Chapter 1 – Coming to America

9 “Who is This, Again”

October 14, 2011

The phone rang in the small house at 306 Mountain View Road.  The phone hardly ever rang at the modest home of 93 year old Samuel Dunwell, never mind on a Sunday morning.  Easing himself up with his cane Samuel struggled to answer the call.  He was still bright and alert, but time had caught […]

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8 Beware of Charlatans

October 14, 2011

Exhausted, near-broke, and weary from weeks of accumulated land and sea travel, their money and luck finally ran out at the Kansas/Colorado boarder.  Waiting for a train change at the tiny whistle stop railroad station in Burlington, Colorado the Binghams became victims of an unscrupulous huckster.  Preying on Westward-bound immigrants a shadowy local resident had […]

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7 Family Connections

October 14, 2011

Like many new immigrants of that era the Binghams relied on family connections in the U.S. to sponsor them for citizenship.  In this case Ida Dunwell Bingham, Harold’s wife, discovered a cousin in Rockford, Illinois, named Robert Keye and a half-brother to her father, a half-uncle, if you will, named Edward Dunwell.  Edward lived in […]

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6 Babies, Bombs, and Blackouts

October 14, 2010

In 1934 , at twenty-two, Harold Bingham and Ida Dunwell, then age 18, were married in a small chapel in Totley Rise, on the outskirts of Sheffield. In attendance were her grandmother Elizabeth and her father, Samuel Dunwell, Jr.  Suffering from a rare form of senility, Ida’s mother was unable to attend. (Today she would […]

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5 The War Years

October 9, 2010

With the dawn of 1942, Lake Neccudah businesses found themselves besieged by the Federal Government to produce equipment for the War effort.  Many small and medium sized manufacturers had to switch their production capacity to produce everything from parts for B-17 bombers to canteens for the infantry.  As young men were called to duty many […]

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4 The Roaring Twenties

October 9, 2010

As the Roaring Twenties rolled on Charles assumed more and more of the daily operations of the family’s holdings.  Several small nationwide recessions in the Twenties affected businesses in Lake Neccudah.  Of particular note was the Western Lumber Mill.  Demand for lumber had dropped at a time when the owners had just completed a major […]

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3 Hard Times Come Calling

October 9, 2010

But life for the Dunwell’s and Lake Neccudah would turn horribly wrong.  In the summer of 1917 Samuel’s wife, Elise, would be brought down by an undiagnosed disease.  Within months she had wasted away to nothing.  With Samuel and Charles at her bedside Elise slipped away to be with the Lord on December 5, 1917. […]

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2 Early Growth

October 9, 2010

Lake Neccudah’s proximity to Denver allowed access to major metropolitan markets via the Lake Neccudah Rail Road Company.  Beef, wheat, and a variety of fruits and vegetables became the dominant contributors to the local economy.  As these businesses grew so did the demand for reliable passenger transportation.  In 1897 the new modern railroad station was […]

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1 The Beginning

October 9, 2010

Lake Neccudah, CO In the early to mid 1800’s the area around Lake Neccudah was the winter home to the Arapaho and Comanche Indian Tribes.  Lake Neccudah takes its name from a loosely translated Indian phrase meaning “where the mountains meet the plains.” Originally part of the Nebraska Territory, Lake Neccudah and was founded on […]

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