AnnMarie Ginella

photo by Lorna Booker

  • Birthplace : Waukegan, IL
  • Residence : Sebastopol, CA
  • Children : < Four boys, ranging in age from 9 to 30; first grandchild due in July
  • Pets : Three bunnies to replace the six chickens that were recently eaten by bobcats
  • On the international reach of WidowSpeak : "It's harder to get a bio from a board member down the street" than stories about widowhood from women in Africa.
For AnnMarie Ginella, August 8 is never a happy anniversary. On that day in 1997, her life partner, lover and best friend died. In late July of that year, Peter Eiermann — whom she had been in a relationship with for 16 years — began suffering from flulike symptoms. Doctors quickly diagnosed him with hemolytic anemia, a disorder of the red blood cells. One week later, he passed away in the hospital.

Ginella, who was a 36-year-old high school teacher at the time, was suddenly alone in the world with three boys. And she soon had another shock — she discovered she was pregnant with Peter's baby. But she had no time to panic. Peter's death left her and the children emotionally and financially adrift.

 

Without much extended family around, she found herself depending on her community for help. "There's the family you're born to and the family you choose," she says. "Fortunately, I had a support system of friends who had known the children since they were little."

In 2005, still suffering from a self-diagnosed case of "woe-is-me syndrome," Ginella launched an online literary project called WidowSpeak. The website is a forum for widows to share their stories through essays and blogs. "It's been compelling to hear their stories, to hear the strength and universalism of them," she says. "They deal with love, moving on and raising children."

Her small literary project garnered the attention of some well-to-do widows. Thanks to a grant from Jean Schulz (the widow of Peanuts artist Charles Schulz), Ginella now works on the site full-time. She hopes her site will inspire more people like Schulz to reach out to financially strapped widows.

Ginella herself still feels the financial pangs of Peter's death. She recently had to sell the Santa Rosa, CA, home that she and Peter lived in before he died. She and her brood now live in a small rented house in a nearby Northern California town.

Some say time heals all wounds, but for Ginella, now 46, the ache that Peter left behind will never go away entirely. "I thought it would be less hard by now to be a widow and have children," she says. "But it's a constant struggle."

She does, however, see the silver lining in the tragedy. "Being alone allowed me to really discover my own inner strengths. In that way, his death was a gift."