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Sean Kirst: A precious Father's Day: Sisters succeed in dreams of tribute to lost 'Skywalkers'

Buffalo News - 6/18/2022

Jun. 18—Celeste LeClair-Coleman has no memory of her father. She was born six months after the death of Mitchell LeClair, a World War II Navy veteran killed in 1955 while helping to build the Skyway, a tragedy that occurred while he worked alongside his own dad and LeClair's brother.

The loss created what Florence "Mickie" Golba, one of LeClair-Coleman's older sisters, describes as "a yearning" in the siblings. LeClair's family was originally from Kahnawake, a Mohawk community in Quebec known for generations of ironworkers who earned their paychecks in "high steel" on city skylines.

Golba can remember her father's wake, his casket in the living room, but nothing of her dad as a living man. Only June Mahfoud, the oldest sister who was 8 when LeClair died 67 years ago, retains vivid memories of how she and Golba would sit on his back and laugh as he did pushups.

While that loss equated to a lifetime of pensive Father's Days for the siblings, this one will be different. A Skyway quest started by LeClair-Coleman and joined by the families of two other men who died building that bridge will culminate at 11 a.m. on June 29.

Civic officials plan to raise a sign at the intersection of Main and Perry streets, not far from where the LeClairs lost their dad. Travelers at that spot, maybe heading toward Canalside, will soon be driving, walking or biking on "Skywalker Way."

"After all these years," Golba said, "we'll finally get what we've been striving for."

The LeClair sisters and their relatives will be joined by the families of ironworkers Gatlin White, born into the Seneca Nation's Cattaraugus territory and a veteran of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, and Daniel Smith, who spent much of his childhood in an orphanage overseen by Father Nelson Baker.

Those men all died in separate falls in 1955, during Skyway construction in the teeth of strong winds from Lake Erie. Patricia White Hancock was a little girl when her brother Gatlin was killed. He never had any fear of heights, and she said he was employed as an ironworker at Bethlehem Steel when he was assigned to help erect the towering bridge across the Buffalo River.

He died on Jan. 4, 1955, when he was bolting a stringer beam high in the air, then fell onto Ganson Street.

"We've been waiting, and this will be beautiful," Hancock said of the ceremony, speaking of herself and another sister, Jacqueline White Gibson. As for Father's Day, Hancock said it only amplifies the sense of loss about her brother, who — like Daniel Smith — had no children when he died.

"He didn't have time," Hancock said of Gatlin, who was only 22.

Asked about the catalyst behind the effort, Mahfoud and Golba both pointed at once to LeClair-Coleman, of Buffalo. "She has guts," said Mahfoud, the oldest sister. While their mother was not born into the Haudenosaunee, Joyce LeClair made sure her girls maintained an emotional and spiritual bond to their native heritage after losing their dad, including summers with their grandparents at the Six Nations of the Grand River territory, in Ontario.

Their grandfather, haunted by the day his son fell at the Skyway, became LeClair-Coleman's best way of imagining the father who never had the chance to hold his youngest daughter. But she said she finally came to terms with that lifelong absence while she was teaching at Buffalo'sNative American Magnet School 19, where Fran Hill, a Mohawk, was a legendary educator.

"She was like a mentor to me," LeClair-Coleman said. It was Hill who inspired her to do a school display on native ironworkers that included images of Mitchell LeClair, only 30 when he died, and the passionate response from children and teachers led LeClair-Coleman to pursue a memorial.

With her sisters, she always equated the Skyway with their dad. Raised Catholic, they would make the sign of the cross when they passed over it in childhood. It left them to contemplate the legacy of a guy Golba described as "a husband, a father, a veteran, an ironworker, a son, a brother," to which Mahfoud added:

"And he sacrificed his life."

They realized the larger community might not understand the kind of loss associated with building the high places of the city. Six years ago, when LeClair-Coleman began a drive for a public Skyway memorial, her older sisters offered their full support.

Almost immediately, they found allies. They met Gatlin White's family through the vibrant connections that tie together the Haudenosaunee. LeClair-Coleman, it turned out, had taught Gatlin's great-niece in Buffalo.

As for Smith, LeClair-Coleman said his relatives became involved after seeing a news clip about the effort on television. Mark Weber, Smith's great-nephew, said it is "unbelievable" that the ironworkers will be publicly honored after so many years.

The memorial sign will be easily visible, Weber said, "and will do justice to these men who gave their lives."

The original dream was renaming the bridge itself in honor the "skywalkers," a nickname often used to describe Mohawks and other native workers in high steel. But tumultuous debate about the future of the Skyway made the plan a long shot, and then the pandemic brought everything to a halt.

The notion of a "Skywalker Way," LeClair-Coleman said, revived the conversation. It came about through a Buffalo Common Council resolution offered by council member Mitch Nowakowski, and LeClair-Coleman also expressed thanks for the patience and diligence of council legislative assistant Derek Smith.

In a statement released through chief of staff Becca Castaneda, Nowakowski offered gratitude to LeClair-Coleman for sticking with the mission. He said the event will be a way to honor the courage of the ironworkers killed on the job, to recall their military service and to remind the larger community of the rich Haudenosaunee heritage in "high steel."

LeClair-Coleman, for her part, said she is not done. One of her earliest contacts was Tom Halligan, business manager for Ironworkers Local 6 in West Seneca. Halligan and Joe Barnashuk, a union administrator and historian, recently showed me a union hall memorial that lists the names of about 100 Western New York ironworkers who died along the skyline or in steel plants or raising tall bridges.

"I look at it from this perspective: These are the guys who built this city," said Barnashuk, who put together the memorial. The list, which slows down dramatically in the decades after new safety regulations were set in place, holds the names of the three men from the Skyway, and Barnashuk and Halligan spoke with reverence of that collective sacrifice.

To LeClair-Coleman, the entire region — knowing the tale — could appreciate the same emotion. It seems logical to her that anyone who is moved by the great skyscrapers, bridges and towering landmarks of Buffalo would also understand the high price paid by many families in helping those monumental structures come to be.

In a community that loves to celebrate epic architects, LeClair-Coleman envisions a memorable downtown sculpture to honor all those who died raising brick-and-mortar dreams into the air, a tribute that would mesh with the soul of this town.

For now, on this weekend, she will allow herself some peace. The June 29 ceremony at the Skyway is expected to memorably wrap together elements of labor and military service and native culture, and members of all three families hope the new sign will cause larger reflection on what they lost in the building of that bridge.

In one way, it has already done the seemingly impossible: For the first time in her life, Mitchell LeClair's youngest kid is absolutely sure she found a gift her dad would love, on Father's Day.

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