The Kona Kai Oasis

At two different times, Lou and Leona lived in the Kona Kai Apartments in Pueblo.  It was everybody's favorite!  Dad's thoughts about the Kona Kai:

Kona Kai indoor tropics

In July 1984 we were living in the Kona Kai Apartments.  We had lived here before, and really liked it.  We had an apartment on the second floor overlooking the swimming pool, and we really needed a place where we could get lots of exercise as it had just been a year since I had my first heart attack.  It also had an area around the inside where we could walk in bad weather.  

We had a balcony which I used for my desk and work area for writing and working on my pictures! 

X marks the spot of the Butler apartment

The inside atrium was very pretty with banana trees and lots of flowers and shrubs with the walking path around and through the area.  It also had several gas grills where we could prepare meals and entertain.

The pool in the middle of a tropical paradise

It also had a 9 hole putting area which was fun, and the grandchildren really liked it.

Mark and Nate "golfing" - June, 1984

We loved to get up early in the morning and go for a swim.  We also loved to swim with our children and grandchildren and friends.  The water was always warm and clean.

Kona Kai pool - arrow indicates Butlers' apartment

Pool view from the balcony

 Since we also had our trailer parked in the parking lot, we could use it for an extra bedroom for a visiting family if we needed it.  The rent was reasonable, and the caretakers took really good care of the place.

The outside of the building doesn't give any indication of what's inside

We love living at the Kona Kai!

What do you grandchildren remember about visiting Grandma and Grandpa at the Kona Kai?

This is a Cemetery

This is a Cemetery

 Author unknown

Della & Harker Davis - Lou's grandparents

Lives are commemorated ... deaths are recorded ... families are reunited ... memories are made tangible ... and love is undisguised. This is a cemetery.

 Back of grave of Charles Lee Butler - Lou's brother

 Communities accord respect, families bestow reverence, historians seek information and our heritage is thereby enriched.

 Etta Lorene Carpenter - Leona's mother

Testimonies of devotion, pride and remembrance are carved in stone to pay warm tribute to accomplishments and to the life -- not death -- of a loved one.

 Don and Leona at grave of Ream Carpenter - Leona's father

The cemetery is homeland for family memorials that are a sustaining source of comfort to the living.

 Mable & Jess Butler - Lou's parents

 Charlotte Carpenter Butler & Charles Butler

Leona's sister - Lou's brother

A cemetery is a history of people -- a perpetual record of yesterday and a sanctuary of peace and quiet today. A cemetery exists because every life is worth loving and remembering -- always.

Mountain View Cemetery

Pueblo, Colorado

Pueblo's Melting Pot

For many years, Dad was the principal at Bessemer Elementary School - the neighborhood school that has been referred to as Pueblo's historic melting pot.  Today the school is called Bessemer Academy, and most of the traditional red brick structure dates back to the 1930s when the current Bessemer school building was built.

Steel Plant

Established in the late 1800s, Bessemer was an independent town south of Pueblo, built in proximity to the Colorado Coal and Iron Company, and took its name from Henry Bessemer, the Englishman who invented the process for converting pig iron into steel.  The steel plant later became Colorado Fuel and Iron - CF&I - and was a major employer in Pueblo for many years.  The school was founded in 1881 to serve the growing number of steel-worker families, mostly immigrants from Italy, Slovenia, Germany, Ireland, Spain and other European countries.

Bessemer neighborhood today

Historian George R. Williams wrote that at the turn of the century, Bessemer was a lively place, with boarding houses for smelter and steel mill workers, grocery stores, clothing stores, little ethnic neighborhoods. A main thoroughfare [just two blocks south of the school], Northern Avenue, was the first asphalt-paved street in Pueblo and "CF&I was the big dog. It was a very prosperous area." 

Bessemer School

Bessemer Academy - September 2009

In 1880 the community residents asked the school district to provide a school for their area, and the next year ground was broken for the school that would share the name of the community.  Miss Maggie Schackleton was named the first teacher at Bessemer School.

 According to an historical account published in 1949 in The Pueblo Chieftain (newspaper), the building was expanded in 1893. It was expanded again in the 1920s, but by 1930 the building was believed to be unsafe, and after several failed attempts to pass a bond issue and then find a contractor acceptable to the community, the current two-story building was constructed.

Don walking down memory lane

Window at the lower level

Interesting brick work

 Left side is the gym - scene of Dad's famous "slam dunk"

1125 Routt Avenue

historical information found here and here