Homesteader, Author and Summit Historical Society’s Founder
Anna Ballif Emore was born in Dillon, Colorado in 1892. Her parents, Adolphus “Tif” Ballif and Emma Benson Ballif, immigrated to Summit County from Switzerland and Sweden.
Anna lived her entire life in Summit County. She attended school in the 1883 Dillon Schoolhouse, a one-room school typical of early public education. She married Lansing Emore in 1911 and together had two living children, Viola and Henry “Hank” Emore. A third child, Emma, died in infancy. Anna and her family applied for and developed a homestead located on the lower Blue in what is now Silverthorne.
A popular road in Silverthorne, Annie Road, is named after Anna.
Anna was an active member of the Dillon Ladies’ Aid Society. In 1912, when Dillon was in need of a church, the organization purchased the abandoned schoolhouse where Anna and her sister Hilda Ballif Baumdicker Nippert attended school, for $1.00, and turned it into a church. The church became more active when it was opened to the children of the valley for weekly Sunday School.
When construction of the Dillon reservoir was announced, Anna and the Dillon Ladies’ Aid Society were instrumental in moving the church from Old Dillon to the New Town of Dillon. The church was manually loaded onto a moving dolly, and slowly moved to its new location, within sight of the new “Lake Dillon”.
Besides her involvement in preserving the 1883 Dillon Schoolhouse, she believed that the rich history of Summit County needed to be preserved. She was appointed as the first director of the first museum in Summit County, the Dillon Museum in 1960. Anna was also the founder of the Summit Historical Society.
Anna’s is the author of “Dillon, The Blue River Wonderland”, first presented in 1969 as a live reading on the history of the Town of Dillon.
She passed away in 1974 and is buried in Dillon Cemetery.
We honor Anna as our 2022 Woman of Distinction: Then.
Hilda was my Grandmother. There is a mistake in this article. She was never a Helton. That is my own sister”s married name. Hilda’s maiden name was Ballif and her first married name was Baumdicker and her second married name was Nippert. The name she died with.
The third child that died in infancy was Emma like her mother before her.
Anna Emore and Grace Warren were also instrumental is overseeing the removal of all of the graves from the old Dillon Cemetery to the New Dillon Cemetery.
Linda, Thank you for the correction! We have updated the biography and made the correction in our records.