| Mom
passed away on October 26, 1998, in the palliative care area of St.
Mary's Hospital. We feel her final days were enhanced by the wonderful
care she received on the 5th floor. As family of a patient, we very much
appreciated this beautiful facility that catered to Mom's needs, as well
as providing comfortable surroundings for the many families that are
facing a difficult journey.
In her final week, Mom mentioned to us
that she would like to have a painting donated to the hospital in her
name.
On a recent visit with my sister,
Barbara, in San Antonio, TX, she and I had the opportunity to
collaborate on a painting. After much thought and discussion, we chose
to paint the well-known growth of trilliums that springs up each May at
the base of two white birches just outside our former family cottage at
Sauble Beach.
Mom always had an appreciation of flowers
and nature, and these trilliums were one of her favourite delights when
making her spring excursion to Sauble. Mom's enjoyment of these
wildflowers; the many memories associated with them; the cottage; the
singsongs around frequent campfires; card games and so much more invokes
a multitude of memories and brings us full circle back to our mother.
You can see why this was such a natural choice of subject matter for us!
Barb and I took numerous trips down
memory lane as we painted. The spring of 1973, Mom, Jack and I with
seven-month old Scott, made the spring cleaning trek to Sauble. The lake
was much higher than previous years, but we could still drive along the
beach. In some places there was barely a car-width between the sand
dunes and water.
Barb reminisced from another trip about
Mom's excitement in the car, while driving to Sauble, wondering how she
would find her trilliums. Would they be in bloom, or not yet ready to
open? How much bigger could the stand of trilliums have grown?
Florence Paleczny Loughran, 1981
As you can see from this picture of Mom,
taken in 1981, beside the very small original grouping of trilliums she
showed a definite pride and joy in them. To see that small display and
now this huge bountiful bouquet that grew with us as our families all
grew and enjoyed the cottage at 1285 Sauble Falls Road -- you just know
there had to be many memories in the interim! |
We are very pleased
with this first collaboration of ours. It was not only a very big project,
with a limit of time before Barb started her classes and I left to go
home, but a challenging one as well! Once I completed the 30 x 22-inch
drawing and transferred it on to the 300-pound water-colour paper, Barb
and I rotated working on the piece.
I started by painting the flowers and did
36 in all. We worked in shifts, with Barb filling in with the leaves and
foreground. She preferred the early morning and I was often painting in
the evening and after everyone else was asleep. Barb did a magnificent job
capturing the peeling bark of the white birches, and I filled in the trees
in the distance.
We hope you all like this final product.
Keeping in mind the possible location of the painting, we wanted it to
have a peaceful, calming and natural ambiance to it. The fact that the
trillium is the official flower of the Province of Ontario will also
appeal to people.
Artists Betty Anne & Barb
The composition is titled: "Trilliums
at Sauble Cottage." It was done with love, and hopefully captures an
essence of the bountiful memories of our Mom.
We will donate it to the collection of St.
Mary's General Hospital Foundation on April 7, 2001, in celebration of
Florence Eva Paleczny Loughran, from her children, husband, and ALL of her
many, many family who loved her and miss her.
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