Henrietta Hay's Column

When I was the greenest freshman ever to hit C. U., one of my housemates was a senior who scared me out of my naive frosh self. In spite of that, or perhaps because of it, I admired her tremendously. She was intelligent and sophisticated and competent beyond my wildest ambition. But she was also stern when dealing with freshmen. Years later we laughed about that and became close friends.

Her name was Virginia Neal. She grew up in Meeker, and is still remembered there. She became Treasurer of the State of Colorado. She died much too young, and she is one of the few Colorado women memorialized with a stained glass window in the statehouse.

Although we didn't use the word in those days, she was an early feminist. One of the first projects to help women in Colorado bore her name. Planning for the Virginia Neal Blue Resource Centers for Colorado Women began in 1966, and the first Center opened in 1972.

For a couple of years we had a VNB Women's Center here in Grand Junction. The Board of Directors read like a Who's Who of the early women activists in this area. Its goal states, "A counseling and referral service staffed completely by volunteers -- no charge. We are women who are concerned about women as persons with special qualities and problems because they are female," and includes resources concerning education, employment, volunteerism and assistance.

As often happens with visionary programs, this one ran into a lot of conflicts, or as we call it, "progress." The VNB Women's Center was replaced by the Women's Resource Center. In 1984 that was reorganized and became the Resource Center as we know it today.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, to borrow a cliché, Dave Fishell says in his book, The Grand Heritage that "It began as a small log building on the corner of Colorado Avenue and 11th Street in 1896. Sixteen years later impressive brick building became the new St. Mary's Hospital building located next door to the old wood structure... it served as the medical center for the Grand Valley until 195l."

I remember that building well. My second son was born there, along with, I suspect, most of the baby boomers in town. The old hospital was what we might call warm and cozy. When I look at St. Mary's today, I shudder at the arrangement of that first one, but it was modern for its day and served the community well for nearly 40 years.

I had an escorted tour through the building recently and had great fun locating the areas I knew best -- as I remember them. If my memory is false, I hope someone will tell me. To the right as you entered the building back in 1947 was the labor rooms, the delivery room and the nursery. To the left were the new mothers' rooms. In the middle was the reception area. Every four hours the babies made the trek through the waiting room, germs and all, to meet their new mothers and have a snack. The scheduled feedings probably seem barbarous to today's new mothers, along with the fact that we were incarcerated for a full week. But nobody seemed to mind.

Lest you thought I had forgotten the point to all this, in 1984 the Women's Resource Center and the old St. Mary's Hospital came together. The building, which in later years had been known as the Petroleum Building was donated shortly after the bust to the newly re-organized Resource Center.

Today the Resource Center provides crisis intervention aid for hundreds of men, women and children. It provides services to people in seemingly hopeless situations and helps them find solutions to their problems. Working out of that aging building on Colorado, staff and hundreds of volunteers handle everything from domestic violence intervention to affordable housing, prenatal care access and employment training. They maintain a 24-hour emergency safe house for women and children in imminent danger. It has been calculated that their services save Mesa County taxpayers over $3 million each year by helping burdened people find solutions to their problems.

Dreams do come true. Virginia' s dream way back in 1966 of helping women to help themselves, and the red brick building on 11th and Colorado have come together. She would be very proud.