An 1880s Victorian Mansion in the Colorado Rockies: The Estemere Estate at Palmer Lake

by Edwards, Daniel

  This description of Estemere is interesting. This is the only reference we have to the billiard room having dark blue wallpaper with stars on it, no remnant of which remains today. There are still volunteer hollyhocks that return year after year, attesting to their hardiness. Old timers still comment about the beautiful hollyhocks that once adorned the rock wall in the summertime—some up to 10 feet tall. It is doubtful that “another building, used as a church” referred to the current Chapel, since the current Chapel was derived from the chicken coop or the Carbide House[90]—which probably was used as a shower room during the 1930s.

  Robert Graham and daughter Lillian returned to Estemere in early May of 1934. The family was at Estemere in early June, accompanied by a friend of the daughters, Mary Louise Clark, also of Wichita Falls.[91] They returned to Texas in mid-September.

  That fall, the Palmer Lake town council passed a resolution noting that the Estemere property had been removed from the tax rolls in 1927 upon the representation that it would be occupied only for the purposes of a school. Yet since no school had been in Estemere since the fall of 1930, the council asked the county assessor to put the property back on the tax rolls, and also to assess taxes for the years 1931 through 1934 on the property. That new expense probably encouraged the two Palmer Lake directors of the RMSS, Inc. to put the property on the market, as they had received income from Estemere for only about six of the previous 28 months.

  The National Youth Administration Vocational Camp (1935)

  The Great Depression affected Palmer Lake, as it did most other areas of the country, and the town became the location for some of the relief efforts the Federal Government undertook. While these efforts did not directly impact Estemere, one program evolved into a training school that did occupy Estemere. Because of this, and because the story of the National Youth Administration (NYA) vocational school is a forgotten episode in Palmer Lake’s history, we briefly will discuss it here.

  As a response to the economic collapse and widespread unemployment he faced upon assuming office in March 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt set up a number of new government agencies under the “New Deal.” The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), headed by Harry L. Hopkins, was inaugurated in 1933 with one objective—to provide work for employable people on the relief rolls. The FERA was to work cooperatively with state governments and make grants for relief purposes. State agencies were told to plan special projects that would benefit women. In August 1935, the FERA announced that it would finance 17 educational summer camps in 11 states for needy unemployed women. Two camps were set up in Colorado: one at Geneva Glen in Indian Hills, the other at Palmer Lake’s Pine Crest. Women between the ages of 20 to 25 from the nearby area would attend the Pine Crest camp.[92]

  The general purpose of the resident camp at Palmer Lake was

  the making of better citizens and the helping of young women to make adjustments to the changing social and economic conditions in which they find themselves.[93]

  The camp program had five parts: home economics and household management; vocational guidance and adjustment counseling (not to be a placement bureau); workers’ education on subjects related to the country’s current economic and social problems; the causes of unemployment, etc.; and health education. In addition, recreational activities, such as dramatics, handicrafts, hiking, tennis, volleyball, and other sports, would be part of the camp’s schedule.[94]

  The Palmer Lake camp was up and running in September; its staff came from different parts of the state:

  The federal educational camp for the older group of unemployed women is at Pine Crest. The faculty in charge are director, Carrie E. Church, Denver; assistant director, Harold Burnes, Colorado Springs; house director and home economics, Mrs. Anna L. Fisher; assistant in home economics, Ruth Finch; office secretary and teacher of commercial subjects, Mrs. Zella Brake; librarian and teacher of dramatics, Miss Elba Burgette, La Junta, Colo.; nurse, Mrs. Ruth Humphries, Trinidad, Colo.; recreational director, Miss Vera McQuaid; teacher of social science and worker education, Mrs. Willa Corbett; English and music, Mrs. Aladene Law, Fort Morgan; in charge of kitchen, Mrs. Myrtle Watts, Denver; assistant, Miss Mabel Bahde, Englewood, Colo.[95]

  This camp lasted only until the end of October. During one particular week, some of the camp’s activities were described as follows:

  Last Sunday morning the girls hiked to Elephant rock for a sunrise breakfast. Monday morning Mrs. J. W. Slavick talked to the social science class on the subjects “Workers Education in England” and “War Work Among Belgians in Holland.” Mr. Richards of Denver, who is an employee of the state rehabilitation camp, talked to the girls camp Tuesday on “How to Overcome Handicaps.” Wednesday, the Pine Crest camp were guests of the Black Forest Fox Camp. Friday evening the girls entertained the CCC [Civilian Conservation Corp] Camp at Monument and the Black Forest [CCC] Camp. The Palmer Lake Hill Billies furnished the music.[96]

  One day that October, Charles Orr and his wife, hearing of Anna Fisher’s interest in handicrafts and weaving, told her about their silver fox and Angora rabbit ranch at Palmer Lake. Out of that conversation was born the concept of “El Conejo Blanco” (The White Rabbit), a weaving school Fisher later would establish at Estemere.

  Anna Fisher had led a remarkable life before she came to Palmer Lake. She had studied in France, worked with the Red Cross in Syria after World War I, and having become acquainted with the King of Iraq, served as his special advisor in Baghdad in the late 1920s. (See her bio sketch at the end of this chapter.)

  Meanwhile, there was keen interest in Palmer Lake to continue an association with such government-funded camps, and in November, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Orr, Mrs. N.E. Medlock (whose husband had formerly owned Pine Crest), Miss Carrie Church (who had been director of the FERA-funded camp at Pine Crest), and Anna Fisher traveled to Santa Fe to visit the offices of the New Mexico Department of Vocational Education.

  The National Youth Administration (NYA) was established in June 1935 under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and carried on similar projects previously funded by the FERA. One NYA program supported educational camps for unemployed women, and from December 1935 to June 1936, the NYA sponsored a vocational training normal school at Pine Crest for young women. As director, Anna Fisher was unable to pursue her vision of establishing an experimental handcraft school, because the general goal of the NYA project was to train young women from different rural communities of Colorado to be teachers or leaders in community work. Nevertheless, Fisher focused the vocational camp’s craftwork on spinning and knitting of Angora rabbit wool. By March of 1936, Fisher and her young women were working closely with

  Mr. and Mrs. Charles Orr [who] have one of the largest rabbit farms in the west devoted to the Angora woolers. Two girls from the school each week are now staying at the Orr rabbit farm in order to learn how to feed and care for the bunnies and especially how to shear them…. If the girl takes the (Angora) wool to her spinning wheel (and spins it into yarn), she more than doubles its market price. If she knits it into a sweater or weaves it into a cloth, its price is again increased many times.

  The girls and Mrs. Fisher have found that by hand spinning in a special way they can make a yarn practically free of shedding. The commercial rabbit wool yarn is often criticized for this free habit of shedding. But a hand spun, hand woven article, completely free from shedding should find a great demand.

  The girls feel that any farm family could raise the bunnies easily and have a considerable profit. In fact, the enthusiasts tell them that one man, giving his full time to it, can tend 1,000 rabbits by himself and make a clear profit of $250 a month….

  Several years ago the Orrs decided to try some of these Angoras in connection with their fox farm at Palmer Lake…. They found that in Canada some of the best English breeds were being grown. Three years ago they secured one pair of the very best from Canada…. The Orrs now have about 500 bunnies that they are shearing…. The rabbits are an essen
tial part of the handcraft dream. Hand spinning is better than machine spinning—it produces a yarn that does not shed. And the whole rabbit wool craft seems to invite handwork for its best results…. Lovely, soft beautiful bunny wool garments made by hand in the Pikes Peak region will be something else to…sell to our tourists. And it will be a sideline that could be carried on in every little farmhouse on the plains or in our mountains.[97]

  Thus was born the handicraft project and weaving school “El Conejo Blanco,” or “The White Rabbit,” named after Angora rabbits the Orrs were raising in Palmer Lake.

  El Conejo Blanco (1936-1937)

  The public debut, as it were, of El Conejo Blanco occurred at the Cheyenne Mountain School where the Orrs took both sheared and unsheared rabbits to accompany a demonstration of spinning yarn from rabbit wool. The women from Palmer Lake attracted an even bigger audience two weeks later at the Handcraft Fair and Folk Festival held in the Colorado Springs Auditorium on 28 March 1936. The newspaper emphasized the economic potential of a local handcraft industry that also would promote a “saner and more wholesome way of life.”

  The Folk Festival is a benefit for El Conejo Blanco, the girl’s craft school conducted by the N.Y.A. at Palmer Lake. It is to help them secure looms and dying vats, and spinning wheels and materials, so that their talented director, Mrs. Anne [sic] Fisher, can go part way down the road toward her dream. For if we can have established in our region a famous handcraft center whose work is based on our local Colorado bunny wool—the interest will spread….

  Mrs. Fisher and her girls will have the stage, their wheels will spin busily and the crowd can watch intimately and ask what questions they wish. Patterns will grow on their busy looms. Fabrics and processes will be shown. And Mr. and Mrs. Orr will have the Angora wool-bearing rabbits there to show the source of all the lovely things the girls have made.[98]

  While Anna Fisher had made a start to establish a small, rural cottage industry that could help women create something of economic value in their local communities, thereby restoring confidence and promoting peace of mind in an era of Depression, her efforts were limited. The NYA vocational program provided no equipment, and Fisher did not have money to purchase supplies, like native dyes. The only spinning wheels El Conejo Blanco had were on loan. During the summer of 1936, the Orrs and Anna Fisher sought private funds to continue El Conejo Blanco, and they were able to secure funding for a year, during which time they would need to prove the value of their effort to the state. The El Conejo Blanco School resumed on 15 October 1936, and Fisher wrote an article telling how the School functioned and the duties of its students, and noted that El Conejo Blanco had the support of the State Board for Vocational Training. The passage below gives a good description of how El Conejo Blanco operated at Estemere from 01 May to 05 September 1937:

  We are able to take ten students for six months, or longer if desirable, changing when the time comes to end their training. During their residence here, they are given the specialized training in spinning, weaving, knitting, dyes, design, etc., always with the thought that they will use it as teachers later. They also are given their living expenses, and a small sum weekly ($2.00) for incidentals. This is in no way a relief project. Their obligation is to fit happily into the cooperative group life, to have a real interest in crafts, to carry on their share of the household duties, and finally to pass on to others either in teaching, community work, or in helping the handicapped, what has been given so freely to them.

  The students carry on the household cooperatively. Each person here is allowed, or gives, $4.00 weekly to the household fund. This pays for all the food [and] laundry…. Rent, light and coal is paid for from the funds each month…. We now have ample equipment of looms, weaving accessories, spinning wheels, etc.,—enough to keep everyone busy all the time.

  The household work is planned and assigned every Sunday. Each day the cook changes, and the baker [changes] twice weekly. Baking of bread and its corollaries, rolls, coffee-cake, etc., is one of the necessary subjects here…. [I]n a carefully chosen group such as this it is an unusually happy and contented family. They are all thrilled and enthusiastic about the craft training. The youngest is eighteen. The oldest is a delightful woman of middle age, who, having launched in life a family of sons, has turned enthusiastically to this opportunity of returning to artistic and constructive achievement…. There are no set rules or time except in the length of the day. Work begins in the weaving room[99] at 8:30 each morning, where everyone stays until noon…. Lectures are given in the morning and usually last two hours, with questions and discussions following. After lunch, usually served buffet or “grab” fashion to save time, work is resumed at one and lasts till five. Then the weaving room is swept and put in order for the next day.[100]

  One newspaper article also quoted Mrs. Fisher’s article in The Weaver on her conviction of the worth of crafts:

  First in France and later in Damascus, the answer to the deplorable aftermath in the mentality of refugee women and children, was handicraft, construction, beauty, things desirable enough for a return in money—but, always and again, construction. There was the possibility of rebirth from the devastation of the years of destruction which had become the only thing they knew.

  The El Conejo Blanco women put on another exhibition at the Colorado Springs Handicraft Fair in April 1937. The school moved to Estemere on 01 May[101], a place Fisher described as

  a quaint, charmingly old-fashioned place at the foot of Sundance Mountain…with towers and cupolas, a big “Lodge,” an extensive “Hall,” and a “game room”[102] large enough and light enough for many looms. There are huge porches for looms and spinning wheels, or to sit and rest while one’s eyes feast on the mountains.[103]

  Students at the School hailed from Boulder, Cañon City, Central City, Colorado Springs, Denver, Elbert, Fort Collins, and Ramah, Colorado; El Paso, Texas; and Cheyenne, Wyoming. One student was Czech; she had lost her right arm two years before, but with the aid of an artificial arm had learned to spin, knit, and use any kind of loom. An instructor in occupational therapy at the psychopathic hospital in Colorado Springs also enrolled in the school. Even Palmer Lake’s Miss Macy went to Estemere to do some weaving. A young botanist connected with the school traveled to southern Colorado to collect cochineal and other dye materials for the school.

  Everett Gilmore of Stockton, California, was a manufacturer of looms, and one of his eight harness looms was in use at Estemere. Gilmore visited the school in June and returned in August for the three week institute that was taught by the foremost authority on Colonial weaving, and a woman who had been engaged in teaching, writing, publishing a newsletter, and promoting hand-weaving for more than 20 years. Her name was Mary Meigs Atwater, and her weaving institute at El Conejo Blanco ran from 16 August to 05 September at Estemere. (See bio sketch.)

  Anna Fisher promoted the weaving institute:

  Mrs. Atwater will give special instruction for teachers, and in the teaching of the mechanics of weaving, from the knock-down loom to its preparation for advanced weaving. This will be of advantage to even experienced weavers. She will also instruct in the art of card weaving, and give particular emphasis to the reading and writing of drafts, textile analysis, etc…. All kinds of spinning will be taught, including carding….[104]

  El Conejo Blanco on the porch at Estemere. [Photo purchased by Roger Ward on eBay. More photos are on the DVD.]

  Mary Atwater later prepared a report about the weaving institute at Estemere. She noted that members of her Shuttle-Craft Guild had attended the three-week session and called attention to the “round table” discussions the members held in the evenings. They discussed problems of the craft: how to set prices for hand-woven articles, since some weaved to support a business, others for a hobby; what should be taught in a general course on weaving; the improper labeling of machine-made fabrics as “hand-woven”; and the methods used to price and sell products made in WPA hand-weaving projects. The government p
aid weavers in the WPA projects a salary and provided them equipment and living quarters, so that the blankets produced there could be sold at prices independent weavers could not possibly match.

  Another interesting feature of the Institute was the collection of looms of many different types, assembled by Mrs. Fisher. Several manufacturers sent examples of their newest models to be tested at the meeting, and there were little and big looms, from an ancient Colonial affair as big as a wood-shed down to tiny table looms only a few inches wide. Everyone was particularly interested in Mr. Gilmore’s eight-harness looms and in a new large treadle loom soon to be put on the market….[105]

  In her report, Atwater was clearly pleased with the creative and productive work the participants at the Institute accomplished: