Citizens of Savannah: One of our own needs our help.
Shannon Lancaster, better known around town as Lady Lancaster, was diagnosed with adult rheumatoid arthritis when she was just 17 years old. Now 52, the effects of the disease and the complications it has caused have pushed her to the brink of homelessness. As I sat across from her in her tiny studio at the week-to-week Town Suites in Garden City, she told me a tale of someone who has worked hard and done right by her fellow Savannahians her whole life, but for whom the system has utterly failed.
"For the past 10 years my family, my aunts and uncles, [have been saying] 'You're disabled, you should go on disability,'" she related. "Most of my adult life I was functional. That's why I've been so stubborn. I never really looked at being disabled as being me. It's just a part of me.'
Credit: Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News
Credit: Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News
Progressively debilitating disease depletes Savannahian’s resources
In spite of her diagnosis, Lancaster has lived a full life. After completing an associate's degree in art from Tyler Junior College in Tyler, Texas, she transferred to the Savannah College of Art and Design to pursue a double major in Historic Preservation and Architecture.
“It was not easy doing a double major when you have a disease like this,” she explained. “There would be times where I’d get flare ups in my knee and I’d go to the doctor, to the rheumatologist, and he’d drain off the fluid off my knee, and give me a two-week steroid shot. And towards the end of SCAD, I had to get knee replacements.”
After graduation, she immediately went to work for a contractor, where she learned the practical side of construction and building. Later, Lancaster worked in architecture at several places around the Lowcountry, commuting to Beaufort, Hilton Head, and elsewhere to work for various firms. She volunteered around Savannah, and even spent time as a writer and a lifestyle consultant. And, of course, she continued to make and sell art.
But as the years progressed, her disease started to take its toll, and full-time work became more and more difficult. When her father and mother died in 2008 and 2010, respectively, she received an inheritance that helped make ends meet for a period, but that money eventually dried up. Later, she sold her house, but yet another medical issue, and a lack of insurance, drained that lifeline quickly, too.
“People thought I was a goner,” Lancaster said of an incident three years ago when she contracted sepsis in her right knee, was hospitalized, and almost died of septic shock. “I don’t have a real, full right knee [anymore].”
Credit: Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News
Credit: Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News
She’s still working, and has almost completed a cookbook that includes stories, watercolor paintings, and recipes collected from a lifetime spent in the kitchen. She sells drawings here and there, including architectural and pet portraits. But these days, her mangled, swollen fingers and chronic pain won’t allow her to work for more than three or four hours at a time.
“Right now, I damn well know I certainly cannot go back and work in an architecture firm, because that’s 40 hours a week or more,” Lancaster noted. “I’ve been through hell and back, so to speak.”
She’s been trying to get disability and supplemental income, but that’s proven to be problematic. When she first applied in 2021 she was denied because her house sale made it appear as though she had too much money to qualify. When she later appealed, she was denied again because her name was still on a couple of bank accounts controlled by her brother, a safeguard they put in place when their parents died. And during the 2010s she had difficultly paying taxes and Social Security, further dampening her chances for government help.
Lancaster’s got another hearing coming up in early December that she hopes will result in some level of relief, but that’s no guarantee, and it doesn’t solve the problem that she literally doesn’t know how she’s going to pay next week’s rent. On top of that she’s also been forced to stop attending physical therapy due to the expense, and she can’t afford all of her medications, putting her in the unenviable position of having to choose which of her medical concerns to deal with at any given time.
“I’m done emotionally,” she said. “It’s very draining. I wake up every morning in pain.”
Credit: Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News
Credit: Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News
During the hour or so that we sat around the tiny table that serves as dining room, office, and art studio for the multitalented creative, Lancaster remained affable and upbeat, in spite of her circumstances. More than anything, she wanted me to know that, deep down, she’s just another artist trying to make her way, like so many of us in this community are.
“The reason I wanted to share this story is I’m a normal person,” she said. “I’ve worked hard. My parents worked hard. I was a very involved citizen. I volunteered for Historic Savannah Foundation, Telfair Museums. All I want is to live. I don’t ask much.”
“And I know I’m not the only one,” she added. “This could happen to anyone.”
Those wishing to help Lady Lancaster directly may do so by donating to her through Venmo @shannon-lancaster-9. You can also purchase or commission paintings from her through her Instagram @ladylancasterstudio.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah artist’s resources depleted by rheumatoid arthritis as she awaits disability approval
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