People

: Katherine (Schlegel) Fuoco; She was born to David and Elizabeth Schlegel in Denhoff, Russia, a descendant of Germans who had settled in that area in the 1700’s, near the Volga River and the Ukraine. She learned the German language in school. Her family farmed sugar beets. According to the 1920 US Census, she immigrated with her family to the United States in 1912, when she was 8 years old. The family moved to Windsor, Colorado, where a cousin of her mother lived. David Schlegel worked for the Great Western Sugar Company there for four years. In 1917, the family worked to Idaho, where the family worked to clear a homestead of sage and rocks. They planted wheat, but the jack rabbits ate it. They planted potatoes, but the jack rabbits ate those too. The family moved to Delta, Utah and tried to raise sugar beets, but the land was too poor to raise a fruitful crop. Following the visit of a man who had been sent by the sugar beet industry to Utah to recruit the German sugar beet farmers there, the family moved to Loma, Colorado. The family farmed sugar beets in Loma. Following a dispute with the landlord, they moved to Fruita, where Katherine met James Fuoco, who worked in an auto repair shop. They were married in 1923 and moved to Grand Junction. Katherine was a homemaker who raised six children. She and Jim also owned rental properties. She was a member of the American Lutheran Church of Grand Junction. She volunteered with the Gray Ladies in St. Mary’s Hospital for 15 years and belonged to several other organizations, including the Grand Junction Women’s Club.

: Katherine Ayres

: Katherine C. Ketcham; Contributor to "In Our Own Write," (source: In Our Own Write: A Gunnison Valley Journal). Contributor to "Community/Common Unity: A Gunnison Valley Journal," (source: Community/Common Unity: A Gunnison Valley Journal)