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WILLIS LUTHER IRISH

The foregoing tribute to our mother expresses well our sentiments regarding her. To supplement that statement, we children have had inserted the following brief commentary and note of appreciation for our father.

Our Dad was born January 18, 1889, in Greenfield, Adair County, Iowa. He was second of the six children born to Roscoe K. and Emily M. Irish. Jesse, the older brother, and his younger siblings, Marion, Ilah, Ernest and Martha, completed the family. As a farm-boy growing up in a hard-working, mutually supportive family, many of his outstanding characteristics were early acquired.

As his mother’s health declined with tuberculosis, there was need to seek a milder climate and better situation for her. At the age of 17 years, he moved West with the family to an irrigated farm of 80 acres about two miles north of Sterling, Colorado, not far from where his parents now lie buried. In making the move to Colorado, he missed one year of high school work. His mother passed away on June 27, 1907. He was graduated from the High School at Sterling in June 1908; and at the urging of one of his high school teachers, he enrolled at the University of Colorado the following September. His father was fatally injured in a farm accident and died on May 16, 1909. Dad helped with the farm work that summer; and in September, he and the four younger children went to Boulder, rented a small house, set up housekeeping, and all attended school.