A lot of history is contained within the life of Eva Rutherford Hayes.

June 9, 1957

School days are over for Mrs. Eva Hayes, beloved elementary teacher with almost a half century of teaching to her credit. To be exact. Mrs. Hayes has taught for 49 years. Thirty of these years have been in the Mancos.

Eva Rutherford, born in 1890, began her teaching immediately after graduating from Mancos High school in 1908 at the now extinct town of Arloa, Colorado. Arloa was situated between Dolores and Mancos, a small lumber town with the Montezuma Lumber Co. the power that made the town exist.

From 1909 to 1915, Miss Eva taught in the Mancos rural schools which included Woody Albion, Pinewood, Wattles and Webber. She next taught in La Plata County at Red Mesa for one year and at Marvel for two years.

During the war years of 1917-18, her most arduous teaching years, she taught 18 months with only a week's vacation between terms. School also convened on Saturdays during those days of stress.

The 1918-19 school year found her at Montrose. Arriving home in the spring she found her home near the Mancos river flooded. She thanked her neighbors for moving her household possessions out danger.

School Board President, David Halls (born in 1877 and died in 1952), persuaded Eva to teach in the Mancos school system. She taught there until her marriage to Arthur Hayes in 1927. She was absent from the school room from the time of her marriage until 1930, during which time she became the mother of two daughters, Dorothy and Laura.

In the fall of 1930, Mrs. Hayes returned to teaching and for the next two years taught at Thompson Park. During the next four years she taught at various schools. Then once again a Mancos school president and this time it was Ira Kelly who changed her mind. She remained in the Mancos school system until her retirement in April of 1957.

Following a long illness, her husband, Arthur Hayes, passed away in March of 1955. At the beginning of 1957 she informed the superintendent that she would retire at the end of the school year. Retirement came sooner than she expected. In April she was hospitalized because of a nervous condition.

She wanted to see one more New Years Eve but she passed away on December 30, 1978.

At the age of 88 she was buried next to her husband in the Cedar Grove Cemetery.

Mrs. Hayes went to school with my grandmother, taught my mother in the fifth grade and taught me in the seventh.

Darrel Ellis is a longtime historian of the Mancos Valley. Email him at dnrls@q.com.