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Jul 2, 2008

"Thirty-five years earlier, before the relapse of my dystrophy, I couldn't have done what I've done. I was a businesswoman, I had a shop, I was in a marriage, and I was a conformist. I probably had to go through all this to come out at the other end, to be sort of hit on the head and to realize that my former life wasn't all that good and that it was time to try something else." --Hanni Sager

Hanni's Toy Workshops in Mexico

Before muscular dystrophy took over her body, Hanni Sager was known as Toronto's Toy Lady as she amassed a first-class collection of toys from around the world, showed them in exhibitions, and gave lectures about them. But with her legs permanently fitted into braces, she had lost all hope in life. Then, one day she received what she thought was an airline advertisement and started to throw it away; hardly an ad, it was a ticket from a loving friend that took her to San Miguel de Allende, a place she'd never heard of in a country where she'd never been. Once in Mexico, she would come to start four toy making workshops for other disabled children in a remarkable tale of a woman who Nancy Miller calls a "world treasure."