People

: Leta Cantonwine; Leta Cantonwine was valedictorian for Salida High School in 1942. Married Trigg Sousa, becoming Leta Sousa. Born in Salida Oct. 26, 1924 and died May 10, 2015 in Montgomery, Ala.

: Leta Lucile (Davidson) Atchison; She was born in in Champion, Nebraska to Champion Chase Davidson and Mable Elizabeth (Eskew) Davidson. She attended Champion Grade School, Alpha Rural High School, and Chase County High School, graduating in 1936. She graduated from Pratt’s Business College in 1939. She married Robert Atchison and they moved to Denver and then Grand Junction in 1945. She worked for the Daily Sentinel from 1945-1952, where she served as an assistant to Advertising Manager Al Look. She also served as the typist for some of Al Look’s book manuscripts. She later served as president of a branch of the American Association of Retired Persons. She was a member of the Eastern Star and the Area Agency on Aging. She left Grand Junction in 1952.

: Leta Ruth (Funk) Benson; She was born in Russell, Kansas to Bertha Luella (Brown) Funk and Carl Funk. Her father was a farmer and her mother a homemaker. US Census records show that the family had moved to a farm in West Cheyenne Wells, Colorado by 1920, when Ruth was ten years old. She graduated from the University of Colorado Normal School in Boulder, where she was involved in the Girl Reserve, Glee Club, Denver Chorus, Trio, Chimes of Normandy, Pinafore, Ermine, and the Quad Play. She came to Parachute (then called Grand Valley) to teach at the Granlee School in 1927. She married Charles E. Benson in Glenwood Springs on May 11, 1929, when she was twenty years old. She was a housewife who raised six children. The 1930 US Census shows them living with Charles’s family, with Charles a partner in his father’s dairy farm business. In 1940, Charles and Ruth lived on a farm with their four children near Grand Valley (the name of Parachute at the time). They sold their ranch to Union Oil in 1957 and moved into town. She died at the age of seventy-nine and is buried in Parachute’s Russey-Hurlburt Cemetery. *Photograph from 1927 University of Colorado Normal School yearbook

: Levi Allison Clark; Early 20th century Palisade fruit farmer. Son of James Allison Clark and Phoebe Jane Clark, Palisade homesteaders and fruit farmers who came to the Palisade area from southeastern Kansas when Levi was 11 years old. Sibling of Harry, James and Bertha Clark. *Photograph from the 1909 Palisade High School yearbook.

: Levi Parminter Morse; He first arrived in Grand Junction, Colorado in January 1905 when he was around ten years old. The family moved from Red Oaks, Iowa and briefly settled in town before moving to the Fruitvale area on what was then East Grand Avenue. He attended the Allen School in Fruitvale and then Grand Junction High School. He lived for a time on the Colorado plains, where he met his wife, Elizabeth June (Eaton) Morse, before returning to the Grand Valley in 1924. He was a farmer and helped build the Valley Creamery Association, where he worked for a number of years. He also became the chief chemist at the Colorado Sugar Manufacturing Company Factory.

: Lew Parcell; He was born in Centerville, Ohio to William and Nellie Parcell. He came to Telluride, Colorado in 1909, when he was 21 years old. There, he worked for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. He moved to Silverton in 1913 in order to work for the Western Colorado Power Company. He later ran a garage and a grocery store. He purchased the Grand Imperial Hotel in 1958 and ran it for five years. He married Elva Glanville of Silverton in 1914. He was the Democratic Party chairman for San Juan County for forty-four years.

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