Colorado takes your breath away. Some of that has to do with the altitude -- oxygen seems a little scarce when you're walking around Leadville at 10,152 feet above sea level -- but mostly it is what Katherine Lee Bates called "the purple mountain majesties" in her poem "America the Beautiful" that leave flatlanders breathless. Texans may joke that Colorado is an old Ute Indian word meaning "Land of the Subaru" but the mere mention of the word Colorado always conjures up images of one thing - the towering Rocky Mountains.
Up on the Arkansas
It is a 12-hour drive from Fannin County, Texas, to my favorite fishing hole on the Arkansas River near Salida, Colorado, and well worth every minute of it, even if driving across the seemingly endless Texas Panhandle will make you question the logic of this endeavor. Although the only trout I landed was a 14-inch brown, there is no telling what was on the other end of two hits that got away. This is a world-class trout stream with its fair share of bruisers cruising around.
And trout fishing near Salida doesn't mean living off of granola bars until you can travel back to civilization. If you work up an appetite scrambling along the river bank, it's only 15 minutes to great bakeries, pizza and coffee, three sources of tremendous pride in every mountain town. After visiting this town for 30 years, I thought I knew Salida pretty well. But I didn't know about the interesting connection this area has to Fannin County.
After driving 750 miles in mid-June, we checked in at a spectacular cabin -- The logs were shipped in from Finland.
Our host, Salida resident Dana Jones Roberts, asked where we were from.
When we answered "Bonham," she replied, "My father, James Bacon Jones, was born there. Ever hear of Currin's Man's Shop? My father's best friend was Trav Currin."
Cindy Baker Burnett tells part 2
…and best friends they were! Bacon grew up in West Bonham and lived with his parents Theo C. and Edith B. Jones and his 8 siblings. Travis’s home was in South Bonham with his parents Charles Lee and Bertha M. Currin and one sister. Theo Jones was a carpenter and house builder, while Charlie Currin owned a grocery store near the home.
Theo and Edith raised their family in a two-story house. As the Jones children grew up and began to leave home, the Joneses decided they’d rather live in a one-story house. The kicker was that the top floor was Theo’s and Edith’s favorite part of the house. Being the skilled carpenter that Theo was, he removed the first floor of the house and brought the top floor down to the ground. Read that again. Yes, he made a one-story house from a two-story one…but in a tedious and far-from-ordinary manner. And being the resourceful and enterprising man that he was, Theo used the lumber from the remodeling project to build homes to sell in Bonham.
A feature story of this monumental feat appeared in a Dallas newspaper back in the day. Theo was, indeed, a pioneer problem-solver and risk-taker. It is unknown how long it took Theo to complete the project, but it was considerably less than the 75-100 years it took Noah to build the ark.
And Noah was 500 years old!
Both Bacon and Travis graduated from Bonham High School, Trav in 1938 and Bacon in 1939. The two young men were active in sports—Travis in football and Bacon in football and tennis.
Travis enjoyed being one of the editors on The Bonhi (high school newspaper) staff and Bacon was in the Pen, Pencil, and Brush Club. Trav liked the Glee Club, and Bacon was involved in FFA, being named the Farm Watch Dog his freshman year. The "Farm Watch Dog" was stationed by the door in traditional early FFA meetings, tasked with keeping the meeting room comfortable and caring for the chapter's physical equipment and meeting space. The title was later formally changed to the Sentinel in the early 1950s, shifting the symbolic station marker from the dog to the shield of friendship and hand clasp. Bacon and Travis were in the “B” Association…back when hazing was on the Sunday school level.
Bacon and Trav hitch-hiked to Lubbock to attend Texas Tech. Freshmen initiation consisted of gathering at the football field and following orders from the upperclassmen. The first instruction was for all students (500 men and 400 women, compared to 3,175 men and 3,500 women today) to gather at one end of the field and remove shoes, placing them in one large pile. Let’s see, that’s 1,000 men’s shoes and 800 women’s shoes…in one large “mountain.”
Keep in mind that Bacon and Travis had no car and only ONE pair of shoes each.
The 900 students had to run to the opposite end of the field and wait for instructions. At the signal, the students were told to run to the opposite end of the field and find their shoes in the mammoth pile.
Yeah, right.
For each student, the first hope was to find their own shoes. Uh-huh. Second, they hoped to find one left and one right shoe, preferably the same color. Oh yeah, they desperately wanted the right size.
College challenges of the '30s had nothing to do with Greek Week and everything to do with finding a part-time job.
Bacon and his buddy Trav transferred to West Texas State in Canyon, Texas, to enroll in a Civil Air Patrol program associated with the college, in hopes of learning to fly. That’s where Bacon met the love of his life, Lila Pearl (Buddie) Aven.
One week after Pearl Harbor, the two friends enlisted in the Army/Air Force in San Antonio and applied to Flight Training School. And that’s when they were separated.
Bacon was “loaned” to Braniff Airways and sent to Brownsville, Texas, flying commercial passenger routes to Central America in DC-3s, the civilian version of the C-47s he would soon be flying. On March 3, 1943, he boarded the British aircraft carrier “STALKER” bound for Casablanca where he was assigned to the Africa Middle East Wing of the Air Transport Command, headquartered in Accra, Gold Coast, Africa. After 14 months, he returned to the U.S. to become an instrument instructor pilot at Rosencrans Field near St. Joseph, MO until his tour ended in September 1945.
Travis was involved in the European Theatre of Operations during World War II. He was in the Troop Carrier Command and achieved the rank of Captain. When he transported wounded soldiers, he spoke with each one before take-off, introducing himself and reassuring them. “Hello, Soldier, I’m Captain Currin, and I’m taking you home.” Many of the men cried, and some never lived to see home again.
While stationed in Kansas City, MO and taking training with TWA, he met Arline Frances MacDonald. They married on March 4, 1943. In 1945, both Bacon and Travis left the service and returned to Bonham. Bacon went to watch-making school and became a watch-maker, jeweler and hand-engraver.
Bacon and Travis formed a partnership and purchased Plaza Drug on the east side of the square in Bonham (where Don Toro’s is located today). They had a soda fountain, a pharmacy, a watch repair and jewelry bench, a TV repair, and a bus station. Both families built their homes on Highway 78N. Sadly, the Jones family home burned and they moved to Littlefield, Texas.
Bacon remained in the jewelry business, and his son Spike joined him in designing and creating quality jewelry with exquisite gems for Bacon Jones Jewelers. Bacon and Buddie continued to travel across the country as Bacon and Company to assist jewelry stores in managing inventories and closing out stores. Bacon retired at the age of 82.
In 1955, Travis sold his interest in the drug store to Bob Barrow and purchased Arledge Menswear from Stewart Arledge. Thus, he named the store Currin’s Man’s Shop, where he retired in 1995.
Trav’s community involvement included past president of the Bonham Chamber of Commerce where he was also a charter member. He was also past president of the Bonham Rotary Club, past chairman of American Red Cross, former member of the Bonham ISD school board, and trustee of the Boy Scout Camp.
He served as an elder of Northside Church of Christ and was a board member of the Willow Wild Cemetery Association. Too, he was an advisory director of First National Bank.
The town of Lubbock became a common denominator in the tapestry of the Joneses and Currins. Bacon and Buddie raised their three children (a boy and two girls)---Spike, Susan, and Dana---in Lubbock, and Trav and Arline sent their three (two girls and a boy)---Kathy, Cindy, and Tim---to Texas Tech in Lubbock. Guns up!
There are friends. There is family.
And there are friends who become family.
Part 3 is told by Patrick Bradford, a great-grandson of Bacon Jones
During the formative years of Bacon Jones Jewelers, money was tight for Bacon and Buddie. The latter worked as a secretary to help keep everyone fed and clothed while the former toiled to get his new venture up and running. However, financial constraints didn’t stop them from embarking on a family camping trip whenever the opportunity presented itself—and by golly, when they camped, they went all-out.
On Saturday they would pack Bacon’s army trailer with enough supplies to last at least ten days. Then, they’d hit the road in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday morning and tootle off into another world, a place of pine-swept mountain valleys and glistening alpine lakes. Their destination was usually a campground in either New Mexico or Colorado, but no matter the route, they always made time to visit a church somewhere along the way. The next week and a half would then be spent making memories.
Like the time in Cowles, New Mexico, when they welcomed an unexpected addition into their family. Although he had the stubby legs of a Corgi, they couldn’t quite tell what he was in terms of breed, but he certainly caught their attention when he waddled into their campsite, tail wagging. At first they presumed he belonged to a fellow camper, but after extensive inquiries, they were told he’d been abandoned. Naturally, they took him home and named him Mister.
Another time in Aspen, Colorado, they lodged at a bed-and-breakfast run by a Swiss immigrant who, after dinner each night, would play something called a “zither” for his guests. It was a musical instrument common to regions such as Austria; its strings were stretched across the flat top of a wooden, box-like contraption, giving it the likeness of a guitar without a neck.
Spike, Susan, and Dana, having never seen one before, were delighted by the performance. Back then Aspen had not yet become the hot skiing phenomenon it is today, so local entertainment came in unusual but fascinating forms.
Little did the Jones family know that Colorado had far bigger things in store for them than music.
In 1959, seeing as the barter system was still in full swing, Buddie’s sister, Ruth, and her husband Bernard had traded a meat locker they owned in Dimmit, Texas, for a ranch near Nathrop, Colorado. (Said meat locker was later featured in an issue of Life Magazine, but that’s another story.)
Bacon and Buddie’s youngest, Dana, who was nine years old when the deal went through, was profoundly saddened by the departure of her aunt and uncle. She considered them a second set of parents, so involved were they in her and her siblings’ lives.
Luckily, she was able to visit the ranch on numerous occasions. She would often spend two to three weeks there during summer breaks. As childhood gave way to young adulthood—as well as a driver’s license—she began making the trip with friends. And of course with every visit, she accompanied Ruth and Bernard to church, where, on a particular Sunday in 1968, destiny awaited.
Unbeknownst to Dana, a young man named Dean Roberts was singing in the choir that morning. The lovely stranger in the congregation caught his eye, and he immediately wanted to learn more about her. To that end, an ice cream social was arranged between Ruth, Bernard, Dana, Dean, and Dean’s parents, Frank and Mabel, by a mutual friend of the two parties.
It worked. Soon, Dean and Dana were officially dating.
Around that same time, Bacon and Buddie decided they wanted to establish stronger roots in Colorado. They felt the same pull toward the Rockies that Ruth and Bernard had years earlier. Buddie wanted a place where they could park their motor home and be close enough to visit her sister.
Her sister, upon learning this, happily recommended a beautiful slice of property right on the Arkansas River that was for sale nearby (hardly a mile’s distance from the ranch, to be exact). Dana appraised it during one of her stays and gave it the stamp of approval, so Bacon and Buddie joined forces with Jack and Bernice Worley—a pair they knew from the West Texas Motor Home Club—to purchase it. Both couples used it as a getaway to escape Lubbock’s furnace-like summer temperatures.
Meanwhile, Dean and Dana’s relationship was blossoming. Dana’s heading to Wichita State University did not snuff the flame, though it did force them to resort to phone calls and letters. They tied the knot in the fall of 1972 and remained in Colorado. Within a few years they’d expanded to a family of five and were living on Frank and Mabel’s dairy ranch, where Dean grew up.
After Jack Worley passed away in the early 1990s, Bernice sold her half of the property to Bacon and Buddie, making them the sole owners. Since all that open space was now at their disposal, they called on Dean to help build a sizeable rec room overlooking the river.
Dean was a gifted craftsman with the mind of an engineer and the dedication of an artist. His contributions to the project were enormous. Laboring alongside him, however, were two co-workers from his job at the Buena Vista Department of Corrections, and a handful of others Bacon had brought in. The finished product took just shy of three months to complete.
(Fun fact: the long bay window facing the river came from a Long John Silver’s restaurant that was being remodeled. Bacon and Spike rescued it from the scrap pile with the owners’ blessing.)
The rec room would go on to be the stage for countless family gatherings featuring children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. It still stands as of this writing. One can almost hear the laughter-riddled echoes of birthday parties, Fourth of July celebrations, and card games inside.
But it is not the only local landmark that bears Dean’s handiwork.
In 2007, Dean turned to his wife out of the blue and said, “I’d like to build a cabin.” When Dana asked why, he shrugged, then answered, “I’d just like to try it.”
Perhaps it was because his mother had always wanted a cabin. Or perhaps his creative side simply needed channeling. Whatever the reason, he made good on his intentions and built two majestic log cabins on his parents’ dairy ranch—which by then had been passed down and transformed into an Angus cattle venture.
The first was finished in 2009, the second in 2012. Dean proved to be a warmly beloved host; before long vacationers from across the nation were coming to stay, drawn no doubt by the panoramic views and rustic atmosphere. How could he have known as he was constructing his masterpieces that they would someday reveal a generations-old connection with Bonham, Texas.
Clichéd or not, the saying rings true: it is indeed a small world.
