Obituary of Jacqueline Pelton

Jacqueline Joyce Ballard or “just Jackie” as she used to say was born on September 25, 1929 to Gordon Mitchell and Doris Jean (Compton) Ballard in Deer Trail, Colorado. She was born in what is known as the “Reed house”, where Mrs. Reed was the midwife who helped deliver her. As a child, she moved around a lot as her father would take different jobs around the town and even across the states. She remembered living in the old Elmont place during the Dust Bowl times and she would often say with humor that, “We were surrounded by plowed fields, so no matter which way the wind blew from, we got the dirt from them.”, and then she would follow that with her good humored, and rather loud, laugh. At one point, Gordon got a job at Gates Rubber Company and Jackie went to school in Englewood, then Denver, then back to Deer Trail again before they moved to Saratoga, Wyoming. Gordon had gotten a short term job working for a construction company there and Jackie spent the summer learning how to swim in the North Platte River, one of her favorite childhood memories. After the job was over in 1940, they moved back to Deer Trail in time for her to start the 6th grade there. They then lived in an apartment at the back of the hotel where they experienced the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 and going to see “Gone with the Wind” in the town theatre, which remained one of her favorite movies for the rest of her life. From the apartment, they bought the property on the Bijou Creek and built their homestead there; the property remains in the family. After her high school graduation in 1947, she went to beauty school and worked in Denver for a few years. After Contometer school, she move to Glendale, CA in 1954, with her cousin Kay and her friends Quanah and Beverly, to work for the telephone company. There she met Arnold Gene Pelton and they were soon married on July 9, 1955. They moved to Denver, CO where he worked at Safeway and she transferred to the Denver branch of the telephone company. They had their two sons, Gordon Eugene, born on May 22, 1956 and Bruce Lee born on September 20, 1957. Shortly after Bruce’s birth, they separated and Jackie took on raising the boys herself. On June 13, 1960, she got a job working at the Colorado State Highway Department, now known as CDOT, and they lived in Denver for the next six years. In June 17, 1965 a flash flood devastated the community of Deer Trail and Jackie’s parents lost their house on the Bijou Creek. This is when Gordon and Doris Ballard moved into Doris’s mother’s home in town. On January 18, 1966, Jackie’s father, Gordon, passed away from a sudden heart attack. Soon after, Jackie and her sons moved to Deer Trail to live with her mother. For the next 21 years, Jackie commuted into Denver for work until she retired from CDOT on August, 13 1987. She and Doris then spent her retirement traveling her favorite trips were traveling across Europe and driving from Vermont to Maine during the fall and enjoyed watching her four grandchildren play lots of sports and activities while they grew up. In 1995, Doris Ballard had a stroke and Jackie took very good care of her mother until her passing on January 9th, 2002. Jackie then lived in her grandmother’s house still spending a lot of time watching her grandchildren play sports, graduate from high schools and colleges, celebrated two grandchildren’s weddings and welcomed her two adored great-granddaughters. She died on February 1st, 2013, preceded in death by Gordon Mitchell Ballard and Doris Jean (Compton) Ballard. She is survived by her two sons, Gordon and Bruce, their wives, Lynda and Lori, her grandchildren, Casey, his wife Jaclyn, Corey, BriAnna, her husband Matt Morel and Garrett, her great-granddaughters, Allie Paige and Andie Lynn Pelton.