Resident Stories in Personal Care at Living Branches

Resident Stories in Personal Care at Living Branches

Making the decision to move to Personal Care can be challenging, but you are not alone. Hear from our residents about their transition into Personal Care and how their wonderful experiences changed their outlook.

Resident Stories in Personal Care

Shirley Rittenhouse

“I’m Shirley Rittenhouse and I’ve lived at Souderton Mennonite Homes since November of 1992. My husband and I lived in a cottage until 2015, at which time I move myself up to personal care.”

Ted Hughes

“Ted Hughes, real name is Theodore Hughes. Born in Philadelphia. Raised in Lancaster and worked in Lancaster for a while, then moved to Souderton area.  Worked at Provident bookstore. Worked at Hatfield Meats. Drove a school bus for Hagee’s bus service. Then, retired and now here I am!”

Elizabeth Godshall  

“Well my name is Elizabeth Godshall and I lived here, I lived here for seven years in a cottage and now I’m up here in Personal Care a little over a year.”

What do you now enjoy about living in Personal Care?

Ted Hughes

“My room is clean. I’m not a good housekeeper I’ll admit that so thank you to them for that. My laundry is done. I’m not a good laundry person. If my wife would be alive today she would tell you, I don’t even think about doing laundry. So that is done and the service is great. Three meals and you’re well taken care of.”

Shirley Rittenhouse

“I finally am beginning to take the services they are offering, such as I get water twice a day and I appreciate that. I get my cleaning done. I get everything done, except my meds. I’ve decided I want to keep doing my own meds as long as possible so that’s what I do and they don’t mind that.”

Elizabeth Godshall 

“I attend activities. There’s a lot of activities for us. You can’t, you can’t be lonely. It’s there, you walk in the hall, you’ll meet somebody right away. I like the food very much. The alternate, if I don’t like what’s on for the day, you can always have the alternate, which are always different and it’s always good and the service is good. Oh they have some new names for desserts that I don’t know and I always say I have to see them first. I eat with my eyes.

Ted Hughes

“The music part I enjoy. Music, I love music. I can go to bed singing. I can get up singing. I go to the gym, which I never did before, which is good. I feel a lot better for that and we do bowling and things like that, so there’s a lot going on in here that you shouldn’t be bored. You shouldn’t be bored if you want to be. There’s a lot going on.”

Jackie Carson – Personal Care Social Worker

“I’m Jackie and I’m a social worker for Personal Care. I’ve been here for about three years this August. I think when residents move to Personal Care, the main thing that they receive is kind of the ability to live life again because we take away some of the things that they have to focus on such as medication monitoring and laundry and cooking and cleaning. So they get that opportunity to have life back. It doesn’t take them hours to do the laundry. It’s now something that we can do and they can go to activities or go to a friend’s house and enjoy life today.”

“Today, we’re gonna play minute to win it games. We’re gonna do a spring theme so we’re going to use Easter eggs.”

“I think one way we empower residents is just by figuring out what their personal identities are and what they need and they want out of life and out of their stay in personal care. Kind of creating that individual lesson plan of their life and what’s going to happen here, what’s going to happen in the future when they move, and what we can do to make that a better experience. They come to Personal Care and they think that everything’s gonna go away. They’re not gonna have the ability to do what they used to love to do and I think, making sure that we focus on what they love to do and not just like they’re in a nursing home. We need to care for their medical health but all of their health, their mental health, their social health and making that really a key point in their stay here.

What Advice Would You Give To A Friend Who is Considering The Move?

Shirley Rittenhouse

“Oh I tell him to come. I know I didn’t like it at first but it was a big readjustment because I had been in the hospital and came from there. So that was hard for me but I had three good family members and their hubbies who saw to it that everything was taken care of and they still do. I love it now. It was just readjusting because I was used to doing things for myself where here they do so much for you and we have a lot to be thankful for; excellent care and there’s just nothing to worry about.”

Elizabeth Godshall

“The waitresses tell us they like our table because we’re sometimes pretty over the top. We throw napkins. We make airplanes. We enjoy it.”

Shirley Rittenhouse

“It’s just super. I feel it was an answer for me. At first, I thought it would never be but maybe, in a couple of weeks. Oh I did shed some tears because I didn’t like giving up my cottage but I think that’s natural and it’s just so great to be here and have them take care of everything.”

Ted Hughes

“Try it. You’ll find out that what you think is gonna be a burden is a blessing to you. My own personal experience, I did not want to come. My family sort of suggested it. My wife passed away and I was living by myself and the way I was living compared to the way I’m am now; there’s a difference, day and night, so it’s a good place to be. It’s a good place to be.”