Nicole Tuohey again selling elephant links for $1, which includes a cookie

Photo contributed: Nicole Tuohey stands next to a pile of elephant’s links, which she makes and sells in Hans’s Baker to benefit Alzheimer’s research. The links are sold for $1 and come with an elephant cookie. She strings them down Main Street the night before the Alzheimer’s Walk, which is Oct. 10.

MEDINA – Alzheimer’s disease has been a big part of Mary Lou Tuohey’s life for more than a decade – dealing with it, dreading it, fundraising for research for it and promoting awareness of it.

On Oct. 10, the annual Walk to end Alzheimer’s will take place in State Street Park, with registration at 9 a.m. The walk will start at 10 a.m. A basket raffle is currently on display in the window at Hans’s Bakery. The drawing will take place after the last walker finishes.

One thing Mary Lou has been adamant about over the years is instilling in daughter Nicole the impact the disease has had on their lives and the need to support efforts to combat it.

That is why Nicole every year has sold “elephant links,” which she fastens together and stretches down Main Street. Her goal every year is to sell enough to stretch them down the block of downtown Medina.

Nicole started making the links when her mom owned Case-Nic Cookies and she sold them for $1 in the store. They also come with an elephant cutout sugar cookie, formerly made by Mary Lou, and now by Hans Rosentreter, who purchased the store and runs Hans’s Bakery there.

The elephant signifies memory (an elephant is said to never forget) and memory is what Alzheimer’s destroys.

Along with the links, Mary Lou started a basket raffle, with items displayed in her store window, and now in Hans’s window.

Tickets for the raffle are currently on sale at the bakery, with a unique system Mary Lou developed where supporters can buy their tickets even when the store is closed. A bucket outside the door is filled with envelopes in which there is a sheet listing all the baskets, which are displayed in Hans’s window. Customers put in their money ($10 per sheet) in the envelope, mark how many tickets they want in their chosen baskets, and drop the envelope in the mail slot in the door.

Every year, Mary Lou shares a story of her family’s history of Alzheimer’s and how it has affected Nicole.

Nicole’s grandma and grandpa both died of Alzheimer’s.

“For a total of 27 years, my mom watched her mom and dad fade away,” Nicole’s message reads. “She saw her dad, who was an engineer for Harrison Radiator for 30 years, owned his own business, loved to fish, fix cars and golf, and took care of his family, become a man who forgot who he was, wore diapers and only said, ‘What’s on the agenda?’ He ended up in a nursing home when Grandma could no longer take care of him.”

A few years later, Nicole’s Grandma Bradley became increasingly forgetful, got lost when driving and couldn’t take care of herself any more. She, too, had to go in a nursing home, where Mary Lou took Nicole to visit.

“Gramma didn’t know who I was,” Nicole shares. “She spoke ‘gibberish’ and the only thing Gramma did was cuddle the doll, Andrew, that her four children got for her. She loved Andrew, but didn’t know who her four children or seven grandchildren were.  Mom cried every time we left.”

Nicole tells her story because she worries and wonders if her mom will get Alzheimer’s disease.

“If she does, what will happen to me,” Nicole asks. “ I love her and need her.. I don’t want her to fade away from life like Gramma and Grampa Bradley did. I don’t want her to not know who I am.”

That is why Nicole sells her elephant’s links for Alzheimer’s, and stretches them down Main Street the night before the Alzheimer’s Walk. All the money raised goes directly to Alzheimer’s for research to help find the “link” to Alzheimer’s.

“I pray my mom does not have to suffer through this horrifying disease,” Nicole wrote in her message.