Colorado author MARGARET COEL recently launched “A Dozen on Denver,” a short story series for the Rocky Mountain News. The Rocky is celebrating its own 150th birthday along with that of the city of Denver. Eleven writers were invited to create stories set in their chosen decades of Denver history. The paper sponsored a writing contest to find the twelfth story – winner to be announced when the final story is published.
Margaret delivered a richly detailed story about a new widow seeking a way to support herself and her small daughter in early day Denver. “Yellow Roses” opens with an invitation to join the last the wagon train returning to St. Louis before winter sets in. The “go-backs,” people who found life in the West too difficult and decided to go home, said they were going “back to the states.”
Back to the states! Margaret’s little research detail tickled my mind after I finished her story. Gold seekers who came West in 1859 did indeed leave the states behind when they came to the Rocky Mountains. The State of Missouri must have seemed like the edge of civilization when people set out in wagons, on horseback, and on foot across the vast prairie. What became Colorado was a jigsaw puzzle where the Territories of Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, and New Mexico met on the MAP.
Thanks, Margaret, for a great story with a memorable detail.
Read an interview with MARGARET COELor listen to an audio of “YELLOW ROSES.”
