The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Co.

1898 1899
A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year

Dawkins
December 23, 1898

Dear Cousin John,

I received your letter sometime ago which I was very glad to get. You said that you wrote to Theodore and he did not answer. I don't think you addressed it right because he does not work at Z Tanks any more. He is employed in the Rio Grande yard as a fire man on a switch engine. His wages a day are $2.50. He likes his job pretty well. Many thanks for your Christmas gifts. We send you the same. You asked me if I think or dream of Pikes Peak. You bet I do, I will never forget that either. So I close for time. Hope you will write soon.

Best regards from all of us,
Your most affectionate cousin,

John

PS don't forget to write and excuse the bad writing. J.F.



John Filipek's Dawkins Letter to John Sokolik (December 23, 1898)

The Letter
This letter appears to be about three topics:

  • Discussion of a lost letter
  • Theodore's new job
  • Some thoughts about Pike's Peak

Comments:

  • John would have turned 16 on December 15, 1898 just a few days before he wrote the letter. The letter has a very nice script and the text is very well put together. I love the emotion he shows when talking about Pikes Peak. Possibly he climbed part of it or he took the cog railway to the top (see photos of Pikes Peak in the Vaclav Picture Collection). I've climbed much smaller mountains and it is exhilarating especially when you climb higher and higher and the trees get shorter and shorter until there are no trees and you can see for miles and miles.
  • Dawkins is very close to Pinon and both are about 10 miles north of Pueblo.
  • The letters confirms information from the 1899 Pueblo City Directory which indicated that Theodore Sokolik was a fireman for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. Theodore worked for the railroad all his life and it looks like this is where he got his start. In later years he was a conductor for the railroad.
  • John's weekly salary is $15 given a 6 day week or about $60-70 per month.
  • In the above transcription, the word "Z Tanks" is a guess. None of us can clearly read the word clearly and possibly it is the name of a company.

This letter was discovered in March 2000 by Terry Nelson, a gg-granddaughter of Antonin and Katerina Filipek in her grandmother Rose Filipek's home in Florida. If you would like to add information about this picture, please contact Dave Jordan, a gg-grandson of Antonin and Katerina Filipek. The Letter Reference Number is TNN12.