Long-time Parker Area Resident is Comfortable at Country Home

She’s been known as one of the Glitzy, Glitz Girls, an active member of the Parker community, and a major contributor to the area and its farming history.

Now, at 97, she spends her days enjoying the atmosphere and country setting offered at Country Home Assisted Living in Elbert County.

She is Gunhild Dransfeldt. You might recognize the name. Dransfeldt Road was named after the Dransfeldt family, one of the area’s strong civic-minded families that made a true difference to the Parker community.

Although a massive stroke in 2007 took away her ability to speak and she now moves about in a wheelchair, that doesn’t stop this long-time Parker area resident from communicating through eye movements, sounds and mannerisms as she looks ahead to celebrating her 100^th birthday, according to her daughter, JoAnn “Josie” Fetters.

“I’m so grateful because Mom loves it at Country Home. She can look out and see all the animals,” Josie said. “The other ladies there absolutely adore her.”

And yes, “she’s lived a full and wonderful life.”

While Josie and Country Home now look after Gunhild, Josie speaks fondly of the woman who gave so much to her, the workers on the family’s farm land and the community.

Here’s just a sampling of what Gunhild Dransfeldt accomplished during her many years in the Denver metro area.

It all started in 1924, when she first came to America and the Cherry Creek Valley in Colorado from Denmark with her parents, Louis and Jensine Kragelund. She spent her youngest years living in homesteads up and down the Cherry Creek Valley, where she met her husband, Fred Dransfeldt, who lived in Melvin, a defunct town located at the south side of the Cherry Creek Reservoir Dam.

Fred, who passed away in 1993, spent his youth helping out on the family farm located in the defunct town that had been purchased by his father, Hans Claussen Dransfeldt.

After marrying in 1940, the couple was very active. They rented the dairy farm in Melvin from Fred’s parents and were part of the Grange, a fraternal organization of agrarians dedicated to improving the economic well-being and quality of life of the American agriculture producer and his urban neighbors.

Josie said her mother “blossomed” as a member of the organization, serving as the chair of all of its committees and becoming the first female to hold the position of Master of the Cherry Creek Grange.

The couple had hoped to purchase the Melvin property, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s plans to build Cherry Creek Reservoir prevented that from happening. They moved to Parker in 1950 after purchasing land between what is now Jordan Road and Dransfeldt Road.

Fred and Gunhild participated in many civic projects together, including the building of the Community Building in 1950, which would become the area’s new gathering place and gym. While Fred worked with the other volunteers to construct the building, Gunhild was among the women who prepared food for the workers.

Despite the family’s efforts to save the building, including a lawsuit to stop its demolition, the building was torn down in October 2013 to make way for expansions at O’Brien Park.

“That building was so important” to the community, Josie said, adding her “mother put her money where her mouth was and paid for the lawsuit clear to the Supreme Court.”

Gunhild was also an active member of the Cherry Creek Valley Historical Society, the Parker Area Historical Society and the Parker Garden Club. And when Josie’s high school class wanted to celebrate its 10 year reunion, Gunhild stepped in to keep track of addresses.

For fun, she participated in a birthday club every month, where her friends and long-timers, as Josie calls them, would contribute $3 each in a birthday card for that month’s honoree, so the birthday girl could buy what she wanted. She also loved to entertain about 16 people once a month at card parties, where they played pinochle.

Gunhild and Josie also became part of the business community when they opened Glitzy Glitz Girls Boutique in 1992. It operated for 10 years on the farm on Parker Road and led the two women to become involved in the Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce in Denver, the Parker Women’s Leads Club and the Parker Chamber of Commerce. They even decorated a wagon for the Parker Days Parade and became sponsors of the Mrs. Colorado Pageant.

For a woman whose life revolved around such activity, it’s nice to know she can enjoy the beauty and peace offered by the country setting of Country Home Assisted Living.