Mary’s Many Happy Memories
These first photos are from the personal family album of Mary Lloyd. She lived in a home on Maple Street in Aguilar where she was born & raised. The photos of Mary & her father were taken at the Aguilar home. Mary Lloyd was born on March 14, 1910 and died in 2014 at the age of 104. She was the first daughter of William Lloyd and Katie Brennan.
William came from England after working on the docks there for a number of years. Katie's family came from Ireland. She was born in Alabama, but each of her siblings was born in a different state as the family looked for a place to settle down. Katie’s brother Casey Brennan, was born in Gallup, New Mexico. The family eventually settled in Aguilar and Casey went on to fight in World War I and later served as the Sheriff for the Town of Aguilar.
Katie ran a boarding house and cooked for the miners and perhaps that is how she met William Lloyd. William worked in the local mines and eventually was paralyzed in a coal mine collapse. On his small miners pension, he is remembered for helping feed neighbors and save local animals in need. Mary told a story of when she was a little girl, kids would wait for their fathers near the mine’s entrance at the end of their shifts. The miner who ran the elevator, took several children down into the mine. She remembers that it was pitch dark, she could feel the air being sucked out of her lungs & hearing “roaring water”. Mary’s father was very upset about this but not so much of the danger but because there was a belief that a woman in a mine meant bad luck. The fact that he was trapped and eventually paralyzed didn’t help to assuage that superstition.
Mary lived in the small home on Maple Street in Aguilar and served as the Aguilar Town Clerk for many years and was very much involved in her hometown. After she retired as Town Clerk, she worked for the Housing Authority Units in the Town of Aguilar, then moved to Denver where family cared for her till the age of 104. The Apishapa Valley Historical Society appreciates that the great-great niece of Mary Lloyd, Rachel Caulfield, is willing to share these family photos.
After her retirement, Mary took care of a dear friend named Kathleen Rand, who owned a big ranch near the Colorado & New Mexico border. They were very close and Kathleen left Mary her photo albums. The Rand Collection is an amazing depiction of the carefree life of ranch families but also the hard work involved.
