Golden Threads - Christine Burton, Her life


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"I didn't start to really live until I was eighty, " remarked Christine Burton. At age ninety-three, the award-winning lesbian activist and founder of Golden Threads felt she was in her prime. "I'm glad I'm old. I'm glad I've lived this long to get my act together so that I can open up, see friendship and enjoy friends."

"Burton is everything American culture tells old people, especially old women, they can't be - from fiercely independent to romantic," claims Detroit columnist Deb Price.

Horse farmer, actress, businesswoman, college teacher and nun, Christine lived a full life. No stranger to injustice, she was incarcerated in a state mental hospital at sixty-one (not uncommon for homosexuals at that time). There she fought five long years for her release, only to begin rebuilding her life from scratch at age sixty-six. Experiencing firsthand the drastic changes of this century, Christine exemplifies a true American hero - a woman of irrepressible spirit, with the imagination and grit to turn personal humiliation into a source of comfort and joy for others.

Born August 25, 1905, in DeQueen, Arkansas, Christine was the daughter of Albeert and Omega (Pettit) Burg. She was educated at the University of Kansas, Chicago Musical College and David Mannes College of Music. In the 1960s, Christine was the executive director of the Speedwriting School of Secretarial Science in Albany, New York and owned a chain of tax offices in Carmel, New York, in the '70s. She moved to Massachusetts in 1981, and devoted herself to writing full time.

Christine was a syndicated columnist in a number of lesbian and gay papers in the U.S. and at age 80, became the founder and editor of Golden Threads, a contact quarterly, started in 1985, to end isolation and loneliness among mid-life and old lesbians. She also created the Golden Threads Celebration - held every June since 1987, in Provincetown, Massachusetts - a gathering for lesbians to connect, communicate and celebrate themselves and one another.

In November 1998, one month before she died, Christine accepted the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from SAGE (Senior Action in a Gay Environment) - an intergenerational and culturally diverse social service organization dedicated to meeting the unique needs of older lesbians and gay men - for leading a life that debunks the negative stereotypes about lesbian and gay aging.