Pam, Dan and Sarah
Of course, when a bunch of women get together, they talk about every subject under the sun. We even go back to how it was in Grandma’s day and how far we have come. Being in the setting of Ouray and Ridgway always takes me back to the days of the brave women who came here with their adventurous men when it was still very much the Wild West.
One of my favorite pioneer women is Sarah Randall Jarvis Orvis, who left her eastern home with her parents and family in 1864, traveling cross country in a covered wagon. In 1926, Sarah wrote a diary of her experiences, and I have Ouray historian Doris Gregory to thank for sharing that diary.
By the spring of 1875, Sarah and her new husband, Billy Jarvis, sold their property in Boulder City in order to relocate to the Gunnison country, hearing that it was almost equal to paradise. In June, they arrived in “Gunnison town, which then was four log 12’ x 14’ buildings,” she wrote.
From there they moved to Del Norte, then Saguache, finally ending up in the Uncompahgre Valley.
