Memorials › John Richard “Red” Grimsely
John Richard “Red” Grimsely
22 Sep 1942 – 26 Nov 2021
| Birth | 22 Sep 1942 |
| Death | 26 Nov 2021 |
| Cemetery | Veterans Memorial Cemetery of Western Colorado Grand Junction , Mesa County , Colorado , USA |
| Added by | Carolyn Selby on 12 Jan 2022 |
| FaG | https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/235857277 |
Bio
Parents: Charles Richard (Dick) and Maida Waunita Grimsley His early years were spent on a farm several miles out of town, and he attended what is now known as the Old Liberty School, a one-room schoolhouse, with his two older sisters Lynne and Judy. Their house burned down in 1951 and they moved to town where Red started what was to be the first of many businesses just to keep himself occupied and out of trouble. His sisters used to tell a story of his first day in "town school" when his mother took him in to meet the teacher, "This is my son John, he's a good boy" she said, "but he is really busy." He mowed lawns, fixed bicycles, and had two paper routes as well as playing football and baseball… he was busy! Growing up on a farm, Red developed the incredible work ethic we all grew to revere. The family moved to Pampa, Texas when he was a sophomore in high school and from there, he joined the United States Navy in March 1960, he was seventeen. While in the Navy he was a Submariner attached to the USS George Washington, SSBN-598. The "Georgefish," as she was called, was the world's first nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine, armed with sixteen long range strategic Polaris missiles and six torpedo tubes. Red chose to sleep in the missile compartment at sea because "it was warm and dark, and nobody bothered him." His home ports were split between New London, Connecticut and Holy Loch, Scotland. He was honorably discharged from the Navy in August 1963. After the Navy, Red traveled around a bit and settled in Aransas Pass, Texas where he lived with an uncle and spent any free time fishing for "Rat Reds." He had always wanted to be a welder, so he gravitated to shipyards and welding shops to start honing his skills. It was during this time that he enrolled in a Community College in Corpus Christi where he took classes in Business and American Government. It was there he met JoAnn Robertson in 1965, fell in love, and married her in 1966. Their love bore four daughters: Nita, April, Tami, and Charity. They were an idyllic couple. To hear Red's brother, Charles, tell it: they cleared floors wherever they went dancing. To hear their girls tell it, their parents were crazy in love until the day JoAnn lost her battle with cancer on August 12, 1985. Red then had four girls at home to finish raising, and if ever there was a man for the job, it was him. He never missed a game, a debate, a dance, or anything important to his girls. He was there for the unimportant as well. April describes how it was not unusual to be out on the ballfield at practice after school and look up to see her dad sitting on the bleachers watching. He never missed an opportunity to be there for his girls—ever. We all joke that mom must have told dad after four girls, "That's it. I guess it's not in the cards for you to have a son." "No problem," he said; put ball gloves on us, taught us to fish, put us on motorcycles and tomboys we were.
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