Elizabeth Stout helped raise a herd of dairy cows on land south of Cherry Creek Reservoir. Pope John Paul II stood at the Stout family barn when he led a Mass in August 1993.
Stout, who reared her family on that land, died at an Aurora hospice Monday. She was 94.
The Stout land had been amassed by Hettie Stout, Elizabeth Stout’s mother-in-law. The several parcels of land totaled about 1,500 acres, said Roger Stout of Parker, Elizabeth Stout’s son.
Elizabeth Peterson Stout was born in Williamsburg, a few miles southeast of Cañon City. When she was 9 years old, her mother, Elizabeth Snyder, died in a worldwide flu pandemic. The family was abandoned by their father, and the young girl and her eight siblings were placed in orphanages, with relatives or at adoptive homes.
Elizabeth Stout went to the Colorado State Children’s Home in south Denver. She was adopted, but the family’s beatings drove her back to the orphanage.
She was adopted again by the James Peterson family and grew up in Idaho Springs.
For decades, she never told anyone – including her husband or children – that she was adopted.
“She had been teased at school about it and felt there was something wrong about being adopted,” said her daughter, Virginia Reynolds, who lives in Parker.
Elizabeth Stout finally told her family in 1969, and within a short time, they helped her contact her eight siblings and have a reunion.
After high school, Elizabeth Peterson worked at Sachs Lawlor, a stationery and printing store in downtown Denver, and then went to nurse training but dropped out because of ill health, said her daughter.
Her next job was as a nanny, and while there, she met Edwin Stout, who delivered milk and eggs in a Model T car, driving in from the Stout farm.
One day when he delivered milk to the home where she was working, she asked him in for tea. He accepted and asked her out. They married May 9, 1934, and lived on the Stout dairy farm. He died in 1999.
“She worked right along with her husband,” said Reynolds.
“Farm women had (quite a) life in those days,” said Don Stout of Grand Junction, son of Elizabeth Stout.
“Our mother worked hard and lived for her family. She was tough as a boot,” he said.
Elizabeth Stout moved from Denver to Grand Junction after her husband retired, and then came back to Denver in 1995.
In addition to her son and daughter, she is survived by eight grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-820-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
