and she was there for us. Our hero, Navy veteran Ms. Maude DeVictor.
(First Published November 9, 1986)\
By Desson Howee
She welcomes you into her hotel room like a distracted hostess -- glad to see you but worried about the pot roast.
"I'm looking ragged and battered and pudgy," she says. She asks you to cool your heels a bit, while she adjusts. Her garment bag lies unopened on the bed. Mister Rogers is welcoming everyone to his neighborhood loudly on the unwatched television and the phone rings constantly with calls from the press.
This is an elated Maude DeVictor. The woman known for her advocacy for Vietnam veterans -- particularly over the issue of Agent Orange -- has just jetted in from Boston, where she was received by Mayor Raymond Flynn and Gov. Michael Dukakis (Flynn declared today Maude DeVictor Day). This past weekend in Washington she attended "In Service to America," a conference sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans of America.
DeVictor's frenetic activity is connected with tonight's "Unnatural Causes," a controversial NBC television drama based on her battle to establish a connection between the defoliant Agent Orange used in the war and a plethora of deaths, illnesses and physical ailments that many Vietnam veterans have suffered. A consultant on the film, she says the docudrama "accurately depicts" the circumstances of her career with the Veterans Administration's Chicago Regional Office.
"Just do the top," she says to a photographer. She points to her hips and laughs.
"Have you heard of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo?" she asks, referring to a Buddhist chant. She throws a visitor a leaflet on Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism before heading for the bathroom with a lipstick.
"This is like a victory for fat people," she says just before disappearing and lets out a cackle that threatens to vibrate the infrastructure.
When DeVictor, a benefits counselor at the VA office, filed a claim in 1977 on behalf of a Vietnam veteran who had terminal cancer, it was the beginning of what may be a lifelong mission. The veteran's widow claimed his death resulted from exposure to Agent Orange, and DeVictor -- a divorced mother raising a son -- began to discover other veterans who also believed their medical problems came from the toxin.
In 1978 Paul Reutershan, another veteran and cancer victim, filed a suit against several chemical companies. It led to a class action suit, which resulted in an out-of-court settlement in 1984 of $ 180 million for the veterans. The money has yet to be paid because of ongoing appeals.
DeVictor, 46, says she will never stop working on the Agent Orange issue. And about 14 veterans have made her promise at their deathbeds to keep up the fight, she says.
"They've cut their wrist and held it to mine. And they said, 'You have to do this no matter if they fire you. You're the only one we got.' ... They'll always be there with me, they tell me that, and they'll always protect me. I'm Buddhist, so I believe in reincarnation. I believe one person with courage can change the destiny of the world."
DeVictor says that when she started to make a case that defoliation chemicals used in Vietnam were adversely affecting many veterans, superiors from her office stifled her efforts. She claims they harassed her, told her fellow employes not to talk with her, monitored her telephone calls, demoted her and ultimately fired her as a result of her advocacy.
Her claims are vehemently denied by the Chicago veterans office. DeVictor was terminated in January 1984, "based on a charge that her conduct was unbecoming of a federal employe," said Arthur Selikoff, the regional public affairs director for the VA office in Chicago. "The termination was not related in any way to her Agent Orange activities. It rose in the cause of her union representational activities."
Details of the termination could not be made available, he said, until DeVictor signs an information release form.
Many scenes in tonight's film recreate episodes in her life exactly, DeVictor says. In one scene, Alfre Woodard (who plays DeVictor) talks to a veteran on a hospital window ledge who wants to commit suicide because his arm has been amputated. Woodard pulls out her breast prosthesis to demonstrate she is also a cancer victim. The veteran changes his mind.
"That kinda shocked him and he came back in," DeVictor wrote in the book "The Dissenters," a study of various whistle blowers compiled by John Langston Gwaltney. "I've never forgotten that experience."
DeVictor remains unsettled since her dismissal. She was a government employe for 23 years and worked for the Chicago office for 18 of them. At the time, she was known for her personal motto -- "I don't work for the VA, I work for the vets." She emphasizes it again in the hotel room. "If it's vets, I'm there."
But apart from a temporary position coordinating a veterans welcome parade for Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, she claims to have been "blacklisted" in the city as a result of her Agent Orange activities. The VA office denies that.
This year she relocated to California and says the only work she could find was a janitor's position for $ 5 an hour. "I had to talk myself into going there every night," she says with horror. DeVictor has a bachelor's degree in sociology from Roosevelt University in Chicago and two years of law school at the Illinois Institute of Technology's Kent School.
She quit the janitor's job recently, however, to work on retainer for the San Mateo County Longterm Care Unit as a "conservator for the elderly, people who have strokes, Alzheimer's."
Her main consideration in looking for a permanent job is its health benefits, she says. She had a mastectomy in 1976, went through two years of chemotherapy and needs regular medical checkups. "Your body's like a car, you know."
Conversation returns to the film.
"Everything in that story happened as documented, except where the vets are in my house. I mean, I talked to them on the telephone, but you can't have the whole movie with me in one circle talking on the phone and them in the other circle ..."
The telephone rings again.
"Oh, the San Jose Mercury-News!... I've been advertising in your newspaper. I'll die in hell before I get one in San Mateo. I'm nice," she says, "and I'm housebroken."
Maude Esther Elmore-DeVictor, 79 of San Mateo, CA passed away peacefully on Sunday, May 12, 2019.
Born March 24, 1940 in Lovejoy, Illinois, she was the birth daughter of the late Mary V. King-Glass and the adopted daughter of the late John T. Elmore and Earlie M. Elmore.
She is survived by her son Vincent DeVictor and his wife Monica of San Mateo, CA
A Navy veteran, she went on to careers in the U.S. Postal Service, the Veteran's Administration, San Mateo County Deputy Public Guardian, Drug Reha bilitation Counselor, Investigator for the Chicago Dept. of Child and Family Services and finally working 30 years for the U.S. Census Bureau, up until the onset of her illness.
Known as the "Mother of Agent Orange", when employed as a Veteran's Benefits Counselor for the V.A. in Chicago, she investigated and made public the link between the use of the defoliant Agent Orange in the Vietnam War and its effect on the veterans that served there. This resulted in forcing the V.A. into changing its policies to include exposure to Agent Orange as a service related illness/disability. She received many accolades for her courageous and determined actions, including the American Legion Unsung Heroine Award. In 1986 the movie "Unnatural Causes" starring John Ritter and Alfre Woodard debuted, chronicling these events of her life.
Guided by her Buddhist faith and always an activist, Maude volunteered for many community programs throughout her life. Her favorites included, U.N. Election Observer in Nicaragua, Library Commissioner for the City of Richmond, CA, a reading mentor for disadvantaged children and election poll worker.
Her lists of accomplishments were not ones that necessarily benefited her in this lifetime but they were ones that benefited her community and the world.
Published by San Francisco Chronicle
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