Anna Bolna

Leadville was also home to a Romani population. The Romani are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group originating in South Asia, who traditionally lead a nomadic lifestyle. Among them was Anna Bolna, who immigrated from Hungary in the late 1880s. Much like the Irish in Ireland, the Romani of Hungary in the 18th and 19th centuries were subjected to cultural genocide and economic oppression. The rulers of the region at the time banned the Romani language, even the use of Romani names themselves, forbade them from owning horses, enacted anti-vagrancy laws, placed restrictions on Romani marriages, and ordered their children taken away to be raised in more upper-class homes, much like the Native American residential school programs of North America. Anna’s husband, George, worked as a smelter and laborer, and they had four children in Leadville. Her 15 minutes of fame came in January of 1910, when the local newspaper reported that another Romani woman named Zuzi Bencko had hexed one of Anna’s cows, labeling both women witches, saying that “the women had been talking, as women will,” and that “in the babel of tongues it was hard to get at the facts.” Most Romani at the time were either Christian or Muslim, so it is difficult to ascertain the validity of this account, although–like the Irish–the Romani people infused their religious beliefs with their own traditions and superstitions. Anna died at age 52. After having been bedridden for a number of months, she was apparently trapped in a house fire and died in her sleep of smoke inhalation.