Glenn Patrick Barrett

Birthdate March 17, 1924

Date of death February 13, 2016

Pat was born in Spokane, Washington to Irene Davidson Barrett and Glenn G. Barrett. He was raised in Libby Montana in the home of his beloved Swedish grandmother Ida Holmquist. He served in the Navy in World War II, and was on the USS Mississippi in the South Pacific in 1942. He graduated from Montana State College in Bozeman, with a BS in Mechanical Engineering. He was a member of the college ski team. He paid his way through school by playing clarinet and saxophone in his own band called “Pat’s Band.”

He married Mary Dorhman in 1951 and had six children: Robert, Bill, Glenn, Keith, Sheila and Barbara. He has several grandchildren. He worked as an engineer at Zonolite, Pet Milk, and helped to build a factory in Maine. He was the owner of SteamVac company in Aspen, Colorado.

His second wife Marge was unfortunately deceased of lung cancer, he cared for her during her long illness.

In the 1970’s and 1980’s he was employed by the Aspen Ski Corporation. Pat was an avid skier, ski instructor and world traveler. He also enjoyed piloting his own 183 Cessna plane, golfing, tennis, chess and poker.

In 1983 he married Wyvona Luman James of Carbondale, Colorado. He was a wonderful husband, and very supportive step-father and grandfather. Life was filled with friends, family and adventures. They moved to Seattle in 2004 to be close to family. He became a docent at the Museum of Flight.

His health deteriorated in 2007, and this required him to reside at Park West Care Center later in the year. He became the editor of the facility newsletter called “Connections,” and chairman of the Poker Club.

Pat passed away with respiratory failure, after several months of a valiant struggle against neuropathy, at the hospital on February 13, 2016. His wife, step-daughter and grandson were at his side.

A private ceremony, “A Celebration of Life,” will be shared with close family and friends, during the first week of April in Seattle, at the home of his step-daughter Jennifer James.

If anyone would like to donate to a charity in Pat's honor, the family requests donations to the Seattle Holocaust Museum. Thank you

A memorial service will be held in August in Marble, Colorado.

This is Pat’s favorite poem:

HIGH FLIGHT

By John Magee

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds—and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew.

And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.