Mabel Rose (Mays) Turner's Memories of her parents, Mabel Rose Mason (Nana) and Albert Franklin Turner

           

Mabel Rose and Albert F. on their honeymoon
trip in 1909 (with Clesse and Carroll)

                                   
          My parents,  Albert F. Turner and Mable Rose Mason Turner moved to Denver in 1917 (in the spring) primarily for his health.  He had been diagnosed with tuberculosis in Ohio.  At first they rented and then moved to West Lake Place.  The children had a long walk to grammar school.  Nana was president of the PTA and the children were so proud.

            In 1924 they moved to 668 Cook Street.  Every house was brick due to a Denver city ordinance.  They paid about $13,000 cash for the house.  It had quarter-sawn oak, hardwood floors.  It was a three-bedroom, one bath home.  A plumber had built the home and they even had steam heat in the garage.

            Mary Alice (my cousin) was born in 1924 and Uncle Will and Aunt Ina, my mother's sister and brother-in-law, came to visit that summer.  Daddy (A.F.) rented a cabin on Buffalo Creek.  He stopped to buy fish hooks and as Mays held the pole, a hook got stuck in Annabel’s thumb and Mays felt so bad about it.  Daddy found someone to drive Nana and Annabel to town to have the fishhook removed and got her an ice cream cone afterward.

            In 1925 they drove to Ohio for the grandparent’s golden wedding anniversary—Matilda Ann Frey and Timothy R. Mason. They got about thirty miles out of Denver and had a one-car accident in the Studebaker.  A steering knuckle dropped out and they ended up in the ditch.  That’s when Earl got his face cut.  The back window had broken.  A farmer in a Model T came by and took Nana and Earl to the doctor.  They sewed his face with no anesthetic.  It made a “T” at that time (his own monogram).  Daddy, Mays and Annabel walked to the nearest farmhouse and called a tow truck.  They rode in the towed car back to Denver.  Nana and Earl took the train back to Denver.  Daddy put Nana and the three children on the train to go back for the anniversary and he came later by himself in the Studebaker.  It was too lonely at home.

            In 1926 was the Turner family reunion at our house in Denver.  Daddy had previously written to all the family to see if they would come and that was the start of the family letter.  Every brother or his widow came and much of the second generation.  Daddy had bought the hotel in 1919 or 1920.  The neighbors had a furniture store and they loaned us double beds.  He brought linen from the hotel.  The women and children stayed upstairs, the men stayed downstairs. The  men bathed downstairs and there was a toilet there, too.  Uncle John stayed with his wife’s relatives.  Everyone else stayed there at the house.  Daddy hired a cook and the sisters-in-law waited tables with a towel over their arms.  Everyone went to church on Sunday—the Methodist Church.  They had reserved pews and the preacher introduced everyone.  Even the Jewess and Catholic members were there.  They went out to a restaurant after church.  On Monday they had a big picnic up in the mountains.  Even friends from Ohio joined them.  Herbert gave the family history.  Annabel (my sister) did a dance.  She had had her hair cut short and Mother was so embarrassed that she looked like a boy!

            In 1927 Mays got to go to YWCA camp up in the mountains.  She even went snipe hunting and still had a good time.  She called and asked to stay another week, but Daddy said she should come home, her mother was ill.  She went to church Sunday and was sick again.  She ended up in the hospital for two weeks with an emergency appendectomy.  It was the first time Mays had ever seen her daddy close to tears.  He got a radio for her recuperation period—a wet battery one that later spilled over on the hardwood floor.  Daddy hired a cook, the same black woman he had had for the reunion.  The kids knew she went downstairs to smoke because they could smell it.

            In 1928 Daddy got so sick.  Around Christmas of 1927 he had gotten sick and the doctor thought a warmer, drier climate would help him feel better.  They thought it was the flu then.  They hired a driver to go to Arizona.  He did not feel better and wanted to come home.  He came on the train and Nana came back with the driver.

            He got home and worked a little and got a typewriter.  Mays tried to type letters for him.  He soon became bedridden and Auntie (Rebekah Johnston) came to care for him.  A neurologist made house calls to check on him and charged $5.00 for house calls.  He was finally diagnosed with encephalitis.  Mays was learning to drive and went into the brick wall.  She stepped on the gas instead of the brake!  Nana hired a brick mason to fix the wall.

            Friends had planned a sixteenth surprise birthday party for Mays.  They called her there to come home and her daddy passed away the next day (April 11, 1923).  The funeral was there in Denver and he was buried in Ohio.  Auntie stayed there with the children.

            In 1930 Mays graduated from high school, but Nana was back east for her father’s funeral. (T. R. Mason died 25 April 1930) Mays and a friend and Annabel and Earl drove back with Auntie.

            Mays and three sorority sisters moved out of the sorority house to save money.  It was the 1930’s, the height of the depression.  They had an apartment.  Her senior year Mays was elected sorority president and had to move back to the sorority house.  Mays went to Colorado University and Doc went to Ohio University where Nana and Ina had gone.

            Nana rented out the house in Denver and got a house in Boulder where Earl and Annabel were in school.  Earl went to Denver University the first two years on a church scholarship.  He went to Boulder in 1934.

                Mays graduated in 1934.  She completed a year’s internship at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, Ohio.  In 1935 she went to work at the hospital in Colorado Springs.  She stayed for one year, but she would have to teach the nurses in the fall and she hated teaching so bad that she quit her job.  She told them Nana had sumac poisoning, which she did.

            Mays and Doc got married  19 June 1937 in Austin, Texas.  Doc had gotten a job there and did not have any time off. Nana, Earl, Annabel, Mays and Jack all went to Texas.  It was so terribly hot there.

 

            Later Mays and Doc moved to California where Doc went to work for Standard Oil.  Nana lived with them.  They were there until 1948 when Earl’s wife, Elaine, passed away.  They moved to Henderson, Nevada so that Nana could take care of Earl and Elaine’s newborn daughter, Patty Ann.  Doc and Earl went into business together in Henderson.

Coleman, Mabel Rose Turner "Knowledge". (Las Vegas, Nevada)