Saguache County CO Archives Biographies.....Lawley, Charles Edwin September 17, 1874 - ?
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Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net March 8, 2006, 3:43 pm

Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado

     While fate seems at times arbitrary and unreasonable in her gifts both of

endowment and opportunity, bestowing on some every form of bounty and opening

the way to the fullest use of her award in profit or pleasure or both, and

giving to others nothing but a necessity to strive and struggle, she at the same

time balances her favors in a measure, and where she places the sharp spur, she

usually accompanies it with the power in him who feels it to respond, and this

in turn produces greater potency for further effort.  If the heart be right and

the spirit courageous, poverty, difficulty and danger do not restrain, but the

very obstructions stimulate and in the sane and healthful atmosphere of

utilitarian labor, commands circumstances to service rather than cringes and

cowers before them.  This fact is admirably illustrated in the life and work of

Charles Edwin Lawley, of Saguache county, this state, residing on his ranch of

eighty acres in the vicinity of Villagrove, who left home to make his own way in

the world at the age of nine years, and has ever since been the architect of his

own fortune and made steady progress in industry, frugality and capacity in

building it to its present comfortable proportions and form.  He was born at

Chicago, Illinois, on September 17, 1874, the son of Edwin and Ada Lawley,

natives of England who emigrated to this country in their youth and located in

the great metropolis of the Lakes.  The father is a switchman in the employ of

one of the railroads centering there, and has been so employed during the

greater part of his mature life.  He is an honest and industrious workman, and

enjoys the confidence of all who know him well. Politically he is attached to

the Republican party.  The mother died in 1881.  They had three sons, George F.,

Frank and Charles.  The last named saw but little of the inside of schools and

was dependent for the most of his education on experience and the book of nature

which has ever been open before him.  He left home in 1883 and came to Colorado,

locating in Saguache county.  Here he worked as a ranch hand for wages until

1900, and although the compensation for his service was meager, he saved his

earnings until he was able to take up the ranch which he now owns and do

something toward equipping it and starting its improvement and the cattle

industry which he now conducts.  The ranch comprises eighty acres and is located

ten miles northwest of the town of Saguache.  It is well adapted to hay and

potatoes and these are raised in quantities and good quality.  Cattle are also

raised as extensively as the capacity of the ranch will admit, and this branch

of the industry is steadily on the increase.  Mr. Lawley is a Republican in

politics but does not neglect his own affairs for party contests.  His

acquisitions have cost him too much effort and self-sacrifice and embodied too

much personal hardship and privation to be ignored for sentiment of any kind. 

At the same time he gives careful attention and helpful service where the real

and enduring interest of his section is involved, and does his part as a good

citizen in every useful line of local public work. 

Additional Comments:
From Progressive Men of Western Colorado.  Chicago:  A.W. Bowen & Co., 1905

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/saguache/bios/lawley241gbs.txt

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