Our Douglas community thrived on Beans in the late 19th and early 20th Century. But not the kind you think…

The Bean family lineage began with John Marean Bean of Gilead Maine, born in 1846, and his wife, the former Mary Mason. His five sons lusted early on for something new and different; three of them came to Colorado; the other two, Alphonso and John stopped short in Iowa. All had been trained as carpenters, specializing in making cupboards and dairy churns.

Brothers Rinaldo and Lewellyn were the two earliest to arrive in Colorado. Rinaldo booked passage on one of the first passenger trains into Denver in 1870 via Cheyenne. He had lost his Kentucky-born wife, Matilda, early on, so starting all over again may also have been his motivating factor. An asthmatic condition plagued the Bean family, affecting brother Lewellyn, and likely that condition was his motivation to leave Maine as well.

Rinaldo married his second wife, Mary. They had two daughters, Gladys and Gertrude, both of whom were educated at our Plum Creek School. Later, he and Lewellyn found their way to Central City and after working temporarily as miners, found their preferred carpentry work again in helping construct the Central City Opera House.

Brother Ralph Waldo Bean married Ella Wheeler and remained on the Maine homestead until his father died in 1871 and until all of his three children, including son Fred Linwood, were born. In 1881, Ralph’s family also moved west to Douglas County. Fred courted and then married Elizabeth Sobey who had been raised in a homestead log cabin built by her father still standing on today’s Penley Ranch.

Adjusting quickly, Fred and Elizabeth claimed their own piece of Douglas County near the Platte River close to today’s Martin Marietta plant. Earning his way into the Sedalia ranching scene and then later County politics, Fred served as County treasurer for almost a decade.

Fred and Elizabeth had three children: Ralph, Hattie and Ella. They were schooled in Platte Canyon Elementary and later Douglas County High School. Then came Flora, a late entry born in 1912. The family eventually moved to a home on Cantril Street in Castle Rock early during The Great Depression.

The Bean family was well known as deeply caring people. It was common for them to take on boarders in Castle Rock needing accommodations closer to town either because they were young, single teachers or children from ranches far afield.

So it happened that Maybelle Claire Ratliff, a 1928 CU Boulder graduate teaching at Douglas County High School, came into their orbit and rented at the Cantril Street house. With three Bean daughters already living there, she became like a sister to them, a natural. That was until Ralph, now doing civil engineering work for the Colorado Highway Department, found her even more appealing, but for old-fashioned reasons. Ralph and Maybelle married in Buffalo, Wyoming, later living in Lamar and even later yet, in Denver because of intolerable Dust Bowl conditions. They would then bring a daughter Margaret, and son Ralph into their family.

Maybelle was never fond of Ralph’s annual hunting forays and she had good reason. A stray bullet during an elk hunt would end his life in the fall of 1946, and his remains were interred in our Bear Canon Cemetery.

 

By Joe Gschwendtner; photo courtesy of Our Heritage: People of Douglas County