James Purcell Obituary

Longtime Gem Village resident James Hugh Purcell died in Denver on Friday, July 17, 2009. He was 92.

Known as Hugh, he was born Jan. 30, 1917, to Jayhugh Mills and Lillie Margaret Russell Purcell in Hooker, Okla.The Purcell family farmed and raised livestock on their homestead throughout the Depression and the Dust Bowl.

In 1939, Mr. Purcell decided to come to Southwest Colorado to try to get work on what then was known as the Pine River Dam project, now the Vallecito Dam. He worked on construction of the spillway for two years, and after that worked in a coal mine east of Bayfield. During his time in Bayfield, he met his future wife, Ethel Grady, a Kansas schoolteacher who spent summers with her mother, Viola Grady, on a place east of Bayfield.

In 1942, Mr. Purcell joined the Army, serving in the infantry as a regimental wire chief in the Pacific Theater. His family said he saw some of the worst of the war, earning three battle stars, the Ryukyus, Saipan and Okinawa. He also was awarded a Good Conduct Medal and a Bronze Service Arrowhead for making the beachhead on Saipan.  After the surrender, Mr. Purcell was among the first in occupied Japan and was stationed in Adawara, a little town not far from Tokyo. He contacted the mayor to fulfill his orders to take over communications. The mayor, who had lived in California before the war, had a son serving in the American Army in Japan, but he had not heard from him. Mr. Purcell helped them make contact, and he said it was the only nice experience of the war.

On May 27, 1946, he married Ethel Grady in St. Columba Catholic Church in Durango. They moved back to Oklahoma where Mr. Purcell farmed for a few years. In 1949, they returned to Southwest Colorado and bought a piece of land in the new little community of Gem Village. They built their garage first, and moved into the garage while they built their house. Mr. Purcell dug much of their well by hand.

He decided he didn't want to be a farmer after returning to Colorado, and he earned his living as a carpenter until he retired in the 1970s. There are houses all over La Plata County he helped build.

Mr. Purcell was active in the community. He was on the Bayfield School Board from 1969 to 1977, and he taught shop at Bayfield High School in the 1960s. He was a lifetime member of the Bayfield Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 6995 until it dissolved, and then became a member of the Durango Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 4031.

He was one of a group of men who built St. Bartholomew's Catholic Church, which the Purcell family attended every Sunday. Mr. and Mrs. Purcell held the Democratic Party caucus in their home for several years, and both were election judges at the polling place in Gem Village. After Kennedy's election in 1960, Mr. Purcell received a letter signed by the president thanking him for his efforts.

Mrs. Purcell died in 1986, and Mr. Purcell continued living in their home until August 2008, when he moved to Denver to be close to his daughter.

"The back door was always open, there was always coffee in the pot and an extra chair at the kitchen table when anybody would drop by," Linda Purcell wrote.

He is survived by his daughter, Linda Margaret Purcell, of Denver; sister Dixie Brown of Moab, Utah; and numerous nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews.

A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Friday, July 24, 2009, at St. Bartholomew's Catholic Church in Bayfield. After the service, a private burial will take place next to his wife at the Pine River Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Lavenia McCoy Public Library, 395 Bayfield Center Drive, Bayfield, CO 81122; or the Bayfield High School woodshop program, c/o Pam Catron, Bayfield High School, 800 County Road 501, Bayfield, CO 81122.