
Tai Chi instructor Vince Lasorso spent hours weekly with Bonnie Mitsui the last two years of her life. She came to him with a cancer diagnosis, and told him that she was ready to die. Due to several severe strokes, she had persistent pain in her arms and legs and had years ago switched her dominant hand, painting and working primarily with her left. She had accomplished much with her influential experiment, Turner Farm, both on the farm and in the region. And had overcome significant emotional and psychological barriers from losing her mother and inheriting wealth at an early age. She had reconciled with her son and met her grandchild before she died and this provided her great comfort.
Bonnie Mitsui will be remembered as the founder of Turner Farm, a local organic Community Supported Agriculture farm, where literally hundreds of people worked over the years as part of a number of CSAs and as interns training to become farmers in their own right. Professor Alan Wight has noted that there were two nodes of farmer training and visionary work that helped to build a vibrant local and organic food economy in Cincinnati and Turner Farm was one of them.
Continue reading
