Warren Robert Vollmert
Marriages
Hazel Gay BLair
El Paso, Texas
Burial Details
Obituaries
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel page 7 B Obituary - June 22, 2016
Warren Robert Vollmert
May 29, 1927 - May 24, 2016
Warren was born almost 89 years ago on his grandparents’ cherry farm near Loveland, CO to Herman Otto and Dorothea (Reifschneider) Vollmert. He and younger brother, Bernard, grew up in Ft. Morgan, where their family had little money during the Depression. Warren worked hard helping his parents with their milk trucking business, and earned money for his first car by clerking at a grocery store and driving the high school bus.
After graduation he signed up with the Merchant marines and spent a year sailing to distant ports.
Upon return, he joined the
Air Force and began a 24 year career, earning the rank of senior master sergeant. While
stationed in Texas he met a petite, spirited airline hostess named Hazel Gay Blair. The two were married in El Paso and had four children. Warren’s travels in the service were the source of many stories, including Alaska (a day of survival training in hand-dug snow caves, with only a candle and matches to keep him from freezing), the Philippines (fresh pineapple daily and spotless housekeeping by friendly locals spoiled him!), Okinawa (where joining three bowling leagues relieved the isolation), and Ft. Worth, TX (he was in charge of the flight line when the B-52 bombers were put on alert during the Cuban Missile Crisis…we didn’t see him for a week, just heard the roar of the plane engines, ready to go but never called upon.)
After retirement, Warren moved the family to north Delta
where he started an antique furniture business called The
General Store. Since he often said he was born 100 years too
late to travel westward in covered wagons, at least his many
buying trips gave him a chance to explore the back roads of
Colorado. He retired again after 24 years, and found he had time to indulge his love of history, reading about the Civil War and WWII. Then he discovered Robert Parker’s westerns, and the mysteries of James Burke!
Not long ago, Warren wondered aloud about how he would be
remembered. While he was a smooth dancer, loved Big Band
music, and was a fisherman par excellence, he also cared for
Gay at home during the first ten years she had Alzheimer’s. He tried to live up to the motto on his Air Force coffee mug…Aim High. His intelligence and sharp memory were mixed with a desire to stir things up and keep people honest by “pulling their chain”…no surprise that he earned (and loved!) his nickname of “Great Balls of Fire!” Most of all, he acknowledged that friends are where you find them…in a nursing home, or even among his own children. And saying, “I love you” or talking with a “shrink” doesn’t make you less of a man, indeed it made him more of one.
Warren is survived by his wife, Gay; children, Larraine Pallas,
Mark (Mary) Vollmert, Barry (JoAnn) Vollmert, and Lisa (Rick)
Vigil; several cousins, seven grandchildren, and one greatgrandson.
All are invited to share memories at a brief memorial service
that will be held graveside on June 25th at 10:30 at the Delta
cemetery.
