Such a handsome guy!
Henry Clayton Neuswanger
March 25, 1922 – December 21, 2012
Life Story
Henry
Clayton Neuschwanger was born on the family homestead, five miles south of
Eckley, Colorado, on March 25, 1922. His
parents, James and Stella (May) Neuschwanger, homesteaded in Yuma County in the
early 1900’s. James came with his
brothers from Kansas. Stella came on the
train with her cousin from Kentucky.
Stella was a school teacher before her marriage; Jim was a farmer, as
were his brothers and cousins who also homesteaded in Yuma County. They were dirt poor, like their neighbors,
trying to survive on dry land farming.
Jim and
Stella had two sons, Henry and Charles.
Stella disliked nicknames and insisted that the boys be called by their
given names. Henry and his cousin,
Dallas Godsey, arrived 1 month apart, and have been fast friends ever
since. When Henry was about 3 months
old, his mother heard an odd sound coming from the crib – the baby had learned
to whistle!
When Henry
was 6 years old, the family moved to Michigan with Jim and Stellas’s siblings, Raymond
and Rosa (Neuschwanger) May and family.
The two families shared a house on a small farm overlooking Lake
Michigan, near Charlevoix, MI. Henry
loved living in Michigan – a forest of trees surrounding them, an orchard,
sleigh rides in winter to get to town.
He found an old pair of skis on the property and rode them straight down
the hill – and he never skied again. After
one year, Henry’s folks returned to Colorado, just in time for the Dust Bowl
and the Great Depression.
They farmed
with a team of horses and the boys rode horseback to school. One year, a neighbor fell ill; and every
morning before school, Henry was sent to do the milking for that family after
chores at the home place were done. When
the teacher admonished him for falling asleep in class, another student said,
“Leave Henry alone – he’s milking for two families.”
In 1939, Charles,
age 15, died when a sandbank collapsed on him while he and two buddies were
digging out coyote pups. Stella said she cried all the tears she had when
Charles died. All the Neuschangers
remember that time vividly, but no one recalls ever talking about it with
James, Stella or Henry. Cousin Weldon
Neuschwanger says that they were always very quiet, sober people. Life was hard for everyone in those days,
Weldon recalls, and there was not much time for fun.
Because the Eckley,
CO, homestead was so far from town, and the family had no car, Henry and
Charles lived in town during the school year when they were in high school, and
“batched” with two other boys – Dallas Godsey and Henry’s other best buddy, Ted
Sutter. Henry was an “A” student and an
athlete, with a beautiful bass voice. He
graduated with Dallas and Ted from Eckley High in 1940. Henry stayed home from college one year to
help his folks – he thought it would be too hard for his folks if he left so
soon after Charles’ death.
In 1941, Henry
went to Greeley to college, where he worked in the rooming house cafeteria in
exchange for room and board, took up gymnastics, and planned to become a math
teacher. He said he was always
interested in veterinary medicine, but since there was no money for school, he settled
on teaching. After Pearl Harbor, and
after he had received his draft notice for the Army, Henry volunteered for the
Army Air Corps. The officer at the
recruiting station stopped the clock at 5 minutes to closing to swear him in.
Henry was a
second lieutenant, who trained as a pilot on the B-25 bomber, which he loved
flying; but to his profound disappointment, he was later transferred to the
C-47 transport. American leadership
anticipated the loss of many C-47’s during the D-Day invasion, so more
replacement pilots were needed. Henry
flew missions over Europe from England during WWII, towing gliders and carrying
paratroopers and supplies over; and bringing back wounded and prisoners.
Henry knew
how hard it would be for his mother, having so recently lost Charles, and
fearing for Henry at war, so he wrote home every day. His mother saved all those letters, which
Hank’s son, Kurt, has transcribed. Hank
never flew a plane again after he left the service, and unless asked, seldom
spoke about his experiences during the war.
Upon his discharge in 1945, his commission as a first lieutenant finally
came through.
After the
war, Hank returned home to find his parents exhausted from running the farm and
caring for his grandfather. He moved the
grandfather in with other relatives, and bought a pretty little 5-acre place
for his folks in Boulder. Once the Eckley
homestead was sold, he headed out to see the country in his pick-up truck,
traveling around much of the US.
Somewhere in
the South, Hank got on a city bus and took a seat in the rear. The driver stopped the bus and admonished him
for sitting in the colored section. Hank
retorted that he had not fought the Nazis in Europe just to tolerate the same
kind of behavior at home. When the
driver refused to proceed unless he changed seats, Hank got off the bus and
walked.
While
working in the salt mines under Detroit, he volunteered his time to make
carpentry repairs to a house occupied by American Friends Service Committee
volunteers. One of those was a vivacious
college graduate from Cleveland, OH, Cornelia Lybarger. At the end of the summer, “Corky” and her
girlfriend “Mike” hitched a ride west with Hank to Colorado. When they arrived, Hank’s mom was surprised to
discover that Hank’s buddies were both girls!
A year later,
on June 25, 1949, Henry and Cornelia were married in Cleveland. They returned by train to Ft. Collins, where
Hank entered vet school at “Aggies” (Colorado A&M, now CSU) on the GI bill. The newlyweds lived in a trailer park for war
vets on campus, built by Hank and other WWII vets. They lived in a tiny trailer, and shared a
shower house with other residents.
During these years, two daughters were born – Debra in 1951 and Willa in
1953.
As
graduation approached, Hank decided to change the spelling of his surname by
removing the “ch” to make it easier for strangers to find his name in the phone
book. Then he ended up returning to Yuma
County to start a veterinary practice, where everyone had known him since
birth!
Hank and
Corky moved to Wray in 1954. With the
help of banker, Raymond Mullison, they bought a little house and two acres on
the east edge of town between the railroad tracks and the highway. Hank had a
tiny office and operating room in the back of the garage, replaced in the
mid-1960’s by a vet clinic on the same property. After son Kurt was born in 1957, Hank dug out
another basement bedroom by hand, carrying the dirt up in buckets, with help
from his brother-in-law, Lee Lybarger.
Hank was a
classic country vet, practicing out of the back of a pick up truck with a
homemade shell, fitted out to hold his vet instruments, buckets, lariats,
etc. He worked long, hard hours,
treating sick animals in all weather, at all hours – usually the coldest and
darkest! – in pastures or sheds with no light or heat, miles from town, out in
the sandhills of Yuma County. He also
charged like a country vet, which is to say not much, often carrying a balance
for long periods for clients unable to pay.
He treated farm and ranch livestock and also family pets. Gradually he built up a loyal clientele of
crotchety old ranchers who swore they would never let any physician but “Doc”
touch them or their animals!
Corky and
Hank were pillars of the Wray community – active in the Methodist Church, both
singing in the choir for 50 years. Hank
was a lifelong member of the Wray Lions Club, and with several others, developed
a natural amphitheatre which he discovered in his pasture. The Wray Lions Amphitheater became home to a
local acting troupe, the Cliff Dwellers. The remarkable story of how this
amphitheater was built by local volunteer labor and donated materials, with no
government funding, was featured in a story that ran in the old Denver Post
Sunday Empire Magazine.
While their
kids were growing up, there was a procession of unusual pets, including a baby
skunk, a badger, and a baby bobcat, which grew up with son Kurt, and eventually
became a rug on Kurt’s bunk bed. There
were also a pair of dachshunds (Spud and Robin) and an endless supply of German
Shorthairs, as well as a bloodhound named Billy Buzz Bomb who could climb
corral fences, and once got stuck up there over the stock tank, baying
balefully! Buzz also rescued toddler,
Kurt, who wandered into a sticker patch on his way to the railroad tracks. As Corky and Hank were frantically searching,
they heard Buzz sounding the alarm.
Hank, by
contrast to his extroverted wife, was stoic and silent, extremely reserved,
gruff in manner, with little to say, even – or especially – to his family. Still, his children and grandchildren are all
filled with deep affection for this good man who was their father and grandpa. His character was evident in his every action
throughout his life. He was honest,
upright, absolutely dependable, trustworthy and responsible, utterly
unassuming, generous and kind. He was a loyal
son, a faithful husband, and a good father.
Hank’s
grandson, Chris Stillwell, also quiet by nature, says that with Grandpa, he
could just be himself – no explanations necessary, because Grandpa understood
him. Chris said that when he was a teenager, it was
the thought of Grandpa that stopped him from getting into trouble. “I couldn’t bear to disappoint him,” he says.
Granddaughter Jillian’s husband, Nathan
Hage,r wrote: “Grandpa seemed like the kind of guy I'd be able to sit down
with, introduce myself, and then we'd just sit, having understood each other
already.”
Henry
believed in making do with what you have at hand, had no use or need for luxury
in any form, never wasted anything, and taught his kids to always leave a place
better than you found it: Pick up your
trash and pick up other people’s trash before you leave! He was the genuine article, like many of his
generation: The offspring of
homesteaders and pioneers, a product of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl,
and WWII.
Corky and
Hank had been married for 61 years when she died in October, 2010. Soon after, Hank moved to Good Samaritan
Retirement Village in Loveland to be near family. In early December, 2012, Hank held his
namesake, great-grandson, Henry William Hager, 4 months old, for the first and
last time. Near dawn on 12-21-2012, the winter
solstice, Henry Clayton Neuswanger slipped away in his sleep. As Nathan wrote, “Another cowboy has ridden into the sunset.”
