Gene Cosner survived two plane crashes, the loss of his wife at an early age and years as a single parent as well as living with a debilitating muscle illness all his life.
Still, “can’t” wasn’t in his vocabulary, said his daughter, Marcyndah Cosner of Denver.
Gene Cosner, of Aurora, 88, died in a nursing home Aug. 10.
He lost part of a leg in the first plane crash in 1941, when Cosner, who was in the Army Air Corps, was in a B-24 en route to a Tucson air base. His leg had to be amputated below the knee.
The plane crashed into a neighborhood and exploded into flames. No one was killed.
Cosner was uninjured in another crash when he was in a military plane going to Akron, Ohio. The pilot took the plane down to avoid crashing into an oil refinery.
After the war, Cosner was a civilian employee at Lowry Air Force Base.
While he was there, word came down that President Eisenhower, who made frequent trips to Denver, wanted a lamp that could be attached to a couch on Air Force One.
Cosner and others at Lowry made two foldable lamps, and a metal briefcase to carry them in. Cosner had learned sheet-metal working while employed at the Works Progress Administration.
Another Cosner invention was a foldable snowshoe that paratroopers could carry in their backpacks.
Cosner passed his resourcefulness on to his daughter. Together they restored a Model T and built a camper, using the front end of a 1969 Mercury.
He also taught her how to give a car a tuneup, ride horses and never to whine. When she began crying after falling off a horse, he said, “There is nothing to cry about.”
After several days of arm pain, Cosner finally took her to a doctor. The arm was broken, but it didn’t end her love of riding.
An only child, Marcyndah Cosner laughs, saying, “I was the best son Dad ever had.”
Cosner invented several tools, including some to help disabled people. The late Colorado Gov. John Love gave him a “meritorious award” for his contributions in helping the disabled.
Eugene Cosner was born Sept. 5, 1918, in Weston, W.Va., and went to high school in Akron, Ohio, when his family moved there.
He married Harriette Hendryx, whom he had met in Denver’s City Park.
Cosner and Hendryx married June 10, 1945. She died of a brain aneurysm in 1970, when her daughter was 8 years old.
In addition to his daughter, Gene Cosner is survived by a sister, May Bloom of Mayfield, Ky.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
