BLAIRSVILLE--Sometimes, tragedy can bring about a ray of hope. That was the case when a local family was struck with the torment of cancer.
Joe Nease and his two sons, Ryan and Chad, had to watch as an aggressive form of breast cancer took the life of their wife and mother, Karla Nease.
Yet, as they mourned her death, they also celebrated her life by forming the Karla J. Nease Foundation. The non-profit organization raises money to help local families that have been touched by terminal illness make it through financial hardships.
"The foundation is managed by myself and my two sons," Joe Nease said. "We all get involved. That's the nice thing about it, we're doing something to remember her together."
On Saturday, the foundation will hold its fourth annual golf tournament fundraiser at Cloverleaf Golf Course near Delmont.
Pat Patrarca, social worker with Excela Health Home Care and Hospice, has been working with the Neases since the foundation's beginning, helping refer people to the foundation when the need arises.
"I have tremendous respect for hospice (personnel)," Joe Nease said.
Karla Nease was a patient of the Home Care and Hospice program during her illness. After her death, Patrarca heard that Joe Nease and his sons wanted to establish a foundation in her memory.
"I said, 'That's great, and as a social worker, I can give you a thousand referrals,'" Patrarca said. "But I try to limit them to people who had to quit working and have fallen onto hard times financially."
"I call it a grassroots foundation because these are the people that, day in and day out, deal with terminal illness, and they know the people who are truly in need," Joe Nease said.
"It's a source I've used in emergencies to help people get back on their feet," Patrarca said.
"It's not just for people who are seriously ill," Nease noted. "It's people who are seriously ill and in financial need," as identified by health professionals.
Once identified, potential beneficiaries are approached by the foundation and asked if they have specific needs, such as rent or car payments, fuel, utility bills, or medical bills or equipment.
A letter is sent along with the check, describing the foundation and its cause and giving background on Karla Nease and her situation.
Joe Nease noted that "100 percent of the money collected goes directly to the people. The foundation doesn't use any money for management, or even for stamps.
"And it's all local," going to people in Indiana, Westmoreland and Cambria counties. "So it's people all of us know. You know exactly where the money is going."
Joe and Karla Nease grew up in the Blairsville area and knew each other since they were 14 years old. Sweethearts from the time they were high school freshmen, they got married 10 years later.
Karla Nease was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer in October 2002.
"It's the most dangerous" kind of cancer, representing only one percent of all breast cancer cases, Joe Nease said.
"It travels so fast. Generally, by the time it's identified, since it's inflammatory, it's systemic, so it's already in your system. It doesn't start off with a lump in the breast, so many times, mammograms don't pick it up."
Instead, inflammatory breast cancer usually is brought to the attention of doctors because the patient has experienced pain, soreness and other signs of inflammation.
On the day Karla Nease received her diagnosis, Joe Nease had gone out to fill her prescription medications.
"I went for a long walk and ended up on the other side of the Blairsville Cemetery," he recalled. He came across a golf ball, picked it up and was surprised to see that it was a ball promoting breast cancer research, with a pink ribbon emblazoned on its surface.
"In my mind, being an avid golfer, I was asking myself, 'What is a golf ball doing in the cemetery?" he said. "Especially a breast cancer golf ball⢠I thought someone was trying to tell me something.
"That golf ball was in her casket at her funeral."
Karla Nease underwent an operation to remove the cancerous cells, as well as chemotherapy and radiation. Her cancer was thought to have gone into remission in the summer of 2003.
But, in February 2004, she started to experience headaches. A doctor's visit revealed that the cancer had moved into her brain.
She died July 11, 2004, at the age of 54, a month shy of the Neases' 30th anniversary.
Bernie Dixon, who at that time was owner of the Pleasant Valley Golf Course and is a good friend of the family's, suggested establishing the Karla J. Nease Foundation.
"After her death, he said, 'We ought to start a foundation in her memory,'" Joe Nease recalled. "After Bernie said that to me, I said, 'That's exactly what we're going to do.'"
"I kept wanting to repress all of the things I went through, but I felt in doing that, there would come a point when I would start to forget," he continued. "And that was the last thing that I wanted to happen.
"She was a very good woman, an excellent mother and housewife, and her life revolved around her family."
The Karla J. Nease Foundation annual golf fundraiser began in the fall of 2004.
"It started out small and has gotten bigger every year," said Chad Nease. "It's gotten more formal."
It was put together "because generally, the people who attend the outing are there to raise money for the foundation, but also as a way to remember Karla," Joe Nease said.
"It's well-attended," he added. "It's gotten larger every year. And this year, we have some of the medical people involved.
"We're getting more donations in addition to attendees, which indicates that it's expanding."
According to Ryan Nease, the tournament has grown from 40 participants last year to 60 this year.
"It definitely grew this year," he said. "And we hope that continues. There's a larger interest this year, and people who couldn't make it are making donations. I have a lot more people telling me how great this is."
The decision to make the foundation fundraiser a golf tournament was based on many factors, including the fact that Nease and his two sons are avid golfers.
"The logic to it was, golf was something that everyone could participate in," Joe Nease said.
"No matter what age," Chad Nease pointed out.
"And also there's a direct link with Karla and golf," said Joe Nease.
"She enjoyed watching us," said Chad Nease, who played for the Blairsville High School golf team, as did his brother.
Chad Nease recalled how proud his mother was when he brought home the first place trophy from the George Wheeling Scholastic Invitational as a high school freshman.
"That was a good moment, giving her that," he remarked. "She hadn't expected me to win."
Chad Nease is in his senior year at St. Vincent College, where he is studying mathematics and physics. Ryan Nease is a business analyst in Pittsburgh. Joe Nease works as a lab manager with Cleveland Brothers Equipment (formerly Beckwith Machine Co.).
Chad Nease emphasized how much of a family effort the foundation has become.
"Some of the preparations--finding people, trying to get people to donate, provide for the tournament, trying to put together groups for the outing--what we need to get the job done, we work together," he said.
Between 15 and 20 families in the area benefited from the foundation in the last four years, by Joe Nease's estimation. The foundation has raised about $5,000 in its four years of operation.
Most of the families the foundation has helped have been affected by cancer, "But it doesn't have to be cancer," Joe Nease emphasized. "It's just that, generally, cancer cases carry a big financial load."
Cancer is what brought Joanne Nindle to seek help from the foundation.
Nindle, of Blairsville, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999. After she underwent two lumpectomies, it was thought the cancer had gone into remission.
Then, in 2004, she went to the emergency room with what she thought was just the flu. Tests showed a mass around two of her ribs, and further tests detected a severe case of bone cancer.
"The bone cancer is everywhere," she said. "It progressed very fast."
Now, she is confined to her bed and a wheelchair and is helped around the house by her husband, Charles, who has become her caretaker.
With both of them not working, they soon became strapped financially.
"We had to resort to trying to find money to help pay rent," she said.
Informed by Patrarca about the Nease Foundation, they applied and were given the money needed to catch up with the rent payments due.
"When we talked with Pat, he set us up with help for paying our rent, which was very nice," Joanne Nindle said. "Every little bit helps."
"I really appreciated the help that they gave us," she said of the foundation. "If it wouldn't have been for them, we'd probably have had to look for a new place to live."
When she was first diagnosed with bone cancer, the doctors gave her only seven months to live.
"It's been three years now," she stated. "I've got a lot of willpower."
While the majority of the foundation's beneficiaries have been referred through Patrarca, Joe Nease noted others have asked for help independently. "So far, we haven't had to turn anyone down."
"His foundation has really helped people get through crisises," Patrarca said.
Joe Nease said he's thankful that the foundation has been able to provide necessities to so many different families in the area. But he also appreciates the fact that the program has helped him to keep the memory of his wife alive.
"Two years ago, I couldn't talk about this," Joe Nease said, not wanting to relive his wife's death. But time has helped to mend some of the wounds, and it has allowed him to be more open.
"I have to keep talking about it," he said, in order to bring to light the disease that claimed his wife and to raise money for families that are now experiencing the same difficulties brought on by terminal illness.
"All of these people are going through exactly the same thing we went through," Nease said. "So the foundation accomplished what we wanted it to. It's helping people."
As far as the golf tournament goes, "I'd like to see it continue to grow. Every year I try to make this a bigger and bigger event and try to get more money," said Ryan Nease.He recalled his mother as "a very giving and loving person, and this is a good way to remember her as a person in the eyes of others."
"It has a dual purpose," Chad Nease said of the foundation. "It helps us to remember Mom, and it's helping others, which is exactly what she would have wanted us to do."
The fourth annual Karla J. Nease Foundation golf fundraiser will be held Saturday at Cloverleaf Golf Course in Delmont, beginning at 10 a.m. Anyone wishing to mail a monetary donation may send checks to the Karla J. Nease Foundation, 50 Old Main St., Blairsville, Pa. 15717.
