Crocheting becomes light in the darkness for Franklin fiber artist who lost sight

FRANKLIN — It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, the saying goes. So, too, with the cold — better to loop a scarf around one’s neck than to wish for summer.

There’s a special comfort a scarf provides as it guards the neck against winter’s chill. When the scarf was made by hand, the scarf’s warmth is magnified by the thought that a person endeavored to provide that article through a pair of skilled hands. For several hundred scarves warming Lakes Region necks, the hands that created those scarves belonged to a blind woman.

Lucienne Boisvert, who lives at the Peabody Place retirement community, went to sleep sighted one night 15 years ago and woke up the next morning blind, the effect of years-long glaucoma. She was 82 at the time, and the loss of her vision dealt a staggering blow. As with most people, Boisvert had relied upon her eyesight for nearly all activities in her life, big and small. She raised two children in Manchester and then went to work in textile mills and retail stores. At home, she sewed clothing with her trusty Singer sewing machine, and in her retirement years she enjoyed perusing the internet and solving puzzles.

Those pastimes went away on April 4, 2009, when all Boisvert could see when she opened her eyes was black. The pressure within her eyes, from glaucoma, had caused irreparable damage to her optic nerves. The loss that stings the most — and which still brings tears to her eyes — was in August of that year, when her youngest great-grandchild was born. Boisvert will never know what she looks like.

“I was so mad about it,” Boisvert said about the sudden loss of her vision. “For six months, I did nothing. Nothing, nothing,” she said.

It was also difficult for her family — her husband Herve, who has since died, was in disbelief at first, she recalled. But it was her son, Michael, who deduced a salve if not a solution to her problem. He found a woman who advertised her ability to teach crocheting, and challenged her with her first-ever blind student.

“Before, I didn’t think about crochet,” Boisvert said. She remembered how, when she was growing up in Quebec, her mother would knit hats, mittens, even socks for her, but never did Boisvert feel the desire to pick up the yarn and needles.

Even with a skilled teacher, Boisvert almost gave up. She was working with a simple pattern — “eight, eight, skip two, eight, eight,” she said, explaining how she counts the loops with her fingers as she hooks the yarn into knots — but her first attempts came out all wrong. She told Michael to cancel the lessons.

“My son said, 'You can’t do anything now?'” He wasn’t letting her off so easily. “Every time, it came out crooked. Michael said, 'You are smart. You’ll figure it out.'”

She did figure it out. Further, she realized that through crocheting, she could continue to serve the world around her. She started donating her scarves to schools and other organizations which could give them to people in need of some extra comfort in a sometimes cold world.

In her early crocheting career, Boisvert was producing a scarf about every other day, at the rate of 150 per year. Arthritis has since slowed her fingers, but she still spends her evenings with yarn and hook in hand.

“I enjoy crocheting a lot,” Boisvert said. “It makes me busy, keeps me out of trouble.”

It might save a few other people some trouble, too. Michael has extended the benefit of her crocheting by partnering with Meredith Village Savings Bank, which not only distributes the scarves to agencies but also donates $2 per scarf to organizations that combat childhood food insecurity.

To date, Boisvert has crocheted and donated more than 2,000 scarves, which has amounted to more than $4,000 in support of alleviating hunger in children.

“I’m a fighter,” Boisvert said about her ability to find her way forward again after losing her sight. “I am going to do something for people to be happy. I’m happy to make somebody happy.”