George L. Ward was convinced that if a person had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, “everything in their lives would be resolved,” said his son George L. Ward Jr. of New Braunfels, Texas.
The elder Ward was 79 when he died June 8 from injuries he suffered May 7 when his motorcycle went into a skid on West Sixth Avenue as he came down from the mountains to Denver.
Services will be at 2:30 p.m. July 26 at Denver First Church of the Naza rene, 3800 E. Hampden Ave.
“It was his first accident on a bike, and he had been riding since he was 14,” said his daughter Dawna O’Neal of Dallas.
“He taught us all to ride from the time we could crawl,” said George Ward.
But Ward’s greatest passion was helping the homeless, the poor and those with substance-abuse problems, his family said.
He was pastor of the Denver Rescue Mission in the 1970s, helping men and talking about the importance of being a Christian, said his son John Ward of Denver.
“He believed God could do anything,” said longtime friend Jerry McCoy of Tulsa, Okla. “He inspired hundreds and hundreds of people.”
Ward worked with abused children and visited people in nursing homes, said another Tulsa friend, Jerrie Walden. “He had a lot of energy and was always happy,” she said.
The elder George Ward had a tough time as a child, O’Neal said. His mother, Verna Ward, struggled to raise three kids by herself, and “I think (Ward) spent a lot of time on the streets,” O’Neal said.
He began drinking, McCoy said, “and his battle with the bottle could have been why he helped people like me.”
McCoy said he started drinking and using speed himself when he was 13. McCoy was 19 when the two met, and Ward “started working on me. He offered me a plan of salvation, and he just kept after me every day” to make sure McCoy stayed clean.
“We’ve been friends ever since,” said McCoy, now 63.
Ward and his wife, Genevieve, also took in exchange students who were in the United States to study English.
Ward worked at The Denver Post as a printer from 1970 to 1988.
George Leonard Ward was born in Mercedes, Texas, on Jan. 24, 1929. He didn’t finish high school but later earned a GED.
He worked in a print shop. In the mid-1950s, he began working with the homeless at the John 3:16 Center in Tulsa, a facility that provides food, clothing and showers for men. For 16 years, he led Saturday-night services for the men.
He also taught Sunday school at Tulsa Baptist Temple, and every Sunday for several years, he got on his motorcycle and went to homes where teenagers who had motorcycles lived. He would lead a parade of boys on their motorcycles to church, O’Neal said.
Ward’s first wife was Jewell Sikes. They divorced, and in 1967 he married Gene vieve Hudson, who preceded him in death.
In addition to his daughter and his sons, he is survived by another daughter, Cecelia Ann Malaterre of Centennial; nine grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
