- Date Of Birth: November 3, 1936
- Date Of Death: July 15, 2021
- State: Colorado
Russell Berry, an old rancher, cowboy at heart, and great talker who never knew a stranger, broke the tethers of this world on July 15, 2021. A husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, he leaves behind a large family who continue to carry his memory. Russell was a descendant of the original pioneer families who settled in the Wet Mountain Valley in the 1870’s. He, at times, seemed to be related somehow, someway, to most people in Custer County. He passed away peacefully on the family ranch in Hillside where he was also born, on November 3, 1936, to Charles and Hattie Berry, the oldest of their six children. That being election day, Russell was fond of claiming that though his mother was ecstatic at his birth, she complained that his arrival also prevented her from voting for Franklin Delano Roosevelt that day. Possibly not true, but a part of family lore, nonetheless. He attended the one-room Brush Creek School, and later, Custer County High School.
He spent his final day, as he did nearly every other day of his life, with Eunice, his wife and love of nearly 66 years. He would have been the first to agree that the most extraordinary stroke of luck in his life was in meeting Eunice Atwood as a teenager at a dance in Westcliffe, and that later she would agree to join him on life’s adventure, marrying him in Canon City on August 20, 1955. Their lifelong journey together brought them three children, Rhonda (Gary) Patterson in 1957, Rita (Scott) Wilson in 1964, and Randy (Pravesh Singh) Berry in 1965. Their pride in their children, six grandchildren, Steve Patterson, Sherri Tafoya, Kim Coulter, Jessica Ingo, Arya Berry-Singh, Xander Berry-Singh, and seven great-grandchildren was evident in their investment of time and energy in following their lives. Russell was surrounded by all of them over the past several weeks, in the midst of a beautiful Colorado summer, the kind of summer that for most of his life would have found him in the fields.
Russell loved his family and his land best. He knew every bend in the streams and every tree on the family ranch and lived and breathed as a cattle rancher. Branding day, always a family and neighborhood affair, almost always brought nearly as many people as cattle to the ranch. He made sure all the kids had their chance at roping, holding, and branding (even if it was just branding the wooden slats of the corral). Efficiency was never the objective, to be sure, and the occasional profanity directed at an uncooperative animal was always vastly overshadowed by his friendliness to all faces, familiar or not. He loved harvesting the fields, and his usual hayfield job, though he could do them all, was in running the bale piler.
Russell was a permanent fixture at Custer County High School basketball games, watching his kids and grandkids play the only sport that mattered in his view. Whatever he lacked in objectivity when members of his family were playing, he made up for in overall volume. A loving Grandpa, he relished in being surrounded by his grandchildren on the ranch, as he often was. He made sure his grandkids knew trips to the Hillside Store meant candy bars and freedom. Also, that going with Grandpa to Canon City always, always included a stop at the Dairy Queen.
It is true that near the end, Russell’s body was increasingly confined by the erosion that time inflicts, and the result of decades spent in honest, weather-worn work. He wore out, and that was difficult for him. He relied heavily on his family then, too, especially his daughters, Rita, and Rhonda, for the support and assistance to be able to remain at home in Hillside, though in failing health. Unfailingly, even in his final days, he managed a gesture of affection every morning to Eunice. A pat, a brief hold of a hand, a touch. His family is comforted by the knowledge that his spirit and memory now lives free in the earth, wood, water, and wind of the family ranch in Hillside. It was there he was born, lived nearly all of his 84 years, worked the land and cattle, raised the strong, independent individuals who make up his family, and died.
