Vicki Day ran the Cactus Club “with an iron hand, but nicely,” said a club member, Dr. Gerald Rainer.
“She was the heart and soul of the club,” said President Leo Boyle.
Day, who was chef and general overseer of the all-male club for 13 years, died Oct. 18 after a years-long struggle with heart problems. She was 49.
More than 150 members gathered at the downtown club Wednesday to celebrate her life. Members brought covered dishes to the event, said Marie Albert, Day’s former partner and longtime friend.
Day had a “familial” cholesterol problem that couldn’t be fixed permanently, said Rainer, a cardiologist.
She went through heart surgery and had several stents implanted to improve circulation.
Day, who was reared in a Baltimore orphanage, made a home at the Cactus Club, which was started almost 100 years ago as a place for men to eat and discuss issues of the day.
“She was a character with a capital ‘C,”‘ said member Jack Crawford, who praised her for her excellent food, such as the “fabulous crab bisque. I never had a bad meal there.”
Day started as assistant chef 14 years ago and became chef a year later.
Stories vary on where she learned to cook – maybe it was in the Navy, where she reportedly cooked for officers, or maybe it was at Denver’s Emily Griffith Opportunity School.
The club serves a set lunch to members five days a week and is open for private parties, for which Day also cooked. She reportedly never used a recipe.
She also did pretty much all the cleaning as well as fixing things, members said.
An outgoing, warm, friendly person, she could be “bossy,” members and friends said.
“She would give it right back” to anyone who was rude or demanding, Rainer said.
“She was very stubborn and wanted things a certain way, even the salt and pepper and sugar bowl,” said Claire Griffin of Denver, a friend who works at the club.
Day had plenty of opinions, “never lied to you and wouldn’t put up with prejudice,” she said.
Vicki Day was born Oct. 3, 1957, in Baltimore and was abandoned about age 2, friends said. According to stories, she and her younger brother, Steve Reuling of Monroe, Ga., were found wrapped in blankets in a dresser drawer in a warehouse.
They were taken to a Catholic orphanage, and Vicki Day ran away as a teenager. She worked as a waitress, a receptionist at a stained-glass company, as a carpenter and as an announcer for a short-lived gay radio network.
Day attempted to stay on a vegetarian diet because of her cholesterol problem, but she sometimes fell off.
“A doctor once told her, ‘Vicki, if it tastes good, spit it out,”‘ Griffin said.
Day liked to hike, write poetry and write in her journal.
She is survived by her brother.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
