Carrying on Family Legacy
BVM Gwen Farry (Leontia)’s story is a different one. You could say that her fire for
justice began long before she was born;
it has been alive and burning strong in
her family for generations. Gwen took
that flame that had been passed down to
her and she has been living a life dedicated to justice ever since.
“We were supposed to be teaching them catechism,
but I was more concerned with how they were living.”
Gwen Farry, BVM:
Journey of Justice
by Mary Ellen Madden
Many activists tell stories of their ‘conversion’ to the world
of social justice—often an event or a series of events that
made them realize that they would never be able to look
at the world through the same lens ever again.
Gwen Farry, BVM can be found
championing the cause of many
social justice issues.
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S A L T MAGAZINE
Gwen remembers being conscious of
justice issues at a young age because of her
ancestral ties to justice that began in both
Ireland and Montana.
Her paternal grandmother owned a
pub in Ballymote, Sligo, that served as a
gathering place for members of the Irish
Republican Army (IRA), and when the
Black and Tans (Royal Irish constables)
would come to raid the pub, Gwen’s
grandmother would help the IRA members sneak out the back window.
Gwen’s father would eventually begin
his involvement with justice issues as a
young adult when he was a bike messenger
for the IRA. He was later asked to leave the
seminary because the superiors had determined he did not have a vocation. In truth
his IRA activity was seen as too radical. He
was not able to return home, so he set out
for Los Angeles, where he would eventually
marry and begin his family.
Gwen’s penchant for justice was also
inherent in her mother’s side of the family.
In Butte, Mont., and then in Park City,
Utah, her maternal grandfather fought for
workers’ rights as a miner.
These experiences and more laid the
foundation for Gwen’s childhood, where
the values of equality, interfaith acceptance, and fighting for what you believed
in were instilled in her and her siblings.
During high school, Gwen’s sodality
projects included visiting hospital patients
and teaching catechism to children living in boxcars. “We were supposed to be
teaching them catechism, but I was more
concerned with how they were living,” she
said. “These experiences pointed out the
inequalities in our society and encouraged
me to try to do something about it.”