CICCONE o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-05-14 published
Glenna (FIRTH)
CICCONE
By Patrick
CICCONE and Antonio
CICCONE
Wednesday,
May 14, 2003
- Page A18
Mother, iconoclast, farm worker, sportswoman, world traveller.
Born April 3, 1944, in Timmins, Ontario Died March 13, in Parry
Sound, Ontario, of cancer, aged 58.
Glenna was a small-framed woman, yet she always appeared much
taller than her actual size. Not endowed with conventional beauty,
her darting blue eyes, sharp tanned features and thick, white,
shoulder-length hair always made her stand out in a crowd.
Her father, William
FIRTH, was the
son of a stern United Church
minister from New Brunswick. Her mother, Sarah
JUDGE, born into
a staunch French/Irish Catholic family from Buckingham, Quebec,
was a steely, no-nonsense nurse. When the two married in Timmins,
Ontario, none of their family members showed up.
Glenna had a mind of her own: At 3, in one of those obligatory
pony portraits of the day, she sits warily on top of a cute black-and-white
pony. From the girlish scowl on her chubby cheeks, you knew that
she wanted no part of it.
After graduating from teachers' college, while colleagues fretted
over careers and bungalows in the suburbs, she hitchhiked from
Morocco to Oslo, occasionally teaching in various Montessori
schools.
Glenna wasn't just unpredictable, she was outspoken. As a teacher
in Timmins, she was posted to an open-concept school. While her
colleagues complained privately, she would declare at every opportunity:
"It stinks." Unrepentant, she resigned before certain dismissal.
But it was Glenna's childlike enthusiasm that really set her
apart. As a newlywed, she and her husband Tony moved to a three-acre
lot in Timmins. This was her paradise-by-the-lake. Still, even
it could do with an adjustment. Thus, in the early 1970s, Glenna's
vehicle of choice was a heavy duty 4x4 Dodge Extendacab.
"It'll help me with the rocks and trees," she concluded. She
eventually transplanted more than 160 trees, many more than eight
feet tall. And her massive retaining rock wall would have made
any Italian mason proud.
This enthusiasm spilled over to skiing and swimming, her favourite
sports. If she was swimming, she had to swim across the lake.
If she was on the trail, nothing less than a combined 15 and
10 kilometre run would suffice, and if she was on the slopes,
a stop at the chalet was a sacrilege.
As a mother, nothing changed. As soon as her son Patrick started
walking, she strapped a pair of tiny skis to his feet. While
others carted their children to the local pool for lessons, she
urged him to swim across the lake with her.
Even in the face of serious sickness and economic misfortune,
her enthusiasm never wavered. In 1992, she survived surgery and
chemotherapy for breast cancer; in 1993, after devastating economic
losses, she was forced to move with her family to rural Abruzzo,
Italy. Relishing her new role, she relentlessly weeded and pruned
the family olive grove and fruit garden, even if her zeal occasionally
raised an eyebrow with her father-in-law.
In no other case was her enthusiasm more evident than with Nicki,
the family's pet husky. Precisely at 10 a.m., 2 p.m. and 10 p.m.
each day she fed (always in a very clean bowl) and walked Nicki.
The 2 p.m. walk was usually a three-hour trek.
In 2003, on her annual visit to Parry Sound, she discovered that
the cancer had metastasized to her liver. When told that she
could not donate her organs, she immediately bequeathed her body
to the anatomy department at the University of Toronto's Faculty
of Medicine.
Love her or hate her, the people who either knew Glenna or saw
her with Nicki would agree that she was always true to herself
and that she added brilliant colour to the tapestry of human
existence.
Antonio is Glenna's husband, Patrick her son.
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