Rae’s most-important bake sale

Saturday is the third annual craft and bake sale for Rachael Wiltrout-Felton.

It may be the most important one yet for Rae, as she’s called.

Last May, she died.

She was a daughter, sister, wife, mom and stepmom. And she was the victim of a rare sarcoma cancer. She lived 31 years.

After a quiet couple of months following her death and handling all the “firsts” that come with losing someone, craft-sale organizers Sarah Pace and Nicole Holko connected in September on the event.

“This year is probably the most important one we’ll do,” said Nicole. “It’s part of life to fall into your routine and forget. Doing this is a reminder of her. When someone’s gone, they don’t have to be gone.”

The Third Annual Team Rae Craft Show and Bake Sale will take place Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Maplewood Elementary School in North Bloomfield.

It will feature 40 vendors such as Thirty-One, Posh, Scentsy, Nature’s Rustic Design and more. It’s being sponsored by Pace’s Lawn Care and Custom Countertops.

The school is donating the space, and it’s a fitting host: Maplewood is where Rae went to school, as did much of her family then and now.

That the bake/craft sale even exists is kind of odd, and a testament to Rae’s unique style, as Nicole put it.

It was Sarah’s idea to have the sale, and she hardly knew Rae.

“People still kind of ask: ‘Why would you do it?’” said Sarah. “Some thought it odd. But it was just something I felt in my heart.”

They met in 2011 at a Thirty-One Gifts home-products show. Rae was diagnosed the summer of 2012, and the first bake sale was that winter. Sales as such are not easy to organize; they’re even harder to turn a profit. The event earned $6,000 its first year and $3,500 last year.

“In the short time I knew her,” said Sarah, “I knew her as a person who would help anyone. She was just really outgoing and energetic.”

Nicole knew Rae much differently.

“As sisters, we had our moments. She was just very real and blunt. It was refreshing as much as it was infuriating,” she laughed. “She was very genuine, generous and supportive.”

Sarah learned Rae’s support firsthand.

Sarah, too, became a Thirty-One saleswoman. She went to her first product convention in 2013. These events are big: 15,000 people, she said.

“I hate crowds,” Sarah said. “Rae took me by the hand and made sure we got to good seats and that I was in the mix, and not hiding.”

Her “Warrior” photo is classic Rae, Nicole said.

Rae is bald and naked; treatment scars dot her body.

Across her chest is written “Warrior.” And the smile on her face is as bright as her wedding-day smile.

Losing such an energy was tough, Nicole said. Rae died at St. Joseph Health Center. As life was leaving her, she was surrounded by husband Jeremiah; Mom and Dad, Roger and Kim Wiltrout; and Nicole.

The rest of the family was notified. Nicole and her mom drove around to the various schools to gather the kids. Not everyone could get there in time for Rae’s final moments.

Once all there, they were in no hurry to leave. They sat in the hospital room, 15 or so people, Nicole tallied.

They just sat in silence around Rae. The hospital staff let them stay as long as they wanted. It lasted a few hours, Nicole said.

“It was our way, our time,” Nicole said.

She can’t recall how they ended that last day.

But she knows the “firsts.”

Mother’s Day the next weekend was real hard, Nicole said. The end of school came, and a birthday, and the July 4th picnic, and the trips ... all tough.

Time wound around to September, and the craft-show planning.

“I was not sure people were still eager to do it,” said Sarah. “But word started to get going again.”

Nicole got Jeremiah’s OK — with just his one request. The money had gone to help Rae with her various treatment and travel expenses.

He wanted the money to go to sarcoma research.

“Hopefully one day — we’re not having funerals for people who have this,” said Nicole. “That’s what Rae would have wanted.”

Todd Franko is editor of The Vindicator. He likes emails about stories and our newspaper. Email him at tfranko@vindy.com. He blogs, too, on vindy.com. Tweet him, too, at @tfranko.