Interview with Prince of Peace residents, Jim and Shirley

Jim

Our kids, our daughter and her husband did a really thorough examination of almost every facility, and we came to the conclusion Prince of Peace would be the best one because it offers more and it’s handier to their area if they want to come over. 

Shirley

They had everything we were looking for, and then some. Very nice people to deal with, to begin with.

Shirley

We’ve known this manor for many years. We were partly responsible with our congregation for the building of it, so we’ve been familiar with it from the onset, and have had friends who’ve lived in here before and visited. So we knew what the rooms were like to begin with, and some of the staff we were familiar with, not many of them, just a couple. We were just always very impressed with the way it was operated and how clean its campus was. 

Jim

Every morning we do exercises, and we’ve just come back from that a few minutes ago. We go every morning except Sunday. There are so many programs at Prince of Peace that make it easy for us if we’ve never done anything like making cookies the other day, and things like that. Those programs are there if we want to take advantage of them. 

Shirley

We were taken to the room, and Pastor Scholke came. We’ve known him for many years, so it was nice to renew that acquaintance and find out what he was doing with services and so on here. It was just an easy move. We were mentally prepared for it.

Jim

We know that there are some people who haven’t been mentally prepared for it, and their transition is a little tougher. We try to help some people overcome some of the problems they have because it is such a great place to be. They treat you like a queen, and they do everything for you. They look after you.

Jim

For me, the best part is that we can pick up the phone, call a nurse, and a nurse comes. It doesn’t take two or three days. They come fairly quickly, and that means a lot if you’ve got some problems. As we age, we do have problems, but it’s a comforting thing to know that we have the ability to pick up the phone and call somebody, and they come right away. They are so kind and gentle, and they just do a great job for us at Prince of Peace.

Jim

Like Shirley said, we didn’t do anything. We just came and walked through the door, and it was all done.

Shirley

My daughter had a lot of help with getting things organized. Things that we needed to have put in the room. They made sure everything was put in place and ready for us, like the fridge, the microwave, a raised toilet seat, and a bench for the shower. Things that were very important to us for our well-being, and they were all here and ready.

Jim

There’s a freight elevator at the end of the hall that works much better than the regular elevators for moving in. We’ve seen lots of people move into our wing and just move right in. They don’t seem to have any problem at all.

Shirley

We have a place to exercise, a place for hymn singing, a place for church, and a place for entertainment.

If we wanted to sit down in the bistro and have a snack, a coffee, and a visit, we can. There’s a library on our floor, and whether there’s one on every floor really wouldn’t matter because they’re easily accessible. There are many activities that are overseen by the recreation staff, and they’re all jolly people, just so wonderful to get along with and to make sure that we’re all involved. 

Jim

They have a walking club at Prince of Peace. In the summertime, they walk all over the place. The trails around this place are fantastic in the summertime. It’s a little bit tough in the winter because the temperature goes down, so they make allowances for that by walking the halls. There are a lot of hallways, so they still have their walking club, and they still do things.

Shirley

If you’re not involved in the activities as a resident, it’s your own fault because all you have to do is walk out of your room. You get a list at the beginning of the month of everything that’s going on every day, so you can plan well ahead. There are outings for people who are able to go on them, and cards, cribbage, canasta, crokinole, bocce ball, bowling, and carpet bowling. 

Jim

It is what you make it. Some people would just as soon go and sit and watch TV, and we try to talk to them and say, well, let’s do this or let’s do that, but you can’t force people to do what they don’t want to do. But we always offer people to come to these various things. The day before yesterday, a new lady was a little confused about how to get down to breakfast. So we escorted her down and introduced her to one of the servers.

It wasn’t two minutes, and she was sitting only one table away from us, and she was just having a ball. She and another lady are just talking up a storm, and they’re really enjoying life. She said to us, I don’t know if I want to be here. So just wait until you try it. And now I don’t think you’d get her out of here.

We’ve seen all kinds of people coming in. Some take a long time to acclimatize to all of the things that are going on. Other people just step right in. I think it’s all because of different personalities.

Shirley

We came July 4th and on July 5th we were okay. We just came in and it was so great to have the burden of all the things we did in the house that we didn’t have to worry about. 

Jim

I don’t have to worry about the four-foot weeds in my garden anymore that I couldn’t do anything about. Everything at Prince of Peace is so well looked after.

Some days we’ve maybe thought, well, gee, we don’t have a big backyard. But you know what? We do have a backyard. We just go through the main bistro, and there is a big yard with grass and way more than what we ever had. We had a hope that we would get something growing, but here they made facilities for it. 

Jim

When we first came, it took a load off me, and Shirley too, because she’d just come back from the hospital with heart problems. It took a load off for her. She didn’t have to cook, didn’t have to clean, didn’t have to do laundry. I do the laundry. The wquipment is there, and it's all top-notch quality. 

Shirley

We like Cribbage. Jim plays piano, and we do a lot of singing, and we like to visit. It’s nice to say that we’ve already made some very good friends in the almost six months we’ve been at Prince of Peace. We renewed acquaintances with a few old friends. 

Jim

I think they need to come and spend some time. Just come and spend a couple of hours, see what’s going on and talk to people who are here. There are some that are maybe not as positive as others, but you’re going to get an overall view of it.

I know that the girls at Prince of Peace will take them on a tour and explain everything to them, but it would be great for them to just wander around and have a look and see what’s going on. Talk to people, and they would be able to get an idea of how good the place is. 

Jim

We didn’t really do anything. Our daughter and her family just looked after everything, but I guess we were really fortunate because the attitude that they instilled in us made our move so much easier. They didn’t say, "Okay, here’s what you’re going to do." It was, "Here’s what we have done. We’ve checked every place out. We think Prince of Peace is the best place for you." Now it’s up to you to make a decision.

To anybody who's placing someone here, I think they need to discuss this. I know that there’re lots of people who are going to say, "I don’t want to go." That’s okay. Once they get here, their attitude changes quite a bit and quickly. It is just a matter of conversation to say, "Look, we’ve done a search. This is the best place. We want to go and have a look at it." Come over and look, and they’ll see what they want.