Las Animas County mourns Rose Rael-Ward, railroad community matriarch, 97

Rose Lyla Rael-Ward’s life reached from Waterville to Branson and Trinidad, tracing the same railroad corridors that helped shape Las Animas County. She died Sunday morning, April 19, 2026, at age 97, and her obituary notice said she was proud of her railroad community and was born in a boxcar.

Born Dec. 14, 1928, in Waterville to Anistacio Rael and Andrea Martinez Rael, Rael-Ward carried the county’s railroad history in a personal way that many southern Colorado families still recognize. Her life connected the working landscape of tracks, switches and small settlements that grew up around rail service, and her family’s local memorial plans bring those ties back into view for neighbors who have long moved between the county’s towns, churches and cemeteries.

A rosary is set for Friday, May 1, 2026, at 12:30 p.m. at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Trinidad, followed by Mass at 1 p.m. Burial will be private for family at Branson Cemetery. For Las Animas County residents, those arrangements link two communities that have always been closely connected by family, faith and the old railroad route between them.

Holy Trinity itself reflects that deeper history. History Colorado says the parish was founded in 1866 by Rev. P.J. Munnecon, before Trinidad was even established as a town, and the present church was dedicated in 1885. Branson’s history is just as tied to rail lines: the community grew around a switching track called Wilson Switch, and by 1915 a post office named Coloflats had opened there. In a county where railroads played a major role in development, those details still matter.

Las Animas County’s railroad story was built not only on tracks and depots but also on coal mines that supplied fuel for the nation’s growing rail network, drawing immigrant workers from Europe, Asia and Latin America. Rael-Ward’s obituary brings that larger history into one family’s life, linking a woman born in a boxcar to the church in Trinidad and the cemetery in Branson. It is the kind of local notice that reads less like an isolated death announcement than a map of how this county has always been connected.