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he met his wife, Adeline Mary La Salle. They were married on February 18, 1920, when <br />Tony was 21, and Adeline, born in Louisville on June 26, 1903, was only 16. <br />... Tony worked at the Hecla Mine and was caught up in a violent strike at that mine. He <br />told his children he and a friend went to the mine during the strike and were shot at by <br />mine employees. His friend was hit and Tony found a bullet hole in his pants leg when <br />he got home. The militia had to be called out to suppress the violence. <br />Around 1920, Tony moved his family to Southern Colorado, where he and Adeline <br />started their family, which eventually included six children. Louis, the first child, was <br />born on July 4, 1921, in Oakview (also called "Tropic"), Colorado, a mining town in <br />Huerfano County. Doris (Winslow), the next child, was born on June 22, 1924, in <br />Berwind, Colorado, once a bustling mining town in Las Animas County located less than <br />three miles from the site of the Ludlow Massacre of April 20, 1914. <br />Two other daughters followed, Violet Ann (Varing), born April 20, 1925 in Louisville, and <br />Elaine Mary (Biella), born October 6, 1933, in Louisville. Another son, Dominic De Santis, <br />was born on September 14, 1929, in Farr, Colorado, also known as Cameron, near <br />Walsenburg. <br />From 1920 to 1936, Louis recalls, his family moved back and forth between Southern <br />Colorado mining towns and Louisville. Louis started school in Louisville in 1926, at age 5, <br />and attended school there for 3 years. Then his family moved to Berwind, where he <br />attended school from the 4th to the 6th grade. Louis spent the 7th and 8th grades in <br />Cameron. Back in Louisville in 1935, he attended Louisville High School and graduated in <br />1938. <br />Around 1935, when Doris was about 10 years old, Tony and Adeline moved their <br />growing family back to Louisville, where Adeline's family resided. Tony had repeatedly <br />told his sons that he did not want any of them working in the mines. He moved to <br />Louisville, in part, because it was near the University of Colorado in Boulder. Tony hoped <br />that his children would attend the University or some other college. <br />The De Santis' youngest child, Dean William, was born in Louisville on August 24, 1935, <br />less than 5 months before Tony was killed in the Monarch Mine explosion. <br />When the De Santis family moved to Louisville in 1935, they lived at 1045 Front Street <br />with Adeline's father, Michael ("Mike") La Salle, who owned that home. Mike was born <br />in Carbona, Italy in 1867. His wife, Rosa Scran, also from Carbona, was born in 1871. <br />They married in Italy in 1888. Mike, attended trade school in Italy and became a <br />carpenter. He came to the U.S. soon thereafter and sent for Rosa in 1891. She traveled a <br />5 <br />