Elma Eason loved history, whether it was her family’s genealogy, the sod house in Wheat Ridge or the piece of stone she picked up at Mount Rushmore. It reportedly was a piece that had been carved out for George Washington’s head.
“We still have it,” said her son, Harold Eason of Denver, adding that his mother kept the foot-long stone in her garden.
Eason was 90 when she died at a care center on Aug. 4.
“There was almost nothing Mother wasn’t interested in,” said another son, Ernie Eason.
Before she was married, she worked for Purdy Photographic Co., colorizing photos by hand before color film was available. On the first Valentine’s Day after their marriage, she gave her husband a card with a photo of herself that she had colored by hand.
Elma Eason did oil paintings and water colors, sang in choirs and raised geese so her family would have meat, eggs and goose-down pillows.
She raised and canned her own vegetables, taught her children to read, paint and sketch and made sure they all played musical instruments.
She sang in the Maple Grove Grange Chorus for years. She and her husband were Grange members for 65 years.
Verne and Elma Eason volunteered with the USO and during World War II often took servicemen for jaunts in the mountains. The men didn’t forget the kindness. Many kept in touch with the Easons for years.
Elma Cunningham was born on a farm near Alliance, Neb., on May 27, 1918. The family moved to Rapid City, S.D., where she graduated from high school.
She lived in a sod house as a child, and that experience served her well years later when she became a guide at the Wheat Ridge Sod House museum. As a volunteer there she showed people how to churn butter and card wool, which she also learned as a child, said Harold Eason.
Visiting Mount Rushmore was a fond memory, said her family. Her father, a trombonist, played in the National Guard band when the famous landmark was dedicated.
Elma Eason learned to sing and play the violin but had to give up the violin after a fall that injured her wrist when she was young. However she continued to sing in choirs and met her future husband, Verne Eason, singing in the choir at Denver’s Central Christian Church.
She told her family she was attracted by his beautiful tenor voice. As it turned out, Verne Eason usually mouthed the words “because he didn’t think he could sing,” said Harold Eason. The tenor voice belonged to another man. But Cunningham married Eason anyway, on Dec 28, 1941. He died in 2007.
In addition to her sons, Elma Eason is survived by her daughter, Linda Eason of Laramie; four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren; and her brother, Ken Cunningham of Martinez, Calif.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
