Preserving the home ties

They had come to escape religious persecution and mandatory service in the armies of their oppressors - Austria-Hungary, Prussia and Russia. They were treated like second-class citizens in their own country, and their language and culture suppressed. But in America, they were free to express themselves and in Globeville they took every opportunity to celebrate and preserve their heritage.

Lydia Heck remembered, “St. Paul’s Lutheran Church was at 4438 Grant and that’s where we went to German school. We went after regular school a couple times a week. It was the same as Bible School, where we would learn catechism and to read and write in German.” Pauline Rodie added, “Our German people also had their Volga Gesangbook. The songs were long and people knew them from memory.” 

 

Volga Gesangbook courtesy of Virginia Laber

 

In 1889, Globeville’s Poles established the Polish National Alliance (PNA). In addition to providing burial insurance, the lodge offered a place to hold events like Polish Constitution Day, and for young people to perform plays and concerts in the Polish language. In 1902, due to the fund raising and promotional efforts of the PNA, St. Joseph's Polish Catholic Church was dedicated. In 1920, the resourceful Father Jarzynski was able to purchase the Colorado and Southern Depot for use as an elementary school, ensuring the continuation of old country faith and customs.

 Children's concert, PNA Hall. Photo Courtesy of Cathy Gizeski

 

In 1920, Globeville’s Slovenes built Holy Rosary Church and, in 1927, Holy Rosary School. Several fraternal organizations, the KSKJ, the American Fraternal Union, the Slovenian Women's Union and the Western Slavonic Association, provided financial services and a place for athletic teams, dramatic groups and choirs to express their Slovenian heritage. This child’s book was published in 1917 and carries the imprimatur of Father Cyril Zupan, OSB from Pueblo. It teaches the Slovenian alphabet, and provides simple descriptions of Slovenia, fairy tales and Bible stories.

 Jezus prijatelj otrok. Jesus is a friend of the children.

Helen Kohut Capron grew up in Globeville’s Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church. “They tried, really tried, to teach us to speak and write in Russian. We had to go to Russian school once a week after regular school. It was like Sunday school. When my grandmother Anna passed away in 1950, we no longer spoke the language and I’ve forgotten most of it.”  
These pioneers and the fraternals are gone. Their descendants have grown up away from the neighborhood and are unaware of much of their heritage. Only the churches remain.
 

Globeville: the Melting Pot

The arrival of so many immigrants to Globeville was the product of perfect timing. The rapid growth of industry in Colorado during the 1870s and 80s motivated employers to recruit people who would work for less than American-born workers even as economic, religious and political unrest in eastern Europe and Russia led hundreds of thousands to emigrate. Agents from the railroads and the Gilpin County Cheap Labor Bureau distributed fliers that promised lucrative jobs on the railroads and in the mines; smelters welcomed those who would endure the gritty, dangerous work near furnaces. These factors led to an explosion in the number of immigrants arriving during the 1880s, and by the mid 1890s, one in four people in Denver was foreign-born.* Then the bottom fell out.

The nation’s economy collapsed in 1893, which hit Colorado’s mining-based economy particularly hard. Late arrivals found themselves competing with American-born workers, as well as with earlier groups, for fewer jobs. The newcomers were resented because they would work for lower wages, had large families, and didn't speak English. Settling near their countrymen, they created ethnic enclaves within a larger neighborhood, and did not assimilate as easily as the earlier immigrants had done. Although Globeville was called a “melting pot,” the term is not an accurate description since each group tried to maintain its own language, religion and cultural traditions. These groups include:

• The German-speaking group, who came not from Germany, but from a region of Russia along the Volga River.
• The Poles, who began to migrate to the United States following partitions of Poland among Russia, Prussia, and Austria-Hungary that began in 1772. More political unrest in the 1870s and 1880s brought large numbers to Globeville.
• Southern Slavs, including Slovenians, Croatians, Macedonians, and Serbs, who came from an area that had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
• There were also Russian, Slovak, Czech and “Carpatho-Russian” families, whose countries had been annexed by Austria-Hungary or Russia.
• Hispanic settlers, some who can trace their family's presence in America to the 16th century, began to settle in Globeville after World War II.

*Leonard, Stephen J. “Denver’s Foreign Born Immigrants, 1859-1900,” Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Claremont Graduate School, 1971

A printed advertisement from the turn of the century announces, “The Slovenian Singing Club will sing Slovenian folk songs in the City’s Fourth of July program.” The women are left, Carrie Grugan, and right, Mollie Zalar. Photo courtesy of Betty Zalar Paprocki

Baseball in Globeville

Baseball was big in Globeville. Andy Jackson remembered, "The lodges had teams, all the packing houses, Armour & Company, Western Packing and Burkhardt, each had a team. The brickyards had a team that played at a ball field at 45th and Leaf Court on Sunday mornings. There were also ball fields at 49th and Washington and at 23rd and Welton. Lots of people played for several teams."

Top photo, 1923 team sponsored by the Gerhardt Mercantile Company.

Left to right, standing: Henry Heinz, Pete Shinall, Nick Walters, Pete Sterkel, Ollie Krieger, and Alec Hilzer, manager.

Left to right, seated: Henry Schlit, Horst Nickels, Charley Jack, Pete Spomer, Jake Sterkel, Henry Honstein, and Albert Tribelhorn, mascot. Photo courtesy Larry Summers.

Max Beer Parlor Baseball Team 1934. Photo courtesy of Paul Goreski