The Windsor Star from Windsor, Ontario, Canada • 52

wwmw D6 Nf' li lw Kih $'i; Wn sfc. 5 ns fW 3 T.S. 1 II fel THE WINDSOR STAR, THURSDAY, DEC. 31, 1981 Xr1 l-vWv- j- 4 1 le install Looking back at past year tride 9 By Canadian Press What to do on a snowy winter day between Christmas and New Year's? I gave away my skates and the toboggan is broken, so I dont have to indulge in sporty things. Its too soon to put away the decorations and I dont feel like being creative with leftover turkey.

I could join the half-price sale' gang at the mall, or I could settle BARBARA FORD FOR SENIORS $73,716 compensation to six women plus offer them skilled trades. THE SAME MONTH, an Ottawa woman fired from her summer job at Eldorado Nuclear Ltd. in Quebec because of sex discrimination is awarded $9,500. The Canadian Association of University Teachers in Ottawa drafts guidelines to stop sexual harrassment of students. In June, a report reveals womens wages are slowly catching up to their male counterparts.

In 1981 women earned 63.3 per cent of what their male counterparts made; up from 62 per cent in 1977. Prediction: Women would reach equality in pay by the year 20 1 7. IN JULY, the Presbyterian Church in Canada agreed to allow women to become ministers, and a provincial arbitration board in Toronto agreed serving coffee was not part of a secretarys job. Also in July, two rookie female MPPs become the oddball members of the mens political club when elected. Susan Fish, from the Roscdale riding of Toronto, gets the conservative vote, and Sheila Copps of Hamilton is elected Liberal.

Copps also becomes the first woman to run for leadership of the provincial Liberal party. In October, Pearl McGonigal is appointed the first female lieutenant-governor of Manitoba. And in November womens groups say they feel victorious after the full sexual-equlaity clause is reinstated in the constitituion. In December they fight to make sure it stays that way. Also in February: An Ontario equal rights regulation results in salary increases and backpay settlements for female civil servants, giving them $284,000 over a 1 0-month period.

IN MARCH, six of the 56 women candidates running are elected to the Ontario legislature, and the three major, federal political parties agree the Charter of Rights should guarantee womens equality." Lucie Pepin is appointed the interim president of the federal Advisory Council on the Status of Women, and a conference on women and aging in Toronto is told the fight for a fair pension scheme looms as one of the toughest fights in the womens movement. The same month, a Labor Ministry study of women in the workplace shows women will make up half the.workforce by the year 2000. And Dr. Jennie Smillie Robertson, first female surgeon in Canada, dies in Toronto in her 90s. IN APRIL, Manitoba becomes the only province to provide a free crown counsel for parents to enforce custody claims rom other provinces and countries once a child is located there.

And the Canadian Human Rights Commission reveals that women and handicapped persons have lodged the most complaints. Also in April, its announced all Ontario doctors will be paid by the province for examining rape victims in police investigations of sexual assaults. Helen Allen, author of Todays Child, is honored as Spiritual Mother of the Year in a Toronto ceremony. In May, CN Railway is found guilty of discrimination against women and ordered to pay WHILE WOMEN in the U.S. were fighting for the Equal Rights Ammendmcnt in 1981, Canadian women were making strides and stirring up controversies of their own.

In January, Doris Anderson resigned from her job as president of the federal Advisory Council on The Status of Women after bitter fighting with Lloyd Ax-worthy. Anderson fought to establish the councils independence from the federal government. When she lost the round, several other members also quit and demanded Axworthy resign his seat and ministry. He didnt. Also in January: The British Columbia supreme court rules B.C.

will not recognize common-law marriage under the Family Compensation Act. IN FEBRUARY the Toronto-based National Action Committee on the Status of Women opposes Axworthy and holds a conference on the Constitution. Their demands: Employment by marital status, sexual orientation and political beliefs must be added to the constitution as grounds for discrimination. That month a tribunal in Ottawa dismisses a complaint by female employees at Bell Canada regarding alleged discrimination in the appointment of management posts in a Saudi Arabia contract. And in Thunder Bay, a young boy wins an injunction to prevent his 16-year-old girlfriend from obtaining an abortion.

The girl decides to have the baby. Court victory, ER By Joy Stilley VX down under my new afghan and look over the 1 98 1 seniors columns. Good thinking. Heregoes: It was a fine year for music as seniors bands and choirs shared their talents, in many cases taking concerts to appreciative audiences in rest and nursing homes. We listened to the Senior Citizens Concert Band, heard from the new Central Seniors Band and laughed along with the Ascension Jubilee Fun Band.

PERCY BRADBURY told us about the early days of playing the organ in moving picture houses, Tom Hutchinson shared his love of miniature steam locomotives with us, and we learned a lot about oil painting from Frances Pineau and the rest of the class at Shoreline Towers, from Rosalie McDougall and from Lillian Mason, the 95-year-old artist who had a showing at All Saints Church. Lillian is also one of the stars of the recently-completed movie about local seniors, Young At Heart, that youll be reading about soon in this column. Under the guidance of Sharon Bailey, Natalie Taylor and other crafty people about town, we all enjoyed Celebration 81 youll be reading about that, too, in the new We kept in touch with weavers and quilters, apartment-dwelling gardeners who rent plots from the city, and clever craftsmen who make dolls more beautiful than you could buy. St. Clair College held another successful Gerontology Symposium and I finally met columnist Jolayne Farrell, who also writes for seniors in The Star.

It was also a pleasure getting to know Doreen Morand, the new editor of Friendship News, ho has big plans for 1982, and Mark Pfaff, the new field representative for New horizons, the federal grant program that keeps seniors activities hopping in the tri-counties. ACTIVE SENIORS kept moving to the beat, whether it was in numerous square dance clubs, ballroom dancing with Mick and Millie Peters or the toe-tapping tunes of Bill Richardson and Vern Peifer. Jan Galasso kept us informed of exercises for older people and residents at Huron Lodge enjoyed their exercise classes with Gail Hanley and Beth Clark from the University of Windsor. We also heard of an ambitious videotape program from the University of Windsor Community Law department. Wayne Herter and crew had the pleasure of seeing months of work shown on Chatham cable television, about pensions, ills and other matters concerning seniors.

UAW Retired Council kept popping into view, first with tax help for seniors, then with the popular Senior Citizens Week giant picnic and the annual, equally giant, bingo. They know what retirement is all about. So does Esther Laurie, who told us about the joys of discovering volunteer work in retirement; John Kelch spoke about the joys of early retirement as he demonstrated his skill on a trampoline and we rejoiced with Amherstburgs Golden Age Club when they finally got transportation under control with their new van. WE KEPT HEARING about the interaction between seniors and young people, none more notable than the candy-striper volunteer program at Leamingtons Sun Parlor Home, where 24 teen-age girls give about 1 ,000 hours a week in unselfish caring for others. Louise Allen has brought much insight to the Widows and Widowers Club and the Hospice of Windsor continues to grow and serve.

Laura Leather explored the early days of Hiram Walkers community around Monmouth Road and shared her findings, Ernie Urban attended a reunion of Barnardo Boys and we reminisced about the early days of the Cancer society in Windsor, King Edward School on its 75th birthday and Roseland Womens Institute, also 75 years old. We learned that hairdresser Clarence Emerson is still clipping along, and the interview with Mary Demic and her variety store brought responses from grownups who used to buy candy from her many years ago. While thumbing through my scrapbook, I noticed that the first column in 1981 started: How can it possibly be a new year already? I havent finished everything I wanted to do in 1980! It was a strange and frustrating year for too many people our hope and prayer is that 1 98 1 will be a better one for all. Things havent changed much. I still havent finished hatever it was I wanted to do in 1 980 and this year has been a heartbreaker for too many people.

Our hope and prayer continues into the New Year for basic principles of human rights. AP Newsf eatures Writer THE NAMING by President Reagan of Sandra Day OConnor as associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court was one bright spot in 1981, a year shadowed by setbacks for U.S. women. The 51 -year-old former judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals took her scat as the 102nd justice, and the first woman to serve on the nations highest tribunal in its 191-year-histo-ry.

In a year that saw no movement toward the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, so far approved by 35 states, the National Organization for Women launched a massive campaign to win the three more needed states before theJune 30, 1982, deadline. Two former first ladies, Betty Ford and Lady Bird Johnson, joined in a plea for ERA support at a rally during NOWs national convention in Washington, D.C. CONSIDERED BY feminists a setback for womens rights were rulings by the Supreme Court that divorced women have no right to share their ex-husbands military retirement pay, and that women can constitutionally be winner with 1 8-year-old Natalya Arkhipova of Moscow. A member of the Washington Ballet Company, McKerrow received the highest -honor to go to an American since the Bolshoi launched its competition in 1 969. The first Samuel H.

Scripps award was presented at a Durham, N.C., dance festival to Martha Graham-, 86-year-old modern dance choreographer. Maya Ying Lin, a Yale University architecture student, won a competition to design a national memorial to Vietnam War veterans, to be built in Washington, D.C. The 21-year old seniors entry won over 1,420 others, including those of well-known architects and sculptors. KATHY WHITWORTH, a 41 -year-old Texan, became the first woman golfer to pass the $1 million mark in career earnings when her third-place $9,500 prize money in the Womens U.S. Open boosted her 23-year professional career total to 1 ,008,469.

Pat Bradley, 30-year-old native of Massachusetts, won the Open with a record score of 279. In tennis competition, Kathy Rinaldi, at the age of 14 years and 3 months, became the youngest player to win a match in the 104-year history of Wimbledon. The Jensen Beach, ninth-grader later announced that she was turning pro. Chris Evert Lloyd won her third Wimbledon singles title, taking all seven of her matches in straight sets, the first such clean sweep by a womens singles champion at Wimbledon since Billie Jean King did it in 1 967. Francie Larricu, 28, set a world indoor record for the two-mile run, finishing in 9:38.1 and breaking her own 1974 mark of 9:39.4, in the U.S.A.

Mobil Indoor Championship Track meet at Madison Square Garden. DEATI IS DURING the year included: Beulah Bondi, 92, who played numerous mother roles during her 50-year movie career; Adelc Astaire, 83, dancer who was her brother Treds partner in the 1920s; Ella Grasso, 61, governor of Connecticut, the first woman in. the United States to be elected governor in her own right. Marguerite C. Oswald, 73, mother of accused President Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald; Mary Peabody, 89, prominent civil rights and antiwar activist of the 1960s and mother of former Massachusetts Gov.

Endi-cott Peabody; Helen Steiner Rice, 80, who as the poet laureate of the greeting card indus- excluded from the draft registration and the draft. For the third time, the U.S. Jaycces voted to bar women (in Canada, female groups were formed across the country), but the Explorers Club, which for three-quarters of a century excluded women voted 753 to 61 8 to admit them. And (he Headmasters Association, breaking a tradition of nearly nine decades, voted to change its bylaws to admit women, ho are in charge of 1 6 per cent of the United States more than 800 private schools. ON THE BRIGHTER side of the years events, Jeane Kirkpatrick, 53-ycar-old former Georgetown University political science professor, was named the United States first woman ambassador to the United Nations.

Kathryn J. Whitmire, 35, was elected the first woman mayor of Houston, the nations fifth largest city. Eileen Anderson, 51, took office as mayor of Honolulu, the first woman to be Honolulus leader since Queen Liliuoka-lani was overthrown by American planters in 1893. Mary Anne Dolan, 34, was named editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, the first woman in the nation to become top editor of a major metropolitan newspaper. Patricia Carbine, editor-in-chief and publisher of Ms.

magazine, was elected first female chairman of the Advertising Council, made up of advertisers, agencies and the media. GRO HARLEM BRUNDTLAND, a physician, was appointed Norways first woman prime minister, and at age 41 became the youngest of her gender to run a modern government. Geneticist Dr. Barbara McClintock at the age of 79 Was recognized for her discoveries that paved the way for such advancements as gene splicing. Among the prestigious prizes: she was chosen as the MacArthur Foundations first Prize Fellow Laureate; she received the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award; and she won a $50,000 prize from Israels Wolf Foundation.

In the arts, women won honors and awards during the year. Cathleen Nesbitt, 93, was awarded a life membership in Actors Equity Association in celebration of her 70 years on the stage. BALLERINA Amanda McKerrow, 17, of Washington, D.C., won the gold prize in the junior womens category of the Moscow International Ballet Competition, named joint JEANE KIRKPATRICK -jar -t a A 7 try had written inspirational verse since 1 93 1 Rosa Ponsellc, 84, who made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in 191 8 opposite Enri-a' co Caruso; the Rev. Jeannette R. Piccard, 86 a pioneering high altitude balloonist and one ofi-" the first American women to be ordained an.r Episcopal priest; Luz Coral de Villa, 89, wid-v ow of Mexicos revolutionary general, co Pancho Villa.

BESSIE SEELY, 100, the first woman ad- v-mitted to the New York Bar Association and first female graduate of the Syracuse 1 of Law; Mary Lou Williams, 71, ar- -ranger and composer who contributed to every aspect of jazz; Anita Loos, 93, playwright and novelist best known for book, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Vera Ellen, 55, musical star of 40s and 50s -films; Gloria Qrahame, 55, actress who won an 1 Oscar for her role in The Bgd and the Beauti- -ful; Patsy Kelly, 71, wisecracking comedienne; Lotte Lenya, 83, who starred in The Threepenny Opera composed by her htis-bana, Kurt Weill; Natalie Wood, 43, actress who began her movie career at age 4. SANDRA DAY OCONNOR Home-grown turnip or water hemlock? Difference is deadly family in Tennessee were severely poisoned when, they ate tomatoes from a tomato plant. The plant had been grafted tjn Jimsonweed roots to make it grow better. Adolescents haVc sbught out the plant for its hallucinogenic effects, and hav.

died. There are other hazards in the wild. If youre driving along California freeway, dont stop to pick the Oleander shrub. Thjs bush is used as a headlight screen on freeways. The leaves and flowers contain a digitalis-like heart drug but one leaf cart kill an adult.

Even a branch used to skewer a roast over an open fire can transfer a fatal dose to the meat. If youre hiking through the Appalachian Mountains, bewara of Mountain Laurel. Its a beautiful plant but only Indians who wanted to travel to the great beyond ate it. I Dr. Jay M.

Arena is professor of pediatrics a Duke niversity! He reports that a five-year-old girl died after eating a largo number of raw rhubarb leaves. The stalks are leaves contain oxalic acid. How about the hostesss home-grown turnips. Perhaps 'bhcij -knows how to distinguish between turnips and water But if theres any doubt in your mind, youd better say Thank you. Eating water hemlock is a bad way to start 1 982.

Happy New Year. ach, but 75 minutes later the patient was discovered semi-comatose in his office. He was rushed to the emergency department at the University of Maryland. DOCTORS WERE confused by the professors symptoms. 1 le admitted that the last two months he had suffered vague upper abdominal discomfort after eating.

This mild pain lasted about 20 minutes and he rated it to professional stress. He denied having any previous problems with food or a history of a stomach ulcer. Shortly after admission, the patient's condition deteriorated. Vomiting returned. This contained both bile and blood.

The left pupil was larger than the right. He became difficult to arouse and his blood pressure began to fall. Doctors started an intravenous solution to combat shock. Diagnosis remained elusive. The patients retching continued for another 24 hours, But gradually his condition stabilized and he was discharged on the second hospital day.

Subsequently the professor was asked for a sample of the turnips he'd eaten. Theyd come from his own garden. The Poison Control Centre at the university identified the turnip as water hemlock. WATER HEMLOCK is a member of the carrot family. The Can you politely tell your hostess youd prefer to avoid her turnips on New Years Eve? Particularly when shes just informed you she grows her own and everyone at the table is eager to taste them.

Do you -simply smile and acquiesce? Or do you lift your eyes to Heaven and cross yourself when shes not looking? The Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians contains an interesting report. A 30-year-old university professor, in good health, had eaten a lunch of two peanut butter sandwiches, a carrot and a turnip. But his state of health changed suddenly. His case would seem be easier for Sherlock Holmes to diagnose than most doctors. Thirty minutes after eating, the professor developed abdominal pain, nausea and started to perspire.

This was followed by severe vomiting. This helped to relieve the cramps in the stom- roots contain a yellowish oil, cicutoxin, with a carrot-like smell. Its so powerful that a single mouthful of the root can cause death in 15 minutes. People have died because the roots were also mistaken for either wild parsnip or wild artichokes. Today more North Americans are getting back to nature.

Many have their own vegetable gardens. Others are delighting in a return to the great outdoors. Its a healthy move. But bringing home wild flowers for the table or collecting food for dinner in the wilderness presents certain hazards. One of my friends considered himself an expert on wild mushrooms.

But one evening, after hed eaten some with steak, his wife frantically called me. My initial reaction was that he needed the last rites more than a doctor. Luckily he survived the trauma of poisonous mushrooms. But now he realizes there is no sure way of distinguishing between the harmless and poisonous variety. A couple of bites of the deadly aminita can be fatal.

THE BRITISH redcoats didnt forget the Jimsonweed. In 1676, a hungry contingent sent to Jamestown, Virginia to put down a rebellion. They cooked and ate the berries of Jimsonweed found along the way. Soon after they were delirious and deathly ill. The Journal ot Emergency Medicine recently reported that a.