The actual site of Parley Lambert and Vilate Tolman’s first home was actually farther east. Parley purchased this home and dry farm from his parents for $100 where they had to carry water to their home from the stream below. According to their son Russell Tolman, things were not easy for them at first and Vilate got pretty homesick at times because she was not used to being so far away from home and neighbors. Vilate describes those few months living on the dry farm, “I got very homesick and lonesome as we were one and one-half miles from neighbors, two miles from the mail which came to Boulder twice a week and eight miles from church. We lived in a one room shack with a small cookstove, a wooden box for a cupboard and a straw tick on the floor for a bed. During the summer Parley put brick on the inside of the shack and plastered it. That fall we harvested and bought a cupboard and bed.”