On the back of her electric wheelchair, Audrey Benson left an entertaining compilation of messages in her wake.
"Why be normal? Be free," read one piece of paper taped near the top.
Another read, "Strong women: Live your life in such a way that when your feet hit the floor in the morning, Satan shudders and says [uh-oh] she's awake!!"
The signs spoke volumes about Benson, who was never shy about reaching out to people and speaking her mind, friends said. Living with cerebral palsy, she used her outgoing personality and quick wit to advocate for people with disabilities and educate everyone around her, they said.
She died Feb. 20 after falling ill from pneumonia. She was 76.
"She was a dynamic, passionate woman," said the Rev. Don Portwood, pastor at Lyndale United Church of Christ in Minneapolis, where Benson was a member. "She said she wouldn't trade her body for anything."
Benson was raised in Jamestown, N.D., and graduated from what was then called the Crippled Children's School, now the Anne Carlsen Center. She graduated from Moorhead State in 1969. She worked in Minneapolis as a counselor at Goodwill, and later with the city. She served for a couple of years as president of the United Handicapped Federation. Her proudest advocacy issues included increasing accessibility on mass transit and in the skyways of downtown Minneapolis.
In the early 1980s, Benson was a member of the Minneapolis Advisory Committee on People With Disabilities, which worked to make skyways accessible, former city staffer Billy Binder recalled. The committee "invited City Council members to blindfold themselves and sit in a wheelchair for mobility and visual impairment, then took them to this section of the skyway system and asked them to cope with it," Binder said. One council member got upset when he reached a spot where there were stairs. The city worked with the property owner to get a lift installed.
