Ron Ansay lives in a world of pain.
He’s 73 and suffers from ankylosing spondylitis, a form of arthritis that causes joints and spinal vertebrae to swell and fuse together. It can also lead to inflammation of vital organs.
Ansay has had 25 surgeries, including hip and shoulder replacements that can set off security alarms at airports.
He’s had this incurable disorder since he was 12. But his condition wasn’t well understood back then, particularly by his father, the hard-charging owner of a linen and dry-cleaning company.
“Some of the doctors told my dad that it was just growing pains and that he should work me hard,” Ansay said.
So Ansay spent his youth toiling in his father’s shop in Milwaukee, with braces and crutches.
He wasn’t properly diagnosed until he went to the Mayo Clinic at age 21. Doctors told him he might need a wheelchair by age 30. But Ansay remains on his feet.
I met him last week at his patio home in Castle Pines. He showed me a family portrait that had as many people as the graduating classes of some schools. He and his wife of 50 years raised seven children, who gave them 30 grandchildren. They now expect their fourth great-grandchild, which seems an unlikely event for a man branded a cripple as a child.
Ansay is a real estate agent for The Kentwood Co., selling starter homes and $1 million properties. He was a successful businessman for much of his life, but says he doesn’t have the money to retire now.
Still, he didn’t look like he was in pain to me. He beamed through wire-rimmed glasses, a smiling gray eminence.
“The doctor tells me, ‘Ron, when I look at you, I don’t believe you’re in pain, but when I look at your X-rays, I don’t know how you live with it,”‘ Ansay said.
He uses morphine to take the edge off, but says there is almost always a writhing pain somewhere. It’s been that way all his life. He says his Roman Catholic faith has helped him through it.
In 1955, Ansay married Dolly Pohs, who was raised in Denver. He took a job in Denver as a wholesale flooring salesman, but soon found his paycheck wouldn’t support his growing family. To do this, Ansay said he had no choice but to start a business. “I did not have the luxury to fail,” he said, aches notwithstanding.
He started selling carpet, then draperies, then furniture, then interior design services. He opened Ronald Ansay Interiors in Wheat Ridge in 1960, serving elite clients, including Bill Coors. In 1978, Ansay opened a store in Aspen, serving celebrities such as the late singer John Denver. But despite these starry connections, Ansay found himself drawn to the poor.
Ansay got involved in the often-violent migrant farm workers’ movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He was concerned that Roman Catholic churches refused to serve Latino workers who came to northern Colorado to labor. He said he got church permission to bring them Holy Communion and to baptize their children.
“I’d draw irrigation water and feel like John the Baptist,” Ansay said.
He fought for social justice. He’d collect food and clothing from customers and deliver it in his Cadillac to neighborhoods where few white men dared to tread. He and his wife took in displaced children. They also befriended militant activists, some of whom came to violent ends.
In 1974, Ansay was ordained as a deacon in the Roman Catholic Church, a process that involved two years of seminary study. He also received degrees in psychology and theology from what is now Regis University. His three decades of work as a deacon – serving the poor, baptizing babies, marrying couples, officiating at funerals, visiting the sick, preaching – took him away from his prosperous business. But since 1986, he’s been able to support himself as a broker.
Ansay not only can sell a house, he can bless it, too. One of his clients, Penny Castillo, told me Ansay sold her a home and then baptized her grandson.
“He’s there spiritually for anyone who asks,” she said.
Throughout his career, Ansay has helped clients, co-workers, parishioners – anyone in his path. In the end, it’s not life’s pain, but how one responds to it.
“My pain helps me understand the pain of other people,” Ansay said. “I’ve learned to see it as a blessing.”
Al Lewis’ column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Friday. Respond to Lewis at , 303-820-1967, or alewis@denverpost.com.
