Author to bring a story of family, TB to Sydenham Library

Jeff Green | Apr 19, 2012

For Anne Raina, writing "Clara’s Rib" was as much as matter of honouring her sister’s memory as it was the telling of a remarkable tale.

The book makes extensive use of diary entries by Clara Raina over the 14 years that she spent in the Royal Ottawa Sanitorium battling tuberculosis during the 1940s and 50s. Most of those years were spent under total bed rest.

Clara entered "The San" at the age of 12, and at age 26 she left it for the last time. Remarkably, she managed to live a full life afterwards. She married, adopted a child, and lived near Kemptville until she died of cancer in 1998.

Shortly before she died, her sister Anne was with her.

“She gave me all her diaries, which she has written while in the Sanatorium and which I had typed up for her later, and I promised her that I would publish her story some day, even though she had no expectation that I would do this. I didn’t change one word of what she wrote, but I did add some chapters, about her life and about my life, to fill out the book. It took me until 2010 to get the story finished and published, and since then I have been bringing her story to schools, libraries, and other events,” said Anne Raina.

The story that Anne Raina tells in her presentations and in Clara’s Rib itself is also a reminder of the impact of tuberculosis in mainstream Canada not that long ago, before drug treatments were discovered.

Anne was the youngest of 10 children, seven of whom contracted TB. Her father, and her eldest and youngest brothers died from the disease, and the rest all spent time in the TB sanatorium.

She only knew her sister Clara, who was 17 years older than her, from visits to the sanatorium.

“My first real defining moment with TB came when I was in grade one. I was taking a favourite doll to school and the bus driver asked me if the doll had TB just like the rest of my family” said Anne Raina.

What Anne remembers of Clara in those days, and what comes out very clearly in the diaries that Clara kept, was not only an enduring faith but also an ability to get joy and encouragement out of the smallest of victories in her struggle to survive her condition.

An example is an excerpt from 1950: “Dr. Carmichael put me up for ten minutes exercise per day. I haven’t been on exercise since 1942, eight years ago, so it certainly will be strange walking down the street again. I am very happy. This has been a great day.”

Clara also underwent four surgeries during her treatment, and she had to battle with her doctors to get the fourth surgery because they had pretty well given up on her chances by then.

Then there are the ribs. One of the treatments for TB was called Thoracoplasy, which involved the removal of seven to eight rib bones in the chest cavity in order to collapse a lung. Two to three ribs were removed at a time, so the procedure involved several surgeries. In the Raina family, a total of 27 ribs were removed from family members. When Clara left the sanatorium she was given one of her ribs as a souvenir of sorts.

Before she died, Clara asked her sister to make sure the rib was placed with her in her coffin, which along with writing Clara’s Rib, was something that Anne was happy to do as a token of her sisterly devotion.

The presentations that Anne Raina has been making throughout Eastern Ontario since publishing Clara’s Rib have been very well received by a wide cross section of people, from former TB patients to history buffs to young people. Aside from delivering a story of hope overcoming obstacles, Anne Raina presents a picture of how the practice of medicine has changed in a short period of time. And it is a reminder that TB is still with us today, even if there are now more sophisticated treatments for it.

“Tuberculosis, still a very huge worldwide pandemic,” says Anne Raina, “it is not a thing of the past. Some people say my book is timely and it’s timeless.”

Ann Raina will present Clara’s Rib at Sydenham Library on Thursday, April 26 at 6 pm. The presentation is suitable for all ages. Call the library for more details.