dhenton@thejournal.canwest.com

who's responsible for elderly woman's death, you ask

catharina zinkewich lived the life and died the death of a pioneer settler and she had her freedom to the last ~ which is more than most of us can say today

you do her a disservice with the hyperbole that permeates your piece from the first sentence and reeks of the propaganda of the 'nanny state' which thinks it has the right to interfere in any and all aspects of a citizen's existence

catharina zinkewich died at age 89 in her home, which you describe as a "decrepit one-room shack" (were you there?)
no one knows of her passing and her death was "gruesome" only in the finding

after 80 years in canada, you still call her a polish immigrant
what kind of immigrant are you

she homesteaded with her parents who with their bare hands made a farm out of nothing in the 1930s

"she preferred to live a harsh life alone in a shack without plumbing . . . just a few kilometers from the homestead"

would ­you have preferred some agency to force her to move 'for her own good'?
can you not respect this freedom she valued so?

who's responsible?
catharina zinkewich is

i can only aspire to such a life, and such a death, and such freedom to be left alone

______________________________________ Thanks for your note Albert. Fell free to submit it to our letters page. The letters page editor is rcook@thejournal.canwest.com Darcy