 Everybody from coming out today, I am Peggy's youngest sister, Ann, and a lot of my family is here with me today, my cousins, my nephew, and of course Justin and my husband, and get closer. Okay. Is that better? Okay. So, just want to welcome and thank everybody for coming out. This is beautiful. You guys are a beautiful group that my sister really thought a lot of. And you've all been wonderful to her throughout the sickness, the death, and after. My sister and I were always close since I was born. She looked after me. Took me everywhere, even places she shouldn't have taken me, but we went. We led different lives, and we didn't always agree, but I always respected her passions. She never wavered. I always looked up to her. She was the smartest of the four of us, I thought. Now, she had four really good friends from school. Some of you may have seen the picture of her and the three girls when she was in respite. That was her really good friend, Judy Del Paso, and her sister, Susie Del Paso, Sandy Peterson, and Vernon Benjamin. They were lifelong friends from, Vernon and her went to parochial school together. So from then on, and all of them through school, till all through. And Vernon wrote a little bit about Peggy. My earliest memories of Peggy was of the fourth grade at St. Mary's. We were both caught with ink all over our hands from the fountain pens, writing our friend's names. Sister Anthony was furious and chastised us both in front of the whole class. I was scared to death. And Peggy just smiled about it, making Sister Anthony even more furious. We grew up in the close communication with her family, mainly through mutual friends. We had a small group who did a lot together all through high school. It was always fun at the county house. Her parents enjoying it as much as us kids. During grad school, I lived near Peg and Terry in Brooklyn. Later we shared a place with Judy in the Bronx. I asked her when she went, oh, I, no, he admired her when she went alone to see hair when it opened off Broadway, and still recall her descriptions of the show. She was also a very great cook. I visited Peggy and Terry in Vermont after Justin was born, and often whenever they returned to Sorgadies. We'd go out, usually to Woodstock and share information on books, movies and theater. We may have drifted a bit due to distance and different involvements, but I was always interested to hear of her radical commitments and how involved she was. She never let up and always expressed her mind in vivid ways. I will remember her as a good friend and miss her. In fourth grade, I was advanced by the priest from fourth to sixth grade. The priest chose me over Peggy, who had a higher GPA than me. Her family was furious. I never knew this until years later, and I would have happily changed places with her. The whole thing made me miserable. She was smarter than me and would have been better at it. Thankfully, to their credit, she or her family didn't hold it against me. Instead, we remain close with both me and my family. So that was from our friend Justin. And the other thing I have, I want to read to you what my oldest granddaughter Cassie May wrote for two reasons. Number one, she's more prolific than I am anyways. And also, the second reason is it shows that Peggy will live on in the youth that she has influenced. It made my heart feel good from Cassie. My dear, beautiful, courageous Aunt Peggy, my heart is heavy. What an honor it was to know you and be loved by you in this life. You were one of my biggest inspirations and your incredible impact on this world was undeniable. You showed me and so many other girls how to be strong and unshakable in our beliefs, and how to stand up to corrupt powers with no fear. I am in awe of the life that you lived, and my children and I will carry on your voice with us forever. To be taken to your next life on the day of our nation's Pluto, return and the portal of twos is something I'm sure your soul had chosen. Rest in peace, my newest angel. Give me strength when I am weak and I promise to continue your fight for equality and a better world for women everywhere. I love you so much. My nephew Peter wants to say a few words too. He's my sister Lois' oldest child. Hi everybody and thank you for coming out to this today. When my cousin asked me if I wanted to speak today, he prefaced it with you don't have to. I think I have to. I last talked with Peggy via Zoom a little over a year ago for the holidays. I haven't seen Peggy for years despite going to college in Plattsburg and making trips over to Burlington two or three times a semester. And there on the Zoom with probably 20 other family members was Peggy, older, wiser, somehow softer than I remembered, but still the Peggy that never got cheated. I remember my aunt as serious, fearless, opinionated, sensitive, forceful, funny, creative, outspoken, reflective, a professor, explorer and communicator. Personally, Peggy was hard read for me, but I did know that she was kind, maybe the tough love, grow up fast kind of kind, but still kind. So when Justin asked me if I wanted to speak, yes, because the Peggy I talked with on that Zoom, the aunt who took my cousin and I to the movies and argued with the ticket taker about sending a 14-year-old and 12-year-old unaccompanied into an R-rated movie. She bought three tickets. We went and saw the R-rated movie. She went to see the movie that she liked, but that's Peggy. The person who unequivocally loved her son, a trip from New York to Vermont where he must have listened to a men at work tape at least 15 times, is the Peggy that I remember. And it makes me sad because I recall these small things and others that happened, but few seemingly saw that side of Peggy. And I wanted to make sure that today I used my voice like she would to say that this is the aunt Peggy that I remember and I do wish that I was able to tell her that now. Thank you very much. I want to thank you all for coming and I've never had to go through this before and it sounds like some of you might have been up here. And I just wanted to express that her musical side, I didn't prepare anything, but when she did come back from her conferences or one of her conferences from Boston, she did bring me a bass guitar, which I've embraced and played and still play today. And if there was one thing you could do or, anyways, lots of good things about my mom. She was, we ate dinner together a lot and that was as much as I cook. I don't like to be called chef because that's something you really have to stand up to. But of all the things that she would stand up to and what we're all going to hear here soon is that we really did enjoy our time having dinner and we even did jam, like, play music together, which to her was boogie woogie and to me was something like the three cats and, but, so thanks for coming. I just, I'm not really good at this, so thanks, everyone. Oh, it's all right now. I just wanted to say I am so grateful to be able to be here today for a lot of hoops to go through to get out of my country and there's more to get back in. But and I wanted to say thank you so much to all the beautiful people who cared so much for Peggy in her last weeks and the beautiful people that organise today to be a suitable tribute to her. So how do I encapsulate 40 years of friendship in a couple of words? I paid Peggy out for being Lois Lane when I first met her and she was covering a pre-election meeting for Common Woman in 1981. She fixed my dodgy toilet on a first date and when we hung out a bit more, we discovered we had a mutual love of food. So many evenings spent planning menus and preparing her signature dishes. Who could forget her braised radicchio with smoked mozzarella served with a perfectly chilled Gouard's tremina or her spectacular ravioli with orange sauce. Then we had years, fabulous years of Peggy Oak and I making pilgrimages to the ancient sacred goddess sites in Malta in Turkey. We went to Ephesus and Cuttle High up. They were some of the most wonderful trips I've had in my life. And always with Peggy, there was the stimulating, iconoclastic, challenging conversations that were always underpinned by her devotion and courage in the cause of feminism and her desire to see social justice for women and for lesbians. But today I see us as a group under a full moon walking, wading into the lake and Peggy strikes out in front of us, shattering the silvered water and diving into her own infinity. Thanks. And now Charlotte from Wilf. Don't you wish Peggy could be here to see all her friends, even in her last days when she she felt so isolated? Well, I first knew Peggy, not through Wilf, but through the ERA. How many people here fought for the ERA? Raise your hand. That was a wonderful experience, wasn't it? I mean, we learned a lot about the oppression of women by fighting for the ERA. One of the things I heard was that I joined now and the reason that I joined now is that the official ERA group, which would be called the the more mainstream middle class women's movement, allied with Governor Cunin, didn't want now national organization for women to come into the state. Do you know why? Because now back to lesbians. As soon as I heard that they they didn't want now and its president, M.E. Smiel, to come to Vermont, that was it. I joined now. I was and and L.E. Smiel did come. Meanwhile, that's how I first met Peggy. And I have a reminder here. This is a little poster. What happened to the ERA? Looking back and looking forward. And among the people talking was myself for now. Peggy for Burlington Women's Council. Joy Livingston, is she here? Oh yeah, you may remember that Joy. Ed Stanek and Kit Andrews. Anyway, one of the things that Peggy and I enjoyed doing was researching Phyllis Schlafly. Who had also come to Vermont in full force, I might say. And we found out all the corporate ties to Phyllis Schlafly that no one knew about, and that helped fund the anti-ERA movement. And of course, one of the most memorable events was Ladies Against Women. Oh my god. How many ladies have we got here that were in there? Yay! That was so much fun. We also had a speak out in City Hall for ERA. I remember, I think Peggy helped with that. It was just wonderful. Now eventually, after the Women's Council ended up no longer being, Peggy gravitated to Wilf. And one of the reasons was because she was an avid anti-militarist. And would always point out the horrors of the military. My god, when you think what's going on today is just so freaking appalling. Anyway, she would be with us on that, trying to expose it at any moment. Finally, Peggy was fearless to the end. And we all know what she was fearless about. And I have to say that those of us in Wilf listened to Peggy, and we listened to her concerns about what was happening with the gender identity movement. And we came around thinking that at least she and us and others had the right to question. That's it. The right to question. Not to be shut up. Not to be attacked when you went out in women's marches. And so that episode is a sad one because it marginalized Peggy to her despair. But she had developed a lot of friends overseas. And that was a good thing. And she found solace in that. And I'm happy for that. So one other point I want to make, Burlington Women's Council. I had come to learn that the women's movement, there was a, frankly, there was a middle class women's movement, and there was a working class women's movement. And Peggy devoted herself to working class women in the Burlington Women's Council. And I applaud her for that. So Peggy, you will be so, so missed. I have no more to say except you are a beautiful person. But I'm not really. But Genevieve couldn't be here. So she sent me this text. Peggy was a rare someone who always found the courage to speak her mind no matter which way the winds were blowing. Naturally, she got a lot of blowback for it. At the same time, she was also tender, hearted, and sensitive to others. She cared immensely and compassionately about the well-being of the disadvantaged. And because of this, she was able to publicly confront complex issues with the silver sword. In the mid-90s, I worked for her at the Burlington Women's Council. And she encouraged me to write and publish, advocating for women and families in poverty and later to carry on the torch for the women's rape crisis center, of which she was an originator. I feel that Peggy carried the burdens of the furies for us all. The furies are the ancient goddesses of the great mother, known as awesome and awful cathonic avengers from the deep past of humanity. May she be embraced by the ancestors in tenderness and joy. I am thankful to have known and learned from her freedom-loving spirit. And I would sing for her the ancient mantra of the great mother, Gayatri Mantra, which autocorrect won't let me type so well. I'll sing it privately and remember her with love and appreciation. That's Genevieve Jacobs. And John is next. This is from Madeleine Holmes, who wasn't able to be here today either. When I moved to Burlington and joined Wilf in 2001, I had difficulty relating to Peggy, but we were both strongly interested in peace. Over the years, we found connections. I, as well as my husband, learned to appreciate Peggy's no compromise, inclusive reactions to causes that we both cared about. Anti-F-35s, Occupy Wall Street, anti-war demonstrations, opposition to the city center mall reconstruction. The last time I saw Peggy, she was at city market in January, and she enthused about her Zoom lecture to an international women's right audience. My husband and I were both shocked and saddened to hear about her premature death. Yes, we are. Hi. I'm Gweny. I was friends with Peggy starting in the late 70s until about the early 90s when I left Vermont. I worked with her awhile in a Burlington women's council. I was her assistant. When I moved back to Vermont in 2007, I didn't really connect with her that much because I was more focused on taking care of my mother, but I never stopped loving her. She's always been in my heart. One of my favorite, one of the things I really admired about her was how brilliant she was. She was smart. She was like Jeopardy champion smart. I told her she could make a lot of money if she went on Jeopardy, but you know she just wasn't interested in that. One of my fun memories of her is playing that game Trivial Pursuit. Do you remember that game? There was three of us against Peggy Lors and guess who won? Peggy Lors. I love her. I'll never stop loving her. I love you, Peg. Good afternoon, Mike. For those of you who don't know who I am, my name is John Franco. I have to confess that I didn't know Peggy all that well, but what I knew of her was very rich and very intense. Sandy asked me to say some remarks about my relationship with Peggy and my thoughts about Peggy. The question I was asking myself was what do you say about Peggy? Then I was going in my head was the song from the sound of music about what do we say about Maria. Then I got to thinking about we're holding this in the basement of a former parochial school across the street from St. Joseph's. I was struck by Peggy's life and also by the comments about how, as someone raised Catholic myself, the indelible print of Catholicism. I was even going to say, I think it's a worldview about how you approach things. Peggy certainly had, I'm going to use it in a very generic sense, a very Catholic universal commitment to her cause, her calling. We are told when we are 13 and you're going to be confirmed you have a calling and she found her calling, not at 13 but later in life. What I remember of Peggy was really two bookmarks of the time I first met her and the last time I had a word with her. The first time I met her was at a party in Sandy Barrett's house on Luma Street in her upstairs apartment in the same kitchen and Sandy at the time was the state's attorney and I was a public defender. And somehow the rather inebriated conversation about who in the morning gravitated to the fact that I was representing some defendants and sexual assault cases that were very nasty and Peggy immediately expressed her displeasure in my ribs, I must say. The last time I spoke with Peg was standing in the COVID line at the co-op waiting to check out and it was in the aftermath of the gender identity controversy and her comments about the efforts to erase women, the identity of women and Peggy made a couple of comments. She characterized herself as a thought criminal. She said, I'm a thought criminal and I'm proud of it. And then she, this was my favorite, she decried her critics and her opponents as Stalinists. And I said, oh Peggy, I said that was, you hit the nail right on the head, thank you very much. And the seven days article about her passing was, I thought the very end of that was poignant and a very real respect. She apparently thought that she had failed and that she was isolated and friendless and boy was that not true. Boy was that not true. And the reason I'm up here today is to say that I'm here because Peggy immeasurably enriched my life. She immeasurably enriched this community, this state, and this world and we all appreciate that and we all know that. And if you want to talk about a life well lived, hers is a good Catholic life well lived. I love that this microphone is serving us all. I'm Joy Livingston. Can you all hear me? No. Would that be better? Okay. I had to write down my thoughts and I'll read them because I have so many. I just wanted to keep focused. And I'm speaking for both myself and my partner Sandra who knew Peggy long, long before me. In fact, Peggy entered Sandra's life more than 40 years ago. Sandy arrived in Burlington, a single mom eager to meet women, and she met Peggy who offered her a warm welcome and became one of her best trusted loyal friends. Peggy was always there whenever Sandy needed her. I arrived here sometime later to attend graduate school, a young straight feminist eager to overthrow Park Patriarchy. I found the feminist organizations in the community and of course I met Peggy. I was in awe, literally. I was in awe. Peggy was strong and passionate and right on in her analyses. Brilliant indeed. Early in our acquaintance I remember saying something silly to Peggy. Something like, okie dokie. And I said to someone, I can't believe, I just said okie dokie to Peggy Lures. I was humiliated. She was in my mind's eye too serious for such foolishness. It didn't take long though to realize that Peggy had a wonderful sense of humor and she loved and enjoyed a little foolishness. Fast forward to meeting and falling in love with my Sandra. Peggy was Sandy's best friend and that gave me the gift of her friendship as well. I learned that in addition to her brilliant work in the community she was also an amazing cook, creative designer, nature lover and so so much more. I came to know how deeply she loved and how tender her heart. Peggy left us so quickly it's been hard to accept her absence. Sandy and I think and talk about her nearly every day. I will especially miss her in the couple of weeks when we host our first night of Passover traditional feminist Seder. Peggy came every year engaging in the ritual and staying to visit long into the evening. During Seder we go around the table taking turns reading from the Haggadah. I enjoy watching the way oftentimes a woman reads a section which seems to have been written for her. When Peg read about the women who participated in the resistance in Nazi occupied Europe, to me she was telling about her work and this is what she read. I want to tell you something about them. They were not extraordinary women. They were not women with special training or qualifications. We saw how human beings rose to the needed height in the daily execution of their tasks and that was the hardest. The fact that the work had to be done every day from day to day that requires the greater courage than a heroic exploit would last a few minutes. I will always be in awe of Peggy's courage. She pays painful criticism but she never gave up the fight for what she knew was just and right. She did the difficult day to day work of making this world safe for women to live and thrive. We are forever in her debt. May her memory be for a blessing. In 1993, my mother passed and I read this Judy Grande poem at my mother's funeral and I told Peggy that I was reading this poem at my mother's funeral and she said, oh I would like to have that poem read at my funeral. So get your attention spans on because it's longer than what most people can deal with. So this was written by Judy Grande for her first lover and longtime friend Yvonne Mary Robinson who was born October 20th 1939 and died November 1974 and it's for ritual use only. I can't see. Let's try that. A funeral playing song from a younger woman to an older woman. I will be your mouth now to do your singing. Breath belongs to those who do the breathing. Warm life as it passes through your fingers flares up in the very hands you will be leaving. You have left. What is left for the bond between women is a circle. We are together within it. I am your best. I am your kind. Kind of my kind. I am your wish. Wish of my wish. I am your breast. Breast of my breast. I am your mind. Mind of my mind. I am your flesh. I am your kind. I am your wish. Kind of my kind. I am your best. Now you have left. You can be wherever the fire is when it blows itself out. Now you are a voice in any wind. I am a single wind. Now you are any source of a fire. I am a single fire. Wherever you go to I will arrive. Whatever I have been you will come back to. Wherever you leave off I will inherit. Whatever I resurrect you shall have it. You have right what is right for the bond between women is returning. We are endlessly within it and endlessly apart within it. It is not finished. It will not be finished. I will be your heart now to do your loving. Love belongs to those who do the feeling. Life as it stands so still along your fingers beats in my hands. The hands I will believe that you have become she who is not any longer somewhere in particular. We are together in your stillness. You have wished us a bonded life. Love of my love. I am your breast. Arm of my arm. I am your strength. Breath of my breath. I am your foot. Thigh of my thigh. Back of my back. Eye of my eye. Beat of my beat. Kind of my kind. I am your best. When you were dead I said you had gone to the mountain. The trees do not yet speak of you. A mountain when it is no longer. A mountain goes to the sea. When the sea dies it goes to the grain. The rain. When the rain dies it goes to the grain. When the grain dies it goes to the flesh. When the flesh dies it goes to the mountain. Now you have left you can wander. Will you tell whoever could listen? Tell all the voices who speak to younger women? Tell all the voices who speak to us when we need it that the love between women is a circle and is not finished. Wherever I go to you will arrive. Whatever you have been I will come back to. Wherever I leave off you will inherit. Whatever we resurrect we shall have it. We shall have it. We have right and you have left. What is left? I will take your part now to do your daring. Lots belong to those who do the sharing. I will be your fight now to do your winning as the bond between women is beginning in the middle at the end. My first beloved present friend if I could die like the next rain I'd call you by your mountain name and rain on you. Want of my want I am your lust. Wave of my wave I am your crest. Earth of my earth I am your crust. May of my may I am your must. Kind of my kind I am your best. Tallest mountain least mouse. Least mountain tallest mouse. You've put your very breath upon mine. I shall wrap my entire fist around. I can touch any woman's lip to remember. We are together in my motion. You have wished us a bonded life. Judy Grann. You know I was going to say some personal things about Peggy too and it's just so overwhelming to me right now. But maybe we can do one thing together. Peggy was a warrior and so and she actually we spent a lot of time on her coach while watching Zena Warrior Princess. So I was thinking maybe we could yule late together. What does that sound like huh? Okay how's this? My partner Mary and I shared a lot with Peggy over the years who will deeply miss her fierceness, her kindness, her friendship. We moved to Burlington because of Peggy. Because of her thinking. Because we went to a Pride march and we heard her talk and we thought wow if people think like that in Burlington that's where we want to live. Her dedication to women and lesbians and the natural world. Her vast knowledge and analysis her analysis was amazing. Like many of you here we cherished her. In the past we meant we went to many conferences and festivals with her. Shared birthday meals. She was a fantastic cook. I remember a rice and chicken risotto with lemon sauce that was out of sight. I don't think I'll ever forget that birthday. Anyway when we moved here she was the only person we knew in Burlington and she really helped us. We stayed in her house. She got us on her feet. She got us connected with all those things you need. Doctors, dentists, etc. helped us find a place. She became a great neighbor. We had keys to each other's houses. When I locked myself out of my house I would walk over to her house and she would give me my key and I'd get back in. So we went to a lot of things. A lot of old lesbians organizing for change. Three different national conferences that they organized. One of them we were on our way to Florida. We got stuck in Newark airport. They cancelled the flights. It was weather. Peggy went off by herself as she is want to do and got herself to Florida. I don't know how she talked herself into a ticket on another flight but she did it. She was the only one of us that made it. We went to Michigan together. A bunch of times camp together. We went to Pride Day many times. We went to the New York City climate march with an Olock sign. I think we were the only people of the whole march that were carrying signs that said lesbian. That was a very important word to us. She was a great orator and speechwriter. She really could just put things together in a crystal clear kind of way that just made you really listen. A lot of people don't listen to the speeches at demonstrations. You listen to Peggy. Besides demonstrations we went to a lot of dances. She could dance. She loved to dance. She knew so much women's history and not just white women's history and not just middle class. She knew a lot of history. So my partner put together some quotes that I wanted to read that really summarize Peggy from Zora Neale Hurston. I love myself when I am laughing and then again when I am looking mean and impressive. Now that's Peggy. Esther Harding the woman who is one in herself does what she does. Not because of any desire to please, not to be liked or to be approved even by herself. Not because of any desire to gain power over another because what she does is true. Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage. Anger at the way things are and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are. From Audre Lorde when I dare to be powerful to use my strength in the service of my vision then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. From Vandana Shiva the liberation of the earth, the liberation of women, the liberation of all humanity is the next step of freedom we need to work for. And it's the next step of peace we need to create. From Monique Wittig, despite all the evils they wish to crush me with I remain as steady as the three-legged cauldron. And this last one I always think of Peggy with this one. African proverb. When an elder dies a library burns to the ground. So I remember little sweet things that Peggy did. We worked together in the 1990s on the Vermont Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights trying to get anti-discrimination legislation passed. And those were the days when women and men were struggling to meet together and do work together. And of course the women wanted to have separate meeting time for ourselves and the men didn't understand that and we said that they needed to meet amongst themselves and they didn't want to and they didn't know what they should talk about. But we insisted on the meeting on the women of the group having some meeting time together and Peggy came up with the name. She said, lesbians of Vermont it spells love. One of the earliest kind of unofficial lesbian groups. So Peggy your memory gives me courage. Thank you. Martha. I wrote it out too because I knew I'd get nervous. But that's okay. Peggy's here. My name's Martha and I'm just so in awe to see us all together. I haven't been with you all in a long time. So look she brought us together again. I really want to celebrate Peggy's deep goodness. Deep deep goodness. Her generous and fierce love as well as her exquisitely tender heart. Thank you Peggy. Don't worry I cry easily. Thank you Peggy for letting me feel your tender heart. And like a lot of us complex human beings, Peggy also had a raging heart full of courage, full of spit and fire, full of justice that scared me sometimes, that always taught me, that pained me at times and saw the pain it created. And yet that rage always came from deep love and it also taught me to observe my own rage and my own rageful actions. When are they of benefit and when am I, oops, we're human. And I love Peggy's humanness and I love, I love Peggy. So I wanted to talk about the incredible gifts Peggy gave that we all know but it's good to shout them out sometimes during the 80s and 90s when she was the director of the women's council. And there was a lot of construction happen in Burlington and the women's council was like, well wait a minute, who's making out the money out of this? And so the boom, do you remember this, the boom pie, what is it called, the or, boom pie, I don't know, papers or something, but it talked about all this money's coming into Burlington and we want women to get a share of it and one way is through non-traditional trading trade jobs, to be carpenters, electricians, firefighters, on and on. And we knew most women didn't have the training or even weren't told this was even possible, maybe even bigger. And so the women's council under Peggy's leadership collaborated with CEDO to bring to Burlington the step up for women's trades training program that over the years has morphed into Vermont works for women. The seeds Peggy planted with so many of us women are still so strong. I mean Peggy's going to live on in our hearts but she's going to live on in so many lives she never had a clue she had changed. And Peggy, Peggy when we started this step up program we were like, well how do we convince women that it's even a good idea? So we put ads up but the first run not as many women came as I promised everyone they would. So Peggy had this idea we're going to do a film, a video I guess it was. And so she and I went around and interviewed tradeswomen, backhoe diggers, firefighters, carpenters, maybe some of you were in that video. Who's in that video? Oh yeah. Yeah, Carmen. Yay Carmen, you're here. And she, I interviewed, she videoed and we spent hours editing that thing. And I just fell in love with Peggy during those hours of editing. So it's one more of her brilliant capacities. And then we were like okay, so we train women, we get women and we train them and how do we convince anybody they have to hire them or they should hire them. So in collaboration with the Women's Council under Peggy, Gretchen Bailey, the city attorney, and Sita, myself under Bernie's support, we put together and got past the women in construction trades ordinance. One of the first in this country and it said, by the way, this is still on the books. So if anybody's pissed off like I am and wants to go to city hall and just be curious where is this, John, maybe you'll come with me. It said all companies getting city contracts and city departments had to hire 10% of the trades people to be women. So Peggy did some awesome stuff and every time I'd see her in the co-op, she would get so excited reminiscing. So I was hired to run step up in the women's economic opportunity program. I was young then and I thought I knew a lot. I even applied for the Women's Council director's position. That's how naive I was. I didn't fortunately get that. There are other smarter women who knew, but I did get the step up program and I was still young. I had worked in the trades without any training. It was a mess. It was hard. I loved it and I also there was a lot I didn't know. So Peggy was my mentor. It's because of Peggy that I was at all successful truthfully. When I would be sitting in CEDA going, how in hell do you write this? How do you stand up and say this? I would leave CEDA. I'd walk into, remember her office in the back of the auditorium and I'd walk along. My hand would go like this over those wooden stairs because otherwise she felt like you were going to drop down into the bottom of the auditorium and I'd go in and Peggy's door was always open and she'd roll back that chair from that big steel desk and say, Martha, come on in and she'd point to the chair and she mentored me through stories. Peggy told stories of building houses. I didn't know women had built houses. I hadn't seen that. Peggy told me about building her loft, about building her studio. Peggy told me about the women's carpentry business she was part of. Peggy told me she started the women's rape crisis with many of you. She started the women's health center and worked it with many of you on and on and on. And these stories broaden my lens of what the economic issues and obstacles for women, not just go into trades, go anywhere. So Peggy broadened my lens and made me inspired to leave her office each time and go back and do my work and get something that Peggy dreamed of to happen. So I want to thank Peggy for being my mentor, for broadening my life, for broadening my heart, for loving me. Thank you Peggy. Thank you all you women and all you men. Nari and I'm a really old friend of Peg's. I met Peggy when I had just graduated from Goddard and I was 21 and a little baby dyke here in Burlington. And Peggy welcomed me and was always supportive of me. I was completely fascinated by her. She was an artist. She'd gone to art school. She had built her own house. She was building Glow's house. She loved film and could talk about film like nobody I knew. And while she could be late for just about everything, she was never late for a film. Peggy was an incredible chef. She did all kinds of things. She was really sort of a Renaissance person in my view. And I was always fascinated by her. Peggy was outrageous in like the best sense of the word. And she could go toe to toe with anybody. In fact, she actually went toe to toe at a protest for women's reproductive rights to the point of having a person who was against choice scream at her, your mother should have had an abortion. That is what Peggy could bring out in people, you know. And what I really will always like give Peggy props for is being that outrageous person that pushed that envelope. She widened that envelope so that people like me seemed really tame, acceptable. She made my life here in Burlington much easier than it would have been without her. And so so many of us, our lives have been made easier because of her outrageousness. So I just want to give her props for that. She was pretty spectacular. You know, my name's Nat and I met Peggy also a long, long time ago. I was a university student at UVM and it was the late 70s. And I was a young lesbian and there weren't many. None of my friends were in my class or UVM that I knew of. But I met Peggy early on and I knew immediately, oh, here's my family, here's my kin. And connected with her and her son, Justin, in her house. And I have some pictures from them and it looks very different. The front door is all different. She recreated a house that has housed so many beings. And the coming through, coming through the door and she would always welcome people in her home and she welcomed me into her life. And she was, I could always count on knowing that I can have, I can ask Peggy, I can get the answer or understand something. And more particularly, that's been very important for me. Because all of a sudden, there were a lot of questions I had. In the last couple years, I connected with Peggy and her son Justin. When Justin came home, it was just wonderful because I met Emmy, it was about Yay High. And I wasn't all that much older. I was a teen, I guess. And through Peggy, I met a lot of women in the community. And it was actually, I left UVM and it was Peggy who brought me back. She wrote me a letter. She said, hey, Nat, we're looking for some land, for some women's land. And I had already been to festivals and I knew I like to hang out with like-minded people who you could talk with about anything and really understand things from a different perspective because hers was so broad. And she wrote me that letter and I said, okay, that's it. I'm going to move back to Vermont. And so I came back here in 86 and immediately started fundraising and fundraising with a group of, which grew to many, many women to purchase a portion of the land, which has become known as HAL, which became known as HAL even before we purchased it. It was incredible to work with her to have access to a space where those meetings, it didn't have to be a special meeting or anything. And in the last couple years with the pandemic, I kept in touch with Peggy. And we kept in touch since 79 for all those years, whether it's a phone conversation or a letter. And it was that letter that brought me back. And so in the pandemic, during the pandemic, well, fairly recently, I knew, oh, I'm going to get together with Peggy, never mind the pandemic, we'll wear our masks and we went out to eat. We decided, neither of us were cooking. We needed to talk. And she was so happy. There was something in her that had really shifted. And it's interesting to me that to hear, you know, we've all been isolated and alone in so many ways. But I knew something was different. She wasn't. She didn't seem to me. There was something in her that was calm. And I found out what it was. She told me about her group that she had met when she was in London and in the UK. She had told me about these friends, these women who she met. Sounded just like her. And I was like, fantastic. And I was thinking, you know, is this what's making you? This she was at peace. And finally, she'd been talking about this group for a few months. And finally, we were talking, she said, Nat, I'm going to be on the panel. And I said, okay, I'll get on it. What do I do? Okay. So I did. And I discovered that she has a group of women all over the world who she has been connecting with. And that spans class, race, all of the differences. It's pretty spectacular to see. But I dove into that. And what a gift to learn that, to know that. And because I went on that site that one time when she said, you know, hey, I'm a panelist, I'll be there. It had been months. I hadn't gone on. Finally, just jumped in. And the gift, I then saw her carry that gift onto her next realm. And that was the gift of knowing that she has young women, old women, men who are listening to her and who understand from a different from a broad perspective. That was a gift for me to see her content, happiness inside, because I'd known her for a long time. And that tender side of her, I bet everyone in here felt that. Fabulous. I could always count on Peggy to be right there with me, especially if she took me under her wing in a sense when I was a student, you know? And I was a young lesbian. I'd been a lesbian for a while, even at that age. Sometimes you just know where you feel comfortable. And so during that period of time, when she became ill, and she talked to me. And it took her a while to get, we talked, and I asked her a bunch of questions. I actually, my father was a doctor. And I'm a carpenter sometimes. When she told me, I said, you got to go see your doctor. And she took a while to get back to me. It was a really tough thing for her to have to tell anybody, right? Hard enough for her to swallow something like this. A woman who's, and the reason she was able to swallow it was because of all of you and all of the women around the world who she knew were going to carry on like she. And being fearless and courageous. And I was so grateful to know that she was able to move on freely. Freely and at peace, knowing that. And by me meeting various people and on Zoom, and on the phone too, sometimes. Some of you might have known that a recording was done at that Zoom of a meditation that a small group of women did for her. And I ended up taking that to her. I knew when I first saw her after her telling me what her diagnosis was. When I saw her, I knew her time was short. And all of us, we have our time, the time we have. And she taught me to speak up. Don't be afraid to speak up. And don't be afraid to feel. So what a gift. It was an honor to be a friend of hers and to care for her. And there's, I have a little poem that actually, so Howell, Peggy brought me back here. And the Howell land exists today, which is wonderful. But here's a poem that was brought every couple times a year, non COVID times, there's a small group of us who go up and there's a memorial garden up at Howell. And Peggy's ashes, we hope, will also go up there. And a couple years ago, a group of us went up and a dear friend of Peggy's is also here. And her mom was a dear friend of Peggy's. And she's up on the Howell land, but she was at the original site. A group of us moved, found the stone over years after the site was moved, we couldn't find the stones. There was trees and bushes and growth. And after that visit, Susan sent this out to the small group of us. And I thought it's appropriate in some ways to read here. It's written by a woman named Jan Richardson, I don't know, from the circle of grace in 2015. But it seems appropriate on different levels. It's called a blessing when the world is ending. Look, the world is always ending somewhere. Somewhere the sun has come crashing down. Somewhere it has gone completely dark. Somewhere it has ended with the gun, the knife, the fist. Somewhere it has ended with the slammed door, the shattered hope. Somewhere it has ended with the utter quiet that follows the news from the phone, the television, the hospital room. Somewhere it has ended with a tenderness that will break your heart. But listen, this blessing means to be anything but morose. It has not come to cause despair. It is here simply because there is nothing a blessing is better suited for than an ending. Nothing that cries out more for a blessing than when a world is falling apart. This blessing will not fix you, will not mend you, will not give you false comfort. It will not talk to you about one door opening when another one closes. It will simply sit beside you among the shards and gently turn your face toward the direction from which the light will come, gathering itself about you as the world begins again. I lived with Peggy and was very lucky to know her. I knew her actually as soon as I came to Vermont. Probably, well, it was 39 and a half years ago. And I am very lucky to have known her and to really get close to her and move to Peru Street, which the cops said to us when we called him. Well, what do you expect if you live on Peru Street? Well, actually, we expected them to do their job. And that is what I said to him. Peggy has, well, after 15 years, we did not end very well at all. And it was a rough time for both of us. And eventually we bared the hatchet and then we got to be friends again. And that was a wonderful thing. And I knew that I could turn to her when I had some really hard times. I thought I was going to die, but here I am. And she really helped me and took me to the hospital, took me home, stayed with me, called me. When no one else did, when I was very angry and depressed, and, you know, there was Peggy. And we would spend maybe an hour or more on the phone. And that was really wonderful. And I've been living alone for quite a long time. And I have heard noises and, you know, the weather changes and in Vermont and your house makes a noise. But look, I thought when I woke up and I live in Ferrisburg now, oh, that's just Peggy. What? And then I remembered that, you know, she's dead and gone. And I couldn't take it in. And I was in the days for weeks, you know, and I just, that's a dream, right? And then it happened again. And I kept, you know, in the deepest sleep of my night, I thought I, you know, I didn't even really believe in ghosts. And there she was. And I thought, you know, I don't know what it is, but, you know, that's Peggy. And then she's banging around in my house. And, you know, and I'm like, Oh, my God. And so it happened three times. And, and then I said, I guess she's, you know, not finished with us with me anyway. And then finally, the last time I, she was in my bed. And I've lived alone for, you know, I've been on my own for a very long time. And I thought it was her. And oh, my God. And I cried and I said to her, you're welcome here always. You're always welcome here. And I'm very glad that we became friends again. And I've always known her. She's a part of the, I really respected her. And say that. Oh, my name is, I'm Oak. And also Sally. And I learned from the oak trees. And that's why I go, you know, my full name is she who learns and listens to the oak trees. And I thought of this poem, but I'm not going to read it. Wounds that bleed when you bump them in memories that get up in the night and pace and boots to and fro. And I've heard that. I've heard that in my mind so many times when I couldn't sleep. And no, it was very wonderful to know that she was there. And it's a loss I will always have. She's very strong. And she's always here. Thank you. Hi, and thank you all for being here. And thanks to the Association of Africans living in Vermont that have welcomed us into their wonderful space and into their wonderful community. I'm Sandy Baird. And I have probably among all of you, I've probably known Peggy for the longest amount of time. I've known her since the early 70s when we two were married women with two, she had one small son to whom she was devoted as she was devoted her entire life. Peggy was a mother. And in many ways, it was that principle of love toward her son that she carried into her whole life and into this community as well. And into all of you here, Peggy was always motivated by love. I have been very angry at Peggy as many of you know, I'd had big fights with Peggy. And boy, they were freaking brutal. But in the end, in the end of our lives, I was totally grateful to Peggy Lures because she came to my office. I'm an attorney and she came to my office and she asked for help. And I said, I am so grateful that you've come to see me Peggy because you're tying up a lot of loose ends in my life. And I was deeply grateful that we were able to reconcile and to recognize with each other the importance that the two of us had had in our lives together. Okay, but I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that life. I knew Peggy in the early seventies, as I said, when we were two married women, we had very decent and supportive husbands as well. And we began to meet together often in the seventies to figure out our lives as mothers and as comrades in a lot of ways. We were again, we were one of the first groups of women who began to meet in consciousness raising sessions. And the purpose of those consciousness raising sessions were something that I would recommend to everybody here today. And that was to meet together, to share our lives and to figure out what the hell was happening in this world. What was happening not only to the women of the world and the girls of the world, but also to the men. Why was this world at constant war? Why is this world a constant struggle against racism? Why, for instance, are women throughout the world oppressed in the oldest hierarchy of all? The hierarchy that oppresses women and girls by male institutions, by male supremacist institutions. And not all of men, of course, agree with that. But the fact is that the world has been forever as Peggy recognized early on that the world is run by male supremacist institutions, the family, the church, and the state. And Peggy always studied that, and we always studied that together. And she came to really tough, ask tough questions always. Peggy always asked the toughest questions and always was willing to look at the often brutal answers. We had been deeply influenced by the peace movement, by the civil rights movement, and as that exploded all around us, we began to be roiled in the confrontations, the demonstrations, the study groups, the teachings to understand and to reject the orthodoxy that had ruled our lives, particularly in the 1950s. You have to remember Peggy and me and Oak and a lot of these women that are here today were Roman Catholics. And we had been, what do we know? I mean, we had to really think through the control that the church had over our bodies, over our souls, over our minds. And Peggy relentlessly asked questions about that and came up with an analysis that in fact changed the whole world. Okay, so we formed our first consciousness raising group. Many, some of you women are still here from that first group. We probably had the first consciousness, there's Joyce Bressel, we had our first consciousness group probably in the state of Vermont, where we got together. Sally Bell and also over there was part of that group. Many of us, and that changed our lives, it certainly changed our marriages, that's for sure. We read together, we read journals like the first, second and third notes from the first, second and third years. We read no more fun and games. We read The Woman Identified Women. We read Ms. Magazine for God's sakes. We read, most importantly, I think of all, a Vermont journal called Our Bodies Ourselves. What did we know about our bodies? Nothing. Honestly, at least I didn't know anything. And most of us really did not know at that time. It was women educating women that was the consciousness raising group, not only about our body, not only about our psyche, but also about the world in general. And Peggy was always the person who would suggest what we read. We read things like Simone de Beauvoir, Emma Goldman. We read Greek lesbians like Sappho, you remember that? The poet Sappho. We explored history. We read Karl Marx. We read all the socialist scholars. We read the anarchists, Emma Goldman. And I might say, I today wore red and black. Black from the anarchists, red from the socialists. That was a big fight I remember having with Peggy always, was between those anarchists. Who knew stuff like that? I mean, we were outrageously educating ourselves. And together, often also with men too. But most often, it was women educating ourselves about ourselves, but also about the world. Peggy had a shrewd and intelligent mind as we all knew, sometimes exasperatingly so. The arguments were unbelievable that I would have with Peggy. And she always reminded us, and we all learned together, about the vast importance of recognizing that women and girls were full human beings. And that they were moral agents. And that it was in order to create a better world, a more beautiful world, a more peaceful world, that women had to be recognized as full participants in the society and as full shapers of their own destiny and the destiny of the world itself. And Peggy, above all, always reminded of that to the end. She always reminded us of that. She also, we also at that point, formed feminist institutions, the Women's Health Center, the first legal abortion clinic probably in the United States. And that was in 1972, before Roe v. Wade. We opened that clinic before Roe. Higher doctors got it together to offer abortion and birth control. I grew up in the state of Massachusetts. Birth control, when I grew up, was illegal, illegal to get birth control before the case in 1969 of Griswold v. Connecticut, and then Roe in 1973. In Vermont, Peggy Lures and other women in this community and men formed the Vermont Women's Health Center in 1972. She also formed a group called Women Against Rape, War. I can remember, and maybe John Franco remembers this. There was a big poster in my bathroom right above the toilet of a woman booting a man, maybe it was you John, booting a man across a room. And she was all in Tai Chi outfits and stuff. And Peggy had given me that poster, Women Against Rape, War. And that was from Peggy Lures. She also was very helpful in creating Women Helping Banner Women, the Burlington Women's Council, and many of the Vermont works for women that we've already talked about. I was with Peggy by the way when she came out as a lesbian. And I wanted to say that she, during the period of time that we had a consciousness raising group together, was when Peggy decided that she was a lesbian. And so she decided that her love for women was pretty permanent and from which she never wavered. She always loved women and girls, always wished for the best for the women and girls on this planet, and always thought that the world would be a far better place if women and girls had the power to shape that world. And that's the message that I think we're left with today. But I want to end on a personal note, because Peggy also was tons of fun, honestly. You all remember all that? I remember a time, and Laurie told me I should mention some of these capers that we pulled. I remember one time Peggy and I went to the phone company late at night, and she spray painted all over the phone. Women ignite, because she knew all the phone company, all those women inside needed that kind of a message. I was kind of chicken, so I didn't participate in the spray painting, but I was the lookout to see it. So in that era, I do want to mention, though, in that era of second wave feminism, we all learned together about the beauty of women, the beauty of women and girls throughout the planet. But we also learned to have fun. We also learned a lot from Peggy and ourselves about sexual pleasure. You ever think of that? Out of the fifties, we women learned through second wave feminism that women had the right to sexual pleasure. And that was something that we all studied together also with Peggy. We learned about soul music, jazz, women's music, women's poetry. We had incredibly riotous parties, as some of you here will maybe remember. I think on my 40th birthday, there were maybe 300 people there in my little house on Luma Street. I was a state's attorney at the time, too. And it was rather a brawl. And even some police were there, but they were the worst brawlers. So in the end, I want to remember the words of Emma Goldman were also words from Peggy, that what is a revolution if we can't dance? And this was the message that I take from Peggy lords. And remember, Peggy and I had lots of fights. But this is the key feminist truth that she bequeathes, bequeaths, I think today. That in order to create and maintain a world of peace, equality, truth, and beauty, women, our mothers, our sisters, our grandmothers, our colleagues, our lovers, our friends must be empowered to take their rightful places in the shaping of a brand new world. And I dedicate that message to Peggy lords. Thank you. Well, Sandy, that was beautiful and very engaging with Peggy's spirit. I'd like to just add some more sort of some more anecdotes and following up on what Charlotte told about Peggy's involvement with Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Every year we could always depend on her to make a powerful speech on militarism and women and militarism and male supremacy. And but then on in July, in July of 2012, she came to our gatherings and these were gatherings that Wilf had down in Rochester, Vermont at a farm at the wing farm. And she, at that point, I think she was getting tired of Wilf. We were a bit too stodgy for her. And she described her involvement with a group called FedUp, Vermont. Any of you involved with it? Yeah. And she, their first action was a slut walk. It was a protest that was started in Toronto when a woman was raped and the police officers said, What did you expect given that short skirt you were wearing? Later, they held a reproductive rights demo, which included the song, Every Sperm is Sacred from Monty Python. So building on what Sandy said, she did like to have fun. But then on July 2012, that was when a member of a frat house sent out a message saying, if you could rape someone, who would it be? That was so infuriating that that we did a, we did a protest on Church Street. I was Medusa and she was Emma Goldman and she gave a fabulous speech. And what happened was that the all important hockey fraternity at UVM was closed down and its members forced to find other housing. So we had an impact. And the last fun time I remember was when the song Macho Man was playing at one of the bars. And we thought, well, we have to go and was anyone here involved with that action? Anyway, we wrapped some of us wrapped dildos around our ways and went out and danced. And we did sort of provocative sex dances until we were kicked out. So that was one of those things Peggy got me involved in. It used to be wild and some of you don't recognize me because I actually have hair. So it's a new thought about the world going forward to just shift your paradigm. And I wanted to sing, but I understand that this song I was going to do is already on the schedule. So I just wanted to say from the space of being a little baby dyke, I came to Vermont with Lucy Gluck after having gone to University of Vermont here for a bunch of years. And Lucy and I met out in California where I officially recognized my true people as a lesbian person. And Lucy and I came home together in a van, a truck with you and amethyst and anarchist and her daughters. And we were at the Michigan Women's Fest. I mean, it was like I was bald and I was definitely in. I was in. We lived with Lucy's mom for about a month, I think, out on the ferry road in Charlotte. And then Lucy got a job at Queen City Printers and we moved into the bedroom off the kitchen at 52 Peru. And then I knew I was in and Joyce Cheney and Katie Wolf and Prairie and Peg and maybe in our pajamas and singing Alex Dopkin and Susan Griffin and Mary Daly and Judy Grana. My brain was like exploding. I felt I had been betrayed by the world for not introducing me to all of this incredible intellectualism. And the fact that there was like lesbian people that really were like super happy. I just, I didn't know. I really didn't know. And I just, I want to share again that Peggy was absolutely like the mom of moms. The night that I so excitedly introduced Lucy to my mom and dad and my mom smacked me on the street by lunatics told me I just wanted to sleep with my dad and Peggy was the one I came home to. And she was like, you're fine. Your mother needs a psychiatrist, you know? So over over so many awesome years, I have bounced back and forth between complete, you know, I am on Peggy's team, you know, and I will stand up for her outrageousness anytime. I can't think of a single time where Peggy didn't come through for me as a grown up. I'm pretty sure I live in a house that Peggy built. My right glow Peg built Susan and Carol's house. Did you help build it too? Susan and Carol's house on South Road. I've got a shelf full of books that I know she is thumbing. So I wanted to sing, but I'm going to let I'm going to let our resident artist sing. But I have to just say that I'm a woman's lover. I'm another woman's mom. I'm a woman's daughter naturally. And if ever I need a friend upon a woman, I'll depend. It's the lesbian in me. Anyway, I was asked also to read a short message from Sue Gillis. Do you all remember Sue Gillis? She was the owner and the founder of Vermont Woman. And I'm not going to read the whole thing because food is waiting actually. And so I want to say that Sue told me when I told her about Peggy, we all shared office space too for a while, that Peggy was like a hot poker in her side, always reminding her of the truth of feminism. And that's the way Sue felt about her. And I hope that we all feel her hot poker in our side as we go forth to build a better world for all of us, but mainly for women and girls and all of their children. Thank you for being here. And I think that's it, right? Aunt Tara. Aunt Tara is going to do a musical. And then I would invite you all to have a meal with us, which is waiting for us. And thank you again for all being here for Peggy and her son, Justin. Thank you.