Sarah Milner Smith

Sarah Milner was born in March 1844 in Kingston, Ontario, Canada to Joseph and Sarah Milner, both of whom were born about 1810 in England. Her siblings were Joseph, Benjamin, and James, who were born in the 1840s in Canada. and was taught by private tutors. and moved to Chicago, where Joseph manufactured brick and was a contractor. Milner attended public schools and began teaching younger children at age 16. ==Colorado pioneers==

The family left for Colorado in 1864, traveling for almost four months with other families. They tried to steal their horses. During the westward journey, she learned to "hide her fears and persevere". Author Barbara Fleming describes the things that Milner would have learned to survive as she crossed the prairies with her family and what she would have needed to do every day to survive. The next year, she taught at a one-room log schoolhouse along the Big Thompson River, Milner Smith earned money to pay for books and other items by charging for admission to spelling bees and debates. She also held entertainment events to Old St. Louis in what is now Loveland. The cabin was moved to land along the Big Thompson River owned by Nelse Hollowell. Bands of Native Americans stopped by the schoolhouse on their way southeast to their hunting grounds for buffalo. By 1870, the family established a farm in Big Thompson, Larimer County when it was Colorado Territory. Milner Mountain and Milner Glade are named after this family. ==Marriage and children==

In 1870, The couple had three children, Edward, Eugene, and Alice, a daughter who married John Spence. The family lived in the Arkansas Valley (of the Arkansas River) for six years and then moved to Pueblo. Edward had a difficult time finding long-term employment to support the family. They then moved back north to East St Louis jn Colorado. Edward died after suffering with pneumonia. ==Widowhood and death==

Smith operated a boardinghouse, Big Thompson House, in Loveland which was owned by the railroad that had recently come to he area, but she had a hard time making enough to support her family and was concerned by the rough manner of her railroad employee boarders. which was operated as a dairy farm and later as a ranch ==Legacy==

The Sarah Milner Elementary School was named after her. The Namaqua chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution dedicated a memorial tablet at the front entrance of the Loveland High School in honor of her. She was the great-grandmother of trial lawyer Gerry Spence (born 1929). Her grandson Joseph Smith worked as a sled technician is support of the Apollo space program. Her granddaughter, Barbara Smith, worked during World War II as a blue print drafter for aircraft production in San Diego and later was active in local politics and social programs. ==Publications==

• {{cite book | title=Pioneer epic. [The life history of Sarah Ann (Milner) Smith] The book Ranching on Eagle Eye by Sarah Lindsay Schmidt was dedicated to Smith, "a Colorado ranch-woman pioneer", and the exemplary men who Schmidt worked with on ranches in Colorado. ==See also==