INCLUDED IN THIS ISSUE
ISLAND created by local Island womenn
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SHARING INSPIRATION, MOTIVATION, HUM HUMOUR UMO OUR AND INFORMATION
TTERRILL ERRILL W WELCH ELCH create
CAROLYN C AROLYN B BURNS URNS inspire
DEBORAH D EBORAH W WICKINS ICKINS indulge
VERNICE V ERNICE SSHOSTAL HOSTAL evoke
CELEBRATING THE WOMEN OF VANCOUVER ISLAND AND GULF ISLANDS Volume I Issue 3
In This Issue
COVER
Publisher’s Note
Henderson Hill original oil painting
3 Cover Ar st 4 Terrill Welch shares how her love for art began. Every Mother Fights For Her Child Colleen Matthews has had to fight harder than most. 5 Resident People Tweaker 6 Ally Rees poses a few questions. Are You Addicted to Travel? 8 Donna Lynch shares her addiction. Women in Wine 9 Deborah Wickins swirls, sniffs and sips. Careful What You Plan 10 Elaine Lakeman shares how plans go awry. It All Makes Eco-Sense 12 Ann Baird makes the connection. I Am Not Alone 13 Emily Madill tackles our battle with guilt. Ukulapha and the Jigsaw Puzzle of Life 14 Carolyn Burns returns home. The Ebb and Flow of Confidence 16 Beth Cougler Blom shares how to ride the wave. Life Can Change ... 17 Janice Hayward and her unexpected new journey. The Gi of Learning 18 Ulla Jacobs connects the mind, body and spirit. Maintenance or Monkey 19 Linda Irvine and your ROI on romance. Musings 20 Joyce Bezusko and feeding your passion. Boomer’s Legacy Maureen Eykelenboom continues her son’s legacy. 21 Making a Difference Gifty Serbeh-Dunn shares her visit home to Ghana. 22 Cranky ... with benefits.
by Terrill Welch Do you have a favourite island photo you’d like to share? Send it to: stories@islandgals.ca and your photo may be on the next cover.
A View of Our Islands
Readers share their snapshots.
Highlands Gal
Pattie Whitehouse takes a trip down memory lane.
Betrayal
Kate Larsen picks up the pieces.
Cancer and Beyond
Terry Dance-Bennink and her journey to recovery.
Toni’s Treasures
Toni Graeme and the woes of public transit.
Spotlight
Two Island Gals shine in the spotlight.
Denman Island Gal
Sally Rae Dyck and conquering the pumpkin!
Zonta
Vernice Shostal on advancing the status of women.
So ware Duking it Out
Lin Taylor and open source software.
My Two Cents Worth
Beverley Mallette knows no strangers.
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ISLAND Look for our next issue in December! Advertise
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SHARING INSPIRATION, MOTIVATION, HUMOUR AND INFORMATION
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Volume I Issue 3 Copyright © 2011 Island Gals No portion of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. Island Gals does not endorse or represent any of the products or services in this publication. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher. Island Gals is published four times a year. Printed in Victoria, B.C., Canada by Island Blue Print Company All inquiries may be made to: info@islandgals.ca
or call us at 250-217-2388
Publisher: Johanna Socha Editor: Pattie Whitehouse
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CELEBRATING THE WOMEN OF VANCOUVER ISLAND AND GULF ISLANDS 2
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Publisher’s Note
CRANKY ... with benefits by Johanna Socha
I
’ve been feeling pretty cranky lately. In the big scheme of things, I really can’t complain. Readers are enjoying this Island Gals concoction of ours and support has been tremendous. Life overall is fairly calm, even in this storm I affectionately call my menopausal crazies, and I’m kind of relieved that the petty stuff that used to make me cranky doesn’t any more. “Sure honey, you’d prefer to have the toilet paper go over the roll instead of under? Have at it.” Maybe because of this magazine and the women I’ve met, my crankies finally seem to be falling into their proper place and directed towards the focus they should be on. I vowed that Island Gals would never mention the complete absurdity of the HST, but I’m a girl and allowed to change my mind.
Driving along the highway not too long ago, I saw sign after sign urging me to vote one way or the other. But all I could think about was just how much each one of those signs cost, and what a complete waste of tax money it was when Colleen Matthews (page 5) had to fight the fight against funding cuts for orthopedic shoes for her disabled daughter. Between you and me, I’d rather my tax dollar go towards shoes for someone who can’t function without them than pay for 13 signs along the highway. I flip the channels and watch station after station feed me information about the cost of Kim Kardashian’s wedding, or show me five-year-olds prancing around in heels and full makeup on Toddlers and Tiaras, or The Real Housewives of Beverley Hills bitching about the straps on their gowns being too tight. I’m standing in the grocery aisle and there’s Kim Kardashian again. This time she’s on the cover of five different magazines. My question? Who the hell is Kim Kardashian? I saw a program recently about singer Nelly Furtado, an Island gal who is now an international superstar. This onehour program wasn’t about her glamorous lifestyle, but how she travelled to the tiny village of Kisaruni, Kenya to be part of the opening of a school for girls — 40 girls ecstatic about the opportunity to go to school, something most teenagers here complain about.
F
unny, not one magazine in the grocery aisle put Nelly and these girls on the cover. Maybe if she were photographed stumbling drunk out of a bar she would have stood a chance. I think Paris Hilton made the cover that way. Maybe I’m cranky because the superficial influence surrounding me is so intense, it’s hard not to give in and go to the dark side, leading a life of envy and the hunt for a really good spray tan. It seems overwhelming, and I can’t help but think, “Why bother?” But sometimes all it takes is a phone call to snap me out of it and make me realize that maybe “the bother” is worth the effort. I got a phone message from Amy (and you know who you are). Amy happened to find a copy of Island Gals and enjoyed it enough to take time out of her life to find our number, reach out, connect and let me know. After much phone tag, we finally spoke. I wanted to tell Amy that her message and kind words were more than just an “Oh, you made my day” kind of call. It was a message that reassured me that maybe there really are enough of us out there who actually give a damn to, in some way, make a difference.
Thanks Amy. The picture I’ve included in this article is how I make my way around the Island. So if you see me? Please honk and wave. I may be in the midst of the crankies, and a friendly wave may snap me out of it.
And Amy, if you happen to see me? Honk twice.
Island Gals would love to hear from you! Write to us with your comments at: publisher@islandgals.ca
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3
Every mother fights for her child Colleen Matthews has had to fight harder than most
colleen and rob matthews
If you’re not known as Mrs. Bitch for the rest of your life, you’re not doing your job. Colleen Matthews heard those words as a young mother with an infant daughter. Who knew at the time that these words, spoken to her by a caring nurse in the pediatric ICU unit at Victoria General Hospital, would carry her through every battle she would have to face. And Colleen has had to face many for her daughter Melissa. In 1986, Colleen lived the fears and anxieties every new young mother experiences. Fear of the unknown; the anxiety of new motherhood. Her pregnancy was a normal one, as was delivery of a beautiful baby girl of average weight. But when Melissa was born, something was a little different. Colleen remembers that she didn’t hear Melissa cry, as she expected was the norm for newborns. Her baby was whisked away by doctors, the subject of consultations to which Colleen wasn’t privy. Colleen was told that Melissa had bilateral club feet, something that could be managed. She and her husband Rob took their newborn baby girl home to begin life as new parents. At three months, Melissa experienced her first seizure. Any new mother can relate to the panic Colleen faced. The initial diagnosis was that it “might” be epilepsy. The seizures continued,
as did the numerous trips to different doctors and hospitals, with varying results — more than 13 trips to the hospital in the first year of Melissa’s life. Finally, an answer. Melissa was diagnosed with Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome, a condition that affects many parts of the body. The major features of this disorder include a characteristic facial appearance, delayed growth and development, intellectual disability and seizures. Melissa is now 25 years old, and Colleen has had to be her advocate every step of the way. She has had to fight red tape, bureaucracy and government funding cuts, all so her daughter would be allowed the same rights and privileges that every young citizen should be entitled to. Recently, cuts were made to government funding for orthopedic shoes for Melissa and others who fall under the category of “disabled.” Colleen fought to have these funds reinstated and won, not only for her own daughter, but for others who might not be as fortunate as Melissa and have no one to advocate for them. This is only the latest of many battles Colleen has had to face, but with tenacity and a passion to defend her daughter’s and others’ rights, she keeps winning. Colleen will join Island Gals in future issues to give readers a firsthand look at this one mother’s life of advocacy. She will tell us how we can help, and what community support groups we can turn to, to lend a hand to other mothers facing similar challenges.
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Island Gals is dedicated to showcasing the vast array of fabulous light. Island Women deserving of a
Spot light
Spot
Nominate an Island Woman you feel merits her place on this page! Send us a picture of your candidate and explain why you feel this gal should shine, and who knows? She just may be in our next issue. Write to us at: stories@islandgals.ca
Andrea Jacobs-Reed by Ulla Jacobs
My daughter was an Island gal for the first 19 years of her life, until her dream of travelling was realized and she moved to The Netherlands to become a nanny for four children. It was not easy to see her go so far away, to a country where she did not speak the language to live with a family we did not know. Raised as an only child, she handled the job of caring for the family’s small children with aplomb. After spending 14 months in Holland, she decided to continue travelling and moved to the U.K. Andrea tackled many interesting jobs, each a bit more challenging than the last. When an opportunity to assist in bringing an American franchise concept to the U.K. was presented, opening 25 stores over a span of five years, she took it. She was sent to the U.S. for training and met her future husband, Scott, on Day Three in Oklahoma City. They carried on a long-distance relationship for six months, back and forth between Oklahoma City and London, until they decided being together was more important than other life situations. In February 2004, Andrea left the U.K. after living there for seven years. She spent a bit of time back on the Island before moving to Oklahoma City in March 2004. Scott and Andrea were married eight months later. She and her husband reside in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where they celebrated the birth of their first child, a son, in January 2011. A busy mom, Andrea runs her own website design business from home: All Connected Media (www.all-connected.com). She also recently incorporated the Oklahoma Center for Wellness, a registered charity and nonprofit organization. Details can be found at www.learnteachheal.org Additionally, she is the Tulsa Neighborhood director of Affiliated Women International, which is a community for women coming together to enrich, encourage and empower one another. Over the years, I have watched my daughter succeed at every endeavour. Her time in Europe taught her many things and forged lifetime bonds with some very special people. Although she is based in Tulsa now, a part of her will always be an Island Gal.
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Carol Broad (Victoria Adoptables) Carol began Victoria Adoptables in 2005 as a website, initially set up to feature dogs, cats and small animals from the CRD pound in Victoria in the hope of increasing adoptions. Gradually, other animal rescue organizations on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands added their own website links featuring animals needing homes. Currently, 18 rescue organizations post information about animals for adoption on this site. Victoria Adoptables Dog Rescue was formed in 2007. Its volunteers rescue stray and abandoned dogs from pounds and small communities. Vancouver Island dogs are their priority, but they don’t believe animal rescue stops at the border. They assist however they can as funds and availability of foster homes permit. The mandate of Victoria Adoptables is to provide stray and abandoned dogs with veterinary care, spaying or neutering, healthy food and caring foster homes until they are adopted. Victoria Adoptables Dog Rescue is a nonprofit organization. Volunteers foster dogs in their own homes. For more information or to see how you can help, visit: www.victoriaadoptables.com
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CAREFUL WHAT YOU PLAN, none of it may go the way you think! by Elaine Lakeman I often wonder how I ended up owning and running a heating and air conditioning business with my husband. My desire to entertain came to me naturally when I was little, and I longed to be a movie star like Ann Margret. I was 13 when the Age of Aquarius arrived. Soon, my life was spiralling out of control.
I
was 13 and life in general was I wanted to experience it all, but was school entrance when I saw a big poster getting crazier all the time. We overwhelmed at the same time, with the a student had put up on the window with experienced the musical event of sense of things being out of control. I was the words, “Long live Jimi Hendrix.” It Woodstock via television. Watching still very young and uncomfortable, but I hurt. Everyone who was anyone in rock film clips today you might get the feel tried to be “cool.” and roll seemed to be dying — fun times of the times, but to watch it then on the were not so fun anymore. evening news was beyond words. The times now were a I wanted to To us, this had never happened experience it all, change from the norm I I made it through high school, but it before, this new age hippy thing. but was overwhelmed had grown up with, but that was not my favourite life experience. It It was really odd and scared the norm was not so normal was for some people, who did well with at the same time hell out of my parents and their either. If you really think socializing and gaining lifelong friends friends. I wasn’t sure what to think, but I about how things were back in the Sixties, and hold great memories of that time. I knew something was changing. I’m not sure normal really exists on this have heard it was a wonderful experience, planet. In Grade 2 we were trying to grasp but I can’t recall it that way. I went to The first rock band I saw live was Three the concept that huge bombs could obliterate three high schools and felt out of place. Dog Night. I was so excited! During the us because Russia had gotten into bed with I wished there were somewhere else I show, one of the girls I went to school Cuba and planned on could be. There was no with suddenly appeared on the stage and My girlfriend turned out placing their rockets on prom for me. I was glad started dancing in a really weird fashion to not be much of a friend. Cuba’s soil, pointed right to get out of school early, She was obviously “lost” and was at our neighbours next since I had been on the When I was told to leave, quickly escorted off. door. Practising air raid accelerated program. I she looked the other way. Drugs had arrived big time. Going to a protocol sent me into a got a job right away, paid concert at the Edmonton Gardens, as it worried frenzy. We lived by the airport, so my mother rent and wondered how to start was called then, meant you were going in my naïveté, I imagined any plane flying working on being famous. to a really big event/party. The music over our house could be the enemy. I’d run A girl I worked with and became close was so loud your chest pounded from home crying and hide under my bed. to suggested we take off to Hawaii. We the force of the speakers as you walked During this time I came home from school had no real plan. I was 19 and looking into the arena. The smell of pot and to fi nd my mother ironing in front of the for adventure, so quitting my well-paying hashish permeated the air. They were TV with an odd expression on her face. but dull job as a telephone operator was a passed along to everyone, as was the President Kennedy had been assassinated. no-brainer for me (although I’m sure my smuggled-in cheap wine, like Apple Jack I thought we were all going to die! Next mom thought otherwise). or Baby Duck, or the sweet and sickly were Martin Luther King liquor Southern Comfort Shortly after our arrival in Lahina, Maui, and Bobby Kennedy. It was (Janis Joplin’s favorite). my girlfriend found herself a boyfriend. a very bad time in the world. The crowd dressed in wild, Within a week, at her suggestion, we tie-dyed colours and wore dumped the apartment we were renting In October 1970, my favorite beads and feathers in their singer Janis Joplin died. Jimi and moved in with him. Being younger and hair, of which there was a Hendrix died a month before. quite daft, I just followed along. They slept lot! Many wore ultra-cool They were young, only in his bedroom, generously giving me the sheepskin and leather vests 27 and 28. I was in Grade old, dusty couch in the living room, which with fringes. 11 and walking up to the I shared with a giant black spider I called
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Fred, who sat on the wall and stared at me till I went to sleep. Her boyfriend, Rusty, was an artist-rock concert promoter– bullshitter type guy (drug dealer?). His old, funky house was on a back street in old-town Lahina. This was 1974, and some construction was coming that would change the town forever, but at that time it was just an old whaling village, with a few nice shops and some hotels popping up here and there outside of town.
O
ne day Rusty announced he was taking us to some big rock show in Honolulu he said he was part promoter of (drug dealing?). Next thing I knew I was flying around the islands of Molokai and Lanai on a tiny private plane, feeling all the bumps of the Pacific breezes, getting a bit woozy, yet enjoying the breathtaking beauty of the islands below. We eventually landed on a small private air strip somewhere around Honolulu. We were picked up by a big black limo and driven inside the famous Diamond Head crater for a massive rock concert called the Sunshine Festival. We drove past the crowds right to the back stage, where we were given backstage passes. I began feeling terrified and euphorically starstruck all at once! Were my eyes seeing this? Was this real? Big, bearded security guys sitting on bikes protected the acts and backstage area.
jeans, I found I had been abandoned by my lousy friend and her boyfriend. I tried to find a spot to hide in when, for reasons I shall never know, Richie Havens took my hand and brought me on stage with him. He asked me to sit to the side on a speaker and watch him play. Am I dreaming? I looked out at the hundreds of people below inside this monstrous crater, grooving to his music in the bright, beautiful sunlight of Hawaii. It was a moment I’ll never forget. He was very sweet and soulful, and it felt like he was singing just to me. Did he see how out of place I was and just want to get me away from the insanity? I’m left with that puzzle forever. After his show, he gave me a big smile and was gone.
L
ater on with much panic, I finally found my girlfriend and Rusty, only to realize we were not going back to the Island of Maui that night. It would be a long night of heavy partying that I couldn’t escape from. I wasn’t comfortable, but my girlfriend was happy and that was all that mattered.
Back in Lahina, I couldn’t get along with my girlfriend’s new love, who thought that since I was living in his house (and I wandered around and peeked into one sleeping with his goddamn spider), I VIP tent where there were drugs literally should “entertain” his famous male laid out on a long table, along musician guests, I began feeling terrifi ed with fancy desserts, exotic who seemed to keep Hawaiian fruits, all kinds showing up out of and euphorically of food, tons of liquor and starstruck all at once! the woodwork. I was champagne. There were naïve, but certainly Were my eyes seeing this? not that stupid, and outrageously beautiful women Was this real? everywhere. Famous acts like got really mad and Doctor Hook, Quicksilver stood my ground. He Messenger Service, Joe Walsh and others showed me the door. I walked out into the were there that day. I’m sure I was in cool, tropical evening breeze with my old, shock! I kept my head down and tried to beat-up suitcase (the one my mom came be as invisible as I felt. I remember the to Canada with). I left with my dignity great blues performer Richie Havens, and wondered what to do next. who had become famous performing at My girlfriend turned out to not be much Woodstock in 1968, was there. of a friend. When I was told to leave, Looking around, staring at all the musicians and their gorgeous women, who had wild, flowing hair and wore really tiny bathing suit tops and bell bottom
she looked the other way. I found myself wandering the small Hawaiian town looking for a place to live. I hung out for a while with some friends in their nice
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apartment and waitressed a bit at a burger joint to pay my way. Realizing this was not going to go anywhere, as much as I loved the tropics, I got myself back to Canada. There are many details I could get into about my experiences in those earlier times during and after high school until I went to university at the age of 20, but then I wouldn’t want this article released until I’m on the wrong side of the lawn. I think it’s fair to say I experienced many things that I would change if I could, but that’s not how life is, is it? I took many risks and experienced life as it came at me, thinking it wise at the time not to conform to what you think you’re supposed to do, or what others think you’re supposed to do. I got lost along the way a few times and got myself in and out of a lot of trouble. But I learned a lot about people and my own strength.
B
ack home in Edmonton, I bravely decided to audition for the dance program at Grant MacEwan University. I was accepted and stayed for three years, including one year in the musical theatre program they were just developing. It was a fabulous time in my life. I took three dance classes a day, choreography, acting lessons and singing lessons, although I would get all choked up, I was so nervous and insecure. (It’s one thing to sing into your hair brush, but completely different to perform live!) We put on a big show at the end of each year for the general public.
I discovered I loved performing more than anything in the world, and at 23 it was time to get out of Edmonton again and find my pot of gold. to be continued 11
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SHARING INSPIRATION, MOTIVATION, HUMOUR AND INFORMATION
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CELEBRATING AND CONNECTING THE WOMEN OF VANCOUVER ISLAND AND BEYOND