Katherine Mohar Savoren, who died in Leadville on Saturday at age 95, spent most of her life in the tenacious little mining town, much of it in the same house where she grew up.
The only child of Slovenian immigrants Katherine and Joseph Mohar, she was suited to the hard work and devotion to history practically compulsory among residents of a town nearly 2 miles high and infinitely preoccupied with its past.
As a child, she met Elizabeth “Baby Doe” Tabor, who often paused at the Mohar home on West Second Street to exchange pleasantries with Joseph Mohar.
Tabor, then living at the Matchless Mine, shopped for supplies at the Zaitz store near the Mohars’ house. The Matchless Mine was waterless, so Joseph Mohar, who worked at the Robert E. Lee Mine, routinely carried a bucket of water to Tabor’s cabin, one of the few altruisms that Tabor accepted.
“She was a very proud woman,” Savoren recalled in a 1997 interview with the Leadville Herald Democrat. “You couldn’t give her anything.”
As a girl, Savoren tried not to stare at Tabor’s ancient black hat and coat or the gunny sacks swathing her feet. It was hard to believe that Tabor ranked among the wealthiest women in Colorado before her husband, Horace, lost his fortune in the 1893 silver crash.
From Katherine Mohar, she learned to make soap from lye and tallow and how to butcher the pigs and chickens they kept in their yard.
When Savoren was in 10th grade, she worked as a waitress, first at the Cozy Inn and then the Golden Burro.
As small-town residents often do, she held several jobs simultaneously. On busy winter days, she shoveled snow before walking to work at the Cloud City bakery, then waitressed at the Golden Burro and ended her day cooking at the local Elks club. She walked everywhere and recalled that one winter, the temperature hovered steadily at 25 degrees below zero.
Soldiers training at nearby Camp Hale during World War II flirted with her as she waited on them at the Golden Burro or danced with them on Saturday nights at the Silver Dollar.
Her marriage to Matt Savoren lasted 20 years, including a 10-year stint of living in the relatively low altitude of Salida. When they divorced in 1954, she returned to Leadville and moved in with her parents, who looked after the three Savoren children while Katherine Savoren worked.
Savoren taught her children, and later her daughters-in-law and grandchildren, to make potica, a traditional Slovenian nut roll, using the recipe Savoren’s mother brought with her from the former Yugoslavia.
She was a lifelong member of St. Joseph Catholic Church, where the Slovenians and Irish made a wary truce each Sunday. Her funeral took place there earlier this week, and she is buried in the church’s cemetery.
Survivors include sons Matt Savoren of Salida and Dave Savoren of Leadville; daughter Sandra Crowley of Oregon City, Ore.; and 10 grandchildren.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
