Lavenia McCoy

Lavenia Edith Morgan was born to John and Anna Marquardt Morgan on July 14, 1919, two months before she was expected. Her grandmother, Lavenia Hatch Marquardt, made an incubator in the kitchen oven. Lavenia Morgan arrived in Bayfield on Sunday, January 1, 1939; she was 19 and had just completed a bachelor’s degree at Colorado Normal School in Greeley. Her chosen field of study had been civil engineering; the traditionalist dean said education. She started teaching January 2 at Bayfield High School, where some of the senior students were older than she. That daunted her not at all. On Tuesday, she started volunteering at Bayfield’s library, then a shelf of shared books in Beech’s store. Eventually she helped move the collection to the building that had been Farmers and Miners Bank, on the northeast corner of Mill and Pearl Streets, where she and Mrs. MacMillan started cataloging books by Dewey Decimal System. Lavenia and Dee McCoy, who lived in the house across the fence to the north of the home where Lavenia boarded and was sponsored as a single teacher, told the same story about how they met until they got to the part about who threw the first snowball. Most of all they loved their family: Ann McCoy Harold; Stewart McCoy; and Donnalee and Harry Baxstrom, their children Lavenia and Vince Taylor and son TJ, and Ashley and Dawn Baxstrom and son Jagger Boone. She worked in the school office, taught and was school librarian in Bayfield until the mid60’s when she went to Ignacio schools. She retired there in 1972. She often said, “It’s a real pleasure that people who were once my students have become my friends.” She is remembered by many of those friends as having been fair, not attempting to be sure everyone got the same thing but striving to be sure each got what he or she needed at the moment. Sometimes the dose was not pleasant, just necessary. Being a good citizen is a value Lavenia held dear. She served on election boards, helped the effort to build Bayfield’s first gym, sponsored school functions, and put Bayfield’s library second only to her family. For those who wish to honor her with a memorial, please contribute to Lavenia McCoy Library, PO Box 227, Bayfield, CO 81122. She was honorary grandmother to Pine River 4-H Club for years. Her latest volunteer work was at Pine River Valley Heritage Center Museum. Lunches with other elders at Pine River Senior Center were special occasions. Lavenia lived in that house where she began her married life in August, 1940, until her death, August 31, 2015. A funeral service will be at Bayfield Church of Christ, 2011 Bayfield Parkway; 1:30 p.m., Saturday, August 5, 2015. Burial will follow at Pine River Cemetery; then a reception and visit time at the church.