At age 102, Maxine Felkins recounted how her parents homesteaded – living in a tent near Goodman Point, northwest of Cortez, in the months prior to her birth.
Because her mother was concerned about “cowboys and Indians looking after her,” they moved to Kansas, where her mother was from, for Maxine’s birth. The family remained in Kansas until they decided Maxine was strong enough, at 7 months old, to brave the Colorado wilderness.
Though small in stature, Maxine proved her parents right regarding her strength and fortitude.
The oldest of four children, Maxine grew up in Cahone. Her parents’ first home was a dirt-floored log cabin they built on their homestead. Maxine remembered the home as having one bedroom for her parents, a large open space to serve as a sleeping area for the children, a kitchen and a common area.
While the rest of the family worked the farm, at an early age Maxine, because of her small size, was put in charge of tending the home. Self-described as the “puniest of the kids,” Maxine said, “I had to stand on a box to reach the stove at first.”
Maxine’s mother taught her to keep house and cook but was often needed out on the farm. This left Maxine to take on much of the cooking and cleaning.
Not until Maxine reached her teenage years did she venture from Cahone. The Little Grove School Maxine had attended all her life did not offer high school classes, so the entire family moved to Dolores so the oldest children could finish their education. Maxine graduated from Dolores High School in 1936. This was the furthest Maxine had ever been from the family’s farm.
Her next chance to travel wouldn’t come until her marriage at age 20, to Leon Felkins in Monticello, Utah, on Sept. 4, 1937. Leon’s family had come to Colorado to escape difficult farming conditions in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl.
While farming in southern Colorado was also challenging, Maxine said it wasn’t as bad as most areas.
After marrying, the pair purchased property in Cahone, cleared the land and built a home themselves. They began farming beans and wheat.
As their farm grew, so did their family. Leon and Maxine had four children.
In addition to keeping house and raising their children, Maxine also drove a school bus for 25 years. She chuckled as she remembered the bus mechanics had to move her seat forward so she could reach the clutch and pedals.
The mechanics didn’t, however, provide a spot for Maxine to place her infant son when she first started driving. Maxine remembered placing her son in a small box by her feet, where he rode as she drove the rural countryside.
Maxine and Leon spent 64 years together before his death. Their son, Clifton, died only two weeks later after a battle with cancer.
Maxine’s three other children helped care for her the last few years before she moved to Madison House, an assisted-living home in Cortez.
Maxine couldn’t pin down an exact number but said she had close to 100 descendants.
When asked what had surprised her most during her 102 years, Maxine said she remembered seeing an airplane fly overhead for the first time and thinking it was “close to the end of times.”
Seeing so much change over her lifetime has taught Maxine to “take them (each day) as they come” and to “enjoy every minute.”
dgladden@durangoherald.com
