Thomas Beresford had a way with people – whether it was selling magazines to the Amish or talking to hippies who were ostracized by other people.
Beresford, who died at a nursing home at age 90, had a capacity “to understand the feelings and views of others,” said his son Dr. Thomas P. Beresford, a psychiatrist who lives in Centennial.
The elder Beresford could also fix most anything. Years ago, he bought “a junked Dodge RV that looked like a loaf of bread because of its rounded corners,” said his son. He rebuilt and refurbished it, and he and his wife, Susan, traveled in it for 15 years.
His introduction to the Amish came when he was selling magazines in Illinois during the Depression.
He had been told it wasn’t worth visiting the Amish because they wouldn’t buy.
But one day, needing a drink of water, he went to an Amish home. The woman there saw the pressure cooker that was a bonus for buying a subscription and asked the elder of the community if she could buy a subscription to get the cooker. Soon Beresford had sold magazines to every household in the area. The Amish didn’t want the magazines, so they were sent to “an old soldiers home” in a nearby town, said Thom as P. Beresford.
“He was fairly low-key and worked well with people,” said another son, Gary Beresford of Dillon. “And he always respected the people who worked for him.”
Therese Ann Peek of Lakewood said her father started up a conversation with some hippies in the 1960s while the family was in California.
“We were from Colorado,” Peek recalled, “and all we thought of was hippies were dirty and smoked pot.”
But to her father, “people were people,” and no one intimidated him.
The elder Beresford spent more than 20 years in the Army Air Corps as a mechanic for fighter planes, eventually becoming crew chief.
He served in England, North Africa, Sicily and Italy, living in tents with other mechanics. He told his family he was proudest of his record that none of the pilots whose planes he repaired died or was lost in combat.
After the war, he was an instructor in aircraft maintenance until 1960. He then worked for two years on the Titan missile at Martin Marietta and worked 20 years at a small company in Denver that made oil seals for axles on trucks.
Thomas Edmund Beresford was born Dec. 11, 1916, in Westville, Ill., and graduated from high school there.
In addition to his wife and children, he is survived by seven grandchildren.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at vculver@denverpost.com or 303-954-1223.
