TRIBUTE: Mary J. Mullarkey

Former Colorado Chief Justice Was A Trailblazer

By Emily Korson

For the GPHN

Late last month, our family and our community lost a magnanimous woman: Former Colorado Chief Justice Mary J. Mullarkey.

When my husband, Andrew Korson, walked his mother Mary into my life 22 years ago, she was leaning on a cane. It was plain then that she needed more help, but she refused it, choosing instead to endure: rising each morning at 4 to practice yoga and play the piano in her home at 2526 Dahlia St. before driving herself to work. She took that drive alone even when she was no longer able to enter or exit her car without the help of her husband, Tom Korson, and the security guards at the Supreme Court building. Her ability to persevere has outpaced that of any person I have ever known.

A small-town girl from rural Wisconsin, Mary studied mathematics at St. Norbert College and then attended Harvard Law School before it even had a women’s restroom.

After her graduation from Harvard in 1968, Mary went on to work for the Department of the Interior in Washington D.C. There, she represented federal agencies in water, environmental, and civil rights cases, and later developed expertise in race and gender discrimination cases under federal civil rights laws, thanks to an executive order issued by President Nixon. This work led her to Denver in 1973, when she took a position at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Office and purchased her first home in Park Hill with Tom.

Mary then worked for the office of the Colorado Attorney General, where she first worked on appeals under attorney general J.D. MacFarlane, and then transitioned to the position of solicitor general from 1975 to 1982. Afterwards, Mary served as the chief counsel to Gov. Dick Lamm and was subsequently appointed to the Colorado Supreme Court by Gov. Roy Romer in 1987.

In all, Mary served as a justice on the Colorado Supreme Court for 23 years. Twelve of those were as Chief, the longest tenure in state history. She was the second woman appointed to the Court, and the first woman to occupy the center seat.

She heard more than 30,000 cases, authored 472 opinions, helped to increase the number of Colorado’s judges by 27 percent, instituted judicial training and juror appreciation programs, turned Colorado’s judicial system into a national technological model and instituted a rule that all court buildings must have waiting rooms to provide children with a safe space during their parents’ court appearances. And although she retired before its construction, Mary was instrumental in bringing Denver’s Ralph L. Carr Judicial Center to fruition.

But the thing about Mary is that she did all of this trailblazing with tremendous personal strength and grace. During the 26 years following her diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis in 1994, Mary humbly endured her progressively debilitating disease. It was heartbreaking for our family to watch her ploddingly surrender to it. Over time, Mary was forced to give up so many of the things she loved — skiing, sewing, hiking, swimming, gardening, piano — as she slowly struggled to walk, to stand, to use her hands, and ultimately even to speak.

And yet Mary never uttered an unkind word, complained about her lot in life, or even spent much time discussing her life in the law. She chose instead to focus on the activities that brought her joy. From her wheelchair, she was admiring art, discussing films, reading nonfiction adventure stories, attending Mass at Cure d’Ars Catholic Church, cheering on her granddaughters — and even delivering the Greater Park Hill News to her neighbors until her final weeks of life.

Our family could not have asked for a better wife, mother or grandmother. Mary’s absence is acutely felt today, and always will be, but we take solace knowing that she positively impacted thousands of lives during her tenure on Earth, and that she has finally been liberated from a body that all too often held her back.

Emily Korson is married to Mary Mullarkey’s son, Andrew Korson and is a founder of ReCreative Denver, a nonprofit creative reuse store and community art center in Denver’s Art District on Santa Fe. She, Andrew and Mary’s two granddaughters reside in the Washington Park neighborhood.