Melissa Plantz
A MOUNTAIN TALE The Aldasoro sisters’ deep roots stretch from Finland and Spain to the San Juans BY JESSE JAMES McTIGUE
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he Aldasoro sisters — Cristine and identical twins Angie and Pam, often referred to locally as ‘the sisters’ — have told their family’s story so many times that it has become something of an iconic Telluride tale. The familiar version starts with their grandfather, Joaquin Aldasoro, a Basque shepherd from the Pyrenees, the mountain range that straddles the border between Spain and France. In 1917, he followed his brothers to the United States and they worked as ranch hands in Utah. Over time, Joaquin got to know the West and discovered a mining town in Colorado called Telluride. He started buying property above the town, eventually amassing 13 homesteads on 5,000 acres that he used as summer grazing for his livestock.
Perhaps because of the romance of a Basque shepherd seeking his fortune, the focus of the family story has often centered on Joaquin. However, as the sisters tell it, it is their mother’s side of the family that goes back the furthest in Telluride. “Most people associate us with the ranch out on Deep Creek Mesa,” Angie says. “In reality, on our mother’s side we’re fourth generation here. It was mining that brought that side of the family over.” And that’s where the sisters, who nowadays are locally known by their married names of Pam Bennett, Angie Hale and Cristine Mitchell, want this version to start — four, not three, generations back, with their maternal great grandmother, Ida Fratt Ackerman. Like Joaquin, Ida followed her brothers and immigrated to the U.S. to find work, but >>
