Rena Egan “ate, slept and breathed politics,” specifically Republican politics, said her daughter, Susan Menhusen.
Egan, who lived in Pueblo for years, didn’t like all Republicans and had friends in the Democratic Party, but if she ever voted for a Democrat, she never told anyone, said a longtime friend, Frances Mathews of Pueblo.
Egan was 83 when she died May 5 in a Colorado Springs care center.
A service is planned at 1 p.m. Friday at Ascension Episcopal Church in Pueblo.
“We used to laugh that we could have the Pueblo Republican convention in a phone booth,” said Mathews, recalling the days when Democrats were an overwhelming majority in Pueblo.
“We were political junkies. After politics, everything else seemed boring,” she said.
Egan made two unsuccessful runs for the state legislature and was a delegate to the 1968 Republican National Convention.
But most of the time, her work was local.
She encouraged people to run for office, pounded the pavement and knocked on doors for Republicans. And she roped in others to do the same, said her sister, Lorraine Neighbours of Pueblo.
Neighbours said her sister was a “Reaganite, who loved Bush II” (George W. Bush). “I walked many a street,” she said. “She pushed me into it.”
Egan held certain ideals and believed her party held the same ones. “But she wasn’t stupid about it,” said Menhusen, who lives in Colorado Springs. If the candidate didn’t fit those ideals, she didn’t work for that person.”
One Republican who didn’t make the cut was Richard Nixon. Egan told The Pueblo Chieftain in an interview that she cried when Nixon won the nomination.
“She was very no-nonsense,” said her daughter.
Egan and Mathews founded the local chapter of the Pachyderms, a club for male Republicans. Mathews said they figured the men weren’t as organized as they were, so for years Egan was the program director, bringing in Republican and Democratic speakers. Egan was also program manager for the Steel City Republican Women’s Club.
Rena Weiler was born in New York City on Sept. 14, 1923. She moved with her family to Del Norte, earned a degree at Pueblo Junior College and later a bachelor of science degree at the same school – now Colorado State University at Pueblo.
She married Walter Egan on July 25, 1940, in Monte Vista. They moved to Pueblo in 1940. He died in 1995.
She worked for many years as a medical technologist and as an assistant for veterinarians.
Egan loved animals and always had at least a handful of dogs and cats.
In addition to her daughter and sister, she is survived by her son, Bernard Egan of Golden; four grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
