Friends, peers remember advocate

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Friends, peers remember advocate

Judith Aitken co-founded Women’s Resource Center
Aitken, Judith Burrus
Aitken

Friends, peers remember advocate

Aitken, Judith Burrus
Aitken
Memorial service

A memorial gathering for Judith Burrus Aitken will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. Friday, March 14, 2014, in the lounge at the DoubleTree Hotel.
Mrs. Aitken was born in October 1923 and grew up in Wichita, Kan.
In 1949, she married Robert Ramsay Aitken, in Wichita. His work took them to Europe, where they lived in Rome and Brussels. Mrs. Aitken was president of the American Women’s Club in both cities.
“While she discussed charity initiatives with Belgium’s Queen Fabiola, Robert would talk cars with an international assortment of chauffeurs in the parking lot – horsepower being a universal language,” their daughter Lee Aitken wrote. “It was all a grand adventure.”
In 1992, Mrs. Aitken traveled to Bulgaria to help expedite daughter Lee’s adoption of a baby.
“In two weeks alone in Sofia, she stormed the ministries on behalf of baby Sophie and coincidentally exposed the American adoption lawyer as an indicted felon,” Lee wrote. “As she was leaving, the U.S. consul said, ‘Judy, I wish you could stay and deal with all these cases.’ Most families waited two years for their Bulgarian children; Sophie was home in four months.”
Mrs. Aitken was preceded in death by her husband of 63 years, Robert Ramsay Aitken, in 2011; and granddaughter Jennifer Hay Hughes.
She is survived by her daughters Constance Aitken of Durango and Janet Lee Aitken of Cambridge, Mass.; brother C. David Burrus, of Wichita; one granddaughter; one great-granddaughter; and numerous nieces and nephews.
Memorial donations may be sent to Hospice of Mercy, 1 Mercado St., Suite 270, Durango, CO 81301.

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