"About the middle of June, 1877, Mother left Pomeroy, Ohio with three
small children, to go to Father, Valentine Goeglein, in the mining
country around Silverton, Colorado.  She reached Pueblo, Colorado about
the eighth of August, 1877, where the baby of nine months died of summer
complaint.  The proper feeding of infants was unknown then.  She was
alone and a total stranger in a strange land.  Father didn't get to
Pueblo till nine days after the baby was buried.  
"August 20, 1877 - Mother and Father and Will and I continued the journey
by wagon as far as we could, then by horseback, to the cabin high in
Minnie Gulch.  Mother rode on a buckskin pony with white tail and mane. 
Mother often said how pretty it looked.  I think it must have been a
palomino, although they weren't called such then.  
"On November 30, 1877, another sister was born.  Her name was Minnie.  We
spent the winters of '77, '78, and '79 in Minnie Gulch, almost at
timberline, and snowslides came very close to our cabin.  The next spring
we moved to Silverton.  A snowslide took our cabin down the very next
winter.  We lived in Silverton a year and the snow got very deep in
winter.  Father had to cut steps in the snow from the doorstep to the
eaves of the cabin.  Needless to say, Mother and we children were
prisoners for the winter.   
"Spring, 1881 - Father got a team and covered wagon and we went from
Silverton to Animas City, a distance of 50 miles over rough country and
no roads.  The wagon had to be snubbed (eased) down the hillsides by
ropes tied to the back of the wagon and around trees.  When we reached
Animas City, spring had really come.  Grass, bushes, and cottonwood trees
were green and lovely.  Mother said it was like Paradise, after so much
snow.  The new town of Durango was just being laid out, so Father moved
the family there.  Its main street eventually became Animas City's main
street, and a horse car line ran from the depot in Durango to Animas
City.  Soon after moving to Durango, Father bought a team of large mules
and did freighting from Alamosa, came through Del Norte and Creede, to
Durango and Silverton.  He also freighted with Charley Newman from
Durango to Rico, driving a big team of mules, Kate and Moll, also from
Del Norte through Creede to Durango.  Darning needles sold in Silverton
for 25c a piece because of the high freight rate, customers were told.  
"Another sister was born in July, 1881.  Helena was her name, but she
died before she was a year old, also of summer complaint.  
"My grandfather, John Goeglein, and three uncles, Nick, John, and George,
were with us all this time.  They came out with Father in the spring of
1877.  We lived in Durango three years.  My oldest brother, Will, went to
a pay school in his first year.  It was on 2nd St., across from the
Courthouse, as near as I can remember.  By the time I was old enough for
school, the first public school was built, Longfellow School, which later
burned down.  
"September 3, 1883 - brother Ed was born and we moved to a better part of
town and lived there two years, when Father homesteaded a ranch two miles
back of Reservoir Hill.  The airfield on top of the mesa is on ground
that used to belong to my father, my grandfather, and my Uncle John. "

Maggie doesn't mention it in this writing, but several of her other
writings say that both Maggie and Minnie Gulch were already named that
before they moved there.  She also says that Minnie was not named for the
gulch, but for an aunt.  She acknowledges that many people think the
gulches were named for them, but that they weren't.  It makes it less
romantic, but I think she's probably accurate.  

Connie (writing transcribed and provided by Connie)