The Colorado Whoopenhollars
Living a Good Life Despite the Great Depression
by
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About the Book
Throughout the decade of the 1930’s, a young father was separated from his
wife and small children, due to the Great Depression. He was fortunate,
however to have found employment with the U.S. Forest Service as a Supervisor
of the young enrollees of the newly formed Civilian Conservation Corps, known
as the C.C.C’s.
Evenings were long and lonely for him in camp after the days work was over.
He missed his family and the fun he enjoyed with four little sons and one little
daughter. To help fi ll those hours, he wrote stories about those children of his,
giving them the last name of “Whoopenhollar.” He made up wonderful tales of
adventure. The setting for all of the stories was the out-of-doors in the mountains
of Colorado where they lived. Sometimes the Whoopenhollar kids would be
quite lost in the woods, even facing danger at times. The father would not end
the story that he was writing, but leave a real “cliff hanger” so the children would
anticipate the next story coming to them via U.S. Postal Service.
The "Whoopenhollar Stories" were the inspiration for the author to write
her memories of how she and her brothers and their mother lived during
that time and a way to preserve the stories that their father had written to them.
They have been kept, in his handwriting, for over seventy-fi ve years. Histories of
two families, the Rutherfords and Ecklunds are included in the book.
About the Author
Emma Jean Duaine was born and raised in Georgetown, Colorado, a small mining town in the mountains west of Denver. She graduated High School there and attended Colorado Women’s College in Denver. Her career has been in banking. Jean has been married, is now widowed and living a retired life in the desert southeast of Wickenburg, Arizona. She is the mother of three sons, and is also a great-grandmother. Her interests are her family, serving in her church, being active in General Federated Women’s Club and working with a children’s ministry in the small community of Circle City where she lives.