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Remembering former King resident Dona Whitman-Mortelliti
Dona was born in Kirkland Lake, Nov. 28 1937 to Thelma and Horace Whitman. After having spent her formative years in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, She moved to Toronto where she met and fell in love with Salvatore Mortelliti. While studying philosophy part-time in the late 1960's at York University's Atkinson College, Dona worked full-time as the Student Programs Officer for York's Faculty of Fine Arts. In 1974 she graduated with a degree in philosophy. In 1978, after being diagnosed with breast cancer (during an era where mastectomy's were common practice) Dona refused both the mastectomy and chemotherapy and was given six months to live. However, she researched the issue and chose to follow the recommendations of Linus Pauling by putting her self on large doses of Vitamin C, to which she credited beating the cancer and the odds. This experience changed her life, reinvigorated her passion for the study of philosophy and served as the impetus for her quest toward good health and nutrition.Where as it is now commonly understood that the ingestion of "trans fats" are linked to cancer, Dona was educating her friends and loved ones on the dangers of trans fats in the early 1980s. She was always at least 10 years ahead of her time. In the mid-'80s Dona recommenced her studies in philosophy at York, where she completed her master's degree, and then went on to pursue a PhD, focusing on existentialists Jean-Paul Sarte, Maurice Merleau- Ponty and Martin Heidegger. It was during her PhD work that she discovered her true calling - teaching. She was a reader, researcher and teacher,but fundamentally she was a romantic with a "down east," self-deprecating sense of humour that could make you laugh 'til you cried. Dona is survived by her husband Sal, her children Paul and his wife Christine, Kim, and Cleve and his wife Catherine, and her grandchildren Justin, Cole and Cody. "Time is not a thing, thus nothing which is, and yet it remains constant in its passing away without being something temporal like the beings in time." Martin Heidegger We love and miss you Mom. Your spirit lives on in us. |
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