A World Without Martha : A Memoir of Sisters, Disability, and Difference / Victoria Freeman

By: Freeman, Victoria.

Vancouver : Purich Books, an imprint of UBC Press, 2019Description: 328 pages : illustrations : 23 cm.ISBN: 9780774880404.Subject(s): Freeman, Martha Ann, 1958-2002 | INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY

| DOWN SYNDROME

| CHILDREN

| SIBLINGS

| INSTITUTIONALISATION

| FAMILY INTERACTION

| DEINSTITUTIONALISATION

| NORMALISATION

| AUTOBIOGRAPHY

| BIOGRAPHY

| CANADA

Contents:

Author's note. - 1. baby. - 2. Conceptions. - 3. One on every street. - 4. Substitutions. - 5. The fairy hill. - 6. jesus loves me. - 7. Fair exchange. - 8. Progress and happiness. - 9. Revolutions. - 10. Normalization. - 11. Becoming human. - 12. Into the fire. - 13. Breakthroughs. - 14. Echoes. - 15. Crossing over. - 16. Ashes. - 17. Remembering. - 18. Not ending. - 19. Second chances. - 20. How far you've come. - 21. Remember every name. - Postscript. - Acknowledgements. - A note on sources.

Summary: "Victoria Freeman was only four when her parents followed medical advice and sent her sister away to a distant, overcrowded institution. Martha was not yet two, but in 1960s Ontario there was little community acceptance or support for raising children with intellectual disabilities at home. In this frank and moving memoir, Victoria describes growing up in a world that excluded and dehumanized her sister. She writes too of her own journey to understand the policies and assumptions about disability that profoundly affected her entire family. Despite society’s long insistence that that only a “normal” life was worth living, changing attitudes to both disability and difference would eventually offer both sisters new possibilities for healing and self-discovery. A World Without Martha documents the collateral damage of institutionalization on families, as well as the ties, both traumatic and loving, that bind family members to one another over the course of a lifetime." - BOOK JACKET

List(s) this item appears in: WDSD- Adults March 2020 CM | Women- biographies CM March 2023

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Call number	Copy number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Book	IHC Library	Main Collection	810 FRE (Browse shelf(Opens below))	1	Available		W0011814

Total holds: 0

"Victoria Freeman was only four when her parents followed medical advice and sent her sister away to a distant, overcrowded institution. Martha was not yet two, but in 1960s Ontario there was little community acceptance or support for raising children with intellectual disabilities at home. In this frank and moving memoir, Victoria describes growing up in a world that excluded and dehumanized her sister. She writes too of her own journey to understand the policies and assumptions about disability that profoundly affected her entire family. Despite society’s long insistence that that only a “normal” life was worth living, changing attitudes to both disability and difference would eventually offer both sisters new possibilities for healing and self-discovery. A World Without Martha documents the collateral damage of institutionalization on families, as well as the ties, both traumatic and loving, that bind family members to one another over the course of a lifetime." - BOOK JACKET

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