For more than half his life, farmer and bookseller Walter Nathan Cranson, who died at age 84 on April 30, was La Junta’s token liberal. He missed no chance to speak out against war, even painting “PEACE” on a freight-train car prominently parked on his property.
The eldest of eight children born to the owners of Golden Rule dairy farm, Cranson spent nearly all his life in La Junta, apart from his college career and years as a B-24 pilot in the U.S. Army Air Forces.
After World War II ended, Cranson returned to La Junta. A few months later, he married Margaret Ann “Midge” Krueger, bought a Piper Cub 3-seater plane, and became a commercial pilot and an instructor. His students included his wife and the members of the nation’s first Boy Scout Explorer air squadron troop.
The Cransons owned a farm on Colorado 194, just north of town. In addition to farming, Cranson also spent 15 years as a roundhouse clerk for the Santa Fe Railway, riding his bicycle to and from the farm.
Cranson liked to say that he was better at raising children the Cransons had 9 than crops. He taught them his sons and daughters to sing as they did chores or gathered around a campfire to toast marshmallows.
In the 1960s, Walt Cranson defied local sentiment with his vocal opposition to the Vietnam War. His “PEACE” rail freight car became a contentious landmark and the target of shotguns expressing an opposing point of view.
In the early 1970s, Cranson and two partners opened a bookstore. The partners dropped out after a year, but Cranson kept the Peace Academy Book Stop open until he died.
Cranson bragged that he stocked more than 60,000 books. Looking at the crammed bookshelves and scores of loosely organized stacks on the floor political science here, health books there customers marveled at how readily he could pluck a requested title from the chaos.
His wife said, only half-joking, that Cranson always ordered two books one for the customers and another for himself. Books covered his bedside table and the floor next to it.
In addition to his wife, survivors include sons Gary Cranson and Nathan Cranson, both of La Junta; Garth Stillwater of Lake Elmore, Vt.; Greg Cranson of Paonia and Randy Cranson of Alamosa; daughters Annette Warsaw of Lima, N.Y., and Jan Polkowske of La Jara; sister Ada Beth Finkner of La Junta; and brother Donald Cranson of Greeley; 34 grandchildren; and 19 great-grandchildren. One son, a daughter and one granddaughter preceded him in death.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
