Flo the Clothes Lady has one last good deed
There's one last gift waiting for the community from the Clothes Lady.
Flo Battagalio got that moniker because she collected and donated clothes to the needy, many of whom had physical disabilities and mental health problems.
She performed this good deed from 1985 to 2011 until failing health caused her to give it up. She is now 85 and has been a resident in the Arbour Creek Long-term Care Centre in east Hamilton since last June.
She, however, left behind a basement full of clothes in her downtown house and now her son, Wayne, is looking for a good home to take it all.
"It has to be removed from the house," said the 64-year-old retired steelworker. "I want to try and donate them and a lot of them are wrapped in plastic and bags and stuff like that. I would like it to go to good use as her last hurrah. I don't want any money for it."
There was a small fire in the house on Dec. 2, and he said some of the clothing smells smoky, but noted all the pieces need is a good wash.
Battagalio began her charity work after her son Raymond — diagnosed in 1977 with schizophrenia — found a place in a downtown lodging home after living at home for eight years. She dropped him off at his new home and noticed other occupants needed clothes.
She approached friends for donations and soon was helping residents in other second-level lodging homes in central Hamilton. In some cases, donors gave her clothes from relatives who died. A friend in 2009 described her basement as looking like a store with clothes sorted and put into piles.
Battagalio rejected any praise.
"If you find someone who needs clothes, wouldn't you help them?" she told The Spectator in 2009.
Wayne said his mother always thought of others and helped family members over the last few decades. She was born in Niagara Falls and came from a family of 13.
"Believe me, she didn't do it for any tax write-off," he joked. "It kept her busy and she's always had that nature about her."
He said his brother Raymond died in 2012 and that greatly affected his mother's health.
He estimated the amount of clothes in the basement represents "probably a good vanload or more."
"There's bedding down there, men's clothes, women's clothes, all kinds of stuff," he said.
"Some of it she bought and some of it was donated from stores. She'd go to stores after season and say, 'Do you have any children's clothes?' There are snowsuits for kids down there."
