Al Bush spent much of his career riding horses to remote areas and mapping mineral deposits for the U.S. Geological Survey.
Bush, who died Nov. 15, was good at the geology but not so good with horses, said his son Jim Bush of Boulder.
Al Bush could utter some “oaths with real fervor” when a horse gave him trouble, Jim Bush said. Sometimes the crew took a string of horses loaded with supplies they would need for weeks.
A service for Bush, who died at 89 after a brief illness, will be at 1 p.m. Jan. 15 at Arbor House, 14600 W. 32nd Ave. in Golden.
When Bush and colleagues were mapping in the San Juan Mountains, they were regulars at the nearby theater, where they watched John Wayne movies “over and over just to learn how to handle horses,” said another son, John Bush of Boulder Creek, Calif.
Bush’s first wife, Caroline Antoinette Watkins, sometimes went on the trips and recalls in one area there was no plumbing in their house trailer, and the family had to go 5 to 10 miles away to shower at a bunk house. “We had grown up in a city environment, but we were hardy,” Watkins said.
Al Bush, who worked for the USGS from 1946 until 2009, “lived to do geology,” John Bush said. “He loved the wilderness,” even though that meant “going to spots no sane person would go,” said John Bush, who, as a kid, sometimes went with his dad on the mapping trips.
He said his dad could look at exposed strata and determine the geologic age of an area and then have an idea where to find certain minerals.
He and colleagues would go back to a tent lighted by a gas lantern and, with various colors of pencils, color in the sites of the deposits on topographical maps.
Al Bush’s ashes will be scattered over areas of the mountains where he had worked.
Al Bush “was a real character, very social and very wise,” said a former colleague, Edward Allen Merewether.
“He was a dedicated liberal Democrat” and loved getting into conversations “with people of contrasting views,” Merewether said.
“He had a fantastic sense of humor and could see the humorous side of almost anything,” Watkins said.
Once, he made a sarcastic comment to his son John Bush, and, realizing it went over his son’s head, Al Bush said, “Sarcasm is wasted on the young.”
Alfred L. Bush was born in Rochester, N.Y., on Dec. 21, 1919, and graduated from high school there. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geology at the University of Rochester.
He married Caroline Wiener in 1942, and they had six children. They divorced, and he later married JoAnn Heath.
In addition to his wife and sons, Bush is survived by four daughters: Caroline Rapalyea of Merion, Pa., Margaret Rettig of Centennial, Martha Poland of Littleton and Amy Calkins of Aloha, Ore.; a stepson, David Heath of Portland, Ore.; a stepdaughter, Diane Koster of Southern California; 20 grandchildren; 20 great-grandchildren; and his sister, Louise Leader of Seattle.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
