Grace E. Tarbell raised a flag on top of Genesee Mountain 100 years ago to commemorate Flag Day, and Tuesday, her grandson Donald Cluxton returned there to honor her memory and celebrate the holiday.
The Daughters of the American Revolution’s Peace Pipe Chapter has held a Flag Day ceremony on the mountaintop every June 14 since Tarbell hoisted the flag in 1911, five years before President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Flag Day.
This year, members of the Colorado Society of the Sons of the American Revolution joined DAR for the celebration.
Cluxton said that the first time he saw his grandmother and her DAR sisters raise the flag on Genesee Mountain, it was 1941 and he was 8 years old. He wasn’t asked to give a speech that day, but, he joked, he stuck around and waited until Tuesday for his turn.
Things have changed since his first visit, he said, and even more so since his grandmother started the tradition.
“They really showed their pioneer spirit that day,” Cluxton said. “That first raising must have been interesting.”
Colorado DAR regent-elect Ruth Shroyer said the event is an important acknowledgment of the flag and the ideals it symbolizes worldwide.
“Women have been coming up here for 100 years,” Shroyer said. “It really demonstrates the power of organized women.”
Daya Baird, 12, Colorado president of the Society of Children of the American Revolution, called Flag Day an “occasion for all Americans to remember with pride, honor and integrity the sacrifices that were made for freedom.”
DAR Colorado Chapter member Nancy Nakamura, participating in the patriotic ceremony for the second time, had tears in her eyes as she recited the motto of DAR: “God, home and country.”
Her husband, John, a third-generation Japanese-American, said honoring the flag serves as a reminder that the United States is really bigger than any one individual.
Flags donated by DAR fly in Denver Mountain Parks 24 hours a day, seven days a week, said superintendent Dick Gannon.
The flags are replaced when they become tattered and worn, usually about twice a year.
The flag DAR presented Tuesday was flown over the U.S. Capitol on April 19.
Gannon, who started with Denver Mountain Parks last year, said he was glad to be a part of the now-100-year-old tradition.
“We are the living stewards of the visioneers,” city Parks and Recreation manager Chantal Unfug said.
Caitlin Gibbons: 303-954-1638 or cgibbons@denverpost.com
