European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - September 10, 1980, Darmstadt, Hesse Wife in wheelchair outside their Home. Heart. Nellie has crippling arthritis diabetes and a Prog Tessing paralysis doctor think May have come from undetected strokes. If we put them in a nursing Home they d die in a month Uyi Nellie s Only living daughter Myr Leayres we want them to sell the House and move to Rich kill where they can walk to the store and we can take better care of them. But they Don t want to go. The House is the Only thing they be got and they Don t want to leave Myrtle and her husband Chuck work All Day r their Tuto parts store in Butler 18 macs Northeast of Sprague. Then drive Down every evening to Check on the old couple and make lure they hive Lupper. They haul groceries Lake them to the doctor in Nevada handle their finances ind try to repair the House too. They keep the same close watch on Chuck s Mother who lives with them in Butler. They have no children of their own. Ii if a labor of love for us says Myrtle tears Welling in her Eye. When people get old and lick you can t abandon them. We love them and they Are our responsibility. Sometime we feel worn out but we try to do the beat we Jenni echoes her Are very i Depe Dent people says the Mother of three who a brought her ii Tlle ones Back to Sprague for the Luttmer to look after her grandparent. If we put them in mining Home their lives would instantly be come regimented. They d have to take their Medicine eat Ilece do everything at a certain let time. They would lose Ubai Little Freedom they still have out Here in their own House and it would kill them says Jenni who now live in inn View to. It is really sad. What Bap Peiu to old people in this country. I m not going to shut my grandparent like to old couple who die la its Bigg Sprague u withered now. At with Dan and Nellie it Wai Strong and robust and tall of life during the Early part of this Century when the Gnu purity of its Shaft and trip mining Lup ported More than 500 people out Mert who grew up in the Lovely area of Stremi to Coulig farm land remember a time right after the Orett War when Sprague was manicured lawns dolled Tab bleeding hearts sunday Church socials and tidy children in key role new York times t used to be an axiom Hal one Mother could care for five Young children by five grown children were incapable of caring for one Mother la was generally believed hat if she was Able bodied she would be left to fend for herself. If she was feeble she would be shunted off to a nursing Home. But increasingly the Public is becoming aware of what specialist in aging have recognized for some Lime that despite the profound changes in the roles of family Mem Bers it it grown children who Bear the primary responsibility for the Well being of their parents not Hie government or the social agencies. Certainly it pc not la nursing fames. Only s percent of ill Mora age 65 and Tow re iut Tutlo Naud uld Rose Dobrof director of tit Brook Dale Center on aging Hunter College. For those Over 75, it s 9.4 percent and far those Oicer 85, it a St Only 1$ percent where Lien do the elderly live and what do they expect of their adult children in general the expert say that Parent want what in known As intimacy at a Dis Tance preferring to live near but not with their adult children. Conversely children want to help their parents with the tasks of daily life and to serve As a Buffer against loneliness. Commonly accepted figures show that 85 percent of the elderly who have children live within in hour s travel of at least one child and that 50 percent live within walking distance. One study showed that 70 to so per cent of he care provided to the elderly Cornea from adult children there arc differences based on ethnic economic and social characteristics As Well As on individual personalities. But the sense of social obligation is Strong said or. Be mice Neugarten professor of behavioural sciences atthe University of Chicago and Deputy chairman of the 1981 White House conference on aging. It persists even when the emotional ties Between Parent and child were previously Many people contend that the relationships Between aging parents and their children reflect More genuine affection than they did before social Security and pen Sion plans gave the elderly some economic Independence. Or. Barbara Silver alone executive director of the Ben Jamin Rose Institute a philanthropic and research organization in Cleveland said there Are people in the Community who Are As sick As some in nursing Homes and the difference is that they have families who Lake care when they do place their elderly Parent it is at the Point of desperation the care Given May be too old or frail themselves she added referring to the growing phenomenon of people in their 60s or Toi caring for 80-and 90-year-old parents. With the life Span crowing longer Hitre arc now distinct cat Goric of the elderly. Marjorie Cantor Sio Clale director for is arc at Tbs in armity Center on gerontology it Ford Hun unites Ltd de scribed them. The Young old Are 60 to 75, and they wan to be she Aid. They expect phone Calls and visits they want Contact when they feel lonely and they expect advice on major decision such As whether to have surgery or move to Florida the next classification she said was the frail elderly. They Are the ones beginning to have difficulty wit daily till is. The children do More shopping cleaning and driving to the doctor As Well As providing finally there Are the very sick she said. They May be disoriented bedridden incontinent. Their families struggle to keep them As Long As so it is for the Leroy Richardson family of new York. Gertrude Richardson 73, took care of her 74-year-old " children Bear the main responsibility. Not the government or the social agencies " husband who has Parkinson s disease until she incurred a serious heart ailment last Winter. The Richardson went to live with their daughter Rose Monard 49, and her husband Armand 53. Mrs. Mon Artl works at two jobs part Lime so that she can be Home when they needler. The Mother of four children and grandmother of one herself mrs. Monard refuses to consider institutionalizing her father who mint be lifted out of bed into hit wheelchair. His menu stability is so much better at Home in the Hospital his body just goes rigid and you can l move him no All she said. So i do most of the physical work my Mother does Light housekeeping my son lifts him my daughter and her child visit often. I do it became i one Ibum became they to Lei for me she uld. Of count son Xuma i feet tired Button t a All mrs. Richardson is not oblivious to the Burden her daughter has undertaken but concedes that their present living arrangement is essential. You take but you understand that you re digging Inlo their live at., their Home he said. I took care of my father in Law for 26 years. Maybe this is Why my children Are doing this. It athe pattern of our lives. Blocks of White houses. Brush College offered advanced education silk was for tale in the dry Good store and ii Atton matter Jim rain by was kept Bay i the Frisco plied the tracks Between Rich Hill and Union. A then the mines itar Toi to close. Job dried up the depression settled on the land and the people drifted away. The Bank shut its door the school did t open have their Bouse on the Market. The methodist Church has become a Hay shed. The bucket has fallen to be Bottom of inc town Well in Reily Chain a ladder for like the old couple who live in its biggest House Sprague to is withered snakes. Only a crumbling foundation Marks the Bank afterlife. Old Torea have no doors the train tracks hide beneath Meadow there arc no More sunday hymns or Bome run. Only the Birds sing and do rabbits play there now. I Don t or to More to town Uyi do resting the we Law bed next to Nedlec 11 lit window fan Ken tin manner heat it Bay grandmother j afraid that if she leaves the House vandals will wreck it just like til the other vacant ones says Jenni it she serves her grandparents their Light lunch of fruit. Jenni fun sizes about opening a Small grocery store with her husband Bill and somehow attracting Back to the land devotee to come to Sprague buy and in up its broken Down houses and create u new town out of theold ruins. It would be such a wonderful place to raise the kids we could set up o barter Myslem build a Nev Community the says wistfully. That Way we could stay Here and take care of Dan and grandmother. But i guess it probably Myrtle does t have any Miracle solutions to revive Sprague but Ibe says Devotion and loyally and doing what a right will keep Dan and Nellie Daugherty protected and cared for As Long As they live in the Empi town they Call Home. Ember 10. I960 r the stars and stripes Poge 15
