The Welcome Guest [guest book], 1919-1939

Lydia Wathen was born on May 25, 1865 in Granville, Illinois. Her family moved to Kansas when she was six years old and settled in Nemaha County, homesteading on 160 acres of land. Her family continued to move around the west including stints in Colorado and Oregon. She married Stephen "Bud" Wathen on August 15, 1885 and had one daughter, Nora, born in 1888. The family settled in Stout, Colorado, for many years, later moving to Fort Collins after the post office at Stout that employed Bud closed. Bud Wathen died on October 24, 1929. In 1936, at the request of her daughter, Lydia wrote a memoir of her travels throughout the west as a young child and adult. Lydia Wathen died March 8, 1962.

Included are photocopies of Lydia Wathen's memoir (the location of the original handwritten memoir is unknown), typed transcripts of the memoir created by Archives and Special Collections staff, research and genealogy on descendants of Lydia Wathen, and local history articles. The memoir was found after Archives and Special Collections purchased a collection from a Denver bookstore.