Joe and Esther Romero
October 28, 1944 - 2009
Mom and Dad met at a party on October 1, 1944 in Denver.Dad's cousin, Bonnie, had invited a few friends over for drinks and music.Mom, new to Denver, had been invited through a mutual friend.
Bonnie's phonograph wasn't working, so she called her cousin.Dad was working on his car and was in grease up to his elbows, but washed his hands and came over anyway, greasy clothes and all.He fell for Mom the minute he saw her.
When Mom thought it was time to go home, another guy offered to walk her, but Dad insisted that HE walk her home.28 days later they were married.(It would have been sooner, but Dad's mother wanted another week to clean her house.)
Mom says Dad "tricked" her into marrying him.On one of their first dates, they were going up to the mountains to go fishing and Mom had fallen asleep.Dad asked her, "Do you think it's too early to get married?" Sleepy and not understanding what he said, she thought it best to say "NO" to whatever it was he was asking.
After Mom and Dad were married, they worked and saved and bought some land in Wheat Ridge.By that time (1948) my sister, Pricilla, and I were on the scene.They divided their land into two lots and started building a house on one of them.They used cinder blocks and had the outside walls and the roof on when they moved in.They didn't have running water into the house yet, and no windows.They had a well on the other lot, so water had to be carried in.That was when Dad fell off a roof at work and broke his leg and crushed his ankle.He recuperated at home, with Mom giving him his morphine shots.And that was when an early September blizzard struck.They had tarps on the windows and no heat.
They worked and built their house and added on a couple of times. They grew a vegetable garden, raised chickens, ducks, geese and rabbits, and later a milk cow and an occasional lamb and one goat. Dad was a welder and made us a swing set out of pipe, he made us a teeter-totter, and found an old wagon wheel near Clear Creek (which runs near the house) which he turned into a merry-go-round by driving the axle into the ground.We could get that old wagon wheel going fast - it was a perfect size - we could fit our legs between two spokes and then hang on for dear life while one of us spun the wheel.We usually had many neighborhood kids in our yard all the time.
Mom sewed ALL of our clothes, including coats and hats.She knitted all our sweaters and mittens.She canned vegetables and fruit, and we always had a large freezer full of food.
Mom and Dad always helped neighbors and friends - no one left their house empty-handed - a jar of homemade raspberry jam, or a bag of cookies or a homemade pie.
My younger sister, Arlene, and brother, Wayne, arrived 7 and 9 years after me, making us a family of six. We all grew up helping with the yard, the garden, the animals and building the house. It was not a life without hardship, but it was a life of love and family. Our original house (before all the additions) had a front door in which Dad had carved a heart and inserted glass.Our original driveway was paved with concrete in which Dad had drawn a heart with an arrow through it and the initials "JAR + ELR".