Loving the Facts: Post Valentines Day Post

“Manna from Heaven.”  It’s wonderful when the historical facts surrounding an event  are so gripping that it’s hard to improve on them with a fictional account. 

This happened to me with my first published historical fiction work, “Nothing Here but Stones”.  The drama surrounding the immigration of a group of Russian Jews to a relatively isolated part of Colorado was palpable. What first began as a planned move to the United States became urgent when anti-Jewish pogroms became widespread in Poland and the Ukraine. 



Cotopaxi, Colorado about 1890

All planning aside, the immigrants left their homes and settled in an area south of Cotopaxi, Colorado. With promises of houses, farming equipment, two span of horses and other items, the Cotopaxi “colonists" set out, traveling from New York City to what must have seemed like an empty expanse of nothingness.  As they left Pueblo and headed due west, the terrain quickly shifted to steep rocky canyons, foothills, and towering rugged mountains.

When they arrived in Cotopaxi, they discovered the houses were insufficient and incomplete, the equipment and livestock less than promised, and the “farming” ground littered with rocks. Miles south of town, the small dwellings were above 8,000 feet with no water available for irrigation.

 

The colonists struggled to succeed, but for two consecutive years, their crops failed, yielding potatoes smaller than the seed stock they used to plant them.  To complicate things, they had hoped to own their own land. This never happened. Whether the understanding was lost in the translation from Yiddish to English or was misunderstood from the beginning is unknown.  They traveled 40 miles by wagon to Canon City to the county seat and made statements attesting to ownership, but the statements did not provide any rights of ownership.

This skeleton version offers plenty to hang a story on.  One can imagine the long, uncomfortable train trip, the difficulty getting the first crops planted, the language barrier and difficulty communicating…

And within that are the documented facts of men, three to a log, carrying huge trees down steep slopes to the river for the extension of the railroad, west from Salida over Monarch Pass, the women scavenging for coal along the railroad tracks, “marauding bears”, hungry Utes begging for food, pleas for help on bended knee, and a man fording the Arkansas at flood level to get medicine for his wife.  

And I still haven’t mentioned the love story of two of the colonists and the third colonist who tried to get the marriage annulled. When he was unsuccessful, he left the colony on foot, journeying through the back country to Denver in despair.

When the colonists began to struggle, some naysayers accused them of unrealistic expectations and lack of resolve.  Others insisted they were victims of misinformation and deceit. After two short years, the Cotopaxi Colony dissolved. Many colonists became leaders in the Denver Jewish community, and some became successful farmers in other places.  The descendants ‘success stories are numerous and varied.

 Manna from Heaven!  Who wouldn’t fall in love with this story of struggling pioneers and the things they endured to start a new life in the United States. 

I know I did.  It captured my heart, and after that, the hardest part was deciding on which details to add or subtract, or to bend or embellish in order to render the story in fictional form.  

With the recent re-release of “Nothing Here but Stones” in a paperback version, I’ve had a chance to revisit the original story that inspired me so much in the first place.

 I’m still in love with the facts as much as the fiction…still in love with the idea that people can overcome difficulties and go on to find success…even when the original vision becomes something new.