Grant Calvin Poole

1922 - 2023

Born April 28, 1922, Grant C. Poole lived virtually all his life on the ranch homesteaded by his grandfather William D. Poole in the 1850s. He was a son of Grover C. and Louisa (Germann) Poole. After graduating from Manhattan High School, where he was active statewide in the Future Farmers of America, he helped run the farm and cattle operation and attended Kansas State University until joining the US Army Air Corps where he trained in radar, primarily throughout the south. He met airmen from throughout the nation, several of whom became lifelong friends. He was introduced to a New York City buddy's family member Miriam (Mickey) Pick, and they married in 1946. He and Mickey lived a few years in Pasadena, Calif., where he attended California Institute of Technology and then returned to Kansas to help develop the ranch's registered Hereford herd. In 1949, they moved into a home on the ranch that he designed and built, and it was his home for seven decades.

Returning to classes at K-State, he graduated in 1959. Over the years, in addition to his and his brother's cattle operation, he taught math and science at Dwight high school, assisted in a K-State physics lab, and cast and carved teeth for a local dentist.

His volunteering at the Manhattan Public Library stretched back to his work on the Talking Books projects, where he repaired tape players. He segued into mending books and had a deft touch with his paint brushes and glue pots that put thousands of books back on the library shelves. The library and its staff were an important motivating force in his later years, and he was at his desk every day until the library closed during the pandemic.

Mickey, a longtime K-State faculty member in physical education, died in 2005. After her death, he took back up the trumpet, which he had played in high school, and he joined a senior bowling league, as well as increasing his library volunteer efforts.

He and Mickey had three children: Pamela Engler (Cady), of Bryan, Texas; Kathy Poole (James Millikan) of Evanston, Ill.; and Joseph Poole (Marcie) of Lakewood, Colo. He is also survived by his niece Connie Poole (Tom Dorst) and nephew William Poole. There are 8 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren.