{"id":7872,"date":"2016-06-13T16:13:35","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T16:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idsunmedia.com\/?p=7872"},"modified":"2016-06-13T16:13:35","modified_gmt":"2016-06-13T16:13:35","slug":"lifetime-resident-named-to-heritage-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2016\/06\/13\/lifetime-resident-named-to-heritage-court\/","title":{"rendered":"LIFETIME RESIDENT NAMED TO HERITAGE COURT"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bergin\u2019s great-grandparents came to Valley in mining boom<\/i><\/span><\/h2>\n

BY JONATHAN KANE<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Teresa
Teresa and Joe Bergin are shown here as grand marshals of a Bellevue Labor Day parade. Photo courtesy of Teresa Bergin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

F<\/span>riends of the Howard Preserve have selected Teresa Bergin, a lifetime resident of the Wood River Valley whose great-grandparents came here during the 1880s mining boom, as the organization\u2019s choice for the 2016 Heritage Court.<\/span><\/p>\n

Born in Hailey, Bergin has lived for 68 years in Bellevue where she and her husband Joe Bergin raised six children while being active in the community. Teresa Bergin has served as a member of the Bellevue Common Council, the Bellevue Library Board, the Bellevue Tree Committee, the Bellevue Historical Society and the St. Charles Catholic Church Parish.<\/span><\/p>\n

Teresa Bergin’s grandmother, a school teacher in Mackay, was one of the first women in her family to exercise the right to vote and Bergin said her example established a practice of women voting and having a say in public matters. She now always votes and insists her family does as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bergin also has an adventurous side. She traveled to China a few years ago just to watch her granddaughter play basketball for New Zealand in the Beijing Olympics.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now a spry 87 years old, Bergin has always called the Wood River Valley home.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI really appreciate being named,\u201d she said of her selection to the Heritage Court. \u201cIt\u2019s a special honor,\u201d although, she added with a laugh, \u201cI have no idea why they named me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Her memories of being a child in Hailey are special.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great place to grow up and there were a lot of things to do in wintertime,\u201d she said. \u201cSun Valley didn\u2019t exist then so we would ski out Muldoon Canyon.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, it was much smaller then. There was more unity and my family had come to the Valley in 1884 to be miners. My great-grandparents from both sides were miners. It was a heck of a hard job.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bergin noted that in 1885 a family member was killed in a mining accident in Bullion Gulch.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFrankly, it was a horrible life because of the cave-ins and my dad\u2019s health was really impacted,\u201d Bergin said. \u201cIt was also a wild town with all the saloons and whorehouses. We used to say \u2018Don\u2019t go to River Street!\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When Bergin married, she moved to Bellevue, where her husband started an auto mechanic business where Guffy\u2019s [now Oasis] is today.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBellevue has certainly progressed but it hasn\u2019t grown too much,\u201d she said. \u201cIn 1936 Sun Valley Company came in and things really changed up north. The mines were still running then but not as heavily. We used to drive up once a week and see how they were progressing on the lifts and the lodge.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking back on her life here, Bergin said, \u201cI like a small town a lot. There has been a lot of independence, for one thing. And I was always involved with the city council, the library and the schools. I was happy doing it and the friends that I made. I also helped out on a lot of important things.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, it\u2019s changed a lot but for the most part the changes have been positive. Sun Valley, of course, was the biggest change. All the affluence and the jobs established have been positive things for the city.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bergin\u2019s great-grandparents came to Valley in mining boom BY JONATHAN KANE Friends of the Howard Preserve have selected Teresa Bergin, a lifetime resident of the Wood River Valley whose great-grandparents came here during the 1880s mining boom, as the organization\u2019s choice for the 2016 Heritage Court. Born in Hailey, Bergin has lived for 68 years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7872","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-heritage","8":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}