Russell Everett Duffer, formerly of Blue Springs, Missouri, passed away peacefully on Monday, February 1, 2021 at the Missouri Veterans Home in Warrensburg. He was born on August 5, 1929, in Pettis County, Missouri, to the late William E. and Nancy Myrtle (Crain) Duffer. Russell graduated in 1944 from East Prairie Grove High School, LaMonte, Missouri, and the University of Kansas City in 1961. Russell served in the United States Army during the Korean War.

In 1953, Russell married Anne Walden Grove. They were happily married for sixty-five years until her death in 2018. He is survived by one brother, Dan Duffer of Denver, Colorado, and one brother-in-law, Dr. Ralph Rinne of Bellingham, Washington. He is also survived by many nieces and nephews.

In addition to his parents and wife, he was preceded in death by six siblings: Zetta Bass, Carol Duffer, Kathleen Epple, Don Duffer,

William Duffer, and Jean Thompson.

After the facts are collected for a death notice, one takes a wider view and attempts to put into words who the living, breathing man actually was. Russell was a war veteran, a brother in a large farm family, a loving husband. He grew up in the beautiful countryside of central Missouri. Surely his rural childhood in a caring family planted in him the great respect for people, for community, and for nature that he carried all his life.

When Russell came into a room, he brought with him an air of observance, expressed in a small smile he was ready to turn toward anyone who addressed him.  He always listened carefully and thoughtfully before he responded. His ideas were without fail interesting, well considered and well informed. He was a life-long reader of newspapers and of books. Some of his favorite authors wrote about important historical figures and far flung places. James Michener and David McCullough were two writers he especially admired, and both are known for their careful research and political acumen. Once at a family gathering someone said something about railroad travel being invented by the English then embraced and improved upon by American technology. Russell added that America had come up with curved tracks which allowed for widespread rail travel. That was typical of the fascinating things he had read about and could quickly grasp with his mind for mechanics. Though some of us, his listeners, couldn't truly understand such things, Russell would carefully explain enough to give us the basic appreciation he himself had for America and American ingenuity.

Russell himself had a giant dose of American ingenuity, not to mention generosity. When he entered the house of his in-laws in Knob Noster he was always quietly looking around for what needed doing. Whether it was a damaged screen door on the side porch or a ramp to the office when Dr. Grove was beginning to use a wheelchair, Russell just quietly saw things needing a fix or an upgrade, figured them out, and did them.  One of Russell's friends in Blue Springs was impressed by the pulley system Russell built to raise his riding mower so he could work beneath it. The things Russell did, he did modestly. You got the feeling any praise for his ideas or their execution just embarrassed him.

When Russell's brother Don was in the Army, he sent money home earmarked to buy young Russ a bicycle. The two men maintained a strong friendship all through their lives, sustained in part by a mutual interest in fishing and hunting. Those days spent together in the woods or beside a lake would surely be recalled with great pleasure by either Don or Russell.

Russell remained close to all his siblings. This turned out to be a lucky thing for Russ, because he credited his sister Jean with bringing him and Anne together. They courted while Anne was a student at William Woods College in Fulton and Russ was taking classes at the Kansas City Business School. Russell entered the Army at the onset of the Korean War and was made a clerk due to his typing ability.  When the war was over, he and Anne were married in Knob Noster, on August 27, 1953.

Russell found work in Kansas City as an accountant and he and Anne set up housekeeping in an apartment there. Later they moved to a house on Walrond Street, and in 1965 they built their dream home on an acreage just outside Blue Springs. Both Russell and Anne were passionate about the natural world, and their house was a reflection of this. The cathedral ceiling and bright wall of windows beneath it brought the sky and the trees inside. Russ and Anne spent the better part of fifty years enjoying the beauty and solitude of their house on O'Possum Hollow Road. They seemed as much a part of the natural landscape there as the gardens and the birds.

Russell became head of the Marine Corps Financial Division in Kansas City. The age of computers was getting underway, and he was sent to Colorado Springs to learn the new computer language, DOS. Anne, meanwhile, taught school and later was head librarian at the Audubon Library in Jackson County. They took wonderful trips together. They took a cruise to the South Pacific and the islands of Hawaii, then to Sydney and New Zealand. They flew to Tahiti, back to Hawaii, then took the train home from Los Angeles. They made several trips to the Cayman Islands and had many beautiful glass bottles of shells Anne had collected.

When he retired from work, Russell busied himself with what must have been very rewarding for him, and for Jackson County. He became a horseback ambassador for the Blue Springs Reservoir area. According to his riding friend Lyle Alderson, Russ knew the park area better than the rangers did. Russ and Lyle met when Anne was feeding Lyle's horse one day in a pasturage near where Anne and Russ lived. Lyle came upon the scene, met Anne, and asked if she wanted to ride. She declined but said her husband might, so Lyle called Russ, Russ came over to get the promised horse ride, and Lyle remembers they shook hands, and immediately became friends. Lyle helped Russell find his own horse to buy, and over the years Russell helped Lyle train two horses.  "He was a good rider," Lyle says simply. He also recalls that Russ would sometimes shake down persimmons for himself and his horse.

During the months when Anne was very ill Russell never left her side. Russ pushed her wheelchair on long walks while Anne held their dog, Buttons. When Anne died, Russell's desire was for her to be "returned to her mother," so she was buried beside Mary Grove and Dr. Gulph Grove at Greencastle, Indiana.

The life Russell lived was rich. He was a product of the Midwest and of the mid-twentieth century, when America flourished and there was a sense of the sky being the limit for people with integrity and drive. Russell had both, and also common sense and generosity. He was lucky in finding Anne, and she in finding him.

They lived with nature surrounding them and had adventures together. He found ways to be useful all his life and was loved by his family and good friends. He will be greatly missed.