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November/December
2001
Spreading the Joy
Creating her Web site, bethankful.com, is a labor of love for Ft. Myers
resident Victoria Monfort, who is busy raising her son and co-owns GetNetSmart
Inc., an Internet services firm. But so passionate is she about bethankful.com
that she devotes the rest of her time toward it.
The site’s name sums up her low-tech message—living
with gratitude. “The more people who are happy and positive, the
easier it is for all. The site lets you focus on what’s really important.
I came to this as a result of a lot of difficult times,” Monfort
says.
“I used to be sarcastic, cynical. Having
to deal with my mother’s cancer battle, difficulties I face as a
single mother, my health crisis—I lost about 35 percent of my hearing
and it happened overnight—that affected me.
“I’ve learned to see the common elements
we have as people. If we look deeper, we’re all here, getting by
as best we can. I want to deal with people from a viewpoint of love, not
fear. Once you realize this, your world changes.”
Monfort says her nondenominational site is “about
the larger truths; the idea is a sharing opportunity.” Included are
daily meditations, everyday epiphanies, quotes, features, and therapy
art. She’s excited about submissions and wants subscribers to get
weekly reminders of something positive, perhaps have their own page. “I
may have sponsors but want to keep it as noncommercial as possible.”
Site visitors will notice a wentletrap seashell
on each page. “My Dad would always tell me wentletraps are special,”
Monfort says, adding that she grew up in Virginia and vacationed on Sanibel.
Her family moved to Lee County in 1976, she graduated from Cypress Lake
in 1979, and she moved back in 1995.
She mentions future projects—a companion
book, public speaking—and smiles widely, saying, “bethankful
is why I’m on the planet.”
–Libby Grimm
 Noteworthy
Entertainer
Fans of Sanibel vocalist Theresa Rose Shea are counting themselves lucky
this season because T Shea, as she prefers to be called, is again entertaining
visitors and locals at the Sundial Beach Resort. Listeners are drawn to
her repertoire of “sultry standards and torch songs with a slight
tropical influence.”
“I sing standards from the ’30s and
’40s, cabaret-style, Gershwin, and Cole Porter,” notes Shea,
who garnered the most votes for the islands’ 2001 Best Local Entertainer
Award.
The Brookline, Massachusetts, native used to
work in private banking in Boston but is now happy to be in her “second
life.” It all began when she moved to Sanibel in 1994, worked at
the Pirate Playhouse, and then started studying with a vocal coach.
Lately, Shea’s reputation is growing by octaves.
In addition to singing at private parties, she has just recorded a CD.
Contact T Shea at 941/395-9278 or 941/410-1169
(cellular phone). Her Web site is www.sanibeldiva.com.
–Libby Grimm
 Man
on a Mission
Neither vandals nor fire can keep the Rev. Israel Suarez down in his pursuit
to supply food, shelter, clothing, and, most important, encouragement
to individuals and families who need them. Established in 1978 in a mobile
office near the Michigan Links housing project in
Ft. Myers, the Nations Association is a nonprofit organization that now
has more than 140 volunteers and a small support staff. Thanks to Suarez
and his wife, Ruth, in 2000 alone the association provided more than 7,600
soup kitchen meals, 1,200 food boxes, not to mention job referrals, services
for seniors, holiday boxes, and field trips for children. In 1990, President
Bush recognized it as a Point-of-Light organization and the Rev. Suarez
received the 1993 Lee County Citizen of the Year Award.
–Valerie Cope
 Tale
Tellers
Who can turn down a good story, told with a Southern accent and a good
heart? For almost six years, Maggie and Steve Mullins have drawn islanders
and visitors to The Sanibel Library during the winter and spring to hear
First Friday Stories for Grownups, where all are invited to “Come,
listen, and tell if you wish.” The storytelling sessions will resume
this winter.
Raconteurs come from around the state or region—often other members
of the Tamiami Tale Tellers. But Steve and Maggie Mullins’s passion
for stories has opened doors to many hearts and hidden tales.
“I know about stories and how powerful they
are,” says Maggie, a mental health counselor, “and I know from
storytelling class how standing up in front of people to tell is like
magic.”
But once psychologist/author Sid Simon—a seasonal resident and fellow
storyteller—called the Mullinses a Sanibel “treasure,”
she says, “I don’t think I realized the impact of what we were
doing until then.
“We came to realize that this was our version
of storytelling. Somebody else will have a different one, in a different
form, and that’s the way storytelling works.”
“Lots of grownups have not heard stories
since they were children and they really are enthralled by the idea,”
says Steve. But the true moment is in the sharing, Maggie adds. “People
love us because they love the intimacy of these sessions. We had people
come who wouldn’t miss it, because good storytelling is entrancing.
You may not realize it, but you are seeing in a different state of consciousness.
That’s what’s so powerful about it.”
Storytelling did not come to them until 12 years
ago when their last child headed to college and they took off for the
Caribbean island of St. Vincent, where Steve taught at a medical school.
“There’s really not a lot to do there. No picture show, no television,
no radio,” he says, “so we devised a system of our own entertainment.”
Each week, they gathered with some friends and took turns leading the
evening’s entertainment. For the Mullinses, storytelling began there.
When Steve and Maggie came to Sanibel, islanders
Bert and Noel MacCarry were teaching storytelling. The Mullinses took
up this ancient oral tradition in classes and monthly story swaps.
“The learning, like any art, is in the doing,”
Maggie says. “The beauty of storytelling is one person tells of the
images they see, but listeners form their own. It’s a transfer of
energy. It’s an art form, but it’s also a form of communication
that’s sacred.”
–Dawn deBoer
 Seeing
the World
In a lifetime of adventure, 67-year-old Monica Brown has made it around
the world, but returns every spring to the shores of Sanibel, where she
was first drawn some 40 years ago by the J.N. “Ding” Darling
National Wildlife Refuge. “I came for the sanctuary specifically
and haven’t seen anything that equals it since. I love it.”
Columbus, Ohio, is her home; Ohio State University
and Wexler Center for the Arts her playgrounds. To this lifelong student
of art and nature, the two are one and the same; she’s been behind
a camera since she was a child in New Zealand. “I remember, as a
child, a box Brownie camera that belonged to my aunt. I developed my trays
of film on my mother’s white, wooden bench. I’m surprised I’m
still alive with all the chemicals I spilled.”
As a young woman she traveled with camels in India and donkeys in wartime
Yugoslavia—although the donkey carried only luggage; she walked.
“I traveled on a shoestring. The shoestring was $250 to fly from
New Zealand to the United States by way of India, Singapore, and Hong
Kong.” She ventured out six months at a time and if money ran out,
she worked along the way.
She married and studied, earned a master’s degree in health and hospital
administration, and worked as a continuing education director with Ohio
University’s College of Medicine, which took her around the country.
“I was never faculty, didn’t have a Ph.D., and I was female,”
she says, “but that’s how I got to see the United States.”
Later, President Nixon appointed her to a government
operation. “It was the time of Vietnam. All the men that served in
medical posts, I interviewed to direct them back into civilian life.”
She has chronicled her way around the world through
photographs and poetry. “I’m not famous. I shan’t set the
world on fire. I have people who remember me and who I remember well around
the world,” says Brown.
“I remember when my husband, Harold, and
I graduated from the university and moved to the big city on a farm truck.
We settled for cushions on the floor so we could go off to the Bahamas.
People thought we were mad, but we thought if we couldn’t afford
good furniture, memories would carry us through.
“I still believe that in my old age.”
–Dawn deBoer
 Peace
Officer
While most of us watched the news footage, Ray Christensen was there.
This Sanibel policeman was on tour of duty in war-torn Kosovo for 15 months.
As a United Nations police officer, he transported Serbs to safety, investigated
accidents, screened candidates for the newly formed Kosovo Police Service,
and did his best to instill order and peace in the midst of an unreasonable
situation. What did he enjoy most about his trying experience? “Meeting
other officers, seeing change, and being accepted by Albanians—and
even Serbs,” Christensen explains. And, despite fractured ribs and
close calls with land mines, this trooper would do it again.
–Valerie Cope
 When
Critters Come to Call…
Southwest Floridians are used to inviting plenty of houseguests, of course.
But what to do about uninvited “guests” on your property, such
as rats, birds, snakes, raccoons, or possums, especially when they are
no longer alive?
Just give a call to Critter Control in North Ft.
Myers. “We’ll remove anything except insects and alligators,”
explains Eugene Kepes, who has owned the franchise for almost three years.
“You’d be surprised how many animals are out there. We’re
busy full time, especially in season.”
Kepes, who grew up trapping and hunting in the woods of northern Ohio,
is perfect for the job.
And what’s his most interesting request? “Well, rattlesnakes
always bring an adrenaline rush,” he says. “We relocate them
if they’re healthy. I’ve also had to take a few animals to CROW
on Sanibel and I do a lot of referrals to them.”
Critter Control’s telephone number is
941/731-6255.
–Libby Grimm
 Picture
Perfect
Sanibel nature photographer Francine Litofsky, noted for her compelling
black-and-white images, will show her works at the Center for Education
at the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel.
Litofsky’s photographs, featured in the September/October 2001 issue
of Times of the Islands, capture the rich textures and lighting
found in the region’s environment and wildlife.
“My goal is to raise awareness and advance
the cause of conserving and preserving the environment by having my photos
serve as a method of getting people involved in our ecology,” notes
Litofsky. “I’d like my images to get people interested in taking
care of all of the beautiful natural resources along the Lee Island Coast.”
Until recently, Litofsky divided her time between
New Jersey and Sanibel, but she is now a permanent islander, having just
sold her home up north. She is active in many island organizations, serving
as a volunteer and staff photographer at the wildlife refuge, working
in the gift shop at the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, and helping
out at BIG Arts and The Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum.
Environmental Portraits of Southwest Florida:
A Study in Black and White Photography begins Jan. 1 and will run
through March 31.
–Kelly Madden
Making Waves
is Times of the Islands’ honor roll for Southwest Floridians
who, in their everyday lives, make the community and the Lee Island Coast
special. If you know of someone who deserves recognition, call us at 941/472-0205
or 941/472-0629.
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