Saturday, March 30, 2013

I'm back!

Well, after an 8 month hiatus, I'm back online with every intention of having regular blogging up within the next two weeks! These past few months have been very rough on my family- in August all my cousins were here for a month- which was absolutely wonderful (but very time consuming!) and after that it was kits if work and helping out with my grandmother. I moved to South Carolina in February and just this past week my grandmother passed away after a 10 year battle with cancer. I can't even begin to describe what a truly amazing and determined woman she was. It may be strange, especially for a first post about being back again, but I wanted to share with you what the Buffalo News wrote about her in her obituary.


Aug. 23, 1923 – March 23, 2013


Jannetje “Janny” Hammer, who overcame crippling arthritis to become a master gardener and advocate for the handicapped, died Saturday in her Clarence Center home after a lengthy illness. She was 89.
Born Jannetje Kop in Dreibergen, the Netherlands, near Utrecht, she was one of 10 children. She worked as a medical analyst in the Netherlands for eight years after World War II.
Mrs. Hammer had her first attack of rheumatoid arthritis at age 23 after she was hit by shrapnel during the war. By age 35, she was in a wheelchair. In constant pain, her hands deformed by arthritis, she never walked again.
After living in Clarence from 1961 to 1974, she and her family returned to the Netherlands. A resident of Wassenaar, a suburb of The Hague, she lobbied tirelessly to make her community handicapped-accessible, doing sit-ins outside the inaccessible town hall during public meetings. For her efforts, she was awarded a medal of honor by the mayor.
In the Netherlands, she founded a toy library, organized transportation for people needing accessible vehicles, was a consultant with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in making airplane bathrooms accessible and was instrumental in making Dutch trains accessible to wheelchairs.
Retiring with her husband to Ithaca in 1992, she became a master gardener, master composter and master landscape designer. She gave classes in verniculture and took part in many Cornell Cooperative Extension activities.
Mrs. Hammer returned to Clarence in 1998 and became a member of several garden clubs and two book clubs. She was a volunteer at the Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens and won prizes for her plants at the Erie County Fair. Planting and working with tools adapted for her by her husband, she developed a garden that was part of the annual Clarence Center garden walks.
She was a member of the Garden Friends of Clarence, Amherst Garden Club, the Clarence Senior Center and Niagara County Cooperative Extension.


I promise less somber posts soon enough, but until then a Happy (belated) Spring!

xo

4 comments:

  1. I'm very sorry about the loss. I can relate, because my grandmother's battling cancer, too. Just know that there is a God who knows about everything you're going through, and He loves you and cares.

    Looking forward to seeing new art from you!

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    1. It was so hard watching her fight all these years, but she's accomplished so, so much and taught me so much in the process, I'm just thankful for all the many years I had with her. But between all the traveling I've done I've had a lot of time to get some art done!

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  2. I am very sorry about your loss, your grandma was an amazing woman. A very interesing article.

    I am really looking forward to new posts :)

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    1. Thank you so much, she really truly was. It was a very wonderful surprise to see it written so quickly in the news. I'm flying back home tomorrow, so hopefully then or the day after! (:

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