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Photo postcard of three children, Mesa, CO, ca. 1907.

Here’s a photo of three children standing on rocks in a river or creek.   Most likely they are, from left to right, Georgia, Genevieve and Charles Fortsch.   The message on the back of the postcard, postmarked in Mesa on December 21, 1907, reads: “Cousins Charlie, Georgia & Genevieve wishing you a Merry Xmas.  Box 49  Mesa Colo.”  It was sent to their cousin, Lizzie Teague, in Fairbanks, Iowa.  

(The town of Mesa, Colorado, located in the Plateau Valley, is aptly named, for it sits at the base of Grand Mesa, the largest flat-topped mountain in the world.  Grand Mesa covers approximately 500 square miles and stretches about 40 miles east of Grand Junction.)       

Charles, Georgia and Genevieve, all born in Colorado, were three of ten children raised by Frank and Mary Fortsch.     Iowan Frank Fortsch married Mary Matilda Melton, originally from Wisconsin, in April of 1881.  That same year they came out west and settled on Colorado’s Western Slope in the silver-mining town of Gothic (now a ghost town, Gothic was located about 7 miles north of the town of Crested Butte).  Frank may have worked there as a freight handler.  Then, in 1892 they moved to Second Fruit Ridge, a farming area just north of present-day Grand Junction, where they raised fruit on what had been known as the George Miller ranch.  In 1898, they moved to the Mesa area, where Frank raised livestock.  In 1909, two years after this postcard was sent, the Fortsch’s moved to Missouri to pursue farming. 

Cousin Lizzie (Elizabeth), to whom the postcard was addressed, was the daughter of Frank Fortsch’s sister, Mary, who was married to Thomas Teague.  Lizzie would have been 16 years old when she received this card from her cousins. 

Charles initially worked on the family farm in Missouri.  In 1916, he married Luretta Sullem of Missouri, and by 1917 they and their first child, Lila, had moved to Colorado, where Charles ranched and farmed near the towns of Tiffany and Kline in La Plata County in deep southwestern Colorado. By 1930, they had moved to Missouri to farm and to raise their five children.  Charles died in 1985 at the age of 93 in Adrian, Missouri.  

Georgia married Iowan Joel Bledsoe in 1920, and they later resided in Missouri.  They had five children.   Georgia died in 1952 in Missouri at the age of 53, following an illness of about ten years. 

Genevieve, born in Mesa in  1901, married Roy Blackmon in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1921.

As of the 1940 Census, Genevieve and Roy had five children and were living in Des Moines, Iowa, where Roy worked as a salesman in men’s clothing.  Genevieve died in Dubuque, Iowa, in 2001, one month short of 100 years of age. 

 REFERENCES:

  • The Daily Sentinel, dated November 26, 1938, and October 17, 1947,  at www.newspapers.com

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