By MATT CHANDLER
Business First

The Western New York legal and theater communities lost one of their own Friday as lawyer and playwright Rebecca Ritchie succumbed to her 13-year battle with breast cancer. Ritchie, 60, died at her home in Williamsville.

Ritchie had managed resource development for Lifetime Health Medical Group, a Univera Healthcare affiliate, since 1988. She also wrote one-act plays that tackled topics including breast cancer, the Holocaust and aging.

In a 2007 interview with the Buffalo Law Journal, Ritchie talked openly about her battle with breast cancer.

"There's no point in letting the disease take over all of your hope and aspirations and dreams," she said.

"Cancer is a survivor. It can find its way around anything we throw at it," she added. "So I'm very respectful of it and recognize it as a significant adversary. It changes your attitude toward everything."

Ritchie graduated from Goucher College in Baltimore with a degree in English. Though she went on to earn her law degree from the University of Pennsylvania, she never lost her passion for writing.

After moving to Buffalo, her husband's hometown, Ritchie left the law behind to raise a family, and took up freelance writing. As a stay-at-home mom, she wrote for The Buffalo News and for health publications such as Geriatric Nurse Practitioner and Pharmacology News.

Ritchie was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1996.

Through her plays -  which were produced not only in the Buffalo area but in Detroit, Cleveland and elsewhere - she engaged in outspoken advocacy for those battling a disease that had claimed the lives of her mother and two sisters. She wrote about breast cancer in her one-act play "How to Buy a Brassiere," and she spoke of fighting to change people's attitudes.

"The taboo in our society is a discussion of death. We'll talk about sex. We'll talk about drugs. We'll talk about war. We'll talk about anything, but we will not talk to people we love about death," she said in the 2007 interview.

Ritchie is survived by husband Stafford Ritchie, two sons, Stafford III and Thompson, and a daughter, Glynis.

A memorial service was held Monday.