Basket Case holds crafts show

Shamrocks and leprechauns and plenty of wearin’ o’ the green were evident at the annual St. Patrick’s Day tea and bazaar organized by the St. Mary’s and St. Cecilia’s Catholic Women’s League. 

The popular event was held at the Morrisburg Legion on Saturday, March 17, with close to 40 volunteers coming out to help.

Perfect spring weather brought many people out to enjoy shopping  as well as a home made lunch.

“We had plenty of baked goods for sale,” said CWL president Trudi McGinn, “as well as jams, jellies, candies and crafts for people to enjoy. Our plants table was popular with all this spring weather. We also offered many door prizes for visitors.”

The tea and bazaar, which has been around for well over 30 years, is a major fund raiser for the two parishes. 

“The money we bring in goes to lots of different things,” McGinn explained. 

“We support three higher education bursaries for local students. We also supply flowers to both our churches. Area charities like the Christmas Exchange are assisted by the CWL. The funds also help to support a family in India.”

Also on hand for the bazaar were members of the Knights of Columbus, who were offering raffle tickets on new vehicles in order to raise funds for the Arthritis Society.

Last year over 300 people came out to the bazaar, and organizers were hoping for a good crowd in 2012.

[…]

“Dr. Carmichael put me up for 10 minutes of daily exercise. I haven’t been on exercise since 1942, eight years ago, so it will certainly be strange walking down the street again. I am very happy. This has been a great day.”

Clara Raina was 24 years old when she wrote those words on October 26, 1950, in her detailed and meticulous diaries. She entered the Royal Ottawa Sanatorium in 1939, diagnosed with tuberculosis. In 1952 she was able to leave the hospital.

Clara would see seven members of her immediate family enter the same sanatorium. She would see her father, and her brothers John and Billy, die of the deadly contagion. And she, herself, would undergo several therapies used for treating TB sixty years ago. One such treatment cost her 11 of her 24 ribs. 

Clara had “her own yardstick for measuring happiness,” said her sister, Anne Raina, author of the book, Clara’s Rib, written from the diaries and records and papers the young girl kept during her years of medical confinement. 

“Our mother taught us that “every single day has something beautiful in it,” Raina told the Leader. “Some days you have to look harder to find it, but always look. Clara’s story is one of hope, humour and strong faith.”

Anne Raina is presenting  book talks based on Clara’s Rib, on Monday, October 15, at 7:30 p.m. at the Lost Villages, and on Thursday, October 18, at 2 p.m., at the Morrisburg Public Library.

Clara’s diaries paint a picture of the nature of the disease of tuberculosis, its treatments (“Some seem barbaric by our modern standards,” Anne Raina said, “but doctors were not trying to be cruel. They were doing their best with the knowledge available at the time.”), and TB’s affects on families and on the sufferers themselves. 

“Clara persevered,” Anne Raina said. “She found humour and hope. Readers of all ages, will, I think, be drawn into Clara’s life.” 

Anne Raina was entrusted by her sister with the diaries and a manuscript Clara had written just before her death. “I always felt that this was a story that needed to be told,” the author explained. 

Clara’s Rib, as Peter Jessamine, MD, son of the former superintendant of the Royal Ottawa Sanatorium put it, concerns a woman whose life “is truly a miracle and an inspiration.”  

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The 750 Highway 401 overpass at Morrisburg will be dedicated as the Cst. Ronald Pitt Memorial Bridge, now that the application to the Ministry of the Transportation that allows for the naming of bridges on […]