Benito Duran Jr.

UPON THE DEATH OF BEN DURAN
(born October 8, 1933 – passed April 14, 2023)
from Terry Kelly (born August 15, 1943 – ___________)

There was a ten-year generation age gap between us, but Ben and I had much in common. Ben grew up on a family farm in rural Southern Colorado. My parents were Great Depression refugees, moving from a rented farm into a small town in Northeast Iowa after losing everything on the farm. That was what often happened to Great Depression-farmers. Ben and Irene and my parents were from generations of farm people.
Neither Ben nor I romanticized the farming life, but once in a while I used to talk to him about us going farming together down around Penrose. Ben would give me that soft smile and politely remind me that there were good reasons for leaving farming. We both knew how hard that life could be.
Another thing about farming, farmers had to learn how to fix everything- farm equipment, broken fencing, household appliances and furniture, plumbing and electrical fixtures and wiring. My father was a “handyman,”- and I am not. But I could understand how the Army had Ben fixing damaged battleships during the Korean War, and then employed him for over 25 years to repair all kinds of office equipment out at Fitzsimmons. If you were raised on a farm, you had to be able to fix almost everything.
Around 1960, Ben and Irene and their young family settled into their home on North Pontiac Street, in Park Hill near the old Stapleton Airport, joining Cure d'Ars Catholic Church on Dahlia and Martin Luther King Boulevard. This was about ten years before Alice and I moved into our home on North Eudora Street and joined Cure d'Ars with our then two infant kids. Ben and Irene and their children were great friends to Darren Burns, a young man who tragically lost his mother and father when Darren was fourteen years old. Steve Duran was Darren's classmate through elementary and high school. The friendship of the Duran family was an important part of Darren's recovery.
In the 1960s, Cure d'Ars was a small parish, shrinking in numbers in a racially-roiled housing market, and a Denver city history of not employing minority firefighters, police, teachers or school principals, Denver General nurses, or Denver Water personnel. And so on. After lengthy trials and appeals, U.S. federal courts found that Denver was sustaining historically segregated private housing and segregated public schools, violating federal civil rights laws. Cure d'Ars lost population, its school, then its church, but Cure d'Ars held onto its community and built a new church. The deep faithfulness of the Ben and Irene Duran generation made that happen. Alice and I remain grateful.
Alice chaired the Liturgy Committee in the new Church and asked Ben if he could find a way to raise the advent wreath candles above the altar. Ben said he would just build a new advent wreath. And he did, meticulously. A new, beautiful four candle advent wreath, with a mechanism that allowed it to be raised over the community. In about a week, on time and on budget. I do not know if the Roman Catholic church has proclaimed a patron saint of handymen, but I know who performs the role for Cure d'Ars.
Ben also served as a Eucharistic Minister, an official ministry of the Church in which the minister assists the priest celebrating the Mass in distributing the eucharist to the congregation. In his final years, I think Ben and Irene were basically every-day Eucharistic Ministers.
Ben bringing the eucharist to his community. He had been doing it for years and years, long before it became official.