CHANGE OF VENUE:HISTORIC AUCTION FROM JAN KOLTUN
ON AUGUST 30, 5–10 P.M., BENSON HALL AT EMMANUEL CHURCH
— from Jan Ferris Koltun —
As a child, the walk home from school in Eastsound’s core was the best time of the day. A hop, skip and jump down North Beach Road was Great Aunt Jean Donohue’s house, where fragrant loaves of bread, fresh from her oven, awaited. Just north, past her orchard, was the house where Grandmother Ferris lived. She had recently moved with her son from Washington DC, read her Bible constantly, and her specialty was doughnuts, the cake kind. Then it was time to hit North Beach, where Mrs. Harnden lived. In addition to stories about raising her daughters on Sucia, she always had a big bowl of candy, with which she was generous.
Now I am as old as those ladies were when they nurtured me. Who nurtured them when they got older? Not surprisingly for their times, all three were cared for by family. My mother and Cousin Betty lived near enough to care for Aunt Jean, who had raised Mom and, partially, me and Betty’s daughter. Grandma had her son and my parents. Mrs. Harnden had her daughters.
The pattern has changed for many of us, partly because families don’t live as near to each other as they used to. I cared for my own mother for a few years after she had a major stroke, but when she had a series of smaller strokes our solution was to use the nursing home in Friday Harbor, but that left her cut off from the community she’d enjoyed for most of her life. The home’s use of restraints when she got frustrated, added to the loss of dignity by a courageous and accomplished woman, but leaving her beloved Orcas was her greatest loss.
Thirty years later, Marilyn Anderson echoed that feeling when she commented: “Jan, after reading your article about the dream of senior housing on Orcas that would offer not only independent living but also long term care, and the event at Youngrens’ Barn to raise seed money for such a project, I have to say that had there been any forecast of such a place as you are envisioning on Orcas, I doubt that anything could have persuaded me to leave the island.”
This auction is only a start. The bottom line, I’m sure, is that our island economy will prosper from the jobs required to take care of our seniors right here. We have the power to ensure that future generations of elders will have attractive choices for independent and assisted living, long-term and acute care.
There still is land in the Eastsound core. Let’s find ways of using that core for care!
Thanks, Jan; it’s been a long-time needed.