By Joe Pinchot
MERCER COUNTY — About this time of year, Peggy Leonard starts getting the calls.
A caller will tell her she is going to have a mammogram on a certain date, and request that the Greenville woman bake a specific kind of pie.
What do mammograms have to do with Mrs. Leonard’s baking habits?
At the Womancare Center of UPMC Horizon in Hermitage, they are an October tradition.
In 2002, the center offered a slice of one of Mrs. Leonard’s pies to every woman who had a mammogram during October, as an offshoot of the center’s promotional slogan of offering state-of-the-art care with a hometown flavor, said Mrs. Leonard’s daughter, Kim Leonard, director of women’s health services at the Womancare Center.
The next year, the center did not offer the pies.
“Everyone was disappointed,” Kim said. “So we did it again.”
Every year since then, Peggy has baked about two pies a day each weekday in October. Jan Zane picks them up from her and delivers them to the Womancare Center, where she works.
“Last year, I made 47,” said Mrs. Leonard, also known as “Ma Peg.”
Mrs. Leonard, 81, said she jumped at the chance to take part in the promotion.
“I have two nieces who are breast cancer survivors,” said the retired emergency room secretary at the former Greenville Regional Hospital, now part of UPMC. “I thought anything that would promote women taking care of themselves would be a good idea.”
She added that her mother had pancreatic cancer.
“I’m very aware of what cancer can do,” Mrs. Leonard said.
Baking is fun and not a lot of work, said Mrs. Leonard, a mother of four, grandmother of 12 and great-grandmother of three.
“I play golf all summer,” she said. “When October comes, it’s not very busy.”
Pie recipients have written her notes thanking her, and asking for recipes. She bakes apple, cherry, peach, pumpkin and pecan pies.
“A lot of people like pecan pie, but it’s actually the easiest one to make,” Mrs. Leonard said of which pie is the most popular.
Kim Leonard said she can’t specifically credit her mom’s pies with an increase in mammograms in October, but the numbers show 500 to 550 women get them done that month, when the monthly average the rest of the year is 400 to 450 patients.
“I’ve had people tell me, ‘I need to get a mammogram and I’m going to wait until I can get a piece of your pie,’ ” Mrs. Leonard said.
“I think this is a nice sense of community, as far as coming from my mom,” Kim said. “It’s gotten to be such a tradition there. People will call in and say, ‘I’m coming on Thursday. Do you know what kind of pie you’re having?’”
Medical procedures of any kind produce some anxiety in many patients, and mammograms are something that no patient gets used to, Kim said. Pie is a comfort food, and the added touch makes the experience a little bit nicer, she said.
Ma Peg said she hopes the pies encourage people to get mammograms, especially younger women.
“If they’re younger, they think it’s not necessary and don’t get it done,” she said. “I’ve heard people say, ‘I really need to get a mammogram.’ You have to get out there and have things checked.”
Mrs. Leonard, who goes to Curves fitness center in Greenville five times a week, said she has a mammogram every six months.
“I try to keep my health and eat right. It’s all a matter of taking care of yourself.”
