Roseanne was my first LLL Leader at the only meeting I attended before I became a Leader. I had come to visit my mom in Philadelphia from Honduras where I was living and had signed up for Lamaze classes. When I called the trainer, she asked me if I was planning to breastfeed, and I replied that I thought so (not having given it much prior thought). She said, call this number, and you need to read the Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. The number was Roseanne’s number in Ambler, which was not far from my mom’s house. Roseanne was so warm on the phone and welcomed me to come to the meeting, which was a week after I had been planning to go back to Honduras. I called my husband and told him I was going to stay one more week to go to a breastfeeding class (which he probably thought was a little strange at the time). I then set out to find WABF, which I didn’t know was an “underground” book at the time. I finally did find it in a maternity store in Haddonfield, NJ and bought the one copy they had. Of course when I got to Roseanne’s meeting at her house, she had several copies for sale, but by then I was already part way through the book. I don’t remember much about the meeting, but I do remember feeling welcomed and hearing a lot of information about breastfeeding. By the end of the meeting I was “hooked” and sure I would breastfeed.
I did visit with Roseanne once aside from the meeting and learned about her early symptoms of myasthenia gravis, which her doctor thought had only begun to manifest because she had finally weaned her youngest of five children after being pregnant or breastfeeding continually for over ten years. Her doctor thought that the breastfeeding and pregnancy had mitigated against the symptoms. I also had my mother call her when I had a problem breastfeeding my first baby when she was about three weeks old, and she took my mom’s phone call, even though it was a Sunday, and made suggestions that totally helped me resolve the problem. We didn’t have direct dial in those days, so I turned to my mom for that help. When I moved back to the US I tried to find her to thank her for transforming my life, but she didn’t really have an online presence, so it was only this year when I found her obituary that I learned she had survived with myasthenia gravis for so long. She was a wonderful person and is, I’m sure, missed by many.
Submitted by Judy Canahuati