(Edited by Edwin’s son, Charlie Ekburg)
Edwin H. Ekburg b. 4/20/1920 – d. 1/8/1989
Edwin Herman Ekburg (“Swede”) was Charlie and Beda’s youngest son born on April 20, 1920. Beda was 44 years of age at Edwin’s birth, an advanced age for giving birth even by today’s standards. His place of birth was Ochsner’s Hospital (#2 ?) .
Edwin Ekburg spent his childhood wandering the valleys and mountains of the La Plata Canyon and fishing the La Plata River, something he never stopped doing over his life. He attended grade school at the La Plata schoolhouse and some at the May Day school, some five miles below La Plata City. Because of the sever winters at 9200 feet in elevation, teachers held classes mostly in the snow-free months. Horseback was the main mode of transportation in the Canyon.
Edwin was in his early teens when his mom and dad moved the family to a 3rd avenue home in Durango. We have no records of what, if any schools he attended, but we do know he graduated the 8th grade.
Edwin entered the U.S. Army in 1942 and they stationed him in Fort Smith, Arkansas and then Fort Carson, Colorado, where he learned to drive large trucks. He never saw action; the Army issued him an honorable discharge in 1944 and he returned to live with his folks in Durango. All his Durango friends and his co-workers called Edwin, “Swede”.
Edwin had an unusual disdain for facial hair of any kind, which was peculiar because every male in his family sported a “walrus” style mustache. I (his son) got constant goading from him when I grew a full-on mountain-man type beard. I have never been without facial hair since after basic training in the army. My wife of 44 years has never seen me clean shaven!
A couple of entrepreneurial Scotsmen, Burnett and William Gerard were Edwin’s first serious employers. Edwin became a truck driver for Burnett and Gerard and over those years worked on the reconstruction of Wolf Creek Pass, construction of Vallecito Reservoir and other construction projects in the local area.
Billy Gerard bought out all Burnett’s holdings except for his construction business, which included the Victory Coal Mine located in a tributary of Lightner Creek, just west of Durango. Edwin became Gerard’s “outside man” and truck driver in about 1950, and remained there until the mid-’60’s when he went to work doing the same job for Orin Pelcher at the Burnwell #2 coal mine in Haygulch, south of Hesperus, Colorado. The Burnwell #2 suffered a huge underground explosion in the spring of 1966 that ended the mine’s production history. The explosion killed three workers; Orin Pelcher had scheduled Edwin to be the fourth man in that mine, but at the time of the explosion he was outside loading a last-minute order of stoker-coal for delivery.
Edwin grew up in a family of underground (hard-rock) miners, but never cared for being underground himself, even though he occasionally mined coal underground for Gerard and Pilcher. He never spoke about it, but the family believes the underground accident that eventually lead to Verner’s death, had a negative effect on him.
In the years following the coal mine explostion, Edwin worked construction jobs for Scott Construction, which included building the Purgatory Ski Resort in the Hermosa north of Durango. One task he participated in was the detonation of the rail car in the movie, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”.
Edwin met Freda Mae Roberts, a transplanted east-slope (Hugo) Colorado girl while she was a waitress for the Mandarin Cafe in Durango Colorado. Freda was living with her aunt and uncle, Edith and Leo Hall in Bayfield, Colorado. Freda (mom) told me she fell instantly for that tall towheaded Swede with “the most beautiful blue eyes” she had ever seen. They married April 20, 1948.
Edwin and Freda born three offspring:
Charles (Little Charlie) Edwin Ekburg 7/48
Carol Nadine Ekburg 3/51
Marvin Carl Ekburg 3/54 (on Freda’s birthday)
Doctor McKinley delivered all three children and all three were born in Ochsner’s Hospital (Gable House), which was the La Plata County Hospital at that time.
(More history is coming – webmaster)
All images copyright Ekburg Family Archive.
