In the fall of 1995, High Peaks Elementary, our school, opened. Patsy enrolled Burke in the third grade ... She was very overdressed for our little city. Her hair was always done, and she always wore city outfits and hats. Of course I didn't know then that she was recovering from chemotherapy and that her hair was still growing back. High Peaks depended on volunteers for survival, and Patsy volunteered all the time.
Patsy was generous with her time and commitment to High Peaks. During the 1995-1996 school year, Patsy had been in charge of the science fair, in which 138 children in kindergarten through fourth grade had participated. She created an environment in which students could discuss their projects with professional scientists so that even the scientists felt their time was well spent. She found three judges to review each project. For a meteorology project, Patsy got a meteorologist, for biology, a biologist.
The Good Fairy project was one of Patsy's ideas. Instead of asking people to raise money in the usual ways ... in Good Fairy, teachers were to make a list of things they needed ... ranging in price from $3 to $200 ... Patsy then put together spreadsheets and sent the parents copies of each teacher's list. Good Fairies were designated for each class. They called families and merchants and encouraged them to look over the list ... and pick something to donate. The entire school was decorated in the fairy theme, with pink streamers hanging everywhere ... and the arrangements became very elaborate - too elaborate for some people. They would have preferred to write a check and be done with it. There were also some parents who thought that Patsy had made too big a deal of an elementary school science fair. But most people involved were dumbstruck by Patsy Ramsey's ambitious and well-executed projects.
John dressed casually, and Patsy always wore fine clothes. "When you go outside your home," she always said, "you dress up. Full makeup." In fact, she was always a little overdressed ... Patsy was put on a pedestal by her friends. Roxy Walker would always say Patsy this and Patsy that, as if there were no higher authority than Patsy's opinion. Once I had to tell her, "Patsy is just a person."
The social rules in Boulder were different from anything Patsy knew in Atlanta. In order to fit into society, you have to find your own niche in Boulder. Patsy just didn't fit into jeans. She ended up getting tight black pants with rhinestone cowboy boots.
After the house was finished, she opened it up to visitors for Boulder's annual Christmas Tour of Homes. They let anybody view any room, even the bedrooms and bathrooms. They showed people their closets. My husband, Robert, who was now their family and estate attorney, warned them, "Close off your private rooms. Keep your guests on the first floor." They didn't.
Patsy wanted to make a statement. There were extravagently decorated Christmas trees in almost every room. Everything she does is Texas-size. Patsy is most comfortable in opulence. She wants the best of the best. But that isn't a Boulder thing. Most people in the community were shocked.
One day, in '95 or '96, Nedra took me upstairs. "Judith, you've got to see this." She showed me Patsy's closet. Nearby there was a display - almost a shrine. Pictures of Miss West Virginia. Patsy in every phase of her pageant days. Lots of paraphanalia on the walls. It surprised me.
Then there was the time Nedra pulled this little cowboy outfit out of the closet.
"This is not JonBebet's." I said. "What's it for?"
"Well, Judith, we're just getting JonBenet into a few pageants."
"Why would you do something like that?"
"You know, she's not too young to get started."
"And what if JonBenet isn't willing?" I asked. "What if she says, 'I'm not going to do it!' How would you respond to that?"
"Oh, Judith, we would never consider her saying no. We would tell JonBenet, 'You must do it. You will be a Miss Pageant.' "
It was sort of eerie. A little scary. The inevitability of it - from grandmother to mother and now to daughter.
