His legacy will continue

By JACOB DORAN/Bigfork Eagle

In the days since Tuesday, May 27, residents of the Flathead Valley and beyond have mourned the loss of a local icon, whose reputation for excellence drew people from across the U.S. and Canada to visit his shop near Bigfork.

Whether or not they knew James Kehoe Jr. personally, it's hard to find someone who has lived in the Flathead for any length of time who doesn't know of Kehoe's Agate Shop. And, whether they knew him intimately or not, most would agree that the man and the shop—or at least his work—were synonymous.

James Kehoe Jr., whose passion for rocks and gemology was part of a 76-year legacy begun by his father, died two weeks ago at Kalispell Regional Medical Center after suffering a massive heart attack at his home.

Services were held last Monday at Johnson-Gloschat Funeral Chapel with more than 200 people in attendance, after which Kehoe was interred at C.E. Conrad Memorial Cemetery. During the services, a line actually stretched out the door, where people could be seen coming from both directions to pay their last respects.

As evidenced by the inches of cards that arrived each morning in the days that followed his passing, Kehoe was a man greatly admired throughout the Flathead, as well as by dealers and business associates who considered him a trusted friend.

In the wake of his sudden death, Kehoe left behind two sisters, Leslie and Lynn Kehoe, his wife Kristen and two daughters, three-year-old Nora and one-year old Stella, whom he dearly loved and whom he had already begun grooming to continue the family trade.

Although Kehoe's family still grieved the loss of a devoted husband, brother and father last week, Kristen and Leslie, who ran the agate shop with James, were quick to answer questions as to whether Kehoe's Agate Shop would be forced to close.

"Absolutely not," Kristen said. "How could we not continue something he was so passionate about? What a disservice it would be not to carry on something that was so much a part of him.

"That's what he did every day, and it's what his father did before him. It's what he wanted his daughters to do. It's unfortunate that it won't be their father teaching them the craft, but we have all been a part of it. He always involved us in picking out the stones, because he wanted us to have a say and a part in what he did."

Kristen pointed to the history and legacy that was literally built from the labors of James' father and grandparents. James' grandfather and namesake settled in Holt more than 90 years ago after making a name for himself as a captain on the Great Lakes.

James Kehoe Sr. heard about the steamers on Flathead Lake and resolved to build his own steamboat — the Helena — and business on the lake. Although the boiler was built in the Flathead by a ferrier, he recovered the engine — which he first saw as a demonstration engine at the Chicago World Fair in the 1880's — out of the Missouri River.

James Sr. retired the Helena in 1932 and his son Jack, who was a devoted rock hound, built the agate shop later that same year using the wood from the steamboat. The Helena's cabin still sits between the shop and the river, and the engine is now kept in a shed, but the wood has long formed the framework and exterior of Kehoe's Agate Shop, which stands as a silent witness of the labor of love, values and solid work ethic of three generations that have spanned nearly a century.

Leslie described her father, who learned his trade while apprenticing with a man from Columbia Falls, as a man who was passionate about his work and enjoyed talking about it to anyone who would listen. Jack passed his passion for precious stones on to his own children, teaching them the secrets of the trade from the time they were children.

The shop continued to grow, specializing in agates, jade and opals, which Jack taught James how to cut and polish. Leslie recalled James cutting his first agate when he was only five or six years old, under the supervision of his father. At one point, Kehoe's Agate Shop became the largest exporter of jade in the U.S.

At the age of nine, Kristen became one Jack's biggest fans after visiting the agate shop with her family during summer vacations. Kristen fell in love with the agate shop, as well as with Jack's work, and would tie him up for hours answering her questions. She had already learned much from him, long before she began dating James, who was eleven years her senior and attending the Gemological Institute of America in Carlsbad, Calif. at the time.

Jack continued to run the agate shop until 1992, when at the age of 83, he turned management of the shop over to James and Leslie. James had learned gemology and goldsmithing at GIA, which he put to good use creating 14 and 18-carat, as well as platinum jewelry to showcase his stones. Leslie specialized in beadwork and custom designed necklaces and jewelry.

It was not until years later that Kristen returned to the Flathead, where she felt most at home. Having taken a course in stone cutting, sizing and the manufacturing of jewelry out of mixed media years before, Kristen continued to nurture a love of stones that Jack had shared with her as a child.

Though not immediately, fate brought Kristen and James together and they became the love of each other's lives, often working side by side in the shop with their benches next to each other, while James taught her still more about the trade. They married in June of 2003 and would have celebrated their fifth anniversary if James had lived only one more week.

As his father had done before him, James delighted in teaching his daughters about everything, especially his love and passion for gemology. He brought jewelry home for his girls to look at every night and, at her request, recently gave Nora her first star ruby. At just three years old, she now explains to her mother the process of mounting a stone.

"They loved to watch their Daddy make things," Kristen said. "He was an amazing father. There was so much he wanted to do with the girls. When he did it, he made it special. I don't even know how to begin to make sure they know half the man that he was."

His passion, she added, was his daughters' passion as well. She was certain they would want to be part of the Kehoe legacy that is embodied in the agate shop in years to come.

"I could never move out of this area," she said. "To me, this valley is James. It shaped who he was, and I would never take the girls away from that.

"It's just the nature of things that there will be changes, but the shop will never die, nor will anyone in the family's passion for it. It's always been a joint effort. We've always been involved in different aspects of it, and we always will be."

Kristen added that customers who have come to trust the Kehoe signature of quality can be assured that quality will not diminish in James' absence. The rest of the family, she noted, is just as committed to the high standards that James and his father upheld as they were themselves.