Blake Like Me

Delores isn't sure about the rest of the casino scene, however. "My son David doesn't even work a regular job anymore," she says doubtfully. "Black Hawk's destiny, that's what he does all day. He eats and sleeps it."

Destiny has again changed the face of Black Hawk. The old Gilpin Hotel, once owned and operated by Delores's parents, has become the Gilpin Hotel Casino. "We charged $17.50 a week for seven days' food and lodging," she recalls. "Our boarders were little independent mining promoters."

Another boarder was her future husband, Bill Spellman, who came out from Topeka with an artist friend "on a lark, gainfully unemployed," she says. Married in 1955, the young couple spent their first year together in Denver, moving back to a family house in Black Hawk for the summer. "Except that we never went back," Delores laughs. "My family was here, Gramma Blake was the center of it, and family was important. We went to church together. We were always told that being Catholic was a hard religion to live but very nice when you died. We got together for all the holidays, and our families got bigger and bigger."

Delores's two sisters ended up back in Black Hawk--even after seeing other parts of the world. They live on Blake Hill, too. Sometimes the three women will sit together looking at family pictures, remembering the past and marveling at how things turned out. There was never any question, however, of where they would turn out.

"We weren't all that sophisticated," Delores says. "We just knew that we'd stay here.