Marguerite Brodie

“The sun shines not over, but in us.” –John Muir

“Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.” –Anonymous

Marguerite Brodie was a vital member of the Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom (WILPF). She joined WILPF in 1982 after seeing our Nuclear Weapons Freeze table at Saturday Market where she was pleasantly surprised to be treated with respect and warmth.

Marguerite was diagnosed at age twelve with the Friedrich’s Ataxia, a congenital degenerative disease, and was wheelchair-bound in her late teens. Doctors predicted she would die by her late twenties. She fought doggedly against her limitations to achieve the fullest life possible.

She graduated from the Oregon College of Education, worked for Head Start, and later was a teacher in employment skills for the mentally and physically handicapped. When she could no longer work, she volunteered at a level that would have been impressive by any standards. She chaired the Lesbian Community Project’s diversity committee and organized the International Women’s Day program from 1985 to 1988. Marguerite was treasurer of the No on Hate campaign in defense of gay rights in 1992. She was honored in 1996 with a Spirit of Pride award from Pride Northwest, the group that organized Portland’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender celebration. That group called her an “organizer by nature” and one who “stamped her persona on the evolution of progressive social change in Portland.” To observers she seemed most fulfilled not when planning or organizing, but when she was out in the streets. She was at every demonstration, protest rally, and women’s music event and benefit concert she could get herself to.

We, in WILPF, felt honored that Marguerite gave her time and energy to our organization. She was our newsletter editor for many years, typing it as someone said “one finger at a time.” She said “being newsletter editor was one of the best things I’ve ever done; I got to write, do lay-out, and it helped keep me informed. Besides that I got to order recycled paper!” Marguerite broadened our thinking about lesbian-gay issues and kept us apprised of physical accessibility for meetings. She also was concerned about the environment and encouraged socially responsible activities. She stressed continuing contact with our congressional representatives in Washington D.C. She was at times impatient, and even uncompromising, but totally committed to deep changes in society. She was also witty and concerned about her friends. She loved music and dance, and of course, flowers and sweets. Before she died, she gave friends dahlia bulbs to plant and remember her by.

In her WILPF “Archives,” she mentioned that her most meaningful activity in WILPF was the Ben Linder vigils. Ben, the son of member Elizabeth Linder, was killed in Nicaragua by the Contras in 1987 while working on a plant to bring electricity to a remote area. Marguerite helped organize the “Remembering Ben” event with poetry, prose, and music, saying it was her personal favorite of WILPF activities.

Her body continued its slow deterioration and she decided to stop taking her medications. Her mother, Marilyn Brodie, said “two of her brothers had already died (from this disease) so she knew what she was in for.” It took seven months for her to die and her suffering was unimaginable. Friends took shifts looking to her needs—a testimony to how much she meant to them. She wrote a letter to Just Out (a lesbian newspaper) to be printed after her death and it goes as follows:

“I am dying now. The finality of it all is appalling to me. Even though it is what I chose. I decided to do hospice and quit taking all my meds when I got tired of fighting my body. I feel I gave my body every chance to let me be active and happy in this world. I feel I should say something profound and touching to compel everyone to continue the activist work that was so important to me. But my only advice is to be kind. Many people were kind and took care of me these past few months. And I thank them and love them for keeping my heart warm and my house full of flowers.

“I have read and heard that people worry about being forgotten after they die, and that’s true for me, too. A friend once wrote that I was a perfect combination of rage, poetry, and humor. That was my favorite way anyone had described me. If people remembered me that way, I’d be satisfied. The way I describe myself is this: I am an incurable lesbian feminist who for the past fifteen years has been and forevermore will be ‘dancing along in the madness’ with my sisters everywhere.”

Written by Johnni Freeborn