Graydon Peoples

Peoples, Graydon

Graydon Peoples, 98, of Mesa, AZ passed away on October 1, 2018. He was born on April 9, 1920 in Detroit, Michigan and grew up there until a junior in high school when his parents moved to Des Moines, Iowa where he graduated from high school. He is survived by his second wife, Esther Lorraine Gulliver Peoples and six children: Sara Jackman, Robert Peoples, Ruth Bradley, Arthur Peoples, Diane Blagg, Don Peoples, and two step-children Cathy Hill and Charles Hill, and a total of 25 grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren.

After graduating from high school in 1939 Graydon enrolled in Iowa State College (later University) in Ames, Iowa in Aeronautical Engineering. He had completed 3 ½ years of Aeronautical Engineering before WWII. During that time he joined the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, was elected to Engineering Council and Cardinal Guild, the University Student Council. He was inducted into the Knights of Saint Patrick, an engineering society. In his senior year he was editor of the college monthly engineering magazine, the Iowa Engineer, which won first place national honors as a member of the national Engineering College Magazines Association.

At the outbreak of WWII he volunteered for induction, before graduation and was sent to Lincoln Air Base for Air Force Basic Training. On completion of training he was assigned to the 50th Signal Radio Intelligence Company where he was trained in German and then Japanese radio code interception and radio direction finding. During WWII he was assigned to an intelligence post near Washington, DC. In the Military District of Washington.

At the end of WWII he was honorably discharged from service and signed over into the Air Force Reserves so he wouldn’t be called back into the Signal Corps if another war broke out. Then he married Ruth Marie Wilson, of Morgantown, West Virginia, and mother of his six children. He returned under the G.I. Bill to Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. Since the aircraft industry and Air Conditioning (HVAC) field which was beginning to mature and was growing at a rapid pace.

He was employed by the Lennox Furnace Company (later Lennox Industries) in Marshalltown, Iowa and became chief engineer. He was awarded five United States Patents including #3,111,939, an industrial furnace that was used to heat structures in the Antarctic and was modified to de-ice antennas on the distant Early Warning installations north of the arctic circle. He also served as chairman of two industry standards committees and on three Underwriters Laboratory (UL) industry advisory conferences (IACs)for oil burners, oil furnaces and mobile homes. He was frequently called as an expert witness to testify in lawsuits related to fires and combustion of liquid and gaseous fuels.

While still living in Iowa he joined the United States Power Squadrons, a national organization to teach boating safety courses to the general public and advanced courses such as Small Boat Piloting, Seamanship, Navigation, Marine Electronics and Engine Maintenance to its members. He was a Lieutenant Commander in both the Des Moines and Phoenix divisions of the U.S. Power Squadrons.

He was active in the Marshalltown, Iowa, community, serving on the school board, a camping organization, and as a deacon in the First Christian Church.

After retiring from Lennox, Graydon and Lorraine moved to the Phoenix, Arizona, area. He was appointed by then Governor Bruce Babbitt to the Solar Energy Commission. He was then hired by the Salt River Project as a senior consulting engineer to head up their solar energy program. He retired from SRP on May 31, 1986.

He and Lorraine then travelled full time for 7 years in an RV, pulling a boat they had had built in Bellingham, Washington and could live aboard for weeks at a time. They visited all 50 states and boated most of the major rivers including the entire Mississippi, Columbia, St. Lawrence and Colorado River Chain of Lakes as well as the coastal waterways along the Gulf of Mexico.

Next Graydon and Lorraine settled down in Chandler and Mesa retirement communities, San Tan Mobile Village and Fellowship Square – Historic Mesa.

Throughout the years, he took part in two Mayo research projects. When hospitalized for five days in Sept. 2018, they diagnosed him with Mulltiple Myeloma, a bone cancer.

Burial will be Nov. 9, 10:30 AM at the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona and a Celebration of Life will be followed at 2:00 PM at Fellowship Square, Mesa, AZ.

Gifts to Graydon’s memory may be sent to:

Mayo Clinic Research Program, Department of Development

3400 E. Shea Blvd

Scottsdale, AZ, 85259