Karen O’Neal: The Sweatshirt Lady

By John O’Neal

If you’ve been around Crested Butte for at least a few years, then you’ve probably met Karen O’Neal, A.K.A, the Sweatshirt Lady. Karen has been making and selling her handsewn Crested Butte sweatshirts for almost 50 years. You can find her on 3rd and Elk during the Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends, selling her wares. She greets everyone who walks by and explains the design on the shirt is the old ski area logo with the moon, not the sun, rising over Crested Butte Mountain. Many generations of Crested Butte visitors and residents have worn her sweatshirts. The story of how Karen started making sweatshirts in Crested Butte is an interesting one. 

The story begins in Wichita, Kansas in 1939 when Karen Spurrier was born, the oldest of three siblings. One day in the 7th grade a new girl showed up, Sharon Brown. Sharon ended up in all of Karen’s classes and the two became best friends. They went to the University of Oklahoma together and told everyone they were sisters, Karen and Sharon. One semester they took an important academic class together, Theory of Football. The instructor was a handsome ex-OU quarterback named Jay O’Neal who helped lead the Sooners to back-to-back National Championships in 1955 and 1956. Karen and Jay fell in love and decided to get married in Mexico City. Jay was coaching football at OU and had a clinic there. On June 17, 1961, Karen and Jay were married, twice! The first time was a civil ceremony in Spanish and the second ceremony was at a church in English. Sharon Brown was Karen’s maid of honor. Back at OU both Karen and Sharon studied Special Education and Karen received her master’s degree. She taught special needs children during this time. 

In 1966 Karen and Jay moved to Austin, Texas. Jay was working in the growing cable TV industry and Karen was raising three children, all born 12 months apart, Johnny, Jennifer and Sloan. “I would be nursing one child, and feeding another child and Johnny was trying to feed himself. I had 12 dozen cloth diapers that we washed, hung out on the line and then folded. They were busy, busy days.”

Karen had a very long ponytail and was very involved around Austin and was even voted one of the best dressed women of Austin. She also did some modeling.  

In the early ’70s, Karen and Jay came to Crested Butte to visit her best friend Sharon and husband Tom Cox. “Crested Butte was so special, it had dirt streets and was like a little village that had a ski area,” she says.

In 1975 they purchased the Old Steakhouse out on Peanut Lake Road. The Steakhouse was a restaurant that blew up in a gas explosion in the winter of 1973 and was completely destroyed. The house on the back of the restaurant was undamaged. Karen and Jay decided to build a great room where the restaurant had been. The room had 24-foot beams that were cut at Rozman’s sawmill at the top of Elk Avenue. “We called it the ‘New Room.’ I loved living at the Steakhouse. We had space, and I could have horses. Growing up on my birthdays, every year when I blew out my candles, I wished for a horse. And when we moved to Steakhouse, it finally came true.” Karen bought several horses and started working cattle with Chuck Ruland, a longtime local rancher whose ranch is now called Skyland. “I learned so much from Chuck, about cattle, horses, wildlife and even life. Some of the best memories I have of living in Crested Butte are working cattle in the high country. It was hard work. I could only lasso them if they were really sick.” Karen usually led the 4th of July parade on Buzz, her cow horse. She also rode over to Aspen with friends, and often rode with Joanie Barbier. 

The move was a dream come true for the whole family. Crested Butte was a small, close-knit community filled with dogs, hippies riding klunkers and lots of mud. The kids went to school in the town hall and everyone ski raced.

The Cox family lived in a small house at the Four-Way with a gift shop in front called The Daisy Patch. Sharon was sewing sweashirts and selling them in her shop. She and Karen teamed up and took the business to a new level. They started selling the shirts all over the country, even in Niemen Marcus in Dallas. After many years Sharon moved on to other things and Karen took over the business.  

Karen knew how to have fun. Legend has it that she rode her horse into the Grubstake, though Don Cook swears it was the Wooden Nickel.

A few months after arriving in Crested Butte she decided she was powerless over alcohol and decided to stop drinking. She did keep smoking Camel No Filters for a few months; one thing at a time. She began to attend AA meetings in Gunnison as there weren’t any meetings in Crested Butte. 

Karen and a few others put an ad in the newspaper and people started coming so AA began in Crested Butte, meeting in the old Union Congregational Church. She still attends these meetings weekly, 49 years later. “AA saved my life. I don’t know where I would be without it, probably dead. I was offered drugs once at the Grubstake, and I told the person, no, I have enough trouble with alcohol. I am very glad I never did drugs, because I know I would have loved them.” 

Amax was around and planning on opening a huge molybdenum mine on Mount Emmons. Everyone was up in arms ready to fight Amax. A group of 30 or so folks from Crested Butte cross-country skied over the mountain to Aspen. Karen and Jay O’Neal were part of that group and slept in snow caves. “The snow cave had two rooms. I cooked a roast and vegetables and we carried it all up the mountain in our backpacks, and had it for dinner to celebrate Jay’s birthday. We had hot tea with dinner. We all wore wool, and it dried out overnight. The next morning, the tea in the pot had not frozen. I was surprised how warm it was in the snow cave.” The group walked down Aspen’s main street holding a banner telling Amax to “Keep Their Hands Off of Red Lady.” The New York Times did an interesting article about this little adventure. 

Karen found faith here in the mountains. “You can see God in many things here in Crested Butte, in the changing of the seasons, in the wildflowers and in the glory of the mountains. I learned about a personal relationship with God here.”

Karen and Jay have three adult children, Jennifer O’Neal living in Los Angeles, and Sloan Allen and her husband Craig living in Cody, Wyoming. John and his wife Carrie live here in CB. Karen and Jay have four grandchildren. They were raised in Spain and Karen went to visit them often. They all called her Yaya, and it stuck, many around here call her Yaya. One summer in her early 60’s, Yaya walked 90 miles on the Camino de Santiago. She has always been a tough one. Living in Crested Butte for 50 years, I guess you have to be.

Five years ago Karen and Jay sold the Old Steakhouse after living there nearly 45 years. “The day I left the Steakhouse, I felt sad. It was a wonderful place to live and have the kids grow up there. It was a little piece of heaven with the river and space and the horses. We sold the house and I wasn’t sure where I was going to live, and my son said I could come live in the cabin next to them. It was a nice change being in town. I was closer to friends, the church and the post office.” Karen and Jay will celebrate their 64th wedding anniversary this June. I guess getting married twice in the same day must work.  

When asked why she keeps making sweatshirts after all these years she responded, “Because people love them and keep buying them. As long as they keep buying them, I will keep making them.” Sometimes you can see her hitching up to the ski area to sell her shirts in the summer. In the winter she still walks down the alley in her Yaktrax with her yellow poles to show up at AA. You will see her on the sidewalk during the Memorial Day and Labor Day weekend sales this year. And if you walk down the alley early in the morning, while it’s still dark, the lights will be on in her cabin, and you can see her at her machine, sewing one of her shirts, with a smile on her face. “I have loved living here in Crested Butte. My years in Crested Butte have been and will continue to be the best years of my life.”