MS doesn’t stop her from gardening

By Rose Albano-Risso – City Editor


May 10, 2011


Multiple sclerosis is a tough hurdle for a lot of people. But as the adage goes, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. And one of those tough people is Diane Stellhorn.

Even when the debilitating disease progressed to where she needed the aid of a wheelchair, MS did not affect her determination to continue working. She kept on teaching at Lathrop School until she retired five years ago when she called it a career after being in the profession for 25 years. Nor did her physical shortcomings deter her from enjoying the hobby she is most passionate about  gardening.

All around her house in the Joshua Cowell School area, the gardens are set up so that she can do some gardening chores while in her wheelchair. Decorative planters are all over the place. In front of the house where a lawn should have been, a cemented front patio was built on half of the lawn area outside the front door and oversized French window. Running along the east and south side of the patio are low cement walls doing double duty as raised planters. Yellow, pink and white shasta daisies, golden coreopsis, multi-colored Iceland poppies, and other showy annuals and perennials are all in their peak flowering season.

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