TRACT #15 – LYDIA E. JACKSON
Lydia E. Jackson was the 27th signer on the 1940 Petition to Incorporate Federal Heights. Lydia purchased Tract #15 on January 4, 1932 from Barney Finley. Tract #15 is two lots north of 92nd Avenue.
Lydia Erma Leonard was born November 28, 1890 in Pennsylvania to Wesley Cameron and Elizabeth “Lizzie” (Wickey) Leonard. She was the fourth of seven children born to the couple. About 1901, the Leonard’s moved to Rockford, Illinois where Lydia married Thomas Jackson on December 1, 1908. Thomas and Lydia had three daughters - Gladys, Mildred, and Dorothy.
The Jackson family moved to Larimer County, Colorado. In 1917, Thomas filed for divorce on the grounds of cruelty, and the marriage ended in November of that year. Thomas and the three young girls - ages six, four and one - moved to Wyoming. By 1930, Thomas had remarried, and he and his family had moved back to Illinois.
Lydia stayed in Colorado and worked odd jobs. In the 1930 census, she was working as a maid for Merritt Perkins who was later elected as a regent of the University of Colorado. She purchased the Federal Heights parcel in 1932. On April 8, 1940 Lydia is recorded in a census record as working as a housekeeper in Louisville, Colorado. Her employer was Lawrence Lasnik, a widower, who owned a cottage camp (small cabins available for daily rental). Lydia and Lawrence were later married.
Though Lydia sold her property in Federal Heights in 1943 to Clyde and Alice Mock, she was named as a defendant in a lawsuit regarding Tract #15 in 1948 which named Durward and Dorothy Ewing as lawful owners of the property.
Lydia’s husband, Lawrence, died in 1955, and Lydia moved back to Rockford, Illinois near her daughters. She passed away on September 4, 1973 in Illinois and is buried in Louisville Cemetery in Louisville, Colorado alongside her husband Lawrence.