Carbondale Rancher Martha Collison Passes at 92

Aspen —The air in the Roaring Fork Valley usually settles into a quiet kind of hush by late September, but for the folks who knew Martha Collison, that silence on September 20 felt different. It wasn’t just the absence of a voice; it was the sudden, jarring stop to a loud engine. Martha Collison, 92, passed away peacefully in Carbondale, leaving behind a legacy that defied the quiet retirement most people expect from someone who spent her final decades on a ranch.

It is easy to look at the obituary published by the Post Independent and see a standard list of accomplishments: mayor, teacher, real estate manager. But that’s the surface. If you look closely at her life, you see a woman who refused to let geography or age dictate her volume. She didn’t just move to the Western Slope; she colonized it with enthusiasm, bringing a California zeal that felt almost foreign in the high desert landscape.

Martha’s path to Skyline Ranch was a long, winding road that started in California. She built her early career in education and real estate, eventually stepping reluctantly into the political spotlight as the mayor of Laguna Beach in 1985. The Post Independent notes that she served for four years, guided by a "grounded sense of logic and fairness" and a humor that made her term productive. But before she was a mayor, she was a teacher in Temple City and vice principal at Foothill High School in Tustin. After years of visiting Colorado, she and her partner, Darlyne Woodward, opened a general store in Redstone. It was a small operation with a café and a gas station, where Martha sold T-shirts that read, "Stop, eat & get gas!" There’s a warmth to that detail — a woman who believed in the basic, tangible comforts of community.

When they purchased Skyline Ranch in 1996, the property became a sanctuary and a stage. It wasn’t just a house; it was an ecosystem of animals, including quarter horses, cats, mini horses, donkeys, chickens, rabbits, and tortoises. But the heart of the ranch’s public life was Martha’s two matching black Percheron draft horses. She named them Tom and Dick, declaring herself Harry. She drove a beautiful carriage with this team for weddings, parades, and special events across the valley. You could feel the weight of those horses in the stories people tell, the clatter of hooves on pavement, the sheer spectacle of a woman in her later years commanding attention with grace and grit.

Her final achievement proved that same refusal to fade into the background. At age 83, Martha won her final buckle at a Western Slope horse show. The Post Independent highlights this as a significant part of her legacy, a physical proof that her energy hadn’t dimmed. She was also known for her "enthusiastic cooking," preparing thousands of meals that turned every gathering into a party.

Now, the carriage is still, and the ranch is quiet. The Post Independent announces a ceremony celebrating her life at Skyline Ranch on Sunday, October 18, from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. For her partner of 56 years, Darlyne Woodward, and the hundreds of friends who knew her, that weekend will be a chance to fill the silence again. The valley is smaller without her noise, but the memory of that loud, gentle heart remains, etched into the landscape like a hoofprint in dry earth.