Obituary of Claire Schrimp

View Video Tribute When Leona Golberg was born October 23, 1917 on her mother’s homestead five miles south of Wild Horse, Colorado, something was in the air. Just a few months earlier, the thriving town of Wild Horse was nearly wiped out by a fire that left only one building standing on Main Street. For many communities, such a disaster would mean the end, but the Wild Horse community spirit rose up, collected itself and settled on its people. Perhaps its strongest and most permanent attachment was to the newborn Leona. She was the youngest of three children of Otto and Marie Golberg, pioneer homesteaders and farmers who met each other in Wild Horse. Leona attended the Brown School three miles south of her home, then graduated from high school at Kit Carson in 1935. During this busy time of school events, baseball games, dances (where her dance card was always full) and church activities, her sense of community strengthened, and except for a couple of months’ employment in Denver, she lived her entire life in the Wild Horse community. Like her neighbors, she was used to working hard on the farm, milking the cows and doing her other chores before going out on dates. A beautiful and popular girl with an ever-ready smile, she gave her heart to Curtis Schrimp. The couple married November 19, 1938; the Wild Horse community helped Curtis and Leona celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary just two months before her death. Curtis and Leona lost their first child, David Joel, who lived but one day in 1949. He was buried at the Wild Horse Cemetery, and nearly 50 years later, Leona told author Peter Miller that “He’s up there by himself, all the time.â€? She promised she would be buried there with him someday, a promise she can now keep. Another son and two daughters have survived her: Steve Schrimp and his wife, Debbie, of Lakewood; Marty Schrimp of Hugo; LeeAnn Helle and her husband, John, of Halsa, Norway. Leona was proud of her Norwegian heritage, and her family always was the great love of her life. But the Wild Horse community also was family to Leona Schrimp. During her lifetime, she nurtured and supported the community. She was a longtime active member of the Our Savior’s Lutheran Church Ladies Aid, and finding the church without a pastor or Sunday School teacher, she was known to pester the Bishop with phone calls until there were replacements. Leona was a lifetime member of the Wild Horse Community Club and was instrumental in the restoration of the historic Wild Horse School. She worked hard to help establish the Kit Carson Alumni Association; she worked as a local census taker in the 1960s; and she was recognized as the official weather watcher for the area. She also believed in the importance of the past in explaining the present and in living more confidently in the future. The added bonus was that history was of riveting interest to her personally. She chronicled the local history through weekly newspaper columns for many years. “The news shows we are still here, living and doing,â€? Leona said in a Rocky Mountain News article in 1996. Leona traveled to Norway in 1989 to help LeeAnn with her new twin daughters, and Curtis took over the job temporarily. As he told the reporter, “I had a few compliments, so Leona quit.â€? She never stopped collecting history, though, and was a ready storehouse of information and old photos to share with anyone interested in her family or in the community as a whole, And in her spare time, she liked to sew! In 1946, the Schrimps moved into Wild Horse from the country and began selling gasoline and food to their neighbors and to travelers passing through town. Over the next several decades, Lee’s Café was a popular meeting place for local residents, and the Schrimps met thousands of new friends who originally stopped seeking only a tank of gas or a quick lunch. “You could come in here and get a decent meal for eighty cents,â€? she told author Nancy Wood in the late 1970s. “A café is not just a place to eat. It’s a place to get to know one another.â€? Because Leona was so widely known, she came to stand as the front line of defense whenever she believed the Wild Horse Community was slighted. In 1971, she told columnist Monk Tyson, “City people think we’re bored here. I tell them they’re the ones who are bored. They get off from work and sit in bars and drink. They can’t get a drink in Wild Horse. People have too many other things to do around here. While talking about a recent resurgence of dust storms, she told Nancy Wood, “I wouldn’t say it’s a disaster area. Not yet anyway. Why, there’s wheat out there with roots as big as this!â€? She demonstrated the size of the roots by holding up her fist. Terry Blevins published a story in 1983 about the 1917 Wild Horse fire. He used the unfortunate title, “The Rise and Fall of Wild Horse.â€? Leona fixed him with her blue eyes and wide, white smile and corrected him: “Wild Horse hasn’t fallen yet.â€? This love of place was communicated to her children. When the Cheyenne County History was published, it included these comments: “(We) were raised in Wild Horse, not only as the Schrimp family, but also as a part of the Wild Horse family.â€?—Steve; “…most of my memories are of the community, as I grew up in the café and everybody had a hand in my ‘raising.’â€?—Marty; “No large school can compare with the all around learning we got in the small school. …I grew up in Wild Horse and think that is the best place in the world.â€?—LeeAnn. Leona Schrimp died at Hugo January 15, 2009, at the age of 91. Preceding her in death were her parents, Otto and Marie Golberg; her sister, Ruth Peck; her brother, Ordean Golberg; her infant son, David Joel; and her infant granddaughter, Lisa Johanne Helle. Leona’s love of family, the community and people in general is shared by her husband of seven decades, Curtis, who survives her. Other survivors include her grandchildren: Amanda (Craig) Young of Denver, Natalie (Gian) Benallo of Huber Heights, OH, Nathan (Berenice) Schrimp of Denver, and Kirsti, Jessi and Jenni Helle, all of Halsa, Norway, plus 13 great grandchildren and, as Leona would be the first to add, the Wild Horse community still survives. A funeral service for Leona Schrimp will be held Tuesday ~ January 20, 2009 ~ 11:00 A.M. at Our Saviors Lutheran Church ~ Wild Horse, CO. Visitation will be held Monday ~ January 19, 2009 ~ 1-4 P.M. at the Love Funeral Home Limon, Colorado. Memorial Contributions Kit Carson EMT C/O Kit Carson State Bank P.O. Box 175 Kit Carson, CO 80825 Or Our Saviors Lutheran Church Hwy 40/287 Wild Horse, CO 80862