<\/p>\n
When Judith Burrus Aitken died Feb. 28, she left behind a legacy of community and political activism that changed lives in Durango and the world at large. She was 90.<\/p>\n
Aitken moved to Durango in 1980, when her husband, Bob, took a job with the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. Almost immediately, she went to work in the 6th Judicial District Attorney\u2019s Office as office administrator.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe would qualify as one of the most dynamic and unique people I\u2019ve ever met,\u201d former District Attorney Vic Reichman said. \u201cShe was fearless in expressing her opinion, and she knew I respected it, which she appreciated.\u201d<\/p>\n
While working with Reichman, Aitken helped design both the Victim Assistance and Law Enforcement and Victims\u2019 Compensation programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was always concerned about the victims,\u201d Reichman said. \u201cWho are most victims? Women. Judith was always interested in talking about women\u2019s issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shari Dyer was hired as the first coordinator in the victim-support unit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a blank slate when she started working on it,\u201d Dyer said. \u201cI learned a lot from her about advocating. And she and a group of founders also worked hard to get the Women\u2019s Resource Center going because she saw that women needed more help than we could give.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aitken\u2019s name won\u2019t show up as having been the president or leader of any local organizations, friend Nora Tracy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was very much \u2018been there, done that,\u2019 about that kind of thing when she moved here,\u201d Tracy said. \u201cBut she was always willing to volunteer and share her expertise, and she had a lot of expertise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much of her expertise came from work at the highest levels of our country\u2019s government. Aitken had been involved in politics as what her daughter called \u201ca hyperactive Democrat\u201d since her youth.<\/p>\n
\u201cBob had a kinescope of a very young Judith, when she was 20 or 21,\u201d Reichman said. \u201cShe was interviewing a young John Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aitken remained friendly with the Humphreys and Adlai Stevenson, along with other political luminaries. Her network of connections expanded when, at age 48, she went to work in Congress as the legislative aide to Kansas Rep. Bill Roy, later working with Rep. Andy Jacobs, who was on the powerful Ways and Means Committee.<\/p>\n
She was \u201ca silver-haired product of Wichita Business College horse-trading with young, mostly male Ivy League hotshots her daughters\u2019 age,\u201d her daughter Lee Aitken wrote.<\/p>\n
In Durango, Aitken brought her congressional experience to volunteer weekly in the office of U.S. Representative, later Senator, Ben Nighthorse Campbell.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was a Democrat in a very democratic way,\u201d said Ann Brown, who ran Campbell\u2019s local office. \u201cShe believed that once you were elected, you served everyone, Republicans and Democrats.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sally Bellerue considers herself lucky to have been included in Aitken\u2019s weekly Friday lunch group, one of several lunch groups to which she belonged.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe could talk a kind of politics you wouldn\u2019t expect in Durango,\u201d Bellerue said. \u201cShe was so instrumental in getting people involved. We saw it at the League of Women Voters, too, where she was a lifetime member.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aitken\u2019s interest in women\u2019s rights began early.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was a feminist before the term gained currency, embracing the role of wife and mother with talent and flare but never acknowledging its limits,\u201d her daughter Lee wrote. \u201cShe had soloed in a Piper Cub airplane at the age of 18, and in the years when she was sewing party dresses for two daughters and making a beautiful home for Robert, she also ran for Wichita (Kan.) City Commission. The first woman to survive an open primary, she was narrowly defeated in the 1957 general election (when her opponent ran) with the slogan \u2018Vote against the woman.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Her interest never waned.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe used to take those Susan B. Anthony coins and have them drilled, then give them to her friends to wear,\u201d fellow Women\u2019s Resource Center founder Lou Falkenstein said. Susan Lander, former executive director of the WRC, said her Susan B. Anthony necklace is one of her most treasured possessions.<\/p>\n
But in the end, it\u2019s Judith Aitken, the person, who will be most remembered.<\/p>\n
\u201cI consider her a surrogate mother,\u201d said Judge Jeffrey Wilson of the 6th Judicial District, who got to know her when they worked together in the district attorney\u2019s office. \u201cShe was one of the smartest people I ever met, but she had a lot of wisdom, too. She understood people and not only what\u2019s right or wrong, but what you should or shouldn\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n