YOUR AD HERE »

Book signing with granddaughter of area pioneer school teacher slated for Sunday

Bridget Manley
Elkhead School north of Hayden can be seen through thick vegetation in this photo taken by Janet Gerber, Museum of Northwest Colorado assistant director. Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood, both descendents of privileged families in the East, came to teach at the school in the early 1900s. Woodruff’s granddaughter, Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of The New Yorker, will sign copies of the book she wrote about her grandmother’s experiences from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday at the museum, 590 Yampa Ave.
Janet Gerber

If you go ...

What: Free book signing with Dorothy Wickenden, author of “Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West”

When: 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday

Where: Museum of Northwest Colorado, 590 Yampa Ave.

— Copies of the book are available at the museum. For more information, call the museum at 824-6360 or visit http://www.museumnwco.or...

If you go ...

What: Barn dance and barbecue in honor of Dorothy Wickenden and her book, “Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West”

When: 5 p.m. Saturday

Where: Hayden Grain Elevator, 198 E. Lincoln St., Hayden.

— The event costs $25 per person and includes live music. For more information, call the Hayden Heritage Center Museum at 276-4380.

Quotable

“She’s a wonderful writer.”

— Janet Gerber, Museum of Northwest Colorado assistant director, about The New Yorker executive editor Dorothy Wickenden, who penned a book about her grandmother, Dorothy Woodruff, a teacher at Elkhead School north of Hayden in the early 1900s





Elkhead School north of Hayden can be seen through thick vegetation in this photo taken by Janet Gerber, Museum of Northwest Colorado assistant director. Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood, both descendents of privileged families in the East, came to teach at the school in the early 1900s. Woodruff’s granddaughter, Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of The New Yorker, will sign copies of the book she wrote about her grandmother’s experiences from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday at the museum, 590 Yampa Ave.
Janet Gerber

Elkhead School and its teacherage — or residence for teachers, pictured here, served the pioneer town of Elkhead north of Hayden. Both buildings are undergoing restorations, said Janet Gerber, Museum of Northwest Colorado assistant director. The site was home to pioneer school teachers Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood, who ventured west in the early 1900s.Janet Gerber

If you go …

What: Free book signing with Dorothy Wickenden, author of “Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West”

When: 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday

Where: Museum of Northwest Colorado, 590 Yampa Ave.



— Copies of the book are available at the museum. For more information, call the museum at 824-6360 or visit http://www.museumnwco.or…

If you go …

What: Barn dance and barbecue in honor of Dorothy Wickenden and her book, “Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West”



When: 5 p.m. Saturday

Where: Hayden Grain Elevator, 198 E. Lincoln St., Hayden.

— The event costs $25 per person and includes live music. For more information, call the Hayden Heritage Center Museum at 276-4380.

Quotable

“She’s a wonderful writer.”

— Janet Gerber, Museum of Northwest Colorado assistant director, about The New Yorker executive editor Dorothy Wickenden, who penned a book about her grandmother, Dorothy Woodruff, a teacher at Elkhead School north of Hayden in the early 1900s

Two young women step from a train in Hayden, the second-to-last stop on the Denver, Northwestern & Pacific Railway.

The date is July 27, 1916, and these women of refinement are far from home.

Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood were educated at one of the first women’s colleges, and they have tasted the finer hints of Europe, Woodruff’s granddaughter, Dorothy Wickenden, would write nearly a century later.

Yet, this trip isn’t merely sightseeing excursion or a detour on the way to a gilded future in the East. The women are leaving that life behind for a new one in the West.

Wickenden recounts Woodruff and Underwood’s lives as country school teachers at Elkhead School north of Hayden in her book, “Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West,” published in 2011 by Scribner.

The Westchester, New York, resident will be the featured guest at a free book signing from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday at the Museum of Northwest Colorado, 590 Yampa Ave.

The book signing dovetails with other events this week in the Yampa Valley, including a barbecue and barn dance at 5 p.m. Saturday at the historic Hayden Grain Elevator, 198 E. Lincoln St., Hayden.

The event costs $25 per person and includes live music. Proceeds benefit the Hayden Heritage Center Museum.

Janet Gerber, Museum of Northwest Colorado assistant director, has yet to finish reading “Nothing Daunted,” but likes what she’s read so far.

“Absolutely,” she said. “It’s very detailed to start out with, but she’s really setting the tone for the rest of the book.

“She’s a wonderful writer.”

Wickenden has a long list of credentials speaking to her experience in the craft.

She has served as the executive editor of The New Yorker since 1996, and she was national affairs editor at Newsweek from 1993 to 1995.

She also teaches narrative nonfiction at The Writers’ Institute at The City University of New York’s Graduate Center, according to her website, http://www.nothingdaunted.com.

The idea for the book took root in 2008 when Wickenden stumbled upon a cache of her grandmother’s letters, some of which she wrote when she began teaching at Elkhead School with Underwood.

As Wickenden thumbed through the forgotten missives, she read how her grandmother first encountered Hayden residents, who were “all agog” at their arrival yet greeted them with warmth, Wickenden wrote in the prologue.

“One man could barely be restrained ‘from showing us a bottle of gall stones just removed from his wife,’” she wrote, quoting one of her grandmother’s letters.

Woodruff’s letters spoke to the life she knew and grew to love in Northwest Colorado.

She and Underwood may have society girls by birth, but they also were trailblazers at heart “who shunned convention to head out to what was still, in many ways, the Wild West,” Wickenden wrote.

Copies of “Nothing Daunted” are available at the Museum of Northwest Colorado. For more information about Sunday’s book signing, call the museum at 824-6360.

For more information about Saturday’s barn dance and barbecue, call the Hayden Heritage Center Museum at 276-4380.

Click here to have the print version of the Craig Daily Press delivered to your home.


Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

Readers around Craig and Moffat County make the Craig Press’ work possible. Your financial contribution supports our efforts to deliver quality, locally relevant journalism.

Now more than ever, your support is critical to help us keep our community informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having locally. Every contribution, however large or small, will make a difference.

Each donation will be used exclusively for the development and creation of increased news coverage.