Tommy served in Co C, 1st Engineer Combat Battalion of the First Army, and was at Omaha Beach in Normandy on D-Day in 1944. He earned the Bronze Star, the European-African-Middle Eastern Service medal and, later, the French Jubilee of Liberty medal.
He loved Silverton's Hillside Cemetery, the Cemetery is filled with the gravestones of long-gone miners, tramway men, pneumonia victims, suicides and drunks, as well as those of town fathers.
He noticed that a lot of graves had no markers so he decided to fix that. He began painting the names of the dead on metal markers, and affixed them to the grave sites.
Freda Carley Peterson heard about his project about 30 years ago, when she began research for a book about Hillside Cemetery's history. So she set up the Hillside Cemetery Fund, financed by her book sales, to spruce up the cemetery's sagging headstones and overgrown graves.
He was the fund's most enthusiastic contributor personally paying for 18 headstones. As the Hillside Cemetery Fund grew larger, Savich and Peterson used the interest earned to buy headstones for more than 150 graves marking the final resting place of people like George Isham "Ike" Camp, who died when he fell from a tram line in Arrastra Gulch.
A lifelong resident of Silverton, he never married and is survived by his sisters Helen Heidy, Margaret Probst, Mary Eaton and Lillie Ann Pergola.
At his request, he will be cremated. In lieu of a memorial service, Tommy Savich suggested memorial donations to the Hillside Cemetery Fund, P.O. Box 154, Silverton CO 81433.
He loved Silverton's Hillside Cemetery, the Cemetery is filled with the gravestones of long-gone miners, tramway men, pneumonia victims, suicides and drunks, as well as those of town fathers.
He noticed that a lot of graves had no markers so he decided to fix that. He began painting the names of the dead on metal markers, and affixed them to the grave sites.
Freda Carley Peterson heard about his project about 30 years ago, when she began research for a book about Hillside Cemetery's history. So she set up the Hillside Cemetery Fund, financed by her book sales, to spruce up the cemetery's sagging headstones and overgrown graves.
He was the fund's most enthusiastic contributor personally paying for 18 headstones. As the Hillside Cemetery Fund grew larger, Savich and Peterson used the interest earned to buy headstones for more than 150 graves marking the final resting place of people like George Isham "Ike" Camp, who died when he fell from a tram line in Arrastra Gulch.
A lifelong resident of Silverton, he never married and is survived by his sisters Helen Heidy, Margaret Probst, Mary Eaton and Lillie Ann Pergola.
At his request, he will be cremated. In lieu of a memorial service, Tommy Savich suggested memorial donations to the Hillside Cemetery Fund, P.O. Box 154, Silverton CO 81433.
Tommy served in Co C, 1st Engineer Combat Battalion of the First Army, and was at Omaha Beach in Normandy on D-Day in 1944. He earned the Bronze Star, the European-African-Middle Eastern Service medal and, later, the French Jubilee of Liberty medal.
He loved Silverton's Hillside Cemetery, the Cemetery is filled with the gravestones of long-gone miners, tramway men, pneumonia victims, suicides and drunks, as well as those of town fathers.
He noticed that a lot of graves had no markers so he decided to fix that. He began painting the names of the dead on metal markers, and affixed them to the grave sites.
Freda Carley Peterson heard about his project about 30 years ago, when she began research for a book about Hillside Cemetery's history. So she set up the Hillside Cemetery Fund, financed by her book sales, to spruce up the cemetery's sagging headstones and overgrown graves.
He was the fund's most enthusiastic contributor personally paying for 18 headstones. As the Hillside Cemetery Fund grew larger, Savich and Peterson used the interest earned to buy headstones for more than 150 graves marking the final resting place of people like George Isham "Ike" Camp, who died when he fell from a tram line in Arrastra Gulch.
A lifelong resident of Silverton, he never married and is survived by his sisters Helen Heidy, Margaret Probst, Mary Eaton and Lillie Ann Pergola.
At his request, he will be cremated. In lieu of a memorial service, Tommy Savich suggested memorial donations to the Hillside Cemetery Fund, P.O. Box 154, Silverton CO 81433.
He loved Silverton's Hillside Cemetery, the Cemetery is filled with the gravestones of long-gone miners, tramway men, pneumonia victims, suicides and drunks, as well as those of town fathers.
He noticed that a lot of graves had no markers so he decided to fix that. He began painting the names of the dead on metal markers, and affixed them to the grave sites.
Freda Carley Peterson heard about his project about 30 years ago, when she began research for a book about Hillside Cemetery's history. So she set up the Hillside Cemetery Fund, financed by her book sales, to spruce up the cemetery's sagging headstones and overgrown graves.
He was the fund's most enthusiastic contributor personally paying for 18 headstones. As the Hillside Cemetery Fund grew larger, Savich and Peterson used the interest earned to buy headstones for more than 150 graves marking the final resting place of people like George Isham "Ike" Camp, who died when he fell from a tram line in Arrastra Gulch.
A lifelong resident of Silverton, he never married and is survived by his sisters Helen Heidy, Margaret Probst, Mary Eaton and Lillie Ann Pergola.
At his request, he will be cremated. In lieu of a memorial service, Tommy Savich suggested memorial donations to the Hillside Cemetery Fund, P.O. Box 154, Silverton CO 81433.
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