Historical Photos of Fruita & Western Colorado

Lee L Crisman, carpenter, stockman, farmer, storekeeper, and union activist, Grand Junction.

After the death of her first husband, the Fruita newspaper editor and bandleader Hilarian Charles Wagner (1858–1912) (known as H.C or Charley), in 1912, Jennie Evalina (Steele) Wagner (1872–1959) spent the next decade finishing the raising of her five children in Fruita and in Eureka, Utah: Harold Ray (1893–1918) –– the only Fruita lad killed in World War I; Irradell Faye (1895–1945); Viola Pearl (1897–1961); Ruby Arlene ("Dot") (1899–1990); and Mary Lorraine (1903–1959). Viola married in 1916; Harold died in France in 1918; Mary married in 1919; Dot married in 1920; and Faye married in 1922.* About three weeks after Faye, the last to leave the nest, had married, Jennie wed the well-known widower Lee L. Crisman.

Lee Crisman (1871–1957) had been born to William Henry Crisman (1830–1884) and Elizabeth Lucy (Rice) Crisman (1839–1894) in Iowa, but the family had moved to Blue Springs, Nebraska, when he was still young, no later than 1880. There, Lee (who might have originally been named Leo), his older brother William (1868–1958), and younger brother Homer (1875–1972), lived until adulthood. William and Lucy are both buried in Blue Springs.

In a Catholic ceremony in the fall of 1891, Lee Crisman had married Sarah J. Plunkett (1872–1919), a Kansas native and a daughter of the Irish immigrants Thomas James Plunkett (1832–1897) and Mary A. (Ingoldsby) Plunkett (ca. 1833–1902).** Lee and Sarah had at least ten children together, eight girls and two boys: Nellie May (1892–1903); Emma (1894–1946); Elizabeth (Bessie) (1895–1970); Leo (1898–1943); Sarah (Sadie) (1900–1917); Roy (1905–1908); Elizabeth (Lettie) (1903–1982); Maude (1906–1987); Laura (1907–1984); and Alice (1911–1990). Nellie and Emma were born in Blue Springs.

Shortly after Lee's mother Lucy died in 1894, the family moved to Pomona in Mesa County, Colorado, a loosely defined farming community that covered an area roughly from 25 Road east to 26 Road, and F 1/2 Road south to Orchard Avenue, that is today within the city limits of Grand Junction. They are reported as living in the Capitol Hill subdivision by the Grand Junction newspaper the "Daily Sentinel" after the turn of the century. Sarah and Lee had their remaining eight children after the family moved to Colorado.

In Pamona, and later in Fruita after the family moved there in the spring of 1905, Lee Crisman took up farming, ranching, and carpentry. Over the next decades of his life, he would be described in newspaper accounts, city directories, and censuses most often as a carpenter, but also as a sugar beet grower, farmer, and stockman. He advertised in a national carpentry trade journal in 1902. He seemed to have been well-known and generally popular in Grand Junction, where he was a prominent member of the Woodmen of the World fraternal lodge and services organization, being elected and re-elected several times as the Consul Commander of the Book Cliff Camp No. 37 in Grand Junction, as well as holding several other offices over the years.

Crisman was also heavily involved in the labor movement and was among the leading union organizers in Grand Junction, if not Western Colorado. In 1902, for example, he, as a leader of the Carpenters' Union No. 244 in Grand Junction, was instrumental in federating his union with the Typographical Union No. 292 and Retail Clerks' International Protective Association No. 308, both also of Grand Junction, into the Grand Junction Trades Assembly, united under the auspices of the American Federation of Labor. He was elected the new Trade Assembly's first vice president. A few weeks later, he was elected president of the newly-created Federal Labor Union. Later that year, Crisman was chosen to be the grand marshal in the Grand Junction Labor Day parade.

This was the first Labor Day after the Colorado State House had voted to make the day an annual state holiday, and the governor of Colorado, James B. Orman, issued a proclamation on August 7, 1902, in which he suggested "the entire cessation from labor on that day throughout the state." He added, "To the men who toil must be given the greatest measure of praise for [Colorado's] state of affairs." He concluded, "Let us then in recognition of the dignity of labor set aside Monday, September 1, 1902, as a day of absolute rest, observing the day by such forms of recreation as are suited to the conditions of our progressive and prosperous people."

Grand Junction's mayor, J.M. Sampliner, followed suit, and issued his own proclamation two days after Orman's in which he requested "all merchants to close their respective places of business between the hours of 9:30 and 5 p.m." Most businesses apparently complied with the request, the Grand Junction newspaper the "Daily Sentinel" being among them and not issuing a paper that day. The "Sentinel" reported a couple of days before the parade that the Grand Junction Trades Assembly and the city's businessmen had cooperated to make the Labor Day celebration a success, and "the public can be assured a good time."

It seems a few businesses might not have wholeheartedly cooperated, however, since some clerks couldn't get the time off to participate in the parade at its scheduled start time of 10:00 a.m. Crisman and the other organizers pushed the start until 1:00 p.m. so those clerks could join in, and in the end it got moving at about 1:30. Joining the parading laborers and their floats were floats from at least two supporting Grand Junction businesses, Anderson's Bargain House and the Red Cross Pharmacy.

Some of the Grand Junction unions reported to have participated in the parade include the Musicians Union, the Carpenters' Union, the Retail Clerks Union, the Federal Labor Union, the Barbers Union, the Typographical Union, the Order of Railway Conductors, the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad Boilermakers Union, and the Grand Junction Fire Department.

The parade ended at Whitman Park, where, preceding an afternoon of many different outdoor games, speeches were given by "several prominent socialists, among them the chief marshal of the day, who is the candidate of the socialist party for [state] senator." Crisman was reported in the "Sentinel" as the Socialist Party candidate for state senator again about a week later in its announcement of a lecture he was to give on the night of September 10 at the County Court House titled "Why I Am a Socialist." But when the party announced its ticket on September 12, C.P. McCary had the party nod.

Crisman vied for even higher office two years later when he ran for U.S. Congress in Colorado's Second District on the Socialist Labor Party ticket. But his name was printed in only a few sample ballots in newspapers (none in Mesa County that we have been able to find), although the name of the Socialist Party candidate, Issac Tarkoff, was. It seems to us that there might have been confusion of some sort over the very similar names of the two parties, but we have not found a documented reason for this. Regardless of the reason for the omission, it likely contributed to Crisman only securing eight votes in the entire district.

In the spring of 1905, The Crisman family moved to a ranch about four miles northeast of Fruita (as measured from roughly the center of town). There Crisman continued his carpentry trade as well as growing fruit. He also tried his hand at the labor-intensive growing of sugar beets.

By 1912, Crisman had saved, raised, or borrowed enough money to start a grocery and dry goods store. The company, which he called the Fruita Trading & Manufacturing Company, was incorporated and issued stock, 500 shares at $100 per share. Crisman was the company president, George McBride Akeman (1869–1948) was the company secretary, and Frederick Huntington Cornell (1872–1945) was the store manager. The store was located in a building that hasn't existed for a century on the south side of East Aspen Avenue, two lots west of Peach Street. That spot is today the western half of the city parking lot at the southwest corner of Aspen and Peach. Their six-line advertising / listing in the 1912 Polk City Directory for Grand Junction told readers that the store carried "General Merchandise, Dealers in Staple and Fancy Groceries, Dry Goods, Hats, Shoes, Hardware and Complete Line of Canned Goods." The store's telephone number was White 422.


The Fruita Trading & Manufacturing doesn't seem to have lasted long: The company is not listed in the previous directory for 1910 or the subsequent one for 1916. (None of the other years in between are available online, if they even existed. The Polk Directory for Grand Junction seems to have only come out every other year, on average.)

In 1919, Sarah died, aged forty-six or forty-seven. She had been preceded in death by three of her ten children, Nellie, who had died in 1903 at the age of eleven of an inflamed bowel; Roy, who died at the age of three in 1908 of scarlet fever; and Sadie who died in 1917 at the age of sixteen or seventeen. (We have been unable to locate obituaries or death notices for either Sarah or Sadie.) Sarah and the three children who died before here are buried under a single headstone at Cavalry Cemetery in Grand Junction. Lee Crisman was now alone with the six youngest of their children.

In 1922 he married the widow Jennie (Steele) Wagner. The last of Jennie's children had finally married a decade after the death of their father. The three youngest of Lee Crisman's children, at least, were still at home, but it is very possible others were as well.

Lee and Jennie Crisman seemed to have been wise about home ownership. For example, they lived at 25 North Cherry Street in Fruita in 1924, but in 1925 they moved to Denver, where he again advertised as a carpenter. By 1926, however, they were back in Fruita living at 25 North Cherry, indicating they had retained rather than sold their Fruita house before making a risky move. In 1928 they moved to Grand Junction, living at 1138 Hill Avenue, but it seems they held onto the Cherry Street house for a while that time as well. In 1937, they returned to Fruita, but by 1943 they had returned to Grand Junction –– and resumed living at 1138 Hill!

In 1934, Crisman tried one last run for public office, this time for the seat of Mesa County Treasurer, this time on the Socialist Party ticket. As usual, he didn't win.

Lee L. Crisman died in 1957 and is buried in Orchard Mesa Cemetery in Grand Junction. He is the only Crisman buried there. Jennie Evalina (Steele) (Wagner) Crisman died in 1959 and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Fruita, not far from the grave of her older sister Mabel Clare (Steele) Kiefer (1867–1943).

*Interestingly, sisters Faye and Viola Wagner married brothers Earl and Harold Pursel, respectively.
**Thomas Plunkett was born in Ireland and brought to the U.S. by his parents when he was one year old. Mary Ingoldsby was born and raised in Ireland, and immigrated to the U.S. in 1850.

Photographs of Lee and Sarah Crisman, courtesy Ronald Edge. Photograph of Jennie (Steele Wagner), courtesy Lower Valley Heritage Chapter. Photograph of Fruita Trading & Manufacturing stock share certificate, courtesy Gwen Cheney. Thanks to all.

Denise & Steve Hight
Historical Photos of Fruita & Western Colorado:
https://www.facebook.com/HistoricalFruitaPhotos/
Historical Photos of Women's Stories:
https://www.facebook.com/HistoricalSuffragePhotos/

This page was last updated