Printed on the Front Page of the Sacramento Bee today:
Clarice Luther's roots run deep in this quiet, leafy stretch of east Sacramento.
She bought her 39th Street home in 1947 for $6,800. She raised 12 kids in the home and cultivated a lush garden of sunflowers, cosmos and fruit trees that became a neighborhood treasure.
Schoolchildren still call her the "flower lady," because she offers seeds and plants to passers-by, provided they listen to stories about her travels.
But now Luther, a spry 89, worries about her "little paradise" being uprooted.
Mercy General Hospital, a fixture along J Street since 1925, wants to build a new cardiac center to serve the region's growing population.
To make room for it, the hospital plans to relocate a Catholic primary school -- Sacred Heart Parish School -- and tear down 17 apartment units and homes, some a century old.
Everyone in the neighborhood has agreed to sell their property, many for big bucks. Everyone except Clarice Luther, that is. She's not going anywhere.
"It's not about money," she said on a recent afternoon, her arms folded over the kitchen table that has served as a family gathering place for 60 years. "This is our home. We live here. We're not in somebody's way."
read the rest http://s167.photobucket.com/albums/u133/La_Fourmi_Rouge/852%2039th%20Street/">photographs
I posted this about a year ago:
Catholic Healthcare West is an enormous corporation with assets in the many billions of dollars. They run an operation in Sacramento (East Sac - a fine neighborhood) called Mercy General Hospital. All of my brothers and sisters were born there, and my mother worked there for 20 years as an RN, and 10 years as a chaplain of pastoral care (hospice).
She has lived on 39th Street for 60 years, across the street from the school and the hospital, down the street from the church, tending to her garden, her 11 children, 38 grandchildren, 8 great-grandchildren, and her countless genuine friends cast upon the winds of 7 continents.
People walk from all corners of the neighborhood just to view her fragrant, delightful garden in its riotous glory, and perhaps catch a glimpse of her as she moves the water-hose or kneels to nurture a small living thing. Often she is near enough to the passer-by to share a word or two, but most often she is by herself, singing softly her praises to god and her songs of life in all its infinite mystery.
The parish priest visited my mother, and informed her that the church had made a deal with the corporation to move the school across the street onto her property and the surrounding area, so that the hospital would have room to expand operations and build a parking lot.
The interested parties would like her very much to go away. "Someone will come to you with an offer," he said, and she replied "Don't bother." She also took the time to reiterate to the priest the history of relations between CHW/MGH and the neighborhood going back 60 years. She told how they have broken every agreement they have ever made to the neighbors, driven scores of families to leave and countless widows to tears, relentlessly acquiring acres of property in the heart of our beloved East Sac. I know those old women cried because they did so on my mother's shoulder.
Mom is a died-in-the wool farm girl, raised on work and prayer, and began "riding fence" when she was eight years old. An RN, she is a WWII veteran and a charter member of WIMSA (Women in Military Service to America), which memorial comprises the magnificent entry to Arlington National Cemetery. She is heart and soul an Acadian of the old school, driven only by the love and faith of that ancient tribe which found these shores nearly 3 centuries ago. Although slight of stature, she is not a woman to be trifled with by corporations or denominations of any ilk, and she will not be moved.
John Dryden said "Beware the fury of a patient man." My mother is a fighter and she is ready for an epic battle, so if you-all want to see the grand scheme of things writ small, look here, as one 90 year-old woman faces down a corporation with the temerity to make bishops and monsignors its apologists and water-carriers.
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