Pete Rador

Pete A. Rador died November 14, 2015 after living a full life of 91 years. Our dad began life on a kitchen table in Denver, Colorado on February 8, 1924. He was the second son of Greek immigrant parents. He had a love for fishing, the outdoors and gardening, which he learned from his father. He had a full and at times, challenging childhood with his parents, Alex and Georgia and siblings, John and Mary. He shared many stories of his work as a child including “Pete’s Pop Stand”. He graduated from Brighton High School where he was a football star, and part of the team that won the Class B Colorado Championship in 1941. He also won first place as a junior in the local Elk’s writing contest and won second place in the State Finals, the title of his piece being “What Uncle Sam Means to Me”. He was an editor for the high school paper and covered sporting events for the “Brighton Blade”. He shared wonderful memories to the family of growing up with his family and cousins, and his summer jobs at Echo Lake. At Echo Lake Lodge he worked with his brother and cousin Chris. They were busboys, bellhops and ran the two pumps at the gas station. In his journal, he talked about his off hours being spent jogging around the lake, fishing and hiking and what a “blast” it was! He was a proud WWII veteran serving the U.S Navy in the Pacific theater, with the destroyer escort USS Spangler. He had many jobs: spent 25 years with the Union Pacific railroad, operated the State Highway cafeteria, drove taxi, and volunteered at Midtown Surgical Center after retirement. One of his personnel accomplishments was painting the Greek Orthodox Church in Denver on 6th & Pennsylvania after a fire. He met our mother, Estelle Dracon, at a G.O.Y.A. meeting. They were married in August of 1949, up until her death in 2005. They raised four daughters, Sofia, Alexandria, Georgia and Maria. Maria died at age 15 and her memory is still alive with all of our families. He was a dad that cooked, cleaned, got us off to school, attended all our school functions and even cut our hair. We only recently forgave him for our short, short bangs. There are so many things we would like to share with you about our dad, here are just a few lasting impressions we have of our dad: Dedicated to his church, wife and family Proud of his girls and their families The uncle everyone loved A great dancer and could out-dance his daughters Knew how to be joyful Had a great sense of humor, a wonderful voice and a way with words He was known as Pete, Prokope, Peter, Potts, Potsi, Dad, Papou, Pops, the Squid King and the Puzzle King. A week before he died he shared that he enjoyed waking up everyday and had a great life.