Category Archives: For the Family

Re-Union Valentines

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At 96, George still easily recalls how nervous he was to court his sweetheart, Virginia. Now comfortably settled into their apartment at Vista Prairie at Windmills Ponds in Alexandria MN, they tell the story of what led to their marriage 52 years ago. It was a re-union for both of them.

Virginia’s first husband had died of cancer two months before, when she was just 40 years old. His passing left her to raise three teenagers on her own, all while trying to manage eight cottages and a lakefront on the Lucky Acres Resort, which they owned on the west side of nearby Lake Miltona. George and Virginia met when he was a Lucky Acres customer, but they didn’t know each other well.

George made his living as a butcher and as an independent meat products provider. Cancer had taken his first wife two years earlier, leaving him the single father of three children. Because of the timing, George was more ready to pursue a relationship, especially after he got some encouragement from his pastor.

“The Lord took her husband and took your wife, and there’s no time limit,” George recalls the pastor advising him. “I said, ‘People will talk,’ and he said, ‘They’ll talk anyway.’” Even with that blessing, George was mighty nervous to call on Virginia.

“The Lord helped me turn into the resort and to go up and knock on the door,” George reflects. “I told her what the minister had said and that I knew it was early, but when you’re ready to go out, you just let me know.”

The two sets of children were understandably resistant to the courtship at first. As Virginia learned to cope with her grief, she agreed to a dinner date. And the rest was pure romance. “We started dating every Saturday night,” Virginia recalls. “We went dancing.” Virginia acknowledges that George was the better dancer.

“After two dates, her mother called me and invited me and my three children up for a meal,” George recalled. “She wanted to get better acquainted with my children.” Eventually the kids realized how much they loved each other. The courtship led to their marriage in 1970.

George and Virginia honeymooned in Hawaii, knowing they had lots of obstacles to overcome when they got home. While one of the children was married by that time, the other five teenagers needed to share the country house George had built. “We had a terrible time deciding whether he was going to give up the farm or I was going to give up the resort,” Virginia explained. Because of George’s steady, year-round work, Virginia decided to sell the resort.

In their retirement, the couple traveled for nearly a decade with their fifth-wheel trailer, visiting children and grandchildren after they eventually settled out west, in Wyoming, Idaho and Washington.

They’re now happy to call Vista Prairie at Windmill Ponds their latest stop. The community offers assisted living in 65 one- and two-bedroom apartments, designed for seniors who enjoy an active social environment and expect high quality care.
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Mountain climber

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Eunice and Judy Wolner climb virtual mountains together at Vista Prairie at Goldfinch Estates in Fairmont, MN. Judy explores the reality of the residents she cares for, like Eunice. As the Lead Care Coordinator for the community’s memory care unit, she has engaged seniors diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease or other forms of dementia, and their family members, for more than 18 years.

Goldfinch’s longest serving staff person, Judy applies her experience in the field to supervise a dedicated staff. “The reason I’m here is because I need to be here,” she says about her calling as a Goldfinch leader. “It’s never been about the money. I feel like somebody has to be there. Our mission here gives families peace.”

While memory care is Judy’s latest adventure, it’s not her first. When she was 21, she and a group of friends climbed Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. The peak is literally next door to Moshi, the village where she grew up with four brothers and three sisters in Tanzania.

She recalls that the climb (Judy is third from left in the photo) took three days to go up and three to come down, for an average of 6-8 hours each day. “This was considered the easiest route but after the first day, I knew why our ancestors called it Kilemanyaaro,” her tribal language’s expression for “cannot be conquered.”

Trans-Atlantic travel was Judy’s next exploration, in her early 20s, as she visited a friend in New York. This love for adventure landed her in Minnesota where she met her husband and got married in 2005. They settled in Fairmont, his hometown, where they are raising their son. Judy quickly secured a position as a Goldfinch Estates resident assistant.

Most folks in Fairmont don’t look like Judy. She sees her ethnicity and race differently. Growing up in a high tourism part of Tanzania with people of all colors, faiths and cultures was a blessing. “There’s a lot of foreigners that come and climb the mountain or go on Safaris,” she says. “Moving to the U.S. was the first time I was referred as ‘Black’ which is a way to distinguish people in the U.S. However, that’s impossible where I was born, with so many shades of the same color. We are simply Tanzanians. It’s more about what part of the country you come from, or what tribe you’re from.”

Living in Fairmont for nearly 20 years, she has helped to educate friends and coworkers about her race, culture, and her career. She recalls one conversation where she responded to a child’s curiosity this way – “We’re just like flowers. Wouldn’t it be terrible if we only had the white roses or the red roses and not all these other colors?” This child’s mother later reflected that she’d frequently wondered how to explain race to her kids.

“If your heart is pure and you tell the truth, there’s no problem,” says Judy, expressing her philosophy. “It all depends on adults and the seeds that get planted early in life.”

And that’s the same philosophy Judy teaches in climbing memory mountains with residents. “Part of our role is to educate family members to accept their loved-ones for who they are now, not who they were before they moved here.”

In addition to its 41 memory care suites, Goldfinch Estates offers 92 one and two-bedroom assisted living apartments for seniors who want access to supportive services while maintaining their independence.
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New Year – new home

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When they moved into Vista Prairie at Garnette Gardens in Redwood Falls, MN on January 3, Roman and Shirley earned the community’s “New Year distinction.” Sort of like being the first baby born at a hospital, they’re the first new residents of 2023 to make Garnette Gardens their home. Welcome Roman and Shirley to your two-bedroom apartment!

At the ages of 91 and 85, it was a big decision to leave their Redwood Falls home of 13 years. “It didn’t bother us much,” recalls Roman. “The kids wanted us to move, and we did.” The couple heads a five-generation family, including two daughters and three sons, 15 grandchildren, 16 great grandchildren and a new great-great grandson.

As home transitions go, it didn’t rank nearly as high as the decision Roman and Shirley made to move into Redwood Falls. That 2009 move came after 42 years of cultivating and caring for a 240-acre row-crop farm in Redwood County, west of town. One of their sons is farming that land now, in addition to several hundred acres of his own.

And two other factors made the move make even more sense. The couple’s eldest daughter used to be on Garnette Gardens’ staff. She started the ball rolling. And after the move, they discovered that Linda, a long-time Redwood Falls neighbor, lives just down the hall.

Three meals a day and the laundry service highlight the community’s benefits so far. Then there’s the exercise. “We’re supposed to walk a lot,” Roman says. “We can go up and down the hall and get a lot more exercise than we could at home.”

Garnette Gardens offers 62 one and two-bedroom apartments for seniors who value their independence but need options for personal care and supportive services. We also offer 16 memory care suites. Nine care suites round out the options, offering a higher level of assisted living care and supervision.
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Excursions

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Larry and Sylvia have enjoyed most of their excursions since they moved into Vista Prairie at Brentwood in Rice Lake, Wisconsin last May. By far, their favorite was to the Northern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery, north of Rice Lake near Spooner. Sylvia has been there three times, and Larry twice.

“Stuck out among all the trees and cornfields is this beautiful tribute to the people in our country who have given their lives,” Sylvia says. “It was nice to see that it had that much impact on the locals and other people. You didn’t have to be from here.”

Following Sylvia’s solo introduction as part of an organized Brentwood trip, she and Larry went back to the cemetery* the next day. They also put it on the agenda for a visit from old friends from Madison, where Larry and Sylvia spent their working years and raised their kids.

Another excursion wasn’t quite what Sylvia expected. Curious about the borders of Brentwood’s hilltop property, she ventured out the back door for what she thought would be a short walk, without telling Larry or anyone else what she was up to. She soon was headed out of sight and down a hillside, which at the age of 86, was too steep for her to climb back up. “It wasn’t getting any better,” Sylvia recalls, “and finally I got tired, and I sat down on the grass and scooted along — all the way to the end of the property, which is where the staff found me.”

Picking up the story, Larry had become concerned when Sylvia did not appear for lunch. Among her other actions, Brentwood’s Executive Director, Rita Gronski had alerted the couple’s son Dane, an executive at WJMC Radio in Rice Lake, who headed over to the community. Activities Manager, Lee Ann Kritch, jumped in her car while other staffers looked closer to the building. Lee Ann soon spotted Sylvia from the car; Sylvia got in, and all was well.

After four months at Brentwood, Sylvia acknowledges the good food, the staff’s kindness, and the cleanliness of the community. But she stresses that initially, she did not want to leave the home she and Larry had built for their retirement years.

“I’d rather be somewhere else,” Sylvia says, “where I don’t know. The place that I loved is gone. So, it’s having to wrestle with those emotions. And they’re so extreme.”

Larry, at age 88, was more open to their life-changing excursion from the Madison area to Rice Lake. “Sooner or later, this decision had to be made,” he says. “You can’t live and support yourself your whole life. At some point, you need assisted living if you’re going to live to a big age.”

The Brentwood community offers options for residents on all sides of that spectrum, with 28 one and two-bedroom apartments for seniors who want options for personal care and supportive services along with their freedom of movement. We also offer 19 memory care suites that provide a long-term option for seniors diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia.

*Photo reprint with permission from the Spooner Advocate.
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Memories

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Bob is sitting in a chair that brings back loving memories. It’s the first chair he and Hazel bought, early in their 73-year marriage. Bob crossed the 100-year-old threshold last year. With Hazel’s passing two years ago, the chair provides comfort in their apartment at Vista Prairie at Goldfinch Estates in Fairmont, MN.

Bob’s service in the Pacific during World War II earned him his accounting degree on the GI-Bill, from the University of Minnesota. Hazel and Bob met in St. Paul while both worked for the Internal Revenue Service, he as an auditor and she in administration.

Following some IRS transfers, they eventually established an accounting practice in Fairmont. He and Hazel worked side-by-side for 47 years, helping hundreds of area farmers, businesses and individuals with their taxes and other accounting needs. The domestic and business partnership worked. “When Hazel and I had a disagreement, I went for a long walk,” Bob says. “That took care of it.”

Bob remembers vivid details about a boyhood that contributed to his work-ethic and values, as the eldest child in a family of six, “As I grew older, I assumed more of the work around the house,” he recalls. “I scrubbed the kitchen floors, the bathroom, did the laundry.”

Bob remains in the same Goldfinch Estates apartment that he and Hazel moved to 12 years ago. “Hazel liked the apartment,” Bob noted. “We were very comfortable there. It worked out very well.”

Goldfinch offers 92 one and two-bedroom apartments for seniors who want access to supportive services while maintaining their independence. We also offer 41 memory care suites that provide a long-term option for seniors diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia.
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