Thomas Hawley Branch

Thomas Hawley Branch died on March 21, 2025, at home, surrounded by family after days in the presence of love and music, laughter, conversation, and gratitude.

Tom was born on December 6, 1930 to Les and Alice Branch, in Evanston, IL, and grew up in Omaha, NE, with his siblings Park and Betty. His memories of Omaha highlighted skating on frozen ponds, being the voice of Penny the Hen in Swanson’s radio ads when he was eight, how short he was through high school, and family trips to Lake Michigan.

Tom attended the University of Denver, studying business and finance. There, he joined Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity, played hockey (not on the DU team), and took up ski racing and jumping. After graduation, Tom enlisted in the Navy and attended flight training in Pensacola, FL, where he received his Naval Aviation Wings. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps from 1952-1956, spending his service as a pilot in Japan, Taiwan, and Lincoln NE. His stories from his service involved tricks he played with fighter jets, incompetent superior officers, and the lifelong Japanese friends he made overseas.

After discharge, he returned to what would be a centerpiece for the rest of his life: skiing. He and a friend ski-bummed for a winter in Austria, shoveling bumps, waiting tables, and learning rudimentary German. After he returned to Colorado, he worked in the ski industry, including selling ski lifts. He was joined in his passion for skiing by Katie Curry, whom he met on the double chairlift at Loveland and married on January 4, 1959. They passed that passion for skiing to their four children, Steve, Duncan, Kirk, and Betsy. In 1959, he became the director of the Eskimo Ski Club at Winter Park, where he worked with Katie for 60 years, teaching generations of Coloradoans to ski and riding the ski train from Union Station hundreds of times, work that eventually got him inducted into the Colorado Snow Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. He loved working with children and training instructors and après ski with his Eskimo community.

In 1961, Tom began working for United Airlines, for most of his career as a flight Instructor and check airman, where he taught hundreds of pilots, many of whom became lifelong family friends. Working for United meant he and Katie could travel with their children all over the world, and also that he could bring his children and their friends to the flight simulator at the training center. Tom loved telling stories about his years working with United, the challenges he would pose to pilots in training, the difficulty of landing at various airports, and (a theme in his story-telling) the antics of incompetent superiors.

He was a long-time member of St. Philip and St. James Episcopal Church, where he served on the vestry, ran the church youth group with Katie, sang in the choir until weeks before he died, trimmed trees and mowed lawns and hammered nails, anything that was asked of him. Tom was passionate about his Christian beliefs, always ready to explain why to anyone who asked, offering prayers in any situation and leading with love and generosity as a value across his communities.

Tom accumulated friends throughout his life, from skiing, flying, church and the Denver neighborhood where he lived for almost 60 years, and he cherished gathering with his friends anywhere. He loved making cocktails, trading bad jokes, singing comic songs, and throwing parties. His home was always full of friends and strangers he and Katie took in, noisy, busy, loud, and welcoming. His children learned from Tom and Katie the values of opening their door to others, of loyalty to friends, and of hospitality. After Katie and his children, his extended family, friends, and community were his first priorities. Tom’s commitment to the founding of the YMCA in southwest Denver led to his induction to the Denver Y Hall of Fame in 1989.

Tom could charm any child he met, regardless of whether he spoke their language. His Donald Duck voice, his thumb-separating tricks, and his singing generated peals of laughter from any group of children he encountered. He loved telling stories to anyone who would listen and repeating jokes that he told his whole life (except for the jokes his children gently suggested he should now stop telling in public). His endless humor was never mean and usually selfdeprecating. His children referred to his regular disconnected contributions to conversations as Tom-sequiturs, and his grandchildren always wanted him to cook a Tomlette on the electric frying pan he’d had for most of his adult life. He loved to hum and whistle harmonies to most music, and could sit down at the piano and play his favorite hymns and jazz pieces. Tom excelled at nearly every sport he tried, spent hours a week gardening and doing lawn work, worked on projects that sometimes generated mild cursing from the garage, and included his children and grandchildren in everything he did.

He is survived by Katie, his wife of 66 years, his four children and their spouses (Steve and Karen Branch, Duncan and Molly McBranch, Kirk Branch and Laura Prindiville, and Betsy Branch and Mark Douglass), and his seven grandchildren (Izaak and Zoe Branch, Natalie and Meredith McBranch, Seamus and Graham Branch, and Scotty Douglass). His family and friends will celebrate his life this August. Donations in his name can go to his church, St. PJs (www.stpjschurch.org) or Namaste Health’s Angels Foundation (https://namastehealth.com/angels-foundation/).