Article Contributed on: 6/12/2008 12:00:07 PM
Editor's note: Visit our
Faces of Highlands Ranch page, where YourHub.com staff and readers can introduce you to more people who make this part of the metro area what it is.
Imagine for me, if you will, an elderly woman, living all alone on a mountain top. She hears loud noises coming from her shelter-house (another smaller cabin on her property) and she knows that a bear has been ransacking her fridge that she keeps stocked within it. What would you suppose she does?
Ada Thiele, better known as
Mountain Jeannie, took her shotgun, killed the bear and made it into a rug while she enjoyed some tasty bear steaks. Jeannie lived up on a property called Trails End from the late 1940s until her death in the 1980s, and for my senior project, a requirement for graduation at ThunderRidge High School, I researched the life of this amazing woman for the Roxborough historical society. The senior project, in a brief summery, is a project on any topic which, once completed, must be presented to a board of teachers and community members.
The idea of doing research on my own, with no history textbook to rely on was daunting, but the more I discovered about Jeannie's life, the more I found myself drawn in. Her life, when looked at, reads like a novel, engaging, with twists and turns you hardly expect from a woman who lived alone for so many years.
She started off living in Oklahoma, but moved often, and after the demise of her first marriage, she became the drifter, finally coming to the Roxborough area in the late 1940s. She lived in her own, growing vegetables and raising many different kinds of animals for food. She also had a beloved pet porcupine and peacock.
She knew how to shoot, and not only did she kill a bear, but a mountain lion too, proudly displaying the skin and head of the animal on her wall. She led a life that would not appeal to all of us, depending as much as she could on herself. Jeannie impressed on me something that most teenaged girls don't understand until they are much older. She told me that I needed no man to survive my life, and should depend on myself. And so Jeannie not only got me a passing grade on my project, but she taught me a little about life, and a little about the world out there. And for that, I am thankful.
To complete my project, I will be giving a presentation to the historical society in early July, and all who wish to learn more about this amazing woman are welcome to come. We also will be taking a 'field trip' up to Jeannie's property, Trail End.