Hendryx, Louise Stransky – obit
Louise Hendryx
1912 – 2015
Longtime resident Louise Hendryx died June 30, 2015 at age 103. She’d lived in Evergreen for the better part of the last 99 years.
New to Evergreen in 1916 when she was four years old, Louise Stransky, her parents and siblings camped near Maxwell Falls, halfway up Brook Forest Road. The family would soon after settle on 900 acres of forested land above the Brook Forest Inn.
She attended Evergreen Elementary School, usually covering the five-mile distance on horseback twice each day. She and her sister, Louise, boarded with a family in Denver – doing “domestic work” – in order to attend South High School. She graduated from the University of Denver in 1934, excelling in academics and physical education, taking a job at Wheat Ridge High School teaching English and PE.
Louise married John Hendryx that same year, cause for losing her teaching job – marriage was taboo for female teachers in some school districts then. The couple had two children – Adajane and John (a/k/a “Rash”).
After a brief stint teaching in Denver during the war, Aurora Public Schools hired her in 1946. But in 1947 she became a widow when her husband died suddenly. Louise never remarried but fought to establish her identity as breadwinner and homemaker at a time when – according to family friend Bud Weare, – “Denver rental agencies chose not to consider a widow and children as a legitimate family … it proved almost impossible for her to purchase their home in Aurora.”
She earned her master’s degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In addition to teaching, she served as a certified guidance counselor and administered the physical education programs in Aurora’s elementary schools. Checking on the Evergreen ranch and her aging parents each weekend and during the summers was part of her routine.
In 1965 she and others in the Stransky family were instrumental in creating the Bear Creek Rodeo Association along with the Rodeo Parade the following year. She served as Parade Chairman for more than 30 years, and in 2012 (her centennial year) she rode in a convertible as honorary grand marshal.
Upon retiring in 1976, she returned to Evergreen and assumed increasing responsibility for the family’s real estate interests.
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A memorial gathering is scheduled at the Stransky Ranch on August 16, 2015 at 11:00 am. In lieu of flowers, donations are welcome in Louise’s name to The Church of the Transfiguration, P.O. Box 1630, Evergreen, CO. 80437; or a charity of your choice.
