Gary Tristan Cummins

Gary Tristram Cummins was born on September 9, 1940 and completed his rounds of the sun on November 11, 2025. He was 85. Although his birthplace was in Salt Lake City, Utah, he grew up in a loving extended family in Saco, Montana. He was born to Col. Tristram James Cummins and Cela Wadine Huntley Cummins. He is preceded in death by son Patrick James Halley Cummins, his parents, his brother James Huntley Cummins and his favorite uncle Chet Huntley. He is survived by his life partner and wife of 57 years, Diana Cummins, née Vera, his loving sons Gavin David Cummins and Corbett Huntly Cummins, his cherished nieces and nephews and his beloved dogs Daisy and Xica.

Over the years, Gary made and remained friends with numerous amazing people from Hawaii to the East coast. Among them the people of the National Park Service family who worked with Gary in his various capacities. Throughout his career, his coworkers and friends each touched his life deeply, just as he touched theirs—both personally and professionally.

Being an Air Force brat (He had great stories to tell about that and where, as a child, he learned his colorful ”adult” language!), Gary attended several schools before graduating from Greenon Senior High School near Springfield, OH. He left home and was a cowboy on Montana ranches, then a NASA spacesuit test subject volunteer before going to school at UCBerkley, then the University of Montana in Missoula. Here he made life-long friends and received a BA and MA. He was able to work as a seasonal ranger at Glacier National Park during school breaks, marking his first job with the National Park Service (NPS).

Gary met Diana while working as a seasonal NPS Park Ranger at Padre Island National Seashore in Corpus Christi, Texas. They were married in 1968. They lived in Annandale, VA while Gary worked with the Defense Intelligence Agency. Dissatisfied working there, he became a dormitory supervisor in the housing department at New Mexico State University Las Cruces and took classes that took him on archeological digs. The archeology bug bit. They moved to Honolulu in 1971 where he obtained a similar job at the University of Hawaii graduate dorm. Good times prevailed. He learned to SCUBA dive, play endless tennis, learned to be a great dad and volunteered at the Bishop Museum helping in the archeology department. Shortly he was hired by Hawaii State Parks as a historian/archeologist.

Gary went back to school to work on a Ph.D in Anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson but was recruited to work a dream job in archeology for the NPS in Denver, CO before completing it. He finished a second masters. From there his NPS career took him to Pearl Harbor National Memorial, Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego, Petrified Forest National Park in northern Arizona, Grand Canyon National Park and Harper’s Ferry Center in West Virginia before retiring. His lifelong love of Birding and woodcarving was strengthened in this Mid-Atlantic region.

Gary was an avid reader his whole life and was never without reading material at hand. He had an amazing memory he used to drive friends to groans and hilarity with his puns, jokes and storytelling. He loved retirement. He and Diana moved to Port Townsend, WA in 2005 where he decided to learn to fiddle. He took classes from a master and loved every minute, practicing loyally. He continued traveling to find a rare bird and taking carving classes with his woodcarving buddies.

Foremost he loved his family, the joys of his life, his lifeline. He was sentimental and caring and proud. He would break into song or cowboy poetry when the feeling hit him but only in front of family. He was a great man and will be missed forever. Rest in peace Gary. You will not soon be forgotten and your legacy lives on.