Bios  Gustafson - Lola, Eagle County, Colorado

Contributed  October 11, 1999
By Jean Winthers


From the Vail Daily's Locals Corner on 16 August 1999,
by Jean Winthers 
(Used with permission)


Lola Lucille Pallister Gustafson lives in the little white house on 
Minturn's Main Street that she and her husband, William Albert, bought 
57 years ago and remodeled. Gustafson's son, Albert Duane, and his 
family live nearby. The Gustafson and Pallister families were among 
those early ranching pioneers whose names are interwoven into the 
history of the county.

Gustafson's father, Thomas Pallister, came as a young boy from England 
with his parents and grandparents to a homestead up Lake Creek in the 
early 1900's. Gustafson's mother was from Mitchell, Colorado. Gustafson 
was born on the homestead in 1920, one of 13 children, 10 of whom lived 
to adulthood. 

"Our house was just about where the caretaker's house is now, at the 
entrance to Pilgrim Downs," Gustafson said. "Except for the second and 
fifth grades, when I went to the Wolcott school and stayed with my 
sister, I attended the Edwards School. The school used to be painted 
white, and it sat where the Lutheran Church is now. They had a big barn 
for the kids who had horses, and a hay shed."

Gustafson and her brothers and sisters grew up during the depression. 
"It was hard," Gustafson said. "We kids didn't have much. I never had a 
doll. I won one at a carnival once, but I had to give it to my sister."
After graduating from grade school, and following the death of her 
mother, Gustafson went to live with a sister in Cripple Creek, who 
promised to send her to high school. 

"But there wasn't any money for that, so I never went to high school," 
Gustafson said matter-of-factly.

Instead, she came home to Lake Creek and at the age of 17 went to work 
at the Holland ranch in Lake Creek, keeping house and cooking for 
Blanche Holland. She worked there for four years.

Gustafson met her husband, William Albert Gustafson, at a Labor Day 
Dance in Wolcott. She dated him for five years and they were married 
March 2, 1942, at the Community Church in Manitou Springs.

"We didn't have much to entertain ourselves in those days," Gustafson 
said. "But there were a lot of dances. There was a dance hall above the 
garage at Wolcott and at Edwards there were several places where they 
held dances."

William Albert (called Albert by his family) also came from a pioneer 
family. The Gustafson ranch, where his parents, G.W. and Hilma lived, 
is now part of Eagle-Vail, and William Albert worked on the ranch 
helping his parents while the couple were dating. 

"After we married, Albert borrowed $100 for a downpayment and bought 
this little house, and we moved in here. We've been here ever since," 
Gustafson said.

The couple went to work fixing up the house, which was sitting on the 
back of the lot and needed a foundation and a lot of repairs. There was 
no money for the cement needed, so the couple put their ingenuity to 
work and literally swept it up.

"Camp Hale shipped in cement in boxcars for their buildings," Gustafson 
said. "At night, when the cars came down to Minturn station, Albert and 
I would sweep them out and put the cement into sacks. They just shipped 
it loose and didn't clean the cars out very good, so we did it. There 
was a railroad detective around one night, and we were afraid he was 
going to arrest us for messing around with the cars, but he got a broom 
and helped us. We got 11 sacks that night. I was pregnant at the time 
too."

With the swept-up cement, they poured their own foundation closer to 
the front of the lot, mixing the cement, gravel and water in a hand 
mixer. Then they moved the house onto it. Albert added two bedrooms and 
remodeled the interior.

"Albert would tell me what to tear out each day, and I would do it. 
Then he would work on it at night," Gustafson said.

The Gustafsons eventually bought a motel in the middle of town, adding 
other rental houses through the years.

"Albert worked and I took care of the motel. It had 11 units, like 
little apartments, and we rented them by the month," Gustafson said. 
"We had it for 21 years then we sold it when Albert got sick."

Albert worked at the Gilman mine doing carpentry work, and later on the 
railroad, firing the coal-driven engines. He died in 1988 at age 75.
The couple had three children. A baby girl, Darlene, died of 
streptococcus meningitis in infancy. Gustafson's oldest son, Albert 
Duane, lives in Minturn, and a younger son, Kenneth, died of cancer. 

Gustafson enjoys visits from her family, which includes two 
granddaughters and two grandsons, and her many friends. She helps out 
at the Minturn Senior Citizen center each Wednesday and Thursday, 
cooking and setting the table. At 79, she is in "pretty good health," 
able to drive wherever she wants to go.

Gustafson also reads "lots of magazines, and the daily papers," sews 
and embroiders, but said she has "slowed down on some of that."

"I used to make a lot of aprons, but they don't wear aprons anymore, so 
I don't make them," she said. "I also collected cookie recipes, but I 
have a lot of those too."

She has seen a lot of changes in her neck of the valley. "There used to 
be a theater here in Minturn, a drug store, and a grocery store." 
Gustafson said. "Now they've all moved out and I have to shop in Avon. 
But I've lived in this house a long time, so I 'll just stay here." 

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