To many people, Franklin Nash was almost larger than life – a 6-foot-2 rancher who was demanding, never changed his mind and expected people to do things his way.
But the Cañon City native, who died Aug. 1 at age 87, was also generous with family and friends, collected glass art, went to the opera and wore colorful, flowered Western-style shirts.
The Nash family has been a fixture in Fremont County for decades – raising Registered Hereford cows on a ranch that once was 40,000 acres. Franklin Nash’s father, Walter Nash, and his grandfather, Benjamin Nash, homesteaded the land 26 miles northwest of Cañon City.
Franklin Nash was always a hero to his daughter, Julie Nash of Colorado Springs.
“He lived what John Wayne movies only show. He was the guy who really rode the horse and gathered the cattle, and he did it better than anyone,” she said. “But he could be a pain.”
Franklin Nash said his first love was the cows, and everything else came second.
“He was a good, honest guy, but he could be blunt,” said his wife, Clara Louise Nash.
He told his children that he knew by the time he was 5 years old that he wanted to be a rancher, said his son, Clint Nash, a banker in Kirk.
But he had other interests, including the Santa Fe and Central City operas, reading American history and making silver jewelry, such as belt buckles, bracelets and necklaces.
“You think rancher, you think Willie Nelson,” said Julie Nash, “but that wasn’t so with my dad.”
One day he asked Julie Nash if she had ever seen a ballet. She hadn’t. He yelled to his wife, “We’ve gotta take this girl to the ballet,” and they went.
Franklin Nash was known for his colorful shirts, most made by another daughter, Jane Deewall of Coldwater, Kan. He picked out the material.
“They might have poinsettias or they might be paisley,” said Julie Nash. “And he had those obnoxious robin-egg-blue boots he wore sometimes,” she said with a laugh.
Benjamin Franklin Nash was born Jan. 13, 1918, in Cañon City and graduated from high school there. He went to the University of Colorado for two years and then enlisted in the Army. He was awarded the Bronze Star and the Legion of Merit.
In June 1947, he married Clara Louise Giem of Cañon City. They met at a cattlemen’s dance.
In addition to his wife, daughters Julie and Jane and son Clint, he is survived by two other daughters, Sally Para of San Carlos, Calif., and Harriet Holloway of Colby, Kan.; another son, Jeff Nash of McLoud, Okla.; 11 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by a daughter, Patsy Nash.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-820-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
