My great-grandfather’s name was Louis Dussart. He was born in Camier, Belgium 6/6/1850. He was a coal miner by trade and brought his family to the United States in 1890, settling in the coal mining town of Aguilar, Colorado. He died there 7/4/1896.

My grandfather's name was Modest (Mike) Dussart. He was born in Camier, Belgium 2/15/1875. He, too became a coal miner in the Aguilar, Colorado area. He died 12/6/1957 in Denver, CO.

My father's name was James Dussart. He was born in Aguilar, Colorado 6/30/1899. He was adopted into the Regnier family when he was thirteen. He was a coal miner in the Erie, Colorado area. He died 12/12/1972 in Erie, CO.

My name is Richard James Regnier. I was born in Erie, Colorado 8/17/1928. I became a school teacher, breaking the coal miner's mold.

FROM DUSSART TO REGNIER; is derived from an itch deep inside of me, that I felt had to be scratched. When I retired in 1990 I started putting together all of the short stories I've written about a few of the events that have transpired in my life. So, for posterity, and my family and grandchildren, etc, the following is dedicated.

-Part 1.-

An unbelievable sight meets my eyes as I slow the car to take a better look. Off to my right lies what's left of the Eagle Coal Mine where once my dad worked. All that is left is a skeleton of the tipple where once it whirred day and night lifting full cars of coal to the top where they were emptied, then swiftly lowered so another could be brought to the top.

The coal cars now sit rusting in a field along the highway, no longer needed for hauling coal. Other hulks of machinery with cold steel tracks contribute to the awesome display of junk piled here and there by the new owners of a once proud coal mine. I ponder how the old timers, who live only a few miles over the hill feel when they drive by and see this junk yard. My dad had only been a coal miner a couple of years before I was born in 1928. Except for the two years when we lived in California, he had worked in the coal mines. He retired from the mines in 1959 with the miners pension and black lung. What a price he paid just to make a living for his family. All he knew was hard work from the day he was adopted into the Regnier family at the age of fourteen, until he retired from the mines at the age of 60. His mother, Celia, was a half breed Indian, and his father, Mike, an immigrant from Belgium. Dad's mother Celia was killed when he was ten and soon after that his dad abandoned him. Not long after that his dad remarried, but his new wife didn't want my dad around so he was left to fend for himself.

Dad was a waif until the age of fourteen when he was old enough to be adopted. He was born, James Dussart, in Aguilar, Colorado on June the 30th, 1899. With a fifth grade education, a dog, a loving grandma, and neighbors that cared, he managed to hang in there. Not long after he was adopted into the Regnier’s they moved to Boulder, Colorado and started farming. On the farm he learned to work hard all day long for his new parents. In return he got a roof over his head and something to eat. Not until he was in his mid twenties did he think of leaving. After a short marriage, that only lasted a little over a year, he was excommunicated from the Catholic church by a priest who had told him if he got a divorce he could not come back.

I spoke with my dad in 1970, two years before he died. It was at that time he told me he didn't need God, and that he had never asked Him for anything. What a waste. What a lie he had been told. If God could forgive David, he could, and would have forgiven my dad, but the wound was so deep and the scar so old that Dad wouldn't try to remove it.

My grandfather, Mike Dussart, came to this country from Belgium, and my grandmother, Celia Phifer, was a half-breed Indian. Her father had gotten tired of war and had left the Prussia-Crimean War and come to America where he changed his name to John Phifer. He had uncles named Phifer. His real name was Henry Knerr. One of his cousins, named Harold H. Knerr, drew the `Katzenjammer' cartoons for the Sunday funny papers for years. Celia’s mother, Amelia, Dalores her Indian name, told my mother that she was a Princess, [her dad had to be a Chief], of the Taos Indian tribe located outside Taos, New Mexico. For those who are skeptical, my mother wrote out a statement to this fact and had it notarized. As of today, the 20th of February, 1992, my mother is still alive, and the pictures of my grandma Dalores (Montyoa) holding me when I was 10 months old and the fact that my mother was personally acquainted with her, is a testimonial to the fact that this is a true statement. Fortunately, being part Indian is more acceptable these days than it was then. No one has researched her family tree to see who my great - grandmother's parents were. My second cousin, Rose Wilson Sanchez, told me that her grandma Dalores parents had picked out a buck for her to marry that she didn't like. When Grandpa Phifer (Knerr) heard about it he kidnapped her and married her. They had three children, Celia, Laura & Perfilia (Pearl). Perfilia died young with pneumonia. Grandma Phifer joined the Pentecostal church in 1931.

My grandfather Dussart's family settled in Aguilar, Colorado. His dad, Louis Dussart, was a miner in Belgium and there was a lot of coal mining in the Aguilar area. It wasn't long until he and his two sons were working in the local mines. How my grandma and grandpa met I do not know, but she was a very pretty woman. I only have one picture of her and she is standing beside my grandpa. She had a beautiful face, slender body and hands with long slender fingers. She was a catch for a good looking coal miner like grandpa. This beauty, of course, had its draw back.

Grandma was a young girl had to earn money by dancing at some of the local bars to buy food when grandpa was out looking for outcropings of coal he could mine by himself. One day while Celia was dancing a dark complexioned man took a liking to her. When she finished he talked to her and asked her to run off with him. She told him she was married, but he didn't care and kept after her to run away with him. Telling him she wouldn't, she left the saloon and ran home. My grandma's relatives lived next door and she ran there thinking she'd be safe. There was a large glassed in porch on the side of the house. Entering the porch, she was out of breath and was asked what had happened. As she stood there telling them what had happened she saw the man coming up the road.

In those days most doors didn't have a door knob. They had a hole in the door where you inserted your finger to pull the door open. Celia placed her finger in the hole and started to pull when the man shot and killed her. What ever happened to that man no one has ever told me, but my dad let me know it was a dark day in his life. It was at this time Mike abandoned his son, Jim. He had no desire for an eleven year old kid tagging around after him. So, with no mother, and a father that didn't want him, my dad withdrew into himself. Most of the time he was an outgoing person in latter life, but there were times he would withdraw. More than once I tried to get him to talk about his childhood and his dad, but he never said much about that time in his life.

His dad soon married again and returned to Aguilar. Babies soon arrived and my dad’s step-mother soon let him know he was a nuisance and she didn't want him around. On the 7th of July, 1912, Mike moved away abandoning him again. His grandparents tried to care for him the best they could, but they had very little. Dad stayed wherever he could, even with a Mexican lady who had a large family. His favorite place was under the back porch of their old house.

One of Mike's sisters, Marie Dussart Regnier, now lived only a couple of blocks away in Aguilar. She had three boys and a girl Dad's age and he started hanging around their house. They liked him and soon took him in.

When Dad turned fourteen years old they adopted him. A few months after the adoption was final they moved to a farm six miles east of Boulder, Colorado. Dad had gone from no family, to a family of four brothers and one sister. He liked it, and told me many times that he was grateful for the Regnier's taking him in and treating him like one of the family. Of course, on a farm the more boys a family has the better it is. My dad never said anything bad about Jules & Marie Regnier. They had taken him in and given him a home. For a boy who had nothing that meant a lot. It gave him a purpose in life and he was good at farming.