Olive Walsh, her legacy lives on.
by Art Walsh
Olive Beauchesne Walsh lived a remarkable life. Born in Canada in 1917, she moved to upstate New York in 1946, living in the same house until her death in October, 2008. There she raised seven children and took in numerous stray souls and homeless people over 62 years. She also managed to sing in the St. Mary’s Church Choir, found the Cortland Figure Skating Club and help run her late husband’s businesses, which included a telephone answering service, Western Union office, ski information center, and news bureau.
Her children became mayors, lawyers, judges, deans, professors, principals, teachers, builders, artists, administrators and musicians. There was always a piano at her house, and she always found money for her children’s music lessons in a tight budget. Olive was French Canadian, her husband Irish-American, and the music in the family was diverse. Her children were all talented and devoted singers and musicians.
In June of 2008, Olive broke her hip. She had stopped figure skating at the youthful age of 88. Her hip was replaced, and though the rehab was painful, she never lost her positive outlook. To her, physical therapy was “gym class.” When it became clear that she wasn’t going to walk again, she went into a hospice, and passed away a few days later. To all her relatives and friends, an irreplaceable loss had occurred. She was the last of her generation.
After her funeral the family, including the children of her deceased twin sister, and close family friends, congregated at the Walsh homestead. Though the grief was intense, there was a common bond. The instruments came out and the voices began chiming in. For ten hours, family members and friends celebrated the life of this wonderful woman with music, song, laughter and stories, in the best tradition of an Irish wake. There was no better way to bid a fond and final farewell to this indomitable soul.
In 1963, the high school rock and roll band Rasputin and the Mad Monks had its genesis at the Walsh household. Over the years jug bands, more rock bands, reggae/calypso groups, Americana duets, punk groups, jazz bands, folk soloists, Irish bands, Zydeco combos and other incarnations that defy categorization all arose with the family.
There were guitars, mandolins, pianos, keyboards, fiddles, an upright bass, drums, amplifiers, microphones, mixers and computers, and Olive encouraged it all. She was a classical music enthusiast who loved ice dancing and waltzes. Although the genre was not always what she might have chosen, she enjoyed the presence of music and the fact that it filled her home. Over the decades she loved, housed, fed, employed and cared for many of the band members. In time, what had been an office became a makeshift studio.
There was never a shortage of song at her household, and the legacy lives on through new generations.
