John Denver Death

Remembering John Denver's mother | Running Lines — The Denver Post

For his daughter’s 18th birthday, John Denver bought a Mercedes-Benz convertible and wrapped it in a bow. He could barely contain his excitement as he called for Anna Kate to come outside. She emerged from their Aspen home with her nanny of 16 years and feigned surprise. A grinning Denver trained the family camcorder not on Anna Kate, but on her nanny, Lynne Dyson.

“Lynne thought it was for Anna Kate, and John was filming Lynne’s reaction, laughing,” said Denver’s first wife, Annie Denver. “John had researched this gift for a year. He was meticulous about getting her the exact car that she always wanted. But this is the way John was. He loved to surprise us.”

Denver died at 53, when the ultralight plane he was flying over Monterey Bay crashed into the sea on Oct. 12, 1997. When he died, perhaps the only person not certain of his public and private legacies was Denver.

Nearly five years later, those closest to him don’t care about awards, record sales or what the critics have said about him. They miss the music, but they miss the man more.

“I think for anybody who’s gone through a sudden death, it takes a good deal of time to actually assimilate that as a reality in your life,” said Annie. “Even though John and I were divorced, I never pictured my life without John in it. It takes time to integrate the fact that there’s a new reality. John is gone, but his spirit is not gone.”

Erma Deutschendorf does not so much miss the floral deliveries that arrived at her Aurora home every week for a decade. She misses the weekly reminder of her son’s love. “I live with it every day,” she said softly. “He was a good son, and he treated me good. That’s all I can do … just live with it.”

Denver’s death was like a film that breaks just as it gets to the good part. He and the world were denied what looked to be a happy ending.

“The sad part is things were really starting to happen for him again,” said Harold Thau, Denver’s business manager and friend. “He was really writing again, and we were on the verge of a major record deal.”

From “Take Me Home, Country Roads” to “Rocky Mountain High,” Denver wrote indigenous postwar songs about his personal experiences and made them universal. The response of fans to his death has become legend. A mountain in Greenland was renamed John Denver Peak. A peace cloth including Denver panels was wrapped around the United Nations building. A park in Aspen holds boulders bearing the lyrics to Denver’s songs.

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