Harold Grothusen, 89

Harold Grothusen of Denver, Colo., died April 25, 2001, at Hopewell Hospice in Portland, Ore.

Harold Grothusen was born Sept. 21, 1911, to Otto and Minna Grothusen. In 1916, the family moved from 156th and Dodge in Omaha to a farm near Washington.

He attended Rispin and Mattes schools, and worked wherever work was available.

In the 1930s, he went to California, where there were more jobs and better pay. When the United States went to war, he enlisted in the Navy, serving as an Aviation Machinist Mate 2nd Class, and was honorably discharged in Sept. 1945.

In July of 1945, he married Orelene Collicoate in Texas. The couple then moved to Los Angeles.

Mr. Grothusen was still a farmer at heart, and enjoyed a dairy farm in Arkansas for 14 years. In 1964, he sold the farm, and moved to Denver where he was in hotel work, receiving Employee of the Year awards for several years.

When he was 78, he had cancer surgery, which took away his ability to speak and swallow. He recovered, and stayed in Denver, subsisting on a liquid diet. In August 2000, after a three-month illness, he moved to Portland to be with his daughter and son-in-law, Cheryl and Wayne Browning.

In addition to his daughter and son-in-law, he is survived by his sisters, Frieda Doll of Denver and Dorothy Petersen of Rocky Mount, Mo., and three grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his brothers, Gustav and Otto, and his wife, Orelene.

~~~ obituary courtesy of Washington County Genealogical Society. Newspaper clippings on file in the Public Library Blair, Nebraska ~~~

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