The Good Life: Growing Up on Squaw Creek by Mary Fenno Thomas

A wonderful biography of homesteading in the Edwards area. Published by The Eagle County Historical Society, this memoir is one for the record. Visit the historical museum when your in town to get a better glimpse of history to go along with this tale of authentic mountain living.

“Mary was born July 6, 1906, in Leadville, Colorado. The families of her father, Louis Fenno, and mother, Edith Nilsson Fenno, had come to the Rockies during the excitement of the Gold Rush. In 1908, when Mary was two years old, they moved to Illinois for a short time. The family lived in a ferry house built on stilts. Mary’s father operated the ferryboat across the Rock River for his brother, Frank. After two years, the family moved back to Colorado and to Squaw Creek. From 1910 until she went to college in Gunnison, Mary lived in the little homestead her father built at Squaw Creek. Mary attended Leadville and Edwards Schools and earned her high school diploma by correspondence. She graduated from Western State College with a Bachelor of Arts in English. She taught school for a year in Crawford. In 1929, she married Clifford Thomas and they operated the Edwards Store and Post Office along with their own ranch in Edwards. In 1956, Mary moved to Eagle and taught school at the Wolcott School. Later she worked at the Post Office in Eagle and retired after nine years. In her book “The Good Life,” and other short stories, Mary shares the life, times, and spirit of the early pioneers who settled Colorado.” Edith Lederhaus