Growing up in Chivington makes me a member of a fairly small group. Yes over the years, there have been many, many families that were a part of the Chivington community. I never knew the days of the 17 saloons and the like, but as a kid growing up there in the 1970s and 1980s there was quite a bit going on there. We had a post office and a church and a tight knit community. I grew up with dozens of my cousins there on the ranch. There would be as many as 60 or more kids that were part of vacation bible school at the only church, the Chivington Friends Church. Our Chivington Indians 4-H club had probably 25-30 kids in it; we had a lot of fun. It was a great way to grow up and a great place to grow up.
Marble like Brown, Barlow, Robertson, Dawson and others was a name that was synonymous with Chivington. Down south of Chivington, on the south end of Sand Creek lived Everett and Edna Marble. Their son, Tad and his family lived in Chivington. I grew up with them. We were friends, good friends and still are. Everett was a lot of things. He was a horse trader, a horse racer, a rancher but I knew him as a coyote hunter. He and I shared the love of coyote hounds. My dad got me my first coyote hound when I was just 8 years old. “Salt” was her name and dad got her off the race track from Merlin Rushton. I have never known life without coyote hounds. We’ve always had them. Both sides of my family, the Browns and the Frazee’s. We’ve always been coyote hunters. To me, Everett was always known as just “Marble”. Everett and I shared our love of hounds. Everett was always known to have a “good black dog”. Anytime you talked with him all he wanted to do was talk about his “good black dog”. I don’t remember his name, but I do remember hunting with Everett and knowing that his dog was good.
I’ll Match You to a Race
Marble would race anything, but he really liked racing horses and dogs. He could be found at brush tracks all over the area throughout the summer racing his horses, and later years watching others race theirs. Marble could always be found near the horse barns during the Kiowa County Fair. He just loved the competition and would take a bet at the drop of a hat. When I was probably 12, Marble found out that I had a really fast yellow female coyote hound. He and I would talk for hours over the telephone, (land line not a cell phone), as we didn’t have them. We would talk in the evenings after I got home off the bus. One evening Marble and I were talking and he said, “Brownee (he called me Brownee), they tell me that you have a yellow dog that can really run.” I said, “Yes sir, she’s pretty fast.” He said, “How’d you like to match my good black dog to a race?” I said, “Let’s do it.” He said, “How much are we going to run for? Hundred Dollars?” I said, “Sure.” He said, “No, I can’t, Twin (that’s what he called Edna his wife) won’t let me run for that much, how about fifty dollars?” I said, “Sure.” He said, “You be down here at my house Sunday morning at 7, we’ll load up and find out who has the fastest dog.” Sunday morning came and I and my brother Mark went to Marble’s, pulled into the yard and he wasn’t ready to go. I thought something must be wrong so I knocked on the front door and he answered. He said, “We can’t run today, my black dog is sick.” I thought this seemed strange but we left having not had the race. Marble always told me that he didn’t race me because Twin told him that he couldn’t take advantage of a kid like that. I always told him that he didn’t race me because he knew he couldn’t win. It was always a good story between the two of us.
Would of, Should of, Could Of
10 years later on December 19, 1992 almost to the day, I had opened my funeral home in Eads, I received a call that Everett Marble had died. My thoughts immediately went to our race that never happened. I will never forget the day of his funeral, December 23, 1992. Absolutely the coldest graveside service that I have ever been a part of in my nearly 40 years. It was about 2 or 3 degrees, we had about 8” of snow on the ground and the wind was blowing out the north about 25 miles per hour. It might have been a good day to hunt coyotes, but it was a horrible miserable day for a funeral. Friends and family still showed up by the droves to honor one of our own. A man that had been known and loved far and wide. It did not matter how cold it was. They came because “Marble’s” life mattered to them. His family mattered to them. That’s just the way it used to be, people showed up, no matter what. It really leaves you longing for the way “things used to be.”
About the author: Jimmy Brown is a graduate of Eads High School (1988) and a graduate of Central State University with a BS in Mortuary Science (1991). He holds a Mortuary Science Practitioner License (MSP0000034) in Colorado and a Funeral Directors License (#3173) in Kansas. He and his wife own and operate funeral homes in 4 counties in Eastern Colorado.
