ALS patient honors his hero, Gehrig

With the help of a communication device, Rosen works as a part-time consultant for universities and Fortune 100 companies, and keeps a journal to leave as a legacy for his 14-year-old daughter, Zelda, and 11-year-old son, Teddy. While he calls the challenge of living with ALS the “understatement of understatements,’’ he said he has “never felt stronger, wiser, and more at peace’’ because he appreciates each day while managing his disease.

Rosen, 59, joined other local ALS patients and their family members at the July 4 Red Sox game to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech, which was read during the event to raise awareness and funds for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) and ALS research. Gehrig, the legendary first baseman for the New York Yankees, was forced into retirement by ALS in 1939.

Rosen said he feels connected to Gehrig beyond ALS. As a boy, he remembers watching the movie “The Pride of the Yankees’’ and crying over Gehrig’s “bad break,’’ never imagining he would share his hero’s fate. Today, he is appreciative of the power wheelchairs, talking computers, and other technology that wasn’t available in Gehrig’s day.

“I couldn’t understand at all how he could say he was ‘the luckiest man on the face of the earth,’ ’’ wrote Rosen, who was diagnosed at the same hospital that treated Gehrig. “In the end, it is all about family, friendships, forgiveness, and love. I know that now.’’

For more information about ALS, visit www.mda.org.

HEALING FROM THE HOLOCAUST: Judy C. Faust of Hudson said her mother, Trudy Faust, never talked about the Nazis invading her native Austria or the relatives she lost in the Holocaust. In fact, Judy only learned about her maternal grandfather’s final days in 1994, when Trudy shared the letters he wrote before he perished in a concentration camp.

The following year, an invitation arrived from an Austrian church seeking forgiveness for the crimes committed against its country’s Holocaust survivors. Judy accompanied her mother to Vienna, recording their experiences in “Angels of Austria,’’ the 37-minute documentary she wrote, produced, and narrated.

According to Judy, the journey forced her mother to confront the survivor’s guilt she harbored ever since she escaped to America.

“This has been a healing experience for my mother, but it’s more than a story about my family,’’ Faust said. “I want people to see that human beings are capable of noble things. We see so much of the opposite that I’m afraid we’ll forget, which will bring about more of the behavior that could lead to another Holocaust.

’’ “Angels of Austria’’ will be shown at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday at the Regent Theatre in Arlington, and at both 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Aug. 7-9 at the Little Art Cinema in Rockport. A question-and-answer session with Judy Faust follows every screening. For more information, go to www.connectyourstories.com.

LESSONS IN AFRICA: After growing up in a family of educators in a suburb of Paris, Flavien Collet of Newton was naturally drawn to teaching. Now a French teacher and chair of the World Languages Department at Brimmer and May School in Chestnut Hill, he recently traded in his classroom to co-lead students on a cultural and service learning trip to Senegal, West Africa.

Joined by fellow French teacher Rona Mattocks of Cambridge, who spent last year teaching in Senegal, Collet and six high school students spent a day visiting Casablanca, Morocco, before flying to Dakar, Senegal. During the 10-day trip, the group participated in arts and crafts, fishing, drumming, and dancing; attended live concerts; bargained in open air markets; met a famous Senegalese wrestler and singer; and took classes in the Senegalese language of Wolof.

Through Senecorps, the nonprofit organization that organized the trip, students painted the wall of a school under construction and worked with local high school students to create a mural. They also taught English during several visits to schools and spent time with Moussa Thiaw of Senegal, who taught French at Brimmer and May last year. Most important, according to Collet, students embraced what is known in Senegal as “La Teranga,’’ or the spirit of brotherhood, hospitality, and kindness. “Students came to realize that they could contribute to changing the image of Africa by listening to people’s life stories, becoming ambassadors to share the truth about what they have seen once they come back home, thus erasing old stereotypes,’’ Collet wrote in an e-mail from France. “I hope they understood how one person can make a difference and how our actions can be stronger than words.’’

NEW DIRECTOR OF COLLEGE MINISTRY: Father Anthony Penna (inset) has been named director of campus ministry at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, where he has been a campus minister for the past 17 years. As athletics chaplain, Penna helped develop life skills and leadership programs for the college’s 750 student athletes. As a campus minister, he assisted in creating and directing the 48HOURS program, which assists first-year students in transitioning to college life. He also helped develop “The Courage to Know,’’ a course that encourages freshmen to critically explore the school’s intellectual, spiritual, and social dimensions. Penna, who lives on campus, is a resident minister in the college’s Ignacio Hall and an adjunct faculty member in the theology department. He also serves as a weekend minister at St. Matthew Parish in Southborough. Penna, who is a diocesan priest, said he is honored to be the first non-Jesuit director of campus ministry at Boston College. “Knowing the influence that the Jesuits have had in shaping my life, I have a real sense of indebtedness to them,’’ he said. “To be entrusted with such a tremendous religious and spiritual legacy is humbling, and makes me feel very privileged.’’

GILDED AGE ACTRESS CELEBRATED: One of the most renowned stars of her time, Gilded Age actress Clara Morris has been largely forgotten over the years. However, a new book by Newton resident Barbara Wallace Grossman (inset) is reawakening a new generation to her accomplishments and turmoil. Grossman, chair of the drama and dance department at Tufts University, used memoirs, letters, newspaper articles, and Morris’s 54-volume diary as research for “A Spectacle of Suffering: Clara Morris on the American Stage.’’ The book chronicles Morris’s journey from childhood poverty, abuse, and abandonment to the theater, where audiences wept in response to her emotional intensity. Behind the scenes, Morris struggled against an abusive husband, oppressive theater managers, morphine addiction, a five-year period of blindness, and other health problems that contributed to the end of her acting career. Morris then reinvented herself as an author, writing nine books and hundreds of articles and short stories. Morris died of heart failure in 1925. She was 78. “Clara’s story got my feminist dander up because so many of the articles written about her were dismissive,’’ said Grossman, who is also vice chair of the Massachusetts Cultural Council. “She shows us that with resiliency and tenacity, it’s possible to achieve a great deal despite suffering disappointment and pain.’’

People items may be submitted to Cindy Cantrell at cantrell@globe.com.