William "Bill" Ortiz

WILLIAM "BILL" ORTIZ William (Bill) Ortiz was born on March 23, 1919 on the Dolores River at the Stapleton Siding. His parents were Agapito (Pete) and Martina Laureana (Romero) Ortiz. They had purchased a small ranch at that location in 1916, and moved lumber and a house in on the railroad from Glencoe. It was here that Bill was born and raised. He grew up working on the farm, and attended school at Sunnyside school, which was about a mile down the river from Stapleton. He was only able to attend through the eighth grade, but had a life-time love of learning. He had an incredible mind, and could read something once, and remember it forever; hence, his recitation of poetry, farm and ranch operation methods, psychology, and an endless array of other topics and endeavors. This carried out all through his life. Even when he was ill, he could still recognize people and respond accordingly. He had the ability to converse with anyone about anything, and was always interested in these people. He worked with his father on the ranch, and also hired on with other ranchers and farmers. He seemed impervious to the toil, and riding his horse to Granath Mesa, Fish Creek, Rico or wherever the employment happened to be, it was "just all in a day's work." Of course, he also worked for and with the neighbors. He and Preston Akin worked together, and also got into mischief together. That was bonafide learning experience. His lifetime love of horses was formed in these years. He went into the US Army in 1942, primarily in the Medical Unit, and was stationed, for the most part, in the Adak Islands where his unit built barracks. He seemed to enjoy a lot of the aspects of his tour, especially studying the crows, seals, other wildlife, and peoples. There was tension involved too, as the Japanese were wanting to skirt around the radar, and using the waterways off the coast to travel to their assignations during the nighttime hours. He also worked in the hospital in Pueblo or Colorado Springs with veterans returning from combat overseas. He was also assigned to the hospital in Brigham City, Utah where he was an orderly, or whatever the attendants were called. He was deeply affected by the returning troops with their physical and psychological traumas. Shell Shock was the terminology at the time, where today it would be labeled PTSD. He was honorably discharged in November of 1945. He returned to the ranch, where he had more duties as his father was elderly. He promised his father that he would stay on the ranch and take care of his mother until her demise, and he honored his promise, in Spades. Until, up into her nineties, she was able to cook and keep house for him. Aside from his forays into town, a few trips to Arizona to visit his good friends, and day trips to Grand Junction or Durango; he was pretty much tied down with milk cows nagging to be milked twice a day, chickens to feed and eggs to gather, the beef cow herd and the horses to take care of. He had a Forest Service permit on Hay Camp Mesa for many years. Bill loved Hay Camp and was always ready to go for a ride up there. He'd gather wood, go see the cattle and wild game. In 1961 he became more tied down, when his brother-in-law Arthur Wallace died. Then Bill, Walter Wallace, and Steve Wallace helped his sister Cordy with her ranch and brats. He was a good teacher of fence building, cattle husbandry, and other aspects of ranching and farming. He was a fairly open-minded individual, and it made it easy to go to him with personal problems, ideas, ranch questions, or any variety of topics. He would not be judgmental, but he might point out another option to a problem. Bill had a charisma that made a lot of people want to please him, hence, his eclectic mixture of true friends. He was a story-teller deluxe, and most people appreciated this trait. He was a man's man, enjoying hunting, fishing and honky-tonking. Yet he had another side of appreciating the female species. He was also a fool for his flower beds, his garden, and was a fairly good hand in the kitchen. He is survived by one sister, Ramona Delaney and husband, Herb of Denver, Colo.; as well as many nieces and nephews; and a plethora of friends. Preceding Bill in death are his sisters, Dolores Bradley, Celia Lazzerino, Cordy Wallace Englehart, Rose Stone, Juanita Rassmussen and Alice Mizar; and brothers, Joe, Bert and Charles. If anyone feels the need to donate in his memory, the Dolores Volunteer Fire Department would be an apt receptacle; as they bailed him out numerous times, and didn't take his matches away and didn't scold him too much for his "controlled burns" that weren't exactly controlled. There will be a memorial gathering for Bill at 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 21 at the Dolores Community Center. His friends are very welcome to attend and share their stories about his character.