By Dawn De Busk
This school year, Windham Primary School instructor Cheryl Atherton is teaching in the same kindergarten classroom where her long-time friend Dana Plummer once taught.
Plummer died from breast cancer in November 2002; and Atherton said almost daily she finds pleasant memories of Plummer still alive in that classroom.
On Sunday, with about 30 other volunteers who were planting pink tulip bulbs in the four islands of the rotary, Atherton said she felt the presence of her friend and former co-worker. “I was thinking of Dana, knowing she’s smiling now and saying, ‘Way to go,’ ” she said.
“I knew I wanted to be part of today,” said Atherton, sporting a pink-and-brown baseball cap on her head and black gardening shoes on her feet, and holding a dirt-covered metal bulb planter.
The volunteers who placed tulip bulbs in the cold earth were embarking on planting the first Windham Hope Gardens on the morning of Oct. 19 as a crisp white moonrise traveled across an azure sky and traffic continued to rumble around the rotary.
Dana Plummer’s daughter, Sarah Elliott, envisions the gardens as a way of creating cancer prevention awareness in the community, but also as a way to honor those people whose lives have been cut short by cancer and those people who’ve survived a diagnosis of cancer.
Elliott spearheaded the project this summer, selling pink tulip bulbs with part of the proceeds going toward women’s cancer research. The group sold 2,000 pink tulip bulbs, enough to create gardens of 500 pink tulips in each of the islands, or heater strips,
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of the rotary. Since the tulips finish blooming in the early spring, the town will continue to plant in the rotary other flowers that grow during the summer, Elliott said.
The Windham Hope Gardens project will continue to take orders for bulbs for future gardens, and Elliot has an eye on spots near the Windham Library, the Historical Society building, and the Windham Primary School – where her mother taught kindergarten, she said.
The group will be raising money at a booth at the Annual Crafts Fair Nov. 8 and 9 at the Windham High School, she said, and she’s accepting donations of crafts from community members. Another planned fundraiser will be the pre-selling of bouquets of pink tulips through Roosevelt Trail Nursery, Elliott said.
Four generations of Elliott’s family took part in the planting project: Her father, Rep. Gary Plummer, her grandmother, Helen Plummer and her daughter, Mariah, all rolled up their sleeves and got their gardening gloves dirty.
“I can’t wait for spring,” Elliott said.
Meanwhile, Heath Chase, a Windham High School freshman, was busy recording the community-minded moment – videotaping the volunteers who planted bulbs in the chilly autumn weather.
“There was a lot going on this morning. It was pretty hard to keep track of everything,” Chase said as he selected a bag of pink M&Ms from a basket offered by Mariah and her friend Ashley Perkins.
Chase said he plans to videotape the rotary once during the winter, and then regularly in the spring as the tulip blades erupt from the ground and begin to grow. He will put the images to music to create a documentary, he
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Members of Dana Plummer’s family – including her husband, Rep. Gary Plummer, her mother-in-law, Helen Plummer, her daughter, Sarah Elliott, and her granddaughter, Mariah – helped plant tulips in her memory this weekend at the rotary. Michelle Libby photo |
said.
Atherton remembers that day in the late-1980s when her friend first found out she had breast cancer.
“She decided she was going to fight it. I don’t know how you get to that point. She was a strong, strong lady,” she said. Atherton’s mother died from colon cancer, and also fought a valiant battle and was inspirational, she said.
Windham resident Kristen Gugliuzza said before arriving at the rotary that morning her 6-year-old son had asked what the late-fall planting was all about; and she found herself trying to explain.
“This garden is to create awareness of all cancers,” she said, adding it’s not only about breast cancer. It’s to raise awareness about all types of cancer that affect women, men and children, she said.
“I was thinking of my sister’s best friend, who has been living with |
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cancer for the past 15 or 20 years. Now, it’s in her lymph nodes, and the doctors haven’t given her much longer to live,” Gugliuzza said.
When cancer is mentioned, most people know someone – it might not be a family member, but it might be a friend or co-worker who has been affected by cancer, she said.
She referred to the Portland-based police officer who swung his cruiser into the rotary earlier to visit with the volunteers. While younger members of the group tested out the front seat of the cruiser, the officer told a story about the police chief’s wife in another community. She grew her hair so long it draped against her legs; and then, she donated her hair to Locks of Love, an organization that makes wigs from real hair for chemotherapy patients, he said.
The first story the law enforcement official shared with the group was about a best friend who died from cancer.
“It’s sad. You just want someone to find the cure,” Gugliuzza said.
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