Lee (Leisa) Sturtevant was actually someone who should be mourned on this site, as she was a major figure in the California Democratic party. Until she retired from paid work (at 88) she served as a policy advisor for the office of Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager. She has also worked on the staffs of U.S. Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Mike Honda, Supervisor Blanca Alvarado, state Sen. Dan McCorquodale, and Assemblymember Manny Diaz. She was also a staffer for Assemblymember Beall when he served as a Santa Clara County supervisor.
Oh wait, I forgot she ran Leona Egeland's campaign for Ca Assembly when Leona became the only woman to hold the office at that time.
More below the fold...
She died at 91, but was active in politics up until just a few months ago, assisting a candidate for San Jose city council at 90. In California, we've a system for funding and providing care for the disabled that revolves around regional centers. In her 80s she joined the board of her local regional center (The San Andreas Region) where she often attended meetings via Skype. She was the Treasurer of Democratic Activists for Women Now (DAWN) (she's the very shortest in the picture on their homepage) for many years
and kept computerized mailing lists for any number of organizations. Remember her, next time you hear someone disparage the computer skills of the elderly.
She was involved in politics at an early age, going to Los Angeles County Democratic Central Committee meetings with a mother who would later be on the platform committee of the 1960 democratic campaign, and then after college moved to union organizing. She met her husband working to organize cannery workers. Later, she moved into teaching, and one of our cherished family pictures is of her leading the teacher's strike.
A few of the many honors she's received include
Women of the year
honored on her 85th birthday
lifetime achievement Santa Clara League of Conservation Voters
Oh, and in closing, the Santa Clara Democratic Party, which had given her the Don Edwards lifetime achievement award, is announcing the 2014 Lee Sturtevant Woman Warrior Award, which pretty much sums it up her life.
She was always there for all her kids, but especially my family, and doubly especially for my disabled kids. We will miss her.
“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson