A MOUNTAIN TALE

The Aldasoro sisters’ deep roots stretch from Finland and Spain to the San Juans

BY JESSE JAMES McTIGUE

The 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 >>

Ida came from Finland, not Spain. With her brothers working in area mines, Ida contributed financially by taking in laundry for the “girls on the line,” sex workers in what was then Telluride’s red-light district.

“They would bring the laundry to the back door in the dark and leave money,” Cristine says. “She washed it during the day and at night the ladies would pick it up.”

Ida married John Ackerman and the couple had three children. Their daughter, Elna, married Rudolph Anderson, the assayer at the mine, a job which entailed analyzing ore samples to speculate the value of mining a potential vein. The couple were the sisters’ grandparents and raised their mother, Yula Mae Anderson, and her siblings in the family home at 123 South Oak Street.

“You could see through the corners,” Angie says, laughing. “It wasn’t well built.”

Adds Pam, “I bet it didn’t cost 10,000 dollars.”

Yula Mae grew up in town surrounded by family and graduated from Telluride High School in 1954, where she was a cheerleader for the eight-man football team. She attended college classes in Grand Junction and then returned to Telluride and worked at the abstract office, which Pam explains is akin to a title company today. She met Albert Aldasoro, the handsome son of Joaquin, and the pair married.

Angie says of her father, “He was bigger than life, a jokester, a man’s man.”

“Part of the legend of Albert is that he is the first one to bring pizza into Telluride,” Pam remarks. “And he was a hottie — [he created] quite a buzz.”

During the school year, the young Aldasoro family lived in Montrose, or “the low country,” where they’d winter the sheep and lambs. In the summertime, when school was out, they’d come up to Telluride, splitting their time on the Aldasoro Ranch and in town with Yula Mae’s family on South Oak. Pam recalls that their great grandmother, Ida, was still alive until she and Angie were at least 10 years old.

“The Andersons were the extended family we grew up with,” Pam says. “They were the ones in town who spoke fluent English and had a lot of the American traditions. We did Fourth of July and barbecues. They were a generation ahead.”

The sisters recall having immense freedom at both places.

“On the ranch, we could go anywhere we wanted on motorcycles or horses, but we had to tell Mom what direction and we couldn’t change,” Angie says. “Same with Granny. She didn’t care where we went in town, she just needed to know what direction —toward the mine, toward main street.”

Adds Pam, “There were the three of us on 5,000 acres with virtually no rules.”

As the sisters gained decision-making over the ranch, they created and funded a homeowners’ association and built the infrastructure to develop parts of the original ranchlands into subdivisions known as Sunnyside, Aldasoro Ranch, Diamond Ranch, Grayhead and Golden Ledge.

They kept a 750-acre parcel that they refer to as the “core” for their families.

“I’m looking back as a large landowner and there is a certain amount of glamour, but there is also heartache,” Pam muses. “It’s kind of been a struggle to hold onto it and fight for it. The reality is it’s like a mausoleum, or it’s a living museum. It’s a museum you don’t want to change much, but if you don’t change it, you may lose it.”