Glenn W. Cripps

1920 to 1997

Just thinking about my Dad. He lived through the depression. When he was 12, he came home from school (8th grade), and there was a note nailed to the table. It read, "Moved to Montrose". Montrose, CO is about 350 miles from Denver, on US Hiway 50. It was written by his mother. She and her husband had left. My father and his brother, age 14, had just came home from their last day of school. They spent the winter of 1932 in Denver alone. He never talked about it. My mother told us about it after they were divorced. He would go to a tight curve in the Railroad track in Globeville. When the coal train would slow for the curve, he would jump on and throw lumps of coal off. To earn money, he would take his guitar up Curtis Street, where the old movie houses were, and play and sing during intermission. People would give his brother and him a few cents. Later in life, he took care of his mother, bought her a house and cared for her till she died. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, he and his brother both joined the Navy within a few days. This is his picture, when he was a sailor. I Cherish it. My mother moved to San Francisco to work and be on the west coast. I will post a picture of them both walking on the street in San Francisco