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Paul Barlett, VP at St. John's Meadows, holds meetings with residents weekly over coffee.

This morning I attended the weekly coffee hour with Paul Bartlett, VP at St. John’s Meadows. About 40 residents came to offer suggestions, ask questions, express appreciation and voice concerns about life in Chestnut Court. With his usual good humor, Paul listened, made notes and welcomed all comments on subjects ranging from the condition of the ponds, food quality, missing light bulbs and overflow attendance at movies shown here.
People raved about Gabriella’s omelets in the Meadows Market Café and the friendly greetings from all staff members. We were told how we could express appreciation for individual staff members and heard news about upcoming events.
This town hall type of open communication between staff and elders is another wonderful feature of St. John’s where we feel free and comfortable to voice concerns or applaud all facets of St. John’s living.

Reva Sipser

In August 2012, I decided to make a change from my life in Florida and called St. John’s Meadows. When I said I was eager to move, I was told they had a one-bedroom unit available. I returned to Rochester, my hometown, and took it sight unseen.
From my first day at St. John’s, everyone made me feel safe and comfortable. Old friends helped me furnish my apartment with the basics. Surprisingly, many residents recognized me – going back to elementary and high school days. I immediately felt at home.
When the Meadows Market Café needed some extra help, I offered to do the meal delivery. I call it “Meals on Heels,” as I carry dinners to residents who can’t come to the café. I love meeting new people and the walking is good for me.
Every day I feel so blessed to be here, to partake in the many activities and to keep making new friends. Coming to St. John’s Meadows is the best move I have ever made.

My name is Stryker Ostafew. I am 22 and I was born here in Rochester. I come from a family of five – parents and a younger brother and sister. I have always lived in the country, out where there are more cows than people. My first job as it so happens was on a farm at the age of 14. Being barely older than a baby myself, I took care of all the young calves and occasionally helped in the milking parlor. My next job was at a greenhouse where I eventually became the assistant manager. I took care of all the plants and the customers that came for our plants. Soon I was off to college. I currently attend Roberts Wesleyan College and I am wrapping up my four year Marketing degree. I am a senior and I will be graduating this May. I think it may be because I was born here that I feel especially at home in Rochester and I plan to pursue my career here. With my spare time I love painting, especially with watercolor. My most recent painting was of a sunset.

This internship experience has truly been one of the best experiences I have had in my entire college career. As you know, I have been interviewing some of the residents of St. John’s Home, Brickstone and St. John’s Meadows and writing articles for this blog. This has been the highlight of my semester.  There are so many wonderful and interesting people here. What has amazed me the most is the wealth of knowledge that lives here. Something I did not expect was how friendly everyone is, and I mean everyone. From the buildings & grounds personnel to the CEO, everyone you pass will give you a smile and a friendly greeting. This will be my final post and my last week here at St. John’s. It is bitter sweet. I will miss coming in and interviewing such amazing people, but I am excited to graduated and start work. In closing, I would like to extend my gratitude to Duane, Andrea, and Jennifer for such an exciting and enriching internship.

Wendy was born and raised here in NY. She described her childhood as very active. Wendy enjoyed skiing and swimming and various other athletics. She attended Elmira College where she graduated as an art and  English major. It was during college that Wendy met her husband who attended Cornell University, and they were married in 1953.  Her husband, worked at Kodak for about 9 years, but one day when they were on a trip through Algonquin State Park he found a spot that he thought would be great for canoe trips. They gathered funds, and in 1963 they started a canoe trip outfitting business called Algonquin Outfitters.

  During the winter months, they would work on the promoting side of the business. They also did some work for the government to promote tourism. Now they are the largest outfitting business in North America. Wendy’s son Rich  runs the business now, and her other son Bill manufactures and sells canoes and kayaks in the US and Canada. Wendy still goes to Algonquin state park every summer for three months to help with the business and to enjoy the beautiful North Woods.

 Wendy is an adventurer and loves to travel. Once they had their business well established, she and her husband traveled to over 100 countries. Wendy still travels every year with a good friend from Canada. They have traveled to places such as Turkey and Africa.

 Wendy currently lives at Brickstone. While I was interviewing her, I was amazed by the wildlife surrounding the bird feeder behind her bungalow. Around her bird feeder were squirrels, turkeys, song birds, and two deer! She told me that happened fairly often. When I asked Wendy what some of her hobbies are, she laughingly said “ I paint the lakes and swim in the lakes. ” Wendy does aquafit every day! She makes  jewelry too, specifically copper enamel. She also enjoys takeing advantage of all the activities Rochester has to offer.

Ken, 87, is a general surgeon and Sally, 84, is a teacher. Ken began his interest in medicine through a college course on vertebrate zoology. Speed forward several years, and they went to a small missions related hospital in India in 1957. The hospital had about 150 beds and over the 24 year period that they were there they admitted 100,000 patients and Ken performed 33,000 operations or deliveries. While Ken was working at the hospital, Sally was teaching at the Theological College and also at the nurses’ training school. Sally has done her graduate work in psychology, and taught psychology and English. They went to India with a 15 month old and when they came back, had two more children in tow. Along with performing surgeries, Ken was also thrown into some architecture for the hospital. When I asked what the first thing he designed was, Ken and Sally both laughed because it was a latrine.

When the Dodgsons returned to the US, Ken became the Director of the Occupational Medicine Program at the University of Rochester Medical Center. He was there for 20 years. Meanwhile, Sally became the Director of Communications at the Rochester Divinity School. Ken laughingly tells me that the family joke on his mother’s side was that “you go into ministry unless you’re called out.” His mother could name 50 immediate relatives who were ministers.

 Ken and Sally tell me Rochester has been good to them and they love it here. Sally loves the change of seasons and especially enjoys the summer. The Dodgsons stay active. Sally is in a bowling league, part of a reading club, and joined the Recorder Society of America and is learning to play the recorder. Sally also tutors a Burmese immigrant. Both Ken and Sally volunteer at the Divinity School and enjoy golf. Ken is moderator at their church and also sings in the choir. He belongs to two art groups the Pittsford Art Club and is on the board of Rochester Art Clubs. Ken’s main medium of choice is watercolor but has done some oil painting and sketching. Ken has also attended some courses at Rochester Memorial Art Gallery’s creative workshop. Art has been very central to Ken’s life. I had the pleasure of seeing some of Ken’s artwork. When he was showing me his work I learned a fun fact. Most know the author of Alice in Wonderland as Lewis Carroll however, that is his pen name. His real name is Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and Ken tells me that they are distantly related.  

The Dodgsons moved to Brickstone last May. They moved from a historical art-deco home in Perinton. They loved the house, but they also love where they are now. They enjoy being close to the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, the Geva Theater, and the Divinity School

Happy, music, and education these are the three words Jane gave me when I asked her what three words she would use to describe her childhood. Jane explains that she really had a happy childhood, with her two older siblings. “Music was another big part of my life. I learned to sing and play the piano and that has gone over into my adulthood.” Jane still plays the piano and jokingly explains that she is not a pianist, but she does play the piano. “There is a difference,” she says. Jane sings and has been singing in different choirs for over 70 years in different places and every denomination of church. Education “my family really dotted on us that we would learn, learn to read and be a part of discussion. Conversation was a big part of our family.”

 Jane told me about growing up in the depression and having to make do with everything they had available. “It wasn’t a chore, it was just what you had to do,” she says. Her father and mother worked while Jane and her siblings kept the house. Some of her fondest memories included getting together with people. Jane’s mother loved to entertain and they had lots of dinners. Her family was very neighborhood-conscious, so they were together with friends, family, and neighbors often.

 Jane is an educator. Jane taught primary students for about 12 years at a public  school. Next she moved from Long Island to Western New York where she was involved with a child care center while teaching part time. Jane tells me that it was the first time she had ever shared a classroom with someone. Jane taught in the afternoon and another woman taught in the morning. “The best part was we had the same first names so the children used to call us Mrs. Jane Morning and Mrs. Jane Afternoon.” During this time, Jane also worked as a literacy volunteer.

 Next I asked Jane a very complicated question “Did your life turn out the way you expected?” Jane goes on to explain that she and her siblings had attended the same elementary, middle, high school, and college. Jane remarks that she was constantly being compared to her siblings at college because they had been intellects, and in her words, “I was a little bit more fun.” So after a semester, she dropped out of college and with her family began carefully planning what she would do next. Soon Jane became a primary school teacher and was married. She and her husband were married about 55 years. So her answer was “Yes finally, it did what it did.”

Jane loves to travel, with her tech savvy grandchild. Jane explains that even though she is in her elder years she is still independent, still drives a car, and is able to do most everything she wants to do. The theater is something Jane really enjoys. She used to live 25 miles from Broadway and frequently went to shows. Her favorite show she ever saw on Broadway was “The King and I.” Others included “Carousel” and “South Pacific”. Many of the productions she saw were performed by the original cast. Jane also performed in several amateur productions of plays like the ones she saw on Broadway. Laughingly Jane tells me that in “Get Me to the Church on Time” she played the bar maid. In “My Fair Lady” she played Freddy’s mother.

 Jane is very pleased with where she is living now at St. John’s Meadows, with all the flexibility, and different events. She also mentions that it is never lonely because you can walk around and see so many friends. She jokingly says that she would love to have a chauffeur on call to take her to all the places she loves to go in Rochester. These places include the Little Theater, the Dryden Theater at the George Eastman House, and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. She loves ethnic food so she goes out to different restaurants around the area. She has lived at St. Johns Meadows for 3 years. There is so much to do in Rochester, and Jane says that after 24 years here she still feels like a newcomer.

Merithew lives in one of the bungalows at Brickstone and I had the pleasure to sit down and chat with her. Merithew tells me her first job was with United Aircraft. She was hired as an engineering aid and was introduced to computer programming. After a few years at United Aircraft Merithew moved to Boston with a childhood friend and was hired by Lincoln Laboratories, which was an outgrowth of MIT. Merithew explains that she did not accept a job at Beranek and Newman “because when the man called to offer me the job he called me ‘Dearie.’” She did not appreciate his attitude.  Lincoln Laboratories had many other young engineers working for them so it suited her well. Some might say it was fate that she took this job because it was at Lincoln Laboratories that Merithew met her husband.

She was hired as a computer technician, and they soon placed her in an IBM computer training class for Western Electric and Bell Telephone Lab PHDs and Masters and she was second in the class! Merithew had a facility for computers; this was in the late 50s and in Merithew’s words, “back when we knew what computers were doing.” Merithew was working on programs that made other programs function properly, put simply, troubleshooting. Her husband soon found work at Systems Development Corporation in California.

SDC also offered Merithew a position, so they moved. She jovially mentions that she was insulted on her first day of work because they were planning to computer train her! Merithew had been working with computers for several years longer than most of the employees so she politely let them know “Yes, I do know how to use these computers.” Soon Merithew was pregnant and three months before the baby was due, she retired. She laughingly tells me that about a party a week later where people had asked her what she had been working on at SDC and she tells me “I couldn’t remember one week later!” In 1963, they moved to Washington D.C. because her husband had answered Kennedy’s call “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Here Merithew says that  ”At the Kennedy Center…I was one of the original tour guides for 15 years and then Program Coordinator for the National Symphony Education Program for 23 years, both at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.”

Merithew enjoys travel and has seen many of the waterfalls in the area. She also supports the arts and made it to several of the performances put on at the Fringe Festival last year. Merithew taught knitting and quilting for over 30 years and now knits for charity. She especially enjoys knitting baby sweaters. She also buys knitting books and works through every knitting pattern. Merithew has also done some volunteer gardening right here at St. John’s. Merithew is 82 and still attends high-level aerobics and dance fit classes at the YMCA! It is easy to see that Merithew has a very active life and is enjoying retirement.

     Rose moved to the Meadows in September of 1998 and was one of the first. Rose has been a resident for about 15 years. Rose volunteers with the Catholic services. This includes passing out communion every Sunday. Rose also passes out the monthly event brochure. She loves to sew and enjoys walking through the spacious halls of the meadows. Rose loves people and  she told me that she tries to help others whenever she can.
     Rose worked for many years in a woolen mill that made socks. She was a looper. A looper is the person who hems up the ends of socks. Rose had three sisters and a brother and she said they always had a lot of fun together. One of her sisters was a hair dresser and rose would help out in the salon as well as working as a looper. Rose will be 98 this January and is thankful that God has blessed her with good health and mobility. Rose was born, grew up, married, and lived most of her life in Seneca Falls. Seneca Falls is also where Rose met her husband.
     Rose and the other young girls of her set spent a lot of time walking around town. In the town there was a pool room that they would walk by every day. The pool room was where all the boys would hang out and on one of those nights as the boys were exiting the pool hall, Rose was introduced to the young man who was to be here future husband. When I asked her if it was love at first sight, she had a good chuckle and said, “I don’t think so…we went together for a few years before we were married.” He entered the army to be a staff Sargent. When he returned from the war, they were married. They were married for a happy 60 years.
     They did a lot of traveling together which included a trip to places all around Europe. Rose tells me that Italy was her favorite. Rose and her husband had an audience with the Pope. Italy is also where her parents were born, so Italy holds a special place in her heart. They did more traveling after the children were all grown up and married. These places included France Germany and Italy. Rose stays active by exercising in the morning. She also takes long walks in the afternoon through the Meadows, all the way to Briarwood. She appreciates that she can walk so far indoors, especially in this bitter weather. Rose walks about a mile a day and is enjoying life!

I recently had the great pleasure of speaking with Wilbur Beikirch resident of St. John’s Home. Everyone at St. John’s Home knows Wilbur and is fond of his many stories, and his visits to the different floors of the residence.
Wilbur grew up during the Great Depression. Wilbur attended Monroe High, and was 18 when he started work at Sherwood’s, the shoe company. Soon Wilbur was promoted to the service department. He eventually was a boss there at the age of 18. Wilbur’s next job was at the Writer Company during which time he had the biggest surprise in his life, being drafted. He was soon headed to Europe on the Queen Mary, which was the largest passenger ship, holding 18,000 men. It took them 3 days and 18 hours to reach Europe. It was during one of his leaves that he came back to be married to his wife, a widow with two children of her own.
With the 413th AAA gun battalion Wilbur hit Omaha Beach, France on D-Day. Wilbur was the Master Gunner. This included responsibilities for the computers and radar that controlled the long range guns. “That was my baby,” says Wilbur. He goes on to tell me that they used to say, “We could tell the color of a pilots hair” using the radar.
Wilbur was in charge of a group of men that helped with each gun. These guys were called ordinance. Wilbur jovially mentions his task to keep the ordinance away from the main computer because “they always managed to screw it up.” He mentions that the crew had a tendency to have radios playing while they worked and they would hook the portable radios onto the wires and often damage them. A few times they hooked these radios onto the high powered lines and they destroyed the grounding wires. “Of course I used to raise hell because I was only a master sergeant but I’d chew everybody out, ‘ you don’t know what’s in those power lines. It might be 10,000 volts. We don’t know!’ But we got along pretty good.”
When he returned from the war, Wilbur got a job as boss at the Writer Company, where they made dental equipment. He later lost the taste for the job so he resigned. “Everyone thought I was nuts,” he said. His son and daughter and some friends worked at the Rochester Tel, the Rochester telephone company. Wilbur took a position there and was soon a boss. With a chuckle Wilbur tells me that, “After a while I had 34 women working for me.” He worked there until he retired at the age of 65. They didn’t want Him to retire “but that was enough,” says Wilbur.
Now Wilbur fills his time with his love of reading and stays active by taking lots of walks. Wilbur also enjoys Bingo, in fact he referred to himself as a “Bingo fiend.” Wilbur is a kind, cheerful person with a great sense of humor and we are so glad to have him here at St. John’s.