{"id":1318090,"date":"2020-02-05T16:43:41","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T23:43:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=993275"},"modified":"2020-02-05T16:43:41","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T23:43:41","slug":"rifle-heritage-center-brings-history-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/rifle-heritage-center-brings-history-to-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Rifle Heritage Center brings history to life"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Dr. Susan Anderson.<\/strong>
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

With the help of Kathy Naples, a librarian and media director from East Grand School District in Granby, the Rifle Heritage Center is introducing Garfield County to \u201cDoc Susie.\u201d <\/p>\n

Naples will bring the pioneering woman in the medical profession in the west, back to life during a free event at 2 p.m., Saturday upstairs at the Rifle Library.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the key features of Chautauqua type programming which is what this is, is to present a picture of a character as well as a first-person style narrative so that people have sensory pieces they can hang onto and remember it,\u201d Naples said.<\/p>\n

This will be her second presentation in Rifle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just lovely to be surrounded by all those buildings that come from the time period Doc was living and working in Granby,\u201d Naples said.<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s event is part of a series of programs put on by the Rifle Heritage Center to bring history to the forefront of residents in Garfield County.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to lose our history, young people nowadays aren\u2019t really too interested. So I try to pick things that might be interesting to young people. If we don\u2019t keep history alive we are going to lose it all,\u201d Rifle Heritage Center events coordinator Betty Waldron said.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
Doc Susie, her father, William Anderson, and brother, John Anderson, in Cripple Creek, their home until 1899.<\/strong>
DocSusie-rct-020620-3-1<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

A path to helping people<\/h2>\n

Naples said it was fairly uncommon at that time for a female doctor.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer journals, records and family suggest she told her father at some point she wanted to be a telegraph operator for the railroad,\u201d Naples said. \u201cHer father was very adamant that she should do more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Susie helped her father, who was a farmer and rancher, by taking care of the animals and learned basic veterinarian care from him.<\/p>\n

Susie then decided to attend medical school at the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had decided by then that was the way she could have an impact on the people on the people she lived around in Colorado,\u201d Naples said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoc Susie\u201d first began her medical practice on the Front Range, but while recouping from Tuberculosis in Grand County she decided to start a practice in the small town of Fraser.<\/p>\n

Naples said that \u201cDoc Susie\u201d was quoted when she moved to Fraser that she was going to Fraser to live or die, she didn\u2019t know which it might be, but whatever happened she wanted to do her family and school proud.<\/p>\n

After a year and half in recovery, and working in a mercantile, \u201cDoc Susie\u201d<\/p>\n

Slowly started to practice.<\/p>\n

Naples said whether by myth or legend it is said her first patient was a horse.<\/p>\n

After that, she began working with mothers and children.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe community had a difficult time with medical care, the railroad had its own doctors, but were only treating their employees,\u201d Naples said.<\/p>\n

Women and children were often left out when it came to receiving medical care. <\/p>\n

\u201cDoc Susie took care of a lot of people that would not have had (care) otherwise,\u201d Naples said.<\/p>\n

Heritage Center\u2019s future<\/h2>\n

For Betty Waldron organizing events like Saturday\u2019s bring hope to continuing the Heritage Center\u2019s future in Rifle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try to do events once a month to keep people\u2019s interest up and knowing we\u2019re not dead, and we are still alive and kicking,\u201d Waldron said.<\/p>\n

The center is only able to stay open six months out of the year because the home to the museum doesn\u2019t have heat. <\/p>\n

The center began back in 1967, when it was known as the Rifle Creek Museum.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt started out in the old Austin Schoolhouse which is under the reservoir now,\u201d Waldron said.<\/p>\n

The museum moved several times until the 1980s when they moved into the current location which used to be the old Rifle City Hall.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a ton of history in there, we go all the way from Native Americans way back when clear up to the oil shale \u2026 we have right now,\u201d Waldron said.<\/p>\n

Currently, the center is trying to raise enough money to put heat in the building. Waldron said it\u2019s going to cost about $60,000. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we are only open six months out of the year, and we don\u2019t charge much,\u201d Waldron said.<\/p>\n

The center charges $5 for adults, $4 for military, seniors, and teenagers, $3 for children up to age 12, and free children age 6 and younger.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take donations anytime and anywhere, we will have a donation jar at his weekend event,\u201d Waldron said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes we get $3 and sometimes we get $53, it all depends.\u201d<\/p>\n

kmills@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Susan Anderson. With the help of Kathy Naples, a librarian and media director from East Grand School District in Granby, the Rifle Heritage Center is introducing Garfield County to \u201cDoc Susie.\u201d  Naples will bring the pioneering woman in the medical profession in the west, back to life during a free event at 2 p.m., […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1318090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 00:35:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1318090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1318090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1318090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1318090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1318090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1318090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}