Elizabeth Lytle

is honored with a Medium Paver from Dorothy C. Miller.

I am proud to honor my two best friends in the Plaza of Heroines. Gigi Lytle and Dolores Smith live in Washington, D.C. They have been together as partners for 20 years. Both are smart, funny, insightful, creative, compassionate, and understanding.

Gigi, a trained investigator who now supervises others, can ask more personal questions than any one I've known, without once being offensive. When I have a problem, I know that answering Gigi's questions about it will bring me solace and insight. She is not only caring but she is passionately interested in all of life and what it has to offer. Gigi has a taste for many things, including food, and lucky are those who get to eat what she's cooked! She also loves an intellectual argument. Sometimes I think Gigi has read every book there is or at least started every book she can and does reject even the most popular book if it's not to her liking. She's also the only person I know who begins a book by reading the last page.

Dolores is one of the most encouraging people I know. When she says "It's good to hear your voice," I know she means it and I appreciate her willingness to express affection and support. A film maker, Dolores is devoted to her creative work, films about people who need to be heard and events that need to be documented. Exceedingly loyal, she is quick to champion friends and family when they need help. She is also passionately devoted to her cats! Very witty herself, Dolores laughs easily at people's jokes (mine included!) and the ridiculous vagaries of live. She can argue too, about politics, about art and movies. Like Gigi, she is analytic and complex, but at the same time open, accepting, and warm.

Both Gigi and Dolores are devoted to making this world a better place for all. They have a lived commitment to social justice, feminist values and, in particular, lesbian rights. Their relationship with each other is a model of love, compassion, cooperation, and the ability to get through the hard times and come out the other side, still together and in love.

I am grateful for the love, friendship, kindness, and compassion of these two women. They believe in my abilities and my work and encourage me when I begin to doubt myself. They have helped me through the death of my mother, the loss of my job, and very dark times when I wondered whether life was worth living. I'll never forget those lifeline midnight telephone calls. It's an honor to be counted among their friends. Their place on a paver in the Plaza of Heroines is a token of my affection and admiration for them, two heroines in my life.

Submitted by Dorothy C. Miller

December 9, 1998