Fern Falk has lived and worked in the Norwood area for most of her 91 years. In that time, she has learned the importance of getting to know folks who live here. And that means talking and listening. She worries that too many people today are glued to their screens. Her advice: put down the phone and talk to people.
“I think it can fill an empty spot in your heart,” she says.
I got to know Fern when I would occasionally sit down at the Mesa Rose’s long table by the front window, where she was among the regulars who gathered almost every day to ponder life’s important and not-so-important issues. The core group consisted of my late brother, John Mansfield, his best pal Charlie Bausch (also now deceased), my husband George Lewis (aka “Mr. Google,” the go-to guy for settling factual disputes), and Fern Falk.
“It was very, very special,” Fern told me. “It was just so nice to share a friendship like that.”
Anyone who walked in the door was invited to join them. Among the regulars: Tom Meehan, Dave Hodges, Glenn Colson, Abby Altschuler and Mark Vandenberg.
“I really miss it,” Vandenberg told me. “John and Charlie were the glue that held it together, but Fern was the local history buff. She is Norwood’s best: truthful and kind.”
I had witnessed that unusual combination myself when I commented on the amazing stories in a book about the area written by a local author and Fern responded, quietly, “Yes, amazing stories. Some of them are even true.”
Fern developed those listening skills in a variety of ways. When her husband, Elmer Falk, was working at the uranium mill as a mechanic in the “crushing department,” they would get together several nights a week with other couples in Uravan to play cards. “But it was the visiting we loved most. I don’t think people do that very much anymore.” Then the Falks became part owners of the hardware store in Norwood, where the wood stove attracted folks who gathered to get warm in the winter and share ranching stories. “We kept a coffee pot going,” she said, and the stories kept coming.
But it was when Fern decided to get a job as a clerk at the Norwood Post Office that the value of neighborly communication really hit home. She worked there for 20 years, 13 of them as Postmaster. “One old bachelor, if he had a bill in the mail, he would come around to the counter to get a money order to pay the bill. And if he had a letter from his niece, he would read the letter to me. He needed somebody to talk with.”
She also remembers helping the Hispanic workers from Nucla and Naturita who came to the Norwood P.O. on pay day to get money orders to send to their families in Mexico. “I understood enough Spanish to help them out. They were hard workers, taking jobs no one else would do, paying taxes.”
One of the postal workers was squeamish about handling packages that contained the ashes of the deceased. So Fern was often the one who handed the package to a grieving relative. “They needed to talk, to tell stories about that person, so I took the time to listen.”
Fern made Herculean efforts to get mail to the right person. When confronted with an envelope addressed, simply, “To Grandma,” with no return address, she looked at the postmark to figure out who might have sent it. The card got to “Grandma.”
Fern’s oldest son Fred died of a heart attack three years ago. “No parent should outlive a child,” says Fern, “there ought to be a law against it.” Her son David and his wife Lancy are still ranching in Norwood. Her son Le and her daughter Karen live in New Mexico. Fern has 9 grandchildren, 16 great grandchildren and 3 great-great-grandchildren. She recently survived a bout with serious skin cancer. A very full and fulfilling life, you might say.
And yet, she really misses those mornings at the Mesa Rose with the gang.
“We used to go on outings, to see petroglyphs, historical sites. I took them to see the Teddy Bear Cave.” The cave just outside of Nucla is filled with old teddy bears people have deposited there for various reasons. Charlie left a teddy bear made by his late wife, Mauri.
The Mesa Rose has relocated to a building across the street from the old location. Mark Vandenberg would love to see a new coffee klatsch spring up there. Visiting with your neighbors, after all, “can fill an empty spot in your heart.”
