People

: Ludwig William "Lud" Rettig; According to livestock auctioneer Howard Shults, Rettig ran the Modern Market on Main Street, and his Rettig Packing Company owned a slaughterhouse south of town in the early to mid-Twentieth century. While his business ventures were never very successful in Grand Junction, he later became involved in a lucrative deal with Mr. King, owner of King Soopers stores in Denver. He also began the Save-A-Nickel grocery store, presumably in Denver. According to Shults, he could butcher a cow in 18 minutes. While Al Look and Shults say Rettig was a Dutch immigrant, US Census records show that he was born in Colorado to German parents. The 1900 and 1910 US Censuses show Lud living with his parents Adam and Johanna and his siblings Gretchen and Adolph in the Allen area of Mesa County. It shows that Adam was also a butcher who owned his own slaughterhouse yard. His mother was a homemaker. He married Emma Grace Ireland on May 31, 1916. In 1920, the Census shows Rettig living at 1115 Grand Avenue with Grace and their daughter Evelyn. It lists Rettig's place of business as the Modern Market. The 1928 Grand Junction City Directory shows his place of business as the Rettig Packing and Provision Company. By 1940 the family had moved to 2046 Kearney Street in Denver. There, Rettig operated a meat market and grocery store. He continued in this business at least through 1950, when he was 48 years old. He died in Denver at the age of 81.

: Luella (Peart) McKee; She was born in Fairplay, Colorado and lived in Denver, Colorado before coming to Grand Junction, where she married William J. Peacock in 1907. Her parents were immigrants from England.

: Luella Frances (Muth) Morgan; She was born in Rifle, Colorado to Martin Muth, a farmer, and Edith Fredricka (Bahr) Muth, a homemaker. Her parents were both the children of German immigrants. When her uncle gave her the opportunity to work in the National Bank of Glenwood Springs at the age of fifteen, she took it, beginning in 1916 when she was fifteen years old (during a Women of Western Colorado Presentation in 1982, she recounted that she was ten years old at the beginning of her bank career). By a young age, she could write remittances, sort checks, and perform other basic bank duties. She moved to Palisade, Colorado in 1918 and worked with the Producers Exchange State Bank until 1922, before the bank bought out the holders of what became the Palisades National Bank. She worked as an assistant cashier, and later the cashier, at the Palisades National Bank for another 57 years. She married Eli Marrion “Boots” Morgan, a fruit farmer, in 1927. They lived at 111 West First Street in Palisade.