Brief by Central Staff
Colorado Central – December 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Jeanne Willoughby Englert, 62, a long-time occasional contributor to Colorado Central, died of a heart attack on Oct. 25 at her home in Lafayette, Colo.
She was born March 1, 1944, in Denver, and grew up in Aspen, where she married Timothy Englert in 1966. They had a son, John, and a grandson.
Jeanne attended the University of Colorado and was graduated from Fort Lewis College in Durango in 1980. While in Durango, she edited the Southern Ute Drum, the tribal newspaper, and organized opposition to the Animas-La Plata water project. She and Tim, who worked for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, moved to Lafayette in 1984.
She and another water activist, Kathleene Parker, organized a “Colorado Water Rendezvous” in Salida in the summer of 1985, a gathering of activists and trouble-makers, and Jeanne worked for years to have water conservancy district boards elected, rather than appointed.
In later years, she organized other small conferences in Salida or Poncha Springs, and was planning another when she called a week before her death.
Her contributions to Colorado Central started in August, 1995, with an article about Ute-language place names, along with her recollections of working in the tribal office as the official dictionary was being compiled. Over the years, she reviewed books, wrote letters, and submitted essays and features — one about a Wetmore woman who made herbal soaps that Jeanne enjoyed.
Ed often called her “one of my favorite trouble-makers,” and her husband, Tim, said “I wouldn’t call her a crusader, but almost. She was always with the underdog and worked against injustices.”