"She Died As She Lived"
Activist Ginny Winn dies while assisting woman in need

Lesbian feminist activist Ginny Winn in 2001.

        Lesbian feminist activist and low-income advocate Virginia “Ginny” Winn died on May 15, 2002 of an apparent heart attack following an incident in which she attempted to prevent the detention and arrest of a woman with two children for retail theft from the South Burlington Hannaford supermarket. Ginny was 56.
     According to friends who pieced together an account from a report filed by Hannaford security guard Michael Clark and from the police citation that was released with her effects from the hospital, Ginny saw a woman in the parking lot with two children holding a grocery cart in which none of the items had been bagged being detained by the security guard. Ginny then claimed the groceries were hers and that she would be paying for them. She pushed the cart back into the store over the objections of Clark. Clark or the store manager called the police.
     The South Burlington police cited Ginny for retail theft, as the younger woman and her children had left the vicinity. The value of the items in the basket was given as $391.83.
     At some point during the fracas, Ginny began having trouble breathing. An ambulance was called. The store was later notified that the woman they had cited for retail theft had died on the way to Fletcher Allen Hospital.
     “She was such a fiercely protective woman for women and kids and the poor,” said longtime friend Peggy Luhrs. Another longtime friend, Janet Hicks, said, “She died the way she lived, trying to help a woman in trouble.”
     Ginny Winn had been a director of Community Action, a member of the Mayor’s Council on Women (which later became the Burlington Women’s Council), and was largely responsible for the establishment of the Women in Trades ordinance in Burlington and women’s trades training programs. She helped found the Food Shelf and the Women’s Consortium for the Construction of Housing. She strongly supported the establishment and funding of the first battered women’s shelter.
     Ginny Winn’s Susan B. Anthony Award acceptance speech was dedicated to “The Women Who Aren’t Here”: women too poor to pay and the lesbian feminists who had founded Women Against Rape.
     Carol Magnus waited in vain for Ginny to arrive for their regular Thursday night dinner at the house on Marble Ave. “If you knew Ginny, you knew that she’s never late. I knew something was wrong, and that’s when I started calling the hospitals,” Magnus said.
     Magnus said, “She’s such a mentor to a lot of the younger women in town. There was no classism with Ginny. I wouldn’t have a house except for her. She made me feel like I could be something, like I wasn’t stupid.”
     Jen Mathews worked with Ginny at Community Action, an advocacy and support agency for low-income people in Burlington. “Ginny was always supportive of young lesbians. Last year we went to an Ani Defranco concert at Memorial Auditorium, and she was so inspired by the young women there, she said, ‘This is so important, do you see all these young women, they’re getting political.’”
     Ginny worked as a housing specialist at Community Action from 1985 to 1990, then as director from 1990 to 1996.
     Mathews talked to the Hannaford security guard, Michael Clark. “I guess the main thing to say is this guy was doing his job. He could never have imagined that a perfect stranger would have decided to pay for $400 worth of groceries for someone else.” Mathews said that Clark felt “awful” about how things turned out.
     According to Mathews, “women’s night” dinners, a project in which Ginny Winn was heavily involved, were held weekly with a requested donation of $2. “Different women volunteered to cook. Ginny always wanted to keep the donation to $2 so anybody could come. Just before Ginny died, we were trying to find a new space for the dinners. I’d told Ginny that if she cooked, I’d help out.”
     Guen Gifford, another Community Action colleague of Ginny’s, is trying to put the women’s night dinners together again. “The dinners were another way for Ginny to keep making connections between different generations.”
      Gifford said that the thing she would most remember about Ginny was her skills as a teacher, an advocate and a mentor. “She was so wise and insightful about how to help someone while respecting that person’s dignity.”
     A memorial service was held on May 24, 2002 at the Unitarian Universalist church in Burlington, a gathering of lesbians, feminists and poverty workers who told stories of Ginny’s warmth, caring and humor. Her ashes were scattered on her land in Walden.
     “There are so many people working on feminism and low-income advocacy now who say that Ginny is the one who helped shape their commitment and their skills” said Gifford. “She has left a legacy in a way that few people can.”

If you wish to donate to a fund to re-establish women’s night dinners please contact either Jen Mathews (862-3945) or Guen Gifford (658-8775).