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Just before breakfast on the morning of April 20, 2017, Maurice L. Bailey laid down the reins and headed towards greener pasture. He was 93 and had seen a lot of life. Maurice would have been 94 in just 3 days. He was celebrated at the United Methodist Church in Walsenburg at 11:00 a.m. on Monday April 24, 2017 and is interred at the Upper Huerfano Cemetery just west of Gardner, CO.
Maurice was born on a wheat farm in Santanta, KA. He was the oldest of 6 children born to John Bailey and Opal Katherine Hunsinger Bailey. His family moved to Towner, fled the Dust Bowl, and moved to La Veta, CO in 1936. He graduated from La Veta High School and attended Mechanic Training School in Ogden, prior to enlisting in the Army. He was a Corporal in the Army Air Force Transport Command in Italy during WWII and worked on C47s and C46s.
Following the war, "Lute" came home to La Veta and met his future wife, Evalyn James, a young school marm at the South Bradford School West of Gardner. They were married on June 12, 1949. Their first home was on "The Divide" between Gardner and Westcliffe. Maurice and Evalyn moved to La Veta shortly after their first daughter, Kathy, was born in 1952, and then back to the Gardner area in 1954 before their daughter, Connie, was born. Maurice was the foreman for the Level Cattle company which later became the Zancudo Ranch. The in 1966 the family moved to Walsenburg.
Maurice was a jack of all trades and tried his hand at lots of ordinary and not-so-ordinary things. He was a dying breed of ranchers that could fix anything with bailing wire, could build an addition on the house, including wiring and plumbing. He could change the transmission, and round up and doctor a herd of cattle. He was also a philanthropist., philosopher, musician and occasional writer. He designed a fancy wood splitter and sold wood, sold real estate and insurance, drove truck for the Postal Service and later for Montgomery Wards. He loved thinking outside of the o, and experimented with growing worms long before growing worms as fashionable.

Maurice loved his "ranchito" in Gardner where he was able to continue with his small cattle operation. In 1983 Maurice followed his wife to Ranchester, WY where she was a school principal. There he ranched, and was active in the Sheridan Episcopal Church. Maurice, along with his wife, trained for the Stevens Ministry and ministered to many.
The Baileys returned to Walsenburg in 2001 where they reunited with their friends and family and the United Methodist Church. Maurice took care of Evalyn through the stages of dementia, with the support of those friends and family. In 2011 he moved to the Spanish Peaks Veteran's Living Center where he enjoyed "living like a king". Maurice dearly loved his family including his grandchildren and great grandchildren, and lived for family gatherings.
Maurice is survived by his daughters, Kathy Babb (Jeff) and Connie Kowal (Dave Mueller); seven grandchildren, six great-grandchildren; his brother Jack Bailey (Carol), cousins, in-laws, and many nieces and nephews. Services were held at the United Church of Walsenbug, Monday April 24 with burial at the Upper Huerfano Gardner Cemetery. Memorials may be made to the United Church of Walsenburg.

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