Summit Old Timer: Jane Bergman

Keystone resident Jane Bergman considers herself a simple person, though she played a large role in bringing Keystone Ski Resort to Summit County and is married to a man who established one of the largest law firms in Iowa.

"I was born during the Depression," she said from her Keystone home Thursday afternoon. "We never had a lot, but we never went without. That's the way I lived my whole life."

Bergman was born to Leora and Robert Livingston on June 28, 1924, in Fort Dodge, Iowa - the oldest of two daughters.

Her father was a salesman with the Wasem Plaster Company and her mom was a stay-at-home housewife.

She remembers a happy childhood, spending summers at her grandfather's cottage at Lake Okoboji (northwest Iowa), and coming to Colorado every other summer to spend time on her Uncle Charlie's and Uncle Earl's cattle ranch in Parshall. Her aunt used to own and run the old Parshall Hotel.

"I remember coming over Milner Pass when it was just a very narrow road and my uncle had to come up there and make sure no other cars were coming from the other direction," she said of her early days in Colorado.

She said her mother always loved horses and would drive her horse and buggy to school.

When her mother developed leukemia, the family moved to Cedar Rapids, where she received better treatment from a family relative in a modern clinic.

"Back then, no one knew much about leukemia," said Bergman, who lost her mom when she was 19.

She spent her sophomore, junior and senior year at Franklin High School, where she graduated in 1942.

That fall she enrolled at the University of Iowa, though her father didn't want her to go to school then. "It was during the war," she said. "And my father didn't think it would be the true college experience because many of the male students were in the war and a lot of the top professors were sent to the war."

She enjoyed her college years, however, bonding closely with 13 sorority sisters who she has kept in touch with for the last six decades.

"When we got antsy, we used to take the Rocket (a train) to Chicago, where we stayed at a girlfriend's aunt's house on the North Shore and would go see a show."

She said the big entertainment back then was the Big Bands. "I mean really big bands," she said, reeling off the names of several big bands she saw and danced to - Les Brown, Tommy Dorsey, Glen Miller, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman.

"I saw Frank Sinatra twice when he was about 20," she said. "You didn't dance when Frank sang, you stood in front of the band stand and listened. He had such a romantic voice."

She graduated from the University of Iowa in 1946 with a degree in history and political science and that summer met her future husband, Bill Bergman.

They met at the college pub, where Bill showed her how to play pinball.

"He was attracted to my Angora socks and scarf," she said. "He asked me out, but I told him I wasn't interested."

She later saw him at a fancy wedding with another girl, "and that kind of made me mad."

"Then all of the sudden it was just Bill," she said.

"We had a lot of Coke dates," said Bergman. "That was the thing. We would go to Whetstone's Drug for a Coke or a bar called Don's for a nickel beer. I was always a cheap date, because I didn't like beer."

The couple married in April 1947.

Bill had been in the Army Air Corps during the war (1943-45), and afterwards enrolled at the University of Iowa where he studied law. Jane went to work for the veterans filling requisitions from 1947 to 1949.

In 1949, Bill hung out his shingle, working mostly as a business lawyer. That year they had their first child, Bill, on August 20, 1949.

The elder Bill later joined with another lawyer named Moyer, and the two eventually built the largest law firm in Cedar Rapids, practicing mostly business law.

On April 25, 1952, the couple had another child, Lolly.

"I never worked," said Bergman after having become a mother. "I was always at home for the kids when they came home from school."

She did, however, volunteer for many causes: championing construction of the first swimming pool in Cedar Rapids, volunteering to fight cerebral palsy, or doing eye testing in the schools.

The couple spent many summers in Minnesota vacationing with good friends. In the early 1950s they began coming to Colorado for ski vacations and in 1958 they bought an old miner's cabin along Montezuma Road.

They would board the Union Pacific in Cedar Rapids at 7 p.m., be in Denver at 7 a.m., where they kept a car in the Oxford Garage, and be skiing at Arapahoe Basin by 10 a.m.

"It was a party train," said Bergman. "It went from Chicago through Denver to Sun Valley (Idaho).

In the late 1960s, encouraged by Max and Edna Dercum and urged by Judge Wood and Oz Thorson, the Bergmans began the daunting task of establishing Keystone Ski Resort.

"There was nothing here back then," said Jane. "It was raw land. It wasn't easy for people to visualize a ski area, but Bill set out to get the financial backing and during that time had 21 CEOs out here."

"Jane is the one who did all the entertaining," said Bill of their task of wooing financial backers. "She did a lot more than anyone will ever know."

In 1970, the area opened and despite continuing with his law firm in Cedar Rapids, Bill in large part ran the area from Iowa. Jane spent five winters by herself at their cabin along Montezuma Road tying loose ends in making the project come together.

Bill retired from his law firm at the age of 75 and the couple moved to Keystone as year-round residents in 1998.

"This is our home," said Jane. "I love it. Bill and I have made so many friends here. We love people. We love for people to come over and drop in."

The couple stays active playing golf five days a week in the summer and skiing five days a week in the winter. They enjoy playing bridge and sharing dinners with friends.

"Bill and I take pleasure in seeing all the people having fun at Keystone," said Jane. "That makes it all worth it."