Louis Eugene 'Gino' Burt

Gene and I met in August 1975; him with his four children, and me with my four...two of which were heading toward their teens and Gene was an only child. Bringing to mind the comb incident...Gene called all the kids together and gave each of them their own comb and said "Don’t Use Mine! Combs are personal and only for the person who owns it.” So of course we had to survive those types of incidents and live through them.

We did a lot of things together as a family, taking the kids fishing a couple of times a month and for rides all over the mountains. He put the kids in sports and scouts and we attended all the functions. We had a great time together…the good and the bad. He sent all the boys through Hunter’s Safety course and took them to the rifle range to target practice.

Gene was born in Laramie, Wyoming because the small town of Walden Colorado had no hospital;. His parents opened a business in Walden, so he became a businessman early in his life. He did some ranch work as a young man, then on moving to Arizona, helped his mother operate the Best Western-Motel Town house. Business really appealed to him, and later he became a bridge worker with his granddad.

He decided to join the US Army. He was a great soldier and became a sergeant. After getting his honorable discharge, he decided to join the union for Carpenters and Millwrights, gradually becoming a supervisor on nine of the largest high-rises in Denver. Then came a time when got out of the union and started is own commercial roofing business, spraying polyurethane foam and elastomeric coatings – He did very well at this.

Gene and I did a lot of travelling together. We went to Disneyland, Sea World and Knott’s Berry Farm in California. We also travelled to Hawaii and later Cancun, Mexico, where we snorkeled the largest reef in the world. We went to The White House, the Statue of Liberty, the memorials in DC, including the Vietnam Wall. We even rode on horseback through the Yucatan jungles.

He loved to talk about history and quiz you on things. When I would be all serious trying to tell him something, he would say “is that all Mrs. Lincoln?” and all I could do was smile.

A story that truly told of his gentle side was there were a couple of girls that were not as well to do as he was. His mom had thrown out some watermelon rinds and the girls were eating them; this upset him so he proceeded to tell his mom about it and he got a whole watermelon and cut it up and gave it to them.

Gene had a very interesting life. He was a friend of Bill W. for many years and passed this along to his kids. What a blessing that was!

We loved Louis Gene so very much and he is truly missed by all; Gene is survived by his wife of 38 years; 8 children, 16 grandchildren, and 4 great-grandchildren.

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