euskalkultura.eus

Rock Springs, Wyoming, USA. On July 7^th Josie (Carricaburu) Jauregui passed away.  Born in Rock Springs, the daughter of Gaston and Mary (Larre) Carricaburu, she was raised into a family of Basque ranchers in Wyoming.  Josie always kept the Basque-American culture that she learned as a child alive naturally, and especially when she married Leon Jauregui from Aldude raising their two children in it.  Euskaldun fededun, she was generous, endearing and kind-hearted, like an Amatxi for many Basques and non-Basques in the area, as well as being the depository and living memory of local history, both Basque and American.

This Friday, July 17^th, a private mass, due to the coronavirus, will be celebrated in Aurora, Colorado where Josie and her husband Leon had lived for the last two years.  When the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted, a memorial mass will be celebrated in Rock Springs.

We wanted to pay tribute to Josie and the Basques of her Basque-American generation born in the Basque Country as well as the US.  In order to do that, we are sharing the film by Mikel Erramouspe, from Aldude, recorded in 1999 to his father in Aldude (Behe Nafarroa) as well as in Wyoming, in which Josie and Leon Jauregui also appear.

The film is called “Sorlekua utziz geroz” (leaving your homeland, as the traditional song by the same name by Elissamburu) that reflects PIarre and Mikel’s trip taken 21 years ago to Wyoming.  Piarre was for six years a sheepherder during his youth in Wyoming and in 1999, 50 years later, retorned to the places he had been sheepherding, accepting his son’s offer to immortalize the trip in this film.  In the film, they reunite with Josie and Leon.  It also serves as a tribute of Piarre who passed away last year.  Gogoan zaitu(zte)gu! (You are in our thoughts).

Thanks to Kanaldude, you can watch "Sorlekua utzi geroz" here. At 11’55” father and son arrive to the home of the Jauregui’s after which Leon and Piarre take a trip to the mountains where Piarre had been a sheepherder 50 years before.

Mikel Erramouspe remembers in these words how well they were received by the Jaureguis.  “When we returned to Wyoming with my father in 1999, Leon and Josie Jauregui welcomed us very warmly.  They came and picked us up in Salt Lake City and guided us to all of the places where my father had herded.  My father worked for the Carricaburus (for Josie’s father) and would spend once or twice a year one or two days with her family, especially at Christmas.  My father told me how he used to play with Josie and her brothers, and he was very happy to go back and see her 50 years later.  Leon and she both had very big hearts.”