GRIEGO: 2 women, 1 unflagging team

By Tina Griego, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 27, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Updated November 27, 2008 at 4:43 a.m.

Text size

Photo by Darin Mcgregor / The Rocky

Lena Archuleta and Dora Valdez, from left, pose for a photograph this week. "They are extraordinary women," their friend Esther Luben says. "They don't just have a passion for their work. They have a passion for life."

More News Columns & Blogs

More stories »

They had their own lives before they became friends. This is not to say they don't now. They do. We are not connected at the hip, they like to say.

That the two women have managed to maintain those lives, each more than 80 years in the making, is one reason they have remained close. At their age, neither is interested in friendships that demand too much, as these are often the same relationships that give too little.

But before they became friends, Dora Valdez and Lena Archuleta had family, jobs. They had husbands. Good men both. Men who lived long productive lives. In 1997, after 53 years of marriage, Dora's husband, Bernie, died. A year and a day later, Lena's husband of 55 years, Juan, passed on.

Dora and Lena had known each other for decades by then. They weren't close, but they moved in the same circles.

Bernie and Lena were among the founders of the nonprofit Latin American Research and Service Agency. By the time he died, Bernie had become an icon in the community, a seeker of equal opportunity and rights for the powerless. He who worked sugar beet fields as a boy would have buildings named after him.

Lena, too, would break barriers, becoming Denver Public Schools first Latina principal, filling a wall with honorary plaques. She, too, has a building - a school - named in her honor.

After their husbands died, the two widows found themselves at the same table at a scholarship banquet. They said to each other: There is no reason for us to attend these by ourselves. We should go with each other. They said: There is still much work to do.

And that was the beginning.

You could call this a love story. By this I do not mean the fondness the women have for each other. I mean the affection the two together have shown this city and its people, particularly children, students, elders and women. I mean, too, the affection that is returned to them.

It is impossible to mention Dora and Lena to people who know them without hearing an outpouring of admiration. They are called guiding lights, trailblazers, role models, mentors.

"They are extraordinary women," their friend Esther Luben says. "They don't just have a passion for their work. They have a passion for life. There is always just this exuberance, this generosity."

Lena and Dora were born in the 1920s to families of little means. They took the paths available to them at the time. Lena won a scholarship to the University of Denver, becoming a teacher, then an administrator. Dora went to secretarial school and raised a family, becoming her husband's partner in the fight for civil rights.

That they are fond of each other is obvious, though they do not speak of their relationship this way. They are without sentimentality in this regard. They describe their friendship as one of shared values, mutual respect and commitment to the community.

It is in the name of all these that they help raise money to buy books for elementary school children and sit on the board of a child care center in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods. They work phone trees, lobbying legislators on behalf of senior citizens. They volunteer at health fairs. They help organize fundraisers for nonprofits.

They are women of purpose, the kind of friends who watch the NewsHour on PBS and then call each other afterward to talk politics.

Dora, Lena might say, what are we going to do about this war in Iraq?

And Dora might answer: Take it easy, Lena.

Sister Alicia Cuaron, director of Bienestar Family Services at Centro San Juan Diego, calls them "the visionary and the pragmatist."

Dora is the practical one, the one who counsels: "If you encounter an obstacle in life, you deal with it and put it behind you. If you can't deal with it, if it's beyond your control, don't let it keep you awake at night."

Down-to-earth, is how Lena describes Dora. It is what she most appreciates in her friend. "She is a great source of comfort to me. I can get kind of agitated," Lena says.

"Lena wants to solve the problems of the world right now," Dora says. "She's more committed than I am. Her husband used to say that if Lena got a notice for a meeting, it was like a subpoena. She's very dedicated, and I admire her for that. She's passionate about what she believes in, and she puts so much energy into it."

"We're a good team," Lena says.

"We're usually the oldest people by 20 years wherever we go," Dora says, laughing. "I think they think we're relics. Little antiques."

"We're the matriarchs," Lena says.

They arrive together at meetings and fundraisers and banquets with such frequency that if one shows up, people look around for the other. I was at an AARP function not too long ago and spied an older woman with glasses. She came up to me, and I bent to hug her. I went by your house the other day, I said, mentioning the street. "That's Dora," she said, smiling. "I'm Lena."

I am not the first or the last person to confuse them. It is not so much that they physically resemble each other, other than Dora is 84 now and Lena is 88, and they both maintain they are shrinking. But each possesses a kind of abuela - grandma - light. It is that guiding spirit that manages to be strong but gentle, unwavering and generous.

Some people would call this love. Some call it leadership. I would call it both.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News