Pueblo Infant Traces Lake City Family Back Eight Generations

Pueblo, Colorado, newborn Aubrey Nicole DeHerrera has a notable Hinsdale County ancestry which dates back a remarkable eight generations, including Lake City native — and recently retired Hinsdale County Clerk — Linda Pavich who is a first-time great grandmother.
Aubrey, who weighed a diminutive 5-lb., 15-oz., 19-1/2” long at birth, was born in Pueblo on February 21, 2017, to first-time parents Natasha Mizokami and Justin DeHerrara. Paternal and maternal grandparents, all of Pueblo, are Thomas and Deneen DeHerrara, and Eric and Tammy Mizokami.
Great grandparents are Ralph and Janeen Martinez, Monte Vista, Colorado, Ron and Cindy Mizokami, Alamosa, Colorado, and Linda Pavich. Linda’s birth in Lake City in July, 1950, was a first for Lake City in over seven years.
Subsequent local ancestors dating back a total of eight generations are the late Ida Mae and Ralph Martinez, and Lucille Joyce (Mendenhall) and Lawrence Pavich, and great-great-great grandparents are life-long area miner and past Lake City Mayor Frank Mendenhall and his wife, Mildred (Moore) Mendenhall, and intrepid Lake City storekeepers Mike and Stella Pavich who arrived here from Crested Butte in 1932.
More distant, seventh generation Lake City ancestors of newborn Aubrey are Lakeshore residents Oscar and Lucinda Moore, and Charles and Nettie (Walters) Mendenhall. Charles Mendenhall arrived here age 11 in 1881 with his mother — Aubrey’s great-great-great-great-great grandmother — Emma Jane (Closser) Mendenhall, who reprsents the remarkable 8th generation of the family in Lake City.  Charles Mendenhall’s father, Lake City pioneer Francis Marion Mendenhall (1834-1905) was a vocal music instructor and farmer who first came to Lake City in 1877 from Chetopa, Kansas. In later years he conducted Lake City meat and fish markets, owned mines in the area, and ranched on the lower Lake Fork at Gateview.