Photo by Alex Horvath / The Californian
BY HERB BENHAM, Californian staff writer hbenham@bakersfield.com
Last Updated: Monday, Dec 1 2008 4:28 PM
She’s a clown. It’s not like we couldn’t use a break. Yes, a break given the misery that sometimes wraps itself around us like light gauze.
Gwen Quinton dresses in costumes to entertain children at the Shriners Hospital in Los Angeles. For a November stop at the hospital, she dressed as a chicken.
Photo by Alex Horvath / The Californian
Once a month Gwen Quinton participates in a birthday celebration at the Shriners Hospital in Los Angeles.
Gwen Quinton wouldn’t tell me her age. It’s no big deal and I’m not sure why I asked. What’s important is that now in her sixth decade, Quinton has found her calling.
Clowning. Entertaining children at hospitals like the Shriners in Los Angeles. These are children who have been burned, lost limbs, or were born with cleft palates, club feet, curved spines and a host of other conditions. In other words, children who do not have a lot to laugh about but find reasons to do so nonetheless.
“I was a bookkeeper for 25 years, a certified massage therapist for 15 years and a security guard for five,” Quinton said, “But I never felt fulfilled. This is like my little niche.”
It wasn’t long ago that Quinton didn’t have a lot to laugh about herself. Eight years ago, she had a stroke. The road back included walkers, canes and crutches.
That behind her, or as behind her as a something like that can be, she’s returned to making the two-hour drive once a month to the Shriner’s Hospital located in a fairly textured neighborhood west of downtown LA. Quinton is a member of the Daughters of the Nile, the sister group to the Shriners (think Potato Bowl, colorful purple fezzes, small cars and good works).
The Daughters host a once-a- month birthday party at the 60-bed hospital for between 10 and 25 children. It doesn’t have to be your birthday. If you’re a patient, it’s automatically your birthday. Children are given party bags with coloring books, Crayons, small toys and are served cupcakes, apple sauce and juice boxes. The birthday boys and girls come in wheelchairs, on gurneys and some on crutches.
A couple of weeks ago, Quinton was dressed as a turkey. It wasn’t clear how many of the children knew she was a turkey, but that didn’t matter. Her costume was soft to the touch and Quinton was suitably gentle in her flight path around the large, airy room with the attractive wood floor.
Only one child cried (“some of them don’t like it when your face is covered up,”), and most of the others smiled, laughed or expressed some sort of delight.
“It gives me an opportunity to make the kids, who don’t understand not feeling good, feel better,” she said.
She has another reason for playing the clown, aside from her latent thespianism. It is a way of remembering her family. Quinton’s only daughter, Ginger, died in an auto accident in Arizona in 1991. She was driving with a friend who fell asleep. Ginger was 19.
“She loved kids too,” Quinton said. “When I’m clowning, I feel her presence.”
Which is something, because when Quinton would try this sort of thing with Ginger, she would say, “Oh Mom.”
“Mom” can’t help herself. Every third Thursday, unless she is sick or flat on her back, Quinton makes the drive. With an assist from Fantasy Frocks, which loans her the costumes, Quinton can be a dancing bear, an Easter rabbit, Mrs Claus, Puff the Magic Dragon, Bobo the circus clown, or an unusually cuddly turkey that could double as a chicken.
Quinton is expanding. Recently, she passed the background check for the Children’s Hospital in Madera. She plans to make her debut in December.
Standing ovations are not necessary. Quinton doesn’t play for the back row. A smile, hug or a few soft words is payment enough.
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