VALLEY'S OWN SAINT NOW UP WITH THE ANGELS.Byline: Dennis McCarthy Dennis McCarthy may refer to:
We lost one of the special ones last week, one of those amazing a·maze v. a·mazed, a·maz·ing, a·maz·es v.tr. 1. To affect with great wonder; astonish. See Synonyms at surprise. 2. Obsolete To bewilder; perplex. v.intr. people who grace us all with their class and dignity. Her name was Inez Berke, but you probably remember her better by the moniker (1) A name, title or alias. See alias. (2) A COM object that is used to create instances of other objects. Monikers save programmers time when coding various types of COM-based functions such as linking one document to another (OLE). See COM and OLE. I gave her last Mother's Day: the ``Mother Teresa of Ventura Boulevard Ventura Boulevard is one of the primary east-west thouroughfares in the San Fernando Valley; as it was originally a part of the El Camino Real (the trail between Spanish missions), Ventura Boulevard is the oldest route in the San Fernando Valley. It was also U.S. .'' I didn't use it lightly. She deserved it. To those who knew her, Inez Berke was the closest thing we had to a saint walking our streets. By herself, this 79-year-old woman worked tirelessly tire·less adj. Not yielding to fatigue; untiring or indefatigable. tire  less·ly adv. for 22 years
to donate tens of thousands of dollars for the City of Hope National
Medical Center's cancer research program.
She wasn't a rich woman. Far from it. But then, saints never are. Three days a week, Inez would load up her old station wagon wagon: see carriage. wagon Four-wheeled vehicle designed to be drawn by draft animals. Wagons have been used from the 1st century BC; early examples used spoked wheels with metal rims, pivoted front axles, and linchpins to secure the wheels. with See's candies See's Candies is a manufacturer and distributor of high quality candy, particularly chocolate, in the western United States. It was founded by Charles See and his mother Mary See in Los Angeles, California in 1921. The company is now headquartered in South San Francisco, California. and Tupperware bought at discount, and hawk them to women getting their hair done in beauty salons along Ventura Boulevard. Hawk them for the City of Hope to help it find that cure for cancer that would save some other mother's child. It would be too late for her own 46-year-old son, Scott, who died from cancer in December. But it wasn't too late for the sons and daughters of others. So, Inez Berke would park her old car on the boulevard, lace up lace up Verb to fasten (clothes or footwear) with laces Adjective lace-up (of footwear) to be fastened with laces Noun lace-up her tennis shoes tennis shoes npl → zapatillas fpl de tenis tennis shoes npl → (chaussures fpl de) tennis mpl tennis shoes tennis , grab her wares We love "wares" in this industry as noted below. See also warez. abandonware adware annoyware badware beltware betaware bloatware boardware brochureware bridgeware censorware cloudware courseware crapware crimeware crippleware crossware crudware demoware donateware dribbleware for sale, and force a smile on her face to mask the pain she was feeling from her own ongoing fight with cancer. The smile was important, she said. No one wanted to see her walking into their beauty salon in pain. You don't sell candy bars and Tupperware that way. You have to be smiling and positive about life - ready to trade quips and tell all the ladies how beautiful their hair looked today. That's the way you put the arm on them for the City of Hope, Inez said. But a couple of months ago, the stylists who work in the 20 or so beauty shops on the boulevard where Inez peddled her candy and Tupperware noticed she wasn't coming around anymore. ``We all got worried, so I called her at home, and found she was homebound home·bound adj. Restricted or confined to home, as of an invalid. ,'' said Donna Major, who works at Salon Nuvo in Encino. ``Her son had died last December, and now the cancer was coming for her. She said she needed help, someone to take care of her at the end.'' Camille Klein, a friend of Donna's, had just taken care of her own mother at the end, so she knew what Inez was going through. ``I went over to talk to her, and wound up staying more than two weeks to help her at the end,'' Camille said Friday. ``I felt it was an honor because she had helped so many others over the years with all the money she raised for the City of Hope.'' Tens of thousands of dollars, said Jerry Malkin, senior director of development for City of Hope. ``She was an amazing, dedicated lady who touched so many lives,'' Malkin said. In her honor, the City of Hope is dedicating a plaque to her at its Duarte headquarters. Her grandmother would have liked that, Amie Petersen said. Too bad, though, that the plaque can't have her dad's name on it to because they were a pair, she said. ``A lot of my grandmother's strength and ambition (to help the City of Hope) derived from her only son - my dad,'' Amie, 22, said. ``Right after his passing, she did feel a little peace and calmness knowing that his pain and suffering was finally over. But you could see her fight was over, too, and that the cancer had gotten a hold of her. ``You know what you called her, the Mother Teresa of Ventura Boulevard?'' Amie asked. ``It was so true. ``My grandfather always said there were a lot of people who didn't like him, but he never met a person who didn't like my grandmother.'' The fliers announcing the passing of the Mother Teresa of Ventura Boulevard started showing up in beauty salons up and down the boulevard this week. Hairstylists and their regular customers, along with some people from the City of Hope, were busy making plans to attend Inez Berke's memorial this Sunday at Groman-Eden Mortuary mor·tu·ar·y n. A place, especially a funeral home, where dead bodies are kept before burial or cremation. , 11500 Sepulveda Blvd., Mission Hills. It's at 2 p.m. in the chapel, but most people are making plans to get there a little early to find a seat. Saints tend to draw standing room-only crowds. |
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