG, replacing the narrow gauge line with a broader one. He then purchased land, built homes, and returned to Italy to meet and marry Angelina Pepe, a woman from the village of Vailo, in an arranged marriage. He returned with her to Mesa County in 1904.
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- Giuseppe S. "Joseph" Chiaro
- An immigrant from Italy who came to the United States in 1908. He settled in the Pomona area of Mesa County, Colorado, on a truck farm with bottomland in the Colorado River. He wrote back to Italy asking for a mail-order bride. Rosina “Rose” Paola arrived in June 1913, and they were married on July 20, 1913. Together they had nine children. After picking and washing produce, he and his children sold it out of a truck in areas around Grand Junction. His son and Mesa County Oral History Project interviewee Frank Chiaro recalls that Joseph would often park in alleyways, and women would come out and buy vegetables directly off of the truck, with as many as eight or nine crowded around the truck at a time.
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- Gizmo the Dog
- Gizmo is a Jack Russell Terrier owned by Matthew Enochs, given to Matt on his 50th birthday by managers at the Old Town Hot Springs. Gizmo accompanied Matt to work everyday at his job as Facilities Director at the iconic downtown Steamboat Springs hot springs.
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- Gladys (Bradley) Earnest
- She was born in Malvern, Iowa to Arthur Bradley, a farmer, and Nellie (Warfield) Bradley, a homemaker. She graduated from Malvern High School and then attended Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, where she received her B.A. She first came to Colorado in 1929, when she was 34 years old. She was employed as the home demonstration agent (later known as an extension home economist) in Garfield and Mesa Counties for five years, and worked an additional three years as the agent for Ft. Collins. Employed by the US Department of Agriculture, these agents helped rural people with personal, social and community development. In Garfield County, she worked primarily with the Homemakers Club, and in Mesa County with 4-H clubs. Her work during the Great Depression included extension service training in soap-making, canning, gardening, clothing, and home furnishings. She married Chester Earnest in Denver on May 18, 1937. Following her marriage, she kept the books for his construction business.
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- Gladys (Penberthy) Carnahan
- She was born in Clear Lake, South Dakota and moved to Grand Junction, Colorado with her parents in 1902, when she was six years old. She grew up in a home constructed by her father at 516 Chipeta Avenue. At the time, they lived next to an orchard, which separated them from their neighbor, Doctor Edward Eldridge. When she was younger, she had fond memories of her father taking her to First Fruitridge to see the orchards and pick apples. She attended the Lowell School and other local schools. After graduating from high school in 1914, she attended both the University of Oregon and Western State College, graduating with a B.S. from Oregon. She then completed her Master’s degree at Columbia University. Gladys taught for a long while in the Mesa County area and worked in the Riverside School, among others. During World War I, she was courted by Joseph Carnahan, who was serving in France in the U.S. Army. They were married on October 27, 1920. According to Gladys, his experience in World War I caused him to become mentally ill. Although her husband was a bookkeeper for stores, he was unable to work, and she had to support the family as a teacher. Together they had one daughter. They divorced on May 20, 1931. She was a member of the First United Methodist Church.