John Justman sits on the porch of the house he and his wife Frances have owned since the 1970s. It was built by the Resettlement Administration and was originally occupied by a family named Anderson.
In 1938, the farm in Eastern Colorado where Frances and Ernest Crane struggled to make a living was played out. So, when they learned of a federal program to allow them to purchase better land in Western Colorado, they jumped at the chance.
"When we heard about it, we applied immediately and we were one of the families sent over here from the Eastern Slope," Frances said in a 1982 interview. By then, she had remarried and become Frances Idler.
Frances and her family were among more than 40 families who moved to the Fruita-Loma area in 1937 and 1938 from Colorado's Eastern Plains through the Resettlement Administration, a part of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.
Thomas Wayne Beede and his family also took the plunge, and achieved significant success with their resettlement farm northeast of Loma. Three generations of Beedes expanded the farm and operated it through the 1970s.
The resettlement program purchased the old farms and provided low-cost loans to the farmers to buy their new lands and operate their farms. It hoped to turn failing farmers into productive ones.
"The object of the resettlement program is to provide adequate homes and good farm land for those who now toil on substandard land," said the First Annual Report of the Resettlement Administration in 1936.
The brainchild of Columbia University professor Rexford Tugwell, who became head of the Resettlement Administration, the program's lofty aim was to move 650,000 people from 100 million acres of what was seen as worn-out farmland.
But it fell far short of that goal. Budget limitations and Congressional opposition meant it resettled only several thousand people from about 9 million acres of poor land.
There were resettlement communities across the country, even in Alaska. In Colorado, there were communities in Delta and Montrose counties and in the San Luis Valley, as well as the Fruita-Loma area.
Families were moved onto farms of 50 to 80 acres. The government built 900-square-foot houses with distinctive, high-peaked roofs designed for regions with heavy snowfall. Many of those houses are still standing.
Former Mesa County Commissioner John Justman and his wife Frances have lived in a resettlement house east of Fruita for more than 50 years, and have added on several times. Justman believes a family named Anderson originally lived in the house when they resettled from the Eastern Plains.
The Justmans raised their children in the house. And they grew sugar beets, corn, wheat and onions on 118 acres that were originally part of two resettlement farms.
Although the resettlement houses were small, they were well-built and most had a full basement, Justman said. "There were two bedrooms upstairs" under the peaked roof, and there was originally a coal-stoker stove for heat, he added.
Allen Reid, who farmed near Loma for more than four decades, acquired a resettlement house when he purchased the farmland associated with the house. "They put them on pretty good dirt," Reid said of the resettlement farms. "But how did they acquire this ground?"
A Daily Sentinel story on Feb. 14, 1936, offers a partial answer, noting that the program was surveying land around Delta for potential resettlement farms.
"Anyone owning property in these districts interested in listing it for possible sale to the government" was told to contact the resettlement administrator. The survey "presents an excellent opportunity to absentee landowners to dispose of lands in these districts," it said.
In March 1936, the Sentinel reported that 40 families from Weld County would be resettled onto lands near Mack. A large strip of land would be purchased in the area "if the present owners do not attempt to force the government to pay exorbitant prices," an official said.
However, at the same time there were efforts in Washington to scale back the program. Republicans argued it was wasteful and its $3 million-a-month budget could be better spent in direct payments to families.
So, government officials announced a more modest resettlement program. Still, by spring 1937, resettlement houses were under construction near Fruita and Loma.
A newsreel filmed in April 1937 touted Western Slope resettlement farms. It featured a family who moved from Weld County to a resettlement farm north of Loma. That family didn't stay long, however, eventually returning to the Front Range.
Others were more determined. Frances Idler remained on her farm with her family for many years, even though her husband became ill and died. Fortunately, they had gotten a crop started before he was hospitalized. "With the help of neighbors and other friends, I took care of that crop, which was very substantial, even for the first year," Frances recalled.
Having married William Idler in 1940, Frances stayed involved in the Loma and Fruita communities, even after they moved off the farm, until her death in 1993.
Thomas Wayne Beede and his family, who resettled from near Windsor, remained even though the land they initially settled on near Loma proved unsuitable for farming, said grandson Ross Beede.
Beede was able to exchange that first farm for other property on 15½ Road northeast of Loma, and his brother, Frank Beede, moved to a resettlement farm just to the west.
Thomas Wayne Beede, known as Wayne, became a successful farmer and respected member of the community, and was elected to the Colorado Legislature. However, he died while in office at the age of 47, and his son Wayne took over the farm, said Dale Beede, Ross's brother.
It was "pretty hardscrabble," Dale said. "They did whatever they could to get by. My grandmother sold eggs to City Market."
The Beedes also had a small dairy, raised sugar beets and barley, and maintained a cattle feedlot. By the 1970s, they had 400 acres of farmland. Dale and Ross both worked on the farm, and Ross managed it into the late 1970s, when the family sold the land.
Dale, Ross and their father Wayne all eventually got into the real estate business in Grand Junction. Dale remains involved in commercial real estate.
Some of the farms near Fruita, such as the one Justman now owns, were supplied with city water. But for others, "The drinking water was from a ditch," Frances Idler recalled. "And until there were cisterns built that's all we had, and there was quite a bit of sickness."
Allen Reid said he learned some of those early resettlement farmers made homemade filtering systems to make the ditch water potable.
By the time the first resettlement families moved to Mesa County, the Resettlement Administration had been folded into the Farm Security Administration and its responsibilities assumed by other agencies. Few families were resettled after 1938.
But those who had moved maintained social connections such as a Thanksgiving barbecue in 1938. In early 1939, the Sentinel declared, "It's gratifying to note the success that has blessed the federal resettlement projects in Mesa and Delta Counties."
Sources: "First Annual Report of the Resettlement Administration," 1936; "Interview with Frances Grace (Southway) Idler," conducted by Virginia Donoho, October 19, 1982, Mesa County Oral History Project, Mesa County Libraries; author interviews with Allen Reid, John and Frances Justman, Dale and Ross Beede; Sentinel articles at www.newspapers.com; special thanks to Bob Wilson.
Bob Silbernagel's email is [email protected].