Peggy Downs

Parker, Colorado~ Peggy Downs went to be with our Lord on Wednesday, December 9, 2020 in Aurora, Colorado.

Graveside Service will be 2:00 p.m. Thursday, December 17, 2020 at East Bridgeport Cemetery in Bridgeport.

Peggy was born Thelma Louise Marcus in Floyd, New Mexico and grew up quickly in a farming family in eastern New Mexico.  Because everyone else would be out working with the animals or in the fields before she woke, her mother taught her to cook her own breakfast by the time she was 3 years old, including how to strike the match to light the gas stove!  Just a couple years later, she was driving the tractor, even if it was just holding it straight down the plowed rows with her father taking the wheel to turn it around at the end of each row.  A few years after that, Peggy was big and strong enough to work with the others behind the tractor, throwing and stacking hay bales on the trailer.

Life on the farm was hard.  When Peggy was almost 16, she and her older sister, who resembled her enough to fool the clerk at the county courthouse, were able to get a marriage license for her to marry her first husband.  That was her ticket out, but things weren’t all rosy.  After two kids and a few years later, she was a divorced single mother working as a telephone operator, and she loved that job, talking about it regularly the rest of her life.

That’s about the time she met the love of her life, Steve.  Because he was stationed around the country while serving in the Army, her being an operator came in really handy.  It allowed her to deadhead the long-distance telephone network to talk with him for free before they were married.  Then things got really interesting. The farm girl from New Mexico was swept up into the whirlwind of being an Army wife.  It took her to Massachusetts, Ethiopia, Maryland, back to New Mexico (while Steve served a year-long tour of duty in Vietnam), California, Turkey, Massachusetts again, Iran, Texas and finally Colorado! What an adventure and leaving a trail of lifelong friends all over the world.

Thanks to her upbringing, Peggy was tough and strong, farm strong!  When in Ethiopia, she enjoyed arm wrestling and embarrassing some of the burly truck drivers who got their workouts every day, jamming gears while driving up and down the mountain switchbacks between Asmara at 7600 feet elevation and the sea level port city of Massawa.

As tough as Peggy was, she was even nicer and more caring.  Everyone around her felt it.  She was very giving of her time, visiting with friends, doing sewing projects for people, and cooking—always cooking.  One of her most extreme projects was teaching someone who was a trained Air Force jet pilot how to drive a car!  Peggy took great care of those around her, especially Steve’s mother and her mother when they needed her most.

Peggy was fiercely independent right through to the end.  She was never comfortable asking for help and always wanted to do things for herself and to help others. She will be sorely missed by all who are comforted with the knowledge that she’s with her soulmate again.

Peggy is survived by her children, Deborah Ranney and Tony Downs and wife, Alison Downs; her grandchildren Dawn Roush and husband Justin Cisneros, Stephen Roush and wife, Ashly Ahlf, Jon Ranney and wife, Alyssa Ranney, Chris Downs and wife, Abby Downs and Heather Downs; and great-grandchild Taylor Cisneros.

Hawkins Funeral Home

(940)683-2211

www.hawkinsfuneralhome.com