Lee Tipton “never minded doing jobs that blackened his hands,” said his wife, Margaret Tipton.
Getting his hands dirty was how Tipton, who died Nov. 2 at age 90, put himself through college.
But after that, he managed to have cleaner jobs — becoming a highly successful real-estate developer and property manager.
Tipton grew up on an Iowa farm so isolated that he and his sister were home-schooled.
They used horses to pull the plows and much of the work had to be done by hand.
In a review of his life, he wrote about being gored by a bull when he was in his late teens. That resulted in weeks of hospitalization for hernias and bruises. He later had scarlet fever and chickenpox.
He thought he was heading toward being a veterinarian, but after what he viewed as inadequate medical treatment he decided medicine wasn’t for him.
Nevertheless he was ever optimistic. “I told him he was like the male Pollyanna,” said his daughter Julie Tipton of Aurora.
In his writings he asked, “remember only the good days and drive out of your minds the lesser days.”
Work continued in college. He was up well before dawn going to the women’s residences on campus to start the coal cook stoves. Sometimes he hitched rides with the milkman to get back to his living quarters. He found other odd jobs to help with college expenses.
“He was a hard worker and good salesman,” said his son, Robert Tipton of Parker.
Lee George Tipton was born near Conesville, Iowa, on Sept. 16, 1919.
After high school, he attended the University of Iowa but was drafted and served in the 13th Jungle Air Force, his family said.
Officers found he was a good manager so they gave him jobs that included managing personnel and facilities.
After the service he went to Iowa State University, where he graduated with an agricultural economics degree.
It was there that he met Mar garet Brandhorst and they married on Jan. 4, 1940.
He had no interest in farming, but got a job selling farm equipment for Sears, Roebuck, said his daughter.
A friend asked him to come to Denver and work in his wholesale appliance-distributing company.
He later formed his own commercial real estate business. He worked with Forward Metro Denver in the 1960s to help spur economic development in Denver.
He was one of the founders of the Denver Regional Council of Governments.
In addition to his wife, son and daughter, he is survived by another daughter, Lynne Gie ges of Parker; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
