The title of Alice Borodkin’s 2015 memoir, Caught Between The Bettys, perfectly sums up how well she knew herself and embraced the evolving cultural norms during her lifetime. Between the Bettys, Borodkin became a force for good.
And what a force she was.
Her memoir’s title is a reference to Betty Crocker, the elegant icon every housewife wanted to emulate in the 1940s and ‘50s, and to the feminist leader Betty Friedan of the 1970s. Yet, it was another branding icon, Rosie the Riveter, that made Borodkin realize she could do anything she wanted. That meant becoming a pilot, directing a battered women’s shelter, serving in the Colorado legislature for four terms, editing a newspaper and fighting the evils of human trafficking. All the while, she embraced her role as a wife, mother and grandmother.
Widowed twice, Borodkin used her first husband Howard’s surname professionally. But after his death she took her second husband Arnold’s name socially. Whatever her last name, Alice was a wonderful combination of Betty Crocker — she loved to cook — and of Betty Friedan, by whom she was inspired to work to improve the lives of women, including her own.
As the Colorado State Representative for District 10, Borodkin’s House Bill 1143 created the interagency task force on human trafficking in 2005. She was also the House sponsor of SB 201,which makes trafficking in humans a felony.
Witty and sharp as a tack, yet gentle all the same, Alice Borodkin approached the causes that were important to her with passion, diplomacy — and tenacity. She was a unique and colorful thread in the diverse fabric of our community. We admired her. We enjoyed her. We will miss her.
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