Oral History Interview
with
Wendell Sample
Interview by
Pam Owens
28 February 2008
CSHP 0030
Part 2
Colorado Springs History Project
CSHP
Pikes Peak Library District, Special Collections
Copyright 2015
Colorado Springs History Project
The Colorado Springs History Project was conducted between the years 2005-2010 in a joint effort to document and update the history of Colorado Springs from mid-20th century to 2010. This volunteer team included members from the region’s major academic libraries and faculties, as well as the Pikes Peak Library District and the Pioneers Museum. Administered and supervised by the Colorado Springs History Project Committee, the project interviewers consisted of a number of local volunteers.
The oral history portion of The Colorado Springs History Project identified and interviewed individuals who had helped to shape the city of Colorado Springs in various and diverse ways. Subjects were also sought as representative of inhabitants of the Pikes Peak region and could provide insight into the city’s story in the second half of the twentieth century. The interviews reflect the rapid growth of Colorado Springs and touch on business and government relations, religious organizations, the Air Force Academy, Colorado College, and the growth of many important charitable services within the community.
The collection is comprised of 50 tapes, 19 CDs, and 2 DVDs with 32 individual interviews. These interviews are housed in the archives of Pikes Peak Library District’s Special Collections. A complete listing of the interviews is available at the Special Collections reference desk. Transcripts for many of the interviews are available for use.
Digitization
Audio from the Colorado Springs History Project was digitized between 2009 - 2011 and is available for study and use in the Special Collections department.
The Colorado Springs Oral History Project
Wendell Sample
Oral History Interview
CSHP 0030, Part 2
Pam Owens
28 February 2008
Fountain, Colorado
Owens And so now we're recording section 2 of our topic with the Samples. We're talking about the Ark. Now, Mary Jo Kraus, you know, Mary Jo, she's my mother-in-law.
Sample That's right she is.
Owens She is, so Barney is my grandfather sort of.
Sample My daughter all grew up with her, you know .. She’s a… Wendy got an email from her the other day, I guess she's just doing great, shoveling snow and everything out there.
Owens Yeah, well, Don is doing a lot better out there. With the lower elevation. So we hope to go visit them next -- well this summer.
Sample Good.
Owens Yup, because Don said he's got the fishing holes all staked out. Mary Joe said that she -- and this would be in like the '60s probably, she was in the Ark occasionally with the girl that lived there, her classmate, and they were afraid of it because it was haunted and they would see ghosts --
Sample Well that was the story, that it was haunted. But they had that rumor running around here. I don't know who Mary Joe was with at that time.
Owens One her little girlfriends lived there and they said they saw ghosts in the house, just freaked her out.
Sample I’d have to ask Wendy about that, ‘cause her and Mary Joe and Nancy, and even Julie, they all run together. Betty Sims is the same way. I had to ask her too.
Owens All right, is that a carry-over because Mary Baker said that she was forbidden to go there and everyone was afraid of the place, not that it was haunted but because their mom -- you know, their parents didn't want them --
Sample That's right, because her family was the Wilsons. The Seymores, her mother was a Wilson. The Seymores, whatever. But yeah, I never -- we used to, when we was peddling milk we used to deliver milk there. They bought milk, so they had to be … I don't remember her daughter there but I -- back then you didn’t worry, know anything about that. Cause I’ve carried milk into pretty every house in this town.
.
Owens I had heard, yeah, someone said that -- so when your father moved to town here, he ran a dairy here and that you would go around on your bicycle delivering milk.
Sample Yeah.
Owens So, your dad is John, where did he keep his dairy cows?
Sample His what?
Owens His cows, his dairy cows.
Sample Oh, some place here.
Owens Down on the Valley there?
Sample Yeah.
Owens How many cows did he have?
Sample Well he had about, we milked 17 to 18 at the time. I got pictures out in the car, should have brought them in.
Owens Oh!
Sample If you stop that I can go get them
Owens Yup, and you know we can even -- we've got this fancy contraption here to scan. All right, I'll stop this.
[00:03:21]
[AUDIO ENDS] [CSHP-0030_2-1]
