WHITBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, MAY 6.1987, PAGE 7 PAGE SEVEN A few weeks ago on Easter Sunday, my mother celebrated her 77th birthday; on Tuesday she goes to jail... the Don Jail... actually, she goes every Tuesday. She is one of a small group of volunteers who tutor inmates in a variety of subjects to help upgrade their education. She began this particular "project" only a few months ago and now spends the better part of every Tuesday helping inmates in mathematies (mostly), everything from simple addition and sub- traction to high school level. The inmates receive the assistance on their own initiative and are generally eager 'and responsive. The stories of how some of them got there are at once heart-rending, tragic and an indictment of our system. (Consider the inmate who got to Grade 9 without begin able to read a word - he was fairly good in math though, he got by by having the teacher repeat the questions verbally.) Inmate tutoring is only the latest in a long series of social activist endeavours that my mother has engaged in through the years. She probably won't appreciate the title of social activist because she goes about her work in a quiet modest way with little fanfare - no picketing, no protests, just quiet helpful advice and persuasion. She talks about the people she works with, not about herself, and will probably be quite aghast when she reads this, but somebody needs to blow her horn. Through the years she has worked with prostitutes, battered women, homeless kids, geriatrics, refugees and miscellaneous other disadvantaged people. She has been a friend to the friendless, a helping hand to those in need, a willing ear to those who cry out to be heard, and an advisor to those whose lives have become an en- dless tightrope. She has no training for the role she plays, only an abiding faith in the human spirit and her own socially tolerant upbringing. At 77, most people are ready to lay back in the rocking chair and savour the remaining fruits of their retirement, but not my mother. Each year brings new projects, new challenges. After surviving in close succession about ten years ago being hit by a car and an operation for cancer (in the same week) and then being struck by lightning in her cottage and escaping with the clothes on her back from the en- suing fire, she has reason to be thankful and if she can help others she will. .She grew up on a farm near Minnedosa ·in rural Manitoba. Although her education began in a one-room schoolhouse, she was encouraged to continue to the limits of her abilities. While most women (and men for that matter) in that time and setting would have settled for the rudiments of learning, she went on to Brandon College and then came to Toronto at the height of the-depression. Eventually, she earned a Ph. D in biochemistry at a time when women in higher education were a rarity. (In this she was pursuing a legacy which included Elizabeth Blackwell, her great-aunt (or great-great aunt - my mother has no interest in genealogy and doesn't talk about her ancestry) who was the first woman to earn a medical degree in North America.) Her concern for the disadvantaged is rooted in her religion. Brought up in the prairie Baptist tradition, her Christian ideals were something to be practised seven days a week, not just on Sun- day and not just lip service either. Her scientific training led her to develop an eclecticism which responds to the needs of a modern and everchanging world. Her quest for understanding has led her to study parapsychology, religions of other cultures and many aspec- ts of the occult. Many of ber fellow Baptists find some of her beliefs downright heretical but unlike some of them she practises what she believes. I think her first "project" (beyond the church women's group) was volunteer work at a halfway house for women in downtown Toronto - mostly ex-prostitutes with alcohol and drug problems. That, as I recall, was back in the early sixties and since then she has been involved directly and indirectly with a wide range of such facilities. When she retired from teaching in the late sixties, she became involved in the meals-on-wheels at her church and over a period of years, took on more and more responsibility until with the sudden illness of a co-worker she found herself managing and coordinating the whole operation. Finding the responsibilities rather heavy, she investigated the possibilities of hiring some basic staff with the help of government grants and discovered she was running the only meals-on-wheels in all of Metro Toronto which received no gover- nment funds and ran exclusively on volunteers. Already a pen- sioner herself and unable to maintain the pace indefinitely, she un- dertook its incorporation, the lobbying for government funding and the hiring of a permanent manager. She still sits on the board and assists as a volunteer. My mother has, I think, always been a source of strength and in- spiration to the people around her and for as long as I can remem- ber her friends have called regularly and often for advice. More recently, her friends have been sending others to her - not just sim- ple sob stories but real tragedies. Such as the highly skilled but vir- tually blind typist (English, French and Braille) wbo is totally sap- ped of ail confidence; or the native woman with four children whose common-law busband comes and goes as he pleases; or the 15-year old runaway. One of the inmates she is teaching at tbe jail bas given ber a convincing tale of bis innocence and while tbe jail staff and ber co-workers tbink the man is conning ber, she maintains an open mind - it would not be the first time that tbe system failed. Openness, a ready ear, practical down-to-earth advice, sometimes blunt but constructive criticism, occasionally a roof for the night, or a few dollars to tie them over - that's all sbe offers... and a faitb in the humnan spirit. Happy Mother's Day, Mom! Copy of letter to Scott Fennell, MP Ontario Riding Dear Mr. Fennell, I was dismayed, disturbed and, quite frankly, disgusted by the form letter you sent me in answer to my request that you vote against the return of capital punishment. If you truly believe that your job as Member of Parliament is to poll the wishes of the masses in your constituency and vote accordingly, I have serious doubts as to your suitability to hold office. If this is all that is required, then I suggest we merely hold plebiscites for every issue and not bother electing representatives. Then we will have a true democracy, in other words, anarchy. You were elected on the assum- ption that you are intelligent and capable of assembling à nd studying the pertinent information and statistics available to you in your position, and arriving at a sensible, intelligent conclusion as a result of this study. I further sueest that it is your responsibility as M.P. to educate your constituents as to the facts and statistics regarding this highly emotional issue, so that they are able to base their choice on rational thinking rather than emotionalism. People might have a change of heart if they knew capital punish- ment has been proven NOT to be a deterrent to murder, that the mur- der rate has dropped quite substan- tially since capital punishment was abolished, that every country in the western world, except 33 states in the U.S.A., have abolished capital punishment; if they knew the miniscule number of released mur- derers who have ever killed again in Canada, the percentage of mur- der crimes in relation to other crimes, the percentage of murders that are family issues, crimes of passion and therefore unlikely to be repeated; etc. etc. etc. - all facts at your ready disposal. I am trying to get these statistics now, but do not know how to go about it. I have heard them, thanks to Mr. Greenspan, but unfor- tunately cannot remember the figures to substantiate my arguments.. You say you have taken three surveys on this guestion, (I would like to know where as neither myself nor anyone I have questioned in this area has been asked his opinion). I submit to you that whatever money went into the taking of those surveys would have been better spent on a mailing to your constituents detailing the fac- ts of this issues, - the facts on both sides. Then, regardless of the public's opinion, you can make your own decision based on what is best for our country, not on what will bring you the most votes. Yours sincerely, Louise B. Lubianchuk Ajax Board plans appalling To the editor: Copy of a letter to Sandra Lawson, who chairs the Durham Board of Education. Dear Ms. Lawson: I read with anger and dismay of the recently released plans of the Durham Board to expend a large sum for a new administration building. While I realize the present facilities are not ideal I cannot at all support such a move when the schools themselves are in such a dismal shape. The vast number of portables and the ôbvious lack of resources (libraries, etc.), especially at the elementary level is nothing short of appaling!! As a parent who will be .enrolling my child in your system I would like to state without hesitation that your current direc- tion is totally misguided and misplaced.'Put the money into the classrooms and schools where the children are and not in the buildings where the administrators administrate. Thank you very much. Yours truly, Bradley J. Lockner Whitby Was Sabbath abolished? l'o the editor: The enforcement of Sunday law is in opposition to the scriptures that proclaim the seventh day as the Sabbath (Exodus 20:8-11). Sunday is the first day of the week on the calendar. Constantine, the Christian Emperor, changed the Sabbath to Sunday in the Edict of Milan and the Christian Church en- forced this change at the Council of Laodicea in 364 C.E. We offer $1,000 to anyone who can prove that the Sabbath was either abolished or changed to Sunday in the scriptures. If you can't claim- this $1,000, perhaps you should reconsider your beliefs and question why people want to enfor- ce Sunday as a rest day in defiance of the Creator Yahweh's Laws (Revelation 17:6). If you would en- ter Life, keep the Commandments (Matthew 19:17). Choose Life! Choose Yahweh! Michael Lindelà uf for Yahweh's Assembly in Messiah Box 767, Armstrong, B.C. VOE 1BO Fennell letter upsets reader