Lucretia Edward died last Wednesday night after months of failing health. I knew her name better than I knew her face, having heard her name often and seen her in person rarely. In particular, I remember the last time I saw her as she sat toward the front at one Neighborhood Council meeting. There she was, the actual person. Seeing her was as good as sighting a famous politician or movie star. Maybe better, because she was one of our own.

I never got to talk to her, but I thought of her in the same basket as other great women I knew who'd moved mountains--or prevented them from being moved.

I understand she was responsible for opening so much of Richmond's shoreline to ordinary people. She and husband Tom also managed to snatch Nicholl Knob away from developers' claws and, more recently, cleared the telecommunications boxes that once infested it. That fine hill, now relatively uncluttered, will always stand for me as a fitting monument to her.