Rocky Mountain Irish Roots Collective
In solidarity with exiles everywhere
Leadville's Legacy:
Modern Voices of the Evergreen Cemetery
Hear from those part of the creation of the Leadville Memorial and who have been impacted by the history uncovered in the Evergreen Cemetery.
Dr. James Walsh
"Mother Jones has this quote 'Pray for the dead, but fight like hell for the living.' And to me that encompasses what this memorial and what this work is about."
Dr. James Walsh
Kathryn Geraghty
"I got to visit the cemetery, and it was a day I would never forget. Because doing the research, you would have learned about the conditions they would have went through. You would have been able to understand that a lot of the people who died were very young... But reading about it, and doing the research is one thing. When you actually stand in Leadville, and stand in the cemetery, and look around, and see the graves that just seemed to extend like it went on for miles, and the silence, and the trees, it was just something I would never forget."
Kathryn Geraghty
Jerry Skinner
My great uncle, Michael Shay is buried there [in Leadville] with his wife
Kate Driscoll They immigrated from County Kerry Ireland, and eventually made it to Leadville. He worked on the railroad, he was apparently not a minor and did a lot of work on the railroad. And he's in a part of the cemetery that does have headstones. I've seen his headstone. I've been at work on my family tree for nearly 50 years, and it was just maybe five years ago that I was finally able to find him. In Ireland he was S-H-E-A, and when he was in Colorado he was S-H-A-Y, and hence, that's why I had a heck of a time finding him. He was kind of a lost person, and then I lucked out and and found him. And then subsequently learned about the cemetery.