| Marie Warder | |
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Marie Warder |
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| Born | Marie Van Zyl alt Marie Van Zijl 1927 Ficksburg, South Africa |
| Nationality | South African, Canadian |
| Occupation | Journalist and author |
| Known for | Hemochromatosis activism |
Marie Warder (born Marie van Zyl, Ficksburg, South Africa) is a journalist, novelist and activist best known for her activities raising awareness about hemochromatosis. Warder founded the Hemochromatosis Society of South Africa (HSSA),[1] and the Canadian Hemochromatosis Society (CHS),[2][3] and was founder and long-time President of the International Association of Hemochromatosis Societies (IAHS).
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Warder was born Marie van Zyl, in Ficksburg, South Africa in 1927. She married bandleader Tom Warder and moved with him to Canada. Tom Warder was diagnosed in 1975 with hemochromatosis, and her daughter was diagnosed with the same disease in 1979. These two events spurred Warder to become an activist, raising awareness of the disease within the medical community and the general public.
In February 1939, at age 11, Warder began writing stories for local newspapers, selling her first story to the Cape Argus. The story behind the impulse to submit the Argus story is told in BC Bookworld.[4] In 1944, by the time she was seventeen, she had had two stories published in the British magazine Everybody's and later wrote for several South African periodicals.
By 17, she was also the chief reporter for the Germiston Advocate. Judy Lloyd, writing in The Ficksburg News, and quoting The Journalist (a newsletter for journalists), claims that in this role, Warder was the youngest chief reporter in the world.[5] During her career as a journalist Warder had the chance to interview, among others, Pat Boone,[6] Field Marshal "Jan Christiaan Smuts" and "Frances Steloff", founder of New York’s renowned Gotham Bookmart in 1920, and which, during Steloff's proprietorship, served as a meeting place for many of the world’s published and unpublished writers who visited or lived in New York.]].[7]
Now living in Canada, she is mostly remembered for her numerous pamphlets and articles on the subject of Hemochromatosis (iron overload). However, one of her most successful series of newspaper articles was titled “I am a piano,” which first appeared in the “Home Journal” of the Johannesburg “Sunday Express” on July 29, 1956. In this she provided hilarious impressions of what she saw from the vantage of the stage, while playing the piano at functions from weddings to banquets and staff parties.
While still living in South Africa, Warder took to writing fiction. She is the author of twenty-four novels[8][9] written in English and Afrikaans;[10] three of which were used for some years as required reading in South African schools.* Many of her stories take place in and around newspaper offices.
Warder was listed among South Africa’s top seven “favorite novelists” by Dagbreek-Boekkring, a South African book publisher. Mary Morrison Webster, book critic of the Johannesburg Sunday Times, recorded among her recommendations printed in the 1959 pre-Christmas edition of the paper, two books written “in time for Christmas—in two different languages.” Mrs. Warder’s biography is included in the Archives of the National Council of Women among “Notable Women of Johannesburg.”[11]
Late in 2003, after years of activism (see below), Warder returned to novel writing. Storm Water and With no remorse… were released simultaneously less than a year later. In late 2010, Warder was working on her 23rd book: an updated version of Penny of the Morning Star, a novel she had originally written in South Africa in the 1960s as a part of a training course in English as a second language.[12] Her latest book, April in Portugal, was released late in May 2011.
In 1975, Warder's husband, Frederick Abinger (Tom) Warder, who had been seriously ill for eight years, was finally diagnosed with hemochromatosis at the age of 50, and died later in 1992.[13] In 1979 their daughter, then 32, was also diagnosed with hemochromatosis, Warder concluded that the disorder was hereditary and that much of what she had been told about it was incorrect: women could indeed develop hemochromatosis, and it was not only a disease of middle-age. Warder made it her mission to make the world aware of this disease, including an interview with Ida Clarkson on CHEK television.[14] For more than 28 years after that, except for a series of travel articles, Warder devoted her literary efforts to works about hemochromatosis. During this time she wrote The Bronze Killer,[15] the first devoted entirely to the subject of the genetic disorder hemochromatosis. The term "Bronze Killer" has been used, among others, in the Toronto Star,[16] in British newspapers, in the magazine supplement of the Johannesburg Sunday Express[17] and in a Quebec French issue of the Reader's Digest, where it is called “La tueuse au masque du bronze”.[18] Hemochromatosis was referred to as "the bronze killer" in an editorial by Clement Finch, Professor of Medicine Emeritus of the University of Washington, in the Western Journal of Medicine, September 1990.[19]
In that same editorial, Finch says: “A strong case can be made for incorporating measurements of the plasma iron, iron-binding capacity and ferritin into the routine blood screen. Without such a survey, there is little hope of recognizing hemochromatosis at a time when treatment has the greatest promise.”[19] He also notes: “Lay Societies have been formed whose mission is to disseminate information about the “bronze killer”. . . Their information program is so effective that the people they reach are sometimes far better informed than their physicians.”[19] The Bronze Killer is recommended by professionals around the world.[20]
Warder went on to found hemochromatosis societies in her native South Africa[1] and her adopted home of Canada.[2]
Warder has also published more than 300 articles on the subject of hemochromatosis, and as well as patient literature for individuals, hospitals and other medical facilities. Her newsletters and brochures have gone out to more than 16 countries.[2]
In addition to her activities as a writer and activist, Warder has been an educator, founding and serving as the first principal of Windsor House Academy, a "dual-medium" school in Kempton Park, South Africa; a musician, playing keyboards with her husband's band;[21] and, late in life, a lay chaplain at the Delta Hospital in Ladner, British Columbia.[22]
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For her efforts in founding the CHS, Warder was presented with a certificate of appreciation on April 11, 1988, by Mayor G.J. Blair, of Richmond, British Columbia "in recognition of her contribution to voluntary service" in that city, one year after he had been the first Mayor in Canada to proclaim an annual week of awareness for Hemochromatosis. During that first Awareness Week, 523 new cases of hemochromatosis were diagnosed.[23] More recently, at the conclusion of the International BioIron Society Conference held in Vancouver, British Columbia May 22–26, 2011, she was presented with a lifetime achievement award.[24] Some years ago, the Minister of Health for Canada declared May each year to be a month of National Awareness for the disorder.[25] and it is now also observed by organizations in many countries – for instance the United States [26]
Warder was awarded the Canada Volunteer Medal of Honour and Certificate of Honour*** in 1991 for her work, including her book The Bronze Killer.[18][27][28]
^* Storm Water and Samaritaan van die Sahara in Afrikaans and Penny of the Morning Star in English. The last was commissioned for use by ESL students, and thus contained an English/Afrikaans glossary as well as comprehension questions. An updated version for general reading, without the English/Afrikaans glossary and comprehension questions, was issued in time for Christmas 2010.[12]
^** Hart Sonder Liefde and Penny of the Morning Star - the story of a girl reporter
^*** Text of Certificate: "Through Marie Warder’s research and most noted book, The Bronze Killer, she has educated doctors and the general public about the disease. As a result, hemochromatosis is now recognized as Canada’s most common genetic disorder, and routine blood tests for the disease may soon become standard diagnostic procedure. As a culmination of her efforts Canada’s first Hemochromatosis Clinic opened at Vancouver’s University Hospital, Shaughnessy Site, in January 1991."
Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tom_Warder Tom Warder] at Wikimedia Commons