What really happened in Marshalltown - part 2
Poor Farm, Steven Rhude, oil on canvas, 60" x 126" Chapter 52 (EXCERPT from MAUD LEWIS THE HEART ON THE DOOR by author Lance Woolaver) Lita Saulnier "Eventually, helpfully, at the intercession of Benoit Comeau, Lita was released from her cell. In her decades of isolation she had forgotten how to speak. She was unable to explain or to describe the years that she had spent. She had gone into the poorhouse a young spinster and come out old and mute. She would spend the years until her death in 1983 in a Yarmouth home for the elderly. She played cards. Sh e recovered some use of speech. Her story would be included in a 1999 CBC radio series with Ron Foley MacDonald and Medard Comeau. The story of Maud Lewis, had she been incarcerated, could have been similar to that of Lita Saulnier. The story of Lita Saulnier was not unique. A poorhouse in Halifax would contribute an account of a woman kept in an underground cage. Several Nova Scotia Keepers were impr...