By Julia Caulfield

Wendy Brooks was a matriarch of Telluride. She was a world traveler, a lover of all people, fierce, a north star, a doer.

“My mother created everywhere she went,” says Dylan Brooks, one of Wendy’s sons. “My mother was first and foremost an advocate for children and working people who are raising children. To her, all the people of the world were one community and they should all be brought together to make art and to love each other and to do something interesting. Don’t be boring.”

Wendy Brooks passed away on March 26th at her home in Troncones, Mexico surrounded by family. She was 84 years old.

Brooks moved to Telluride in 1976. Leaving her three sons, Demian, Darius, and Dylan with their grandmother in New Jersey.

“My mom set off to look for the next place we were going to live. She drove across much of Colorado and hadn’t found her place and was heading towards New Mexico. She was driving past Placerville and a barefoot kid of ten, hitchhiked, flagged her down and asked if she would take him to town,” Dylan remembers. “She didn’t know what that meant, but thought sure, I’ll give this kid a ride. She drove into Telluride, fell in love with the quirkiness of the town and the beauty of it at once. She sent for the three of us and we moved out at the end of August 1976.”

That fall, Dylan remembers they had nowhere to live so they parked their VW van in the Telluride campground. The boys registered in school with the address “site #7, Telluride campground”.

Brooks had a can do spirit, a hard worker until the end. Salli Russell, a friend of Brooks, remembers the beginning of their friendship.

“Telluride was a very matriarchal society. If you wanted something done it was usually a woman that was going to start making that happen,” Russell says. “I was in awe of Wendy and what she had already accomplished when she moved here with three young boys.”

Brooks helped create Telluride’s Medical Center, the freestyle ski team, the Telluride Science Research Center. But, to many, she was most known for creating the Telluride Academy, starting “basically in her backyard” according to Russell.

“A place for children to play and yet, have some kind of freedom to be who they were, and to empower them to be who they wanted to be and who they could be,” says Russell.

Brooks’ belief in and passion for those children, was endless. Elaine Demas is a friend of Brooks and former director of Telluride Academy. She remembers when she started the role, asking Brooks to help make sure she knew how to do everything right.

“And she did it without hesitation. Right back in there. Every day with me. Helping me navigate hundreds of families,” remembers Demas. “She had a remarkable memory. She had every family and child in her head. Never had to looking anything up. If I had a question she could answer it at the drop of a hat. She was so generous with her time and her knowledge.”

Brooks’ legacy of adventure, gumption and joy is what current Telluride Academy executive director Jason Merritt says he hopes to continue.

“As the current stewards of Telluride Academy, I think it renews and reignites our commitment to doing the very best we can to continue to realize her vision and to do so with total humility and earnestness,” says Merritt.

While Brooks touched the lives of thousands of children, at the center of that world were her grandchildren, including Julian Brooks.

“My grandmother, Wendy Brooks, she wasn’t mine. She was everyone’s grandma,” says Julian Brooks. “The amount of people I knew personally that have reached out, is such a small sliver of the 84 years that she impacted lives. It’s incredible that a woman can do that much. Seeing her now, at rest, at peace, knowing that she left a world that was lucky to have her, it’s a beautiful thing.”

There will be a memorial service for Wendy Brooks in Telluride later this summer.

The Telluride Academy is setting up a scholarship in memory of Brooks to support children in the program.

Anyone can honor and celebrate Brooks everyday by living a life of love, creativity, adventure.