Story Photos
 Julie Seiber of Kelso, a member of the Hot Flashing Lumpy Ladies support group, posed as Miss September for the group's fundraising calendar.
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Calendar Ladies: Breast cancer support groups show some skin for cancer research
Monday, October 13, 2008 11:13 AM PDT
By Cathy Zimmerman
Printable version
E-mail this articleWhen it comes to raising money to fight cancer, the Hot Flashing Lumpy Ladies are taking the gloves off. And the slacks, blouses, shoes and undies, too. Members of the local breast cancer support group have joined a long line of strategically posed women, firefighters and even ex-Mormon missionaries with a fresh-off-the-press calendar that bares the flesh for a good cause.
The brainstorm came from Arleen Hubble, her cohorts said.
“It’s always Arleen.”
The Hot Flashing Lumpy Ladies group, which has met monthly for 15 years, previously drummed up donations by writing cookbooks and riding shotgun on a rodeo stagecoach.
They’re constantly dreaming up ways to support the Relay for Life, a major fund-raising event that was introduced here by Lumpy Lady Ireda Grohs, 64.
Otherwise known as Miss August.
Grohs’s calendar page shows the Kelso activist in three identical frames, wearing a boa and a Relay for Life poster.
“It sounded like a fun idea,” said Grohs. “That was the first thing that popped into my mind.”
The second thing, she said, was a line from the movie “Calendar Girls,” about a real-life group of middle-aged women who posed for a calendar to raise money for a friend’s gravely ill husband.
In the movie, the women cluster around the one chosen to do the first pose — holding pastries in front of her breasts. Actress Helen Mirren turns to the photographer, and in her crisp British accent says, “Lawrence, we’re going to need considerably bigger buns.”
Recalling the line, Grohs, who has had a lumpectomy, laughed.
“In my case, I’d only need one bigger bun.”
Sick humor is just one of the ways cancer survivors boost each other up as they go through surgeries, pain, exhaustion and hair loss, not to mention walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
“We do laugh at our meetings, but there’s also seriousness,” said Ruthie Doumit, at 61, a 15-year survivor. “We go around the whole table so we can talk.” They discuss feelings, treatment, any questions they have. “We are a very funny group,” Doumit said. “Laughter is so important.”
Donna Yeager, 55, who works in addictive medicine at Kaiser Permanente, has an especially wacky sense of humor. She drew faces on her breasts before exams, she said, begged the surgeons not to cut off her rose tattoo, and provided all the boas for the photography sessions.
She was eager to do the calendar, Yeager said. “I love to do anything that will support cancer research — anything fun and exciting.”
June White, a 71-year-old retired accountant, said she’s always game for posing, “dressed or undressed.”
“I’m a ham, I guess,” said White, who wears pink outfits topped with pink picture hats and models at the fashion show that’s part of the annual Breast Cancer Awareness event.
Getting through cancer sometimes frees people, said Julie Seiber of Kelso.
“I had just come out of treatment,” a mastectomy and breast reconstruction, “the full meal deal,” said Seiber, 52. “I was in a crazy frame of mind.
“Thanks to modern medicine, you’ve been given another life. Years ago, I would have died from this. So it’s scary, but it can be liberating.
It redefines your personality.”
Those feelings may have prompted otherwise retiring types to go ahead with the calendar, the group agreed. But not everyone jumped at the idea.
“I would never have done anything like this before cancer,’ said Pam Ellings, gesturing to her turtle-necked style. “The thought of baring it all ... ” Miss March shook her head. “But I came around. Nobody from my family or life-long friends could believe it.”
Doumit, a Cathlamet artist, honored her mother by wearing jewelry she inherited from her.
“She was very, very shy,” said Doumit, who overcame her own reticence and posed at a strategically set dining room table as Miss November.
“I lost my mother and my mother-in-law to cancer in a three-month period,” Doumit said, “so I did it to honor them. I wore my mother’s jewelry — and a smile.”
Each pose includes a personal statement. Some are peppy, some philosophical, some spiritual.
Carol Locke, who posed in the top half of a Santa outfit as Miss December, said ‘the calendars are fun and whimsical, but when you read each model’s statement, it puts things in perspective.”
Hubble, well known as a prime organizer of Go 4th, appears in the calendar as Miss July, fetchingly draped in the Stars and Stripes. The 10-year survivor who’s 58, she said she didn’t know if the idea was even doable.
“I asked Don Cianci,” who owns Mr. C’s Photography, “and he said ‘Sure you can do it. I’ll donate all the photography.’”
Specialty Rents allowed Hubble, a community maven, to raid their costume shop for props and charged her nothing.
The actual shooting was done in Mr. C’s studio by Cassandra Dunckel. Only two poses were done elsewhere — Doumit’s and Michelle Hadlock’s.
Hadlock was the only calendar girl to pose outdoors. “Thanks guys,” she quipped.
The youngest of the calendar girls at 38, Hadlock wore a bikini under a drape, and posed on the Japanese island at Lake Sacajawea.
Other members stood guard at the bridge. “I didn’t even see anybody” on the opposite bank, Miss April said. It’s a very lovely scene, although her teen-aged sons “don’t want to have anything to do with it.”
Those who posed in the studio used a variety of seasonal props, working in groups to keep the mood light. That sisterhood aspect is celebrated over and over by women who belong to support groups as they go through this cancer.
“We can feel free to laugh, even at things that might seem morbid to outsiders,” said Grohs.
Said Hubble, “You can talk, but if you want to stay quiet, you can.” New members by definition have breast cancer, she said, so “we’re not glad you’re here — but we’re here to help.”
Yeager said she has found a silver lining to her “devastating” second diagnosis of breast cancer. “If it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be in this group. It’s such a gift, a gift I would have missed.”
Where to buy calendars
The Hot Flashing Lumpy Ladies calendar costs $10, and all proceeds go to the American Cancer Society. To purchase calendars, call Arleen Hubble at (360) 425-7707 or visit these locations or events:
• Downtown Gallery and Coffee House, Cathlamet
• Flourish Skin and Laser, 625 9th Ave., Longview
• Mary Catherine’s, 11th and Douglas, Longview
• Mr. C’s Photography, 1302 Commerce Ave., Longview
• Paperbacks Galore, the 14th Avenue Plaza. Longview
• Breast Cancer Awareness Day Oct. 30 at the Cowlitz County Regional Conference Center
• Women’s Affaire, Nov. 7 at the Women’s Health Pavilion, across from St. John Medical Center’s main entrance
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