RIP, Edna Strand Dercum

Max Dercum founded Arapahoe Basin and Keystone -- and Edna was more than Mrs. Max Dercum

As I drove along Interstate 70 the other day, I thought of Max and Edna Dercum when I passed the Keystone and Arapahoe Basin exits, as I always do. Both were in their 90s -- and far as I knew, were still living in the house on Montezuma Road that they occupied forever. Today's Denver Post carried Edna's obituary. She died, the paper reported, "of natural causes" on Monday, September 15 at the age of 94.

Like many pioneering women who worked side by side with their husbands, Edna was Max's helpmate, partner and soulmate. Max Dercum and Edna Strand met at Penn State, where he taught and she studied forestry. The couple moved to Colorado in June 1942 to buy an old building that had been a stagecoach stop, because Max wanted to be in the snowy mountains to ski. Their son Rolf was, at the time, three months old. When Max founded Arapahoe Basin in 1946 and Keystone a quarter of a century later, Edna was right there. They turned the stagecoach stop into the storied Ski Tip Lodge, still a popular dining place at Keystone -- even though it has lost its remote and private feeling and is now a historic island in a sea of modern condominiums and townhouses.

As a beginning skier during their courtship, Edna had trepidations about the sport. Max said to her, "It's easy, Edna, it's downhill all the way." That became the title of her autobiography, even as she became a ski racer with a wall full of medals in masters racing.

I saw the Dercums numerous times over the years, and Edna was always a warm, wonderful, welcoming woman who had time to chat. The original Keystone Mountain was renamed Dercum Mountain not long ago. I feel honored to have known them both and am sad that I will not see her again.