Timely gift halts eviction of gravely ill girl’s family

The Hull Times

By Susan Ovans — 12/10/2009

A family facing the imminent loss of a child to an inoperable brain tumor was able to stave off eviction from a Hull Housing Authority apartment this week thanks to a timely check from Wellspring.

Four-year-old Natalie Coble was diagnosed with a fast-growing malignant brain tumor in June. The tiny child with a moptop of blond curls has ballooned to more than 100 lbs. due to edema, fluid accumulation in her brain and body tissue, and is now confined to her bed, where she is receiving hospice services.

Natalie and her three siblings, ranging in age from 2-1/2 to 10, moved with their parents to the housing authority’s Nantascot Family Apartments at Central Ave. and C-D streets last November.

Brad Turner had to give up his job this summer to help his wife, Brandy, shuttle Natalie to and from radiation and chemotherapy treatments at Children’s Hospital in Boston and to care for the other kids – Franklin, Machaylah, and Steven – at home.

Brandy Turner said this week that doctors have told the family that Natalie’s tumor is growing at a rapid rate and she may die before Christmas. Her birthday is New Year’s Eve.

Although well aware that they are several months late on their $408 subsidized rent payment, Brandy Turner said she was stunned on Tuesday to receive a 14-day eviction notice from the housing authority. The notice to pay up or leave the apartment was dated Dec. 2, but the family didn’t receive it until Tuesday, the 8th, because the housing authority sent it to the wrong address.

“So, essentially we have a week,” Turner said Wednesday, after a family friend who had also lost a daughter to cancer called the Times with the story.

Turner learned that rent assistance might be available through Wellspring’s Diane Edson Fund, which is dedicated to helping individuals and families in “immediate crisis situations due to unexpected circumstances or some form of tragedy,” according to the agency’s website.

Wellspring Executive Director Vinny Harte confirmed this week that the local social-services agency paid half the owed rent – $820 – while the family was able to pay the other half. Brandy Turner said she and her husband took the sum from money friends and families raised at a benefit in late November for Natalie’s anticipated funeral expenses.

HHA Executive Director Catherine Luna said late Wednesday that all the rent had been paid and the Turners are now current. She said that the family was one of eight rent-delinquent housing authority tenants who had received eviction notices last week.

HHA administers 28 units of family housing at C and D streets and the 40-unit housing for seniors complex on Atlantic House Court on behalf of the state Department of Housing and Community Development. The local agency has been under a state mandate to reduce rent delinquencies since DHCD censured the housing authority for financial and administrative deficiencies under previous director Paul Daley.

The five-member elected HHA board fired Daley in 2006 and hired Luna’s consulting firm, Execu-Tech, which also administers Cohasset’s housing authority. Since then, the agency has earned state praise for significant administrative improvements in a short time period.

While she was aware of the difficulties of the Turners’ situation, Luna said that legally the agency was obliged to send them the same eviction notice that other tenants in arrears had received. “It would have left us open to discrimination charges” to begin eviction proceedings on other tenants while sparing the Turners, she said.

Responding to Brandy Turner’s allegation that the housing authority knows that the oven is not working and had been unresponsive to that and other problems in the apartment, Luna said a new stove has been ordered for the family and will be hooked up next week. She said the agency didn’t know about the problem until a plumber was sent out last week to deal with a complaint about a noxious smell coming from the heating system, and Turner alerted him to the broken oven.

Turner, however, said that she “filed all the paperwork” to make the housing authority aware of changes in the family’s financial situation, which under state guidelines could trigger a rent modification, and also called several times about deficiencies at the apartment that were made more urgent because of Natalie’s declining health and issues with balance and mobility.

“More than one time she fell all the way down stairs,” Turner said. “They didn’t even put up a gate. They would do nothing for us.”

Luna and a clerical aide work part-time. The housing authority’s full-time maintenance worker, Peter Nixon, is out on medical leave due to an injury. And Luna said that there simply isn’t enough money to fix a host of problems at both HHA complexes.

Natalie Coble Fund, Sovereign Bank, 523 Nantasket Ave., Hull, MA 02045

They were five friends, on their way to buy one more ticket so they could all go together to the Blink-182 concert Thursday night.

But shortly after 11 a.m. that day, the SUV Kelly Ann Barber, 19, was driving rolled over on Route 1 north in Revere, killing Jason Foster, 17, of Ipswich and Erin Leary, 16, of Hull. Barber and two other friends whose names were not released were seriously injured.

Authorities are investigating what caused Barber of East Weymouth to lose control of her mother’s 2000 Mitsubishi Montero.

“I don’t know why things like this happen,” Erin’s mother, Kathryn Leary, said yesterday. “I talked to her 10 minutes before the rollover, and she was happy. I just know I loved her, loved Jason, loved the driver. They’re all amazing kids.”

A junior at South Shore Public Charter School in Norwell - where four of the five met and became friends - Erin Leary was a volunteer for numerous organizations, including Well Spring, a social service agency, and Lakota Kids, a Native American rights group.

Her older sister, Shannon, wrote her college entrance essay about Erin’s battle with colitis, an autoimmune disease that recently forced her to have her large intestine removed.

“At one point, she lost 30 pounds in a month and was on nearly two dozen types of medication,” she said. “She would throw up in the sink and run out to catch the school bus in the morning. She was so strong.”

Both Erin Leary and Foster were considering going to art school.

Foster, an Ipswich High School senior, was a talented photographer and drummer who already had composed several CDs.

He also loved traveling, and had been to Argentina to explore his mother’s roots and, most recently, on a spiritual retreat in Canada.

“He was a gentle soul, wise beyond his years,” his father, Chuck Foster, said. “His friends would come to him for advice. And they were all nonsmokers and nondrinkers. They were adamant about that. I never had to worry about who he was with.”

Jason Foster, a 17-year-old entering his senior year at Ipswich High School, and Erin Leary, 16, a junior at South Shore Charter Public School in Norwell, were killed instantly in the crash Wednesday morning on Route 1 in Revere. Three other teenagers, including the driver of the 2000 Mitsubishi Montero they were in, were seriously injured. They were taken to Massachusetts General Hospital and were expected to recover.

The teens were traveling near Copeland Circle when the driver - Kelly Ann Barber, 19, of East Weymouth - lost control, authorities said. The vehicle rolled over, struck the guard rail, and traveled across Route 1 before coming to a stop at a concrete barrier. All but Foster were wearing seatbelts, though those involved in the crash have told family members that he had just taken it off a second before the crash.

Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said that the one-car crash remains under investigation, and that no charges have been filed.

“Our hearts go out to their families at a time of unimaginable sorrow,’’ the district attorney said.

Chuck Foster, the father of Jason, said the crash was heartrending. No drugs or alcohol were involved, family members said, no teenage antics or games, just a group of friends off to buy tickets to see the punk-rock band blink-182.

“It was clear to us they just loved each other and enjoyed each other’s company,’’ Foster said.

The group of friends centered in Hull, where Barber worked at the Paragon Carousel on Nantasket Beach, said Leary’s sister, Shannon, who also works there. Erin Leary volunteered at the carousel, just for the chance to be with her friends, her sister said. Other days, she spent her time singing.

To add another layer of tragedy, Erin Leary had hoped that this would be her first summer free of hospitals: She suffered from an autoimmunity disease, but underwent surgery in January that made her better. For once, she did not have to take medications.

Shannon Leary, 18, wrote college essays about her sister’s illness, asserting that it never made sense for “someone so beautiful, so generous, and so hilarious and funny … to be suffering from an autoimmunity disease when she could be so alive.’’

“She was my baby - I thought I could protect her from everything,’’ she said. “She was beloved, and she was a gift, and I’m happy I got to know her for 16 years; even if that’s all the time to know her, it was worth it. It was so special.’’

Chuck Foster said yesterday that he could see the emotions of the teenagers involved at MGH after the crash. “They’re all completely in shock; they saw things people that age should never have to see,’’ he said.

He said the teenagers bonded for their love of the arts. Jason played drums and percussion and had a passion for photos. He also enjoyed traveling, having recently visited the Southwest, and he began to explore his mother’s Argentine heritage. He visited Argentina three years ago.

He, too, had a passion for music, having recently composed two CDs.

“He was just wise beyond his years,’’ his father said.

© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.

How the South Shore Charter Public School can withstand so much loss is beyond words. Alison Hayes, beautiful Alison, my Torri - my one and only Bean, and today, now sweet Erin Leary age 16 in a car. Impossible. I had to sit for a long time. A friend of mine walked. I went on the Boston Globe website and scanned the idiotic, do-nothing, callous comments and suggested that most of them stop farting through their keyboards and do something proactive.

Erin Leary was only sixteen and died on Rte 1 in Revere as did another young person in the same car. It is hard to get Erin’s mother out of my brain, body and air. Or her sister Shannon. I didn’t know what to write about this beautiful child earlier, and honestly I still don’t.

This is the trip that doesn’t end, the one that sets us apart after it steals everything.  If there is something more than this, I hope Erin can reach out and help what is so viscerally broken.

Robert E. Bowker-Kelly

March 21st, 2009

Robert E. Bowker-Kelly , “Robbie” 18 of Hanover died on March 21, 2009 at the South Shore Hospital in Weymouth. He was born in Falmouth, son of Christine A. Bowker Wickersham of Hanover and Robert E. Kelly, Jr. Robbie was raised and educated in Mashpee and Hanover and was a 2008 graduate of the South Shore Charter Public School in Norwell.

For several years he had been employed as a food preparation assistant with his Step Dad, F. Clark Wickersham and his Mom Christine at their restaurant, 53 South in Norwell. He was an avid sports fan and truly enjoyed his family’s passion for Sunday gatherings during football season at their Hanover home. Robbie was known for his great, while at times, inappropriate humor. He was an accomplished skate boarder and hacky-sack aficionado.

In addition to his mother and step father, he is survived by his sisters, Jocelynn L. Bowker-Kelly of S. Boston, Nicole L. Bowker-Kelly, Corrinne E. Bowker-Kelly and Hana R. Bowker-Wickersham all of Hanover. His grandparents, Ralph Jonas, Jr. and Joanne M. Jonas both of Falmouth and several aunts, uncles and cousins.

Calling hours will be held in the Magoun-Biggins Funeral Home 135 Union St. ROCKLAND on Tuesday March 24, 2009 from 5-8 PM. A Graveside Funeral Service will be held on Wednesday March 25, 2009 at 12:15 PM in the Hanover Center Cemetery. Donations may be made to the South Shore Charter Public School, 100 Longwater Cir. Norwell, MA 02061 or the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation, 1000 Skokie Bld., Suite 570 Wilmette, IL 60091.

John, Nancy, Ashley, Christine, Gabe, Gionna and Toby.  She would be 23.

He graduated from Hanover High School in 2002 and leaves his parents, Michael Sr. and Betsy, and his brother Christopher devastated along with his fiancé Jocelyn Hickey and countless others.