Saying Gene Snyder led an interesting life doesn’t quite cut it.
Snyder, who died May 10 at age 84 at a Littleton hospice, survived a winter alone on a ranch when he was 13 and survived a broken neck when he was 79 after a fall in the mountains.
Snyder, dubbed “too wild” by Vera Sprouse when the two met in college, later became head of special education at Englewood schools. And he married Sprouse – a union that lasted 62 years.
Snyder was a “real champion of kids” and believed fully in the mainstreaming of special-needs kids, said his son Richard Snyder of Littleton.
“He butted heads with a lot of people,” said his wife, but he always believed that no matter what the disability, every child could contribute something to the community.
“He believed they all had talents of some kind,” said Vera Snyder.
Gene and Vera Snyder founded the Children’s Learning Center 20 years ago. It now has 60 students. The Snyders were given the Englewood Citizens of the Year award in 2002.
Before being a teacher and principal in Englewood, Gene Snyder taught in Morrison and Alamosa.
Gene Snyder was born Aug. 15, 1921, in Sagrada, Mo., and moved to Colorado with his parents. They were ranching near Wet Mountain in southern Colorado when his mother, Helen, was injured by a runaway horse pulling their wagon.
Her husband, Paul, took her to Cañon City for months of recuperation, leaving teenage Gene to run the ranch. He lived in a log cabin with no telephone, electricity or indoor plumbing. He hunted rabbits for food, killing coyotes and selling their hides to pay for his .22-caliber bullets.
Attending school got to be too difficult because of the ranch work and the 5-mile horseback ride to school, so he dropped out. But he didn’t tell his parents.
After his parents returned to the ranch, Snyder went to high school and then to Adams State College in Alamosa, where he met Sprouse, who “turned him down flat” when he asked her out.
“He rode a motorcycle and was wild,” she recalls.
Snyder dropped out to join the Navy, and Sprouse dropped out for lack of money. She got a job at a country school near Waverly and found a place to board – at the home of Snyder’s parents.
But when Snyder came home on leave, he was the one doing the ignoring.
Sprouse thought “he was cute” in his military uniform and decided to write him and send him cookies while he was on an aircraft carrier.
It worked. They were married Christmas Eve in 1942.
They both finished college and taught school for years.
In addition to his wife and son, Snyder is survived by two other sons, Michael Snyder of Denver and George Snyder of Arvada; six grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-820-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
