[Artemisia] Friends in need

[Jacquie Ziegler]

Greetings to Artemisia and Artemisia's Heralds!

I have copied the following from the An Tir Herald's list - but the news comes from Ealdormere initially.

Begin quote:

A fellow herald needs our assistance. Master Brand Thorwaldsen, Trillium Principal Herald of the Kingdom of Ealdormere (and Companion of the Order of the Pelican), his wife and their two children have recently lost everything they possess in a fire that destroyed their home. Thankfully, none of them were injured in the blaze! A request was made for good Heraldry books to replace some of his library that was lost.

If you have books you can send along to help in this effort, they can be sent to the following address:

Blair & Yvonne Wettlaufer
Beverly Street Post Office
Box 26016
Cambridge, ON N1R 8E8
CANADA

Gift certificates to online bookstores are also possible; these can be e-mailed to trillium at ealdormere.ca or checkyboy at gmail.com. The relief effort is being co-coordinated by Vallawulf Rurikson (vallawulf at aol.com), so you may want to check with him before you send actual books.

Please consider helping out a fellow herald in need! I know I would be lost without my resources; I can only imagine how they must be feeling right now.

End quote

I also have other information from a separate message from Calontir:

Begin quote:

In Ealdormere, Baron Brand Thorwaldsson (Blair Wettlaufer) and Baroness Brianna (Yvonne Wettlaufer) have lost everything except their lives in a fire that ripped through their home at 4 a.m. on July 31.

Brianna and their two children, a 9 year old son and 7 year old daughter, and their dog made it out of the house with seconds to spare. Brand, who was house-sitting for friends who were at Pennsic, said Brianna didn't even have time to grab her purse as the fire consumed the house so fast.

They also lost their second car in the fire (their first car was totaled in an accident on the way to Pennsic this week) and are living in a hotel with pretty much nothing. An> account for donations, in the Wettlaufer's name, will be opened at the Scotiabank branch on King Street East in Preston, Ontario, Canada today.

They will have temporary housing soon. Immediate needs are clothing, toys/stuffed animals for the kids, food and stuff like that. So, gift cards, checks can be sent to them at:

Blair & Yvonne Wettlaufer
Beverly Street Post Office Box 26016
Cambridge, ON N1R 8E8 CANADA

When they have a chance to catch their breath and figure out what's been lost, Brand will give us an update of specific SCA things that they lost and we can start helping them rebuild.

Any of you who have spare heraldry books, I know that they had a fabulous library of heraldry books. Brianna's coronets and Middle Eastern garb are also on the list.

Newspaper articles:
http://news.therecord.com/article/222203 <http://news.therecord.com/article/222203>
http://news.therecord.com/News/CanadaWorld/article/222616 <http://news.therecord.com/News/CanadaWorld/article/222616>
http://news.therecord.com/News/Local/article/223076 <http://news.therecord.com/News/Local/article/223076>

End quote 

I have read all three articles and the fire appears to have been arson at this time. Thankfully no one was killed, but the overall devastation is heart-wrenching.

Baroness Shauna of Carrick Point