Archive for category: Homeland Center News

Residents and guests often comment on Homeland’s home-like atmosphere, where everyone feels like family.

Homeland neighbors Patty McGowan, left, and Loretta Jean McCauley discovered an amazing coincidence — they grew up in the same part of Perry County and are first cousins by marriage. At Homeland, they enjoy playing bingo together and reminiscing about their relatives.

Now, two residents in facing rooms have taken the family theme one step further, discovering not only that they have roots in the same rural enclave but are first cousins by marriage. What are the odds? Who knows? But it all centers around the tiny village of Reward in Perry County, Pennsylvania.

The residents are Patty McGowan and Loretta Jean McCauley, and their coincidental discovery started with a laundry mix-up. One day, Loretta Jean sent her granddaughter to Patty’s room, right across the hall, with some mismarked laundry. Could these be Patty’s? Yes, indeed. They even included Patty’s favorite blouse.

Patty crossed the hall to thank Loretta Jean for returning the blouse. They got to talking, and Patty asked where Loretta Jean was born. Reward, she said. Patty immediately knew the connection. Her husband’s family came from Reward, and she grew up nearby.

“When she said Reward, I thought, ‘I know who this is. I know how this happened,’” says Patty. “I knew about her. There’s nobody else who could have been born there. Her dad was a brother of my father-in-law’s.”

The pieces fell into place. Loretta Jean was a McGowan by birth, first cousin to Patty’s husband, the late Jim McGowan. Their dads belonged to a clan of 11 siblings, including the brothers who operated farms “that all ran together,” as Patty recalls.

Patty grew up playing with her future husband, his sister, and all the other kids around, so it’s likely she and Loretta Jean crossed paths as children.

“The big times were when the church had something going on because our lives were pretty much church-based,” remembers Patty. “Every little church had their own festival, and each church would go to the other church’s festival.”

Loretta Jean was 9 when her mother died, and she left home to live with relatives. At 15, her father remarried, and she returned to live with him and her stepmother, “who was a very lovely person,” she says. “She couldn’t have treated me more like one of her own.”

As an adult, Loretta Jean lived in Harrisburg’s Camp Hill area. Reconnecting with Patty, who stayed in Perry County and maintained childhood friendships, brought back memories.

“She knew so many of the people in that area where I lived,” she says. “She knew all my dad’s brothers and sisters, which is unusual to know such a big family. It was quite amazing.”

The cousins both enjoy life at Homeland. McCauley likes the food and playing bingo. McGowan, a singer all her life, loves the wide variety of music programs.

“I like it very much here,” McGowan says. “I like the people. I like the place. I like the food. I like everything.”

Finding a relative has enhanced the pleasant times at Homeland, they say.

“I had no idea she knew so much about the people on my side,” says McCauley. “It’s weird that it happened that way.”

And as McGowan says, “It’s a good feeling in your heart to know you’re not alone. There’s still somebody out there who’s a part of you.”

Doris Coyne brings the world to Homeland Center!

Doris Coyne, far right, enjoys a root beer float with fellow residents Betty Wise, far left, and Mary Anna Borke.

Throughout her 96 years, Doris Coyne has kept her feet moving. Whether she’s kayaking in Fiji, peeking behind the Iron Curtain in East Berlin, or serving meals to the hungry, she is always hunting for new experiences and the chance to stay engaged with the wide world.

“I need people,” she says. “I’m a people person.”

Coyne is among the many residents who bring a wealth of experience to Homeland Center, including two decades of volunteering with Homeland. When she shares her stories of travel to 29 countries and her still-active volunteerism, it’s as if a Chinese New Year dragon, a remote Alaskan hospital, and a picturesque state park in northeastern Pennsylvania all congregate under the Homeland roof.

Coyne was born in Scranton, the daughter of a coal company safety engineer and a homemaker. Her abiding love is water sports, starting with a canoe club on the placid waters of Lake Winola. She always loved the challenge of the water, so at age 75, she tried kayaking, not in a quiet stream, but in the Jersey Shore ocean waves.

“I no sooner was seated in the kayak than it flipped over,” she says with a laugh. “The only thing to do is get back in it.”

Coyne’s husband, whom she met while ice skating at Rocky Glen State Park, was a AAA domestic travel manager. They were fortunate to be married for 35 wonderful years, traveling as a couple and as a family with their two children. After his death in 1981, at age 58, Coyne knew she didn’t want a 9-to-5 job, so she worked temp jobs and ran her own small travel agency.

She also joined Friendship Force International, the travel group promoting personal interaction among people worldwide. Living in host-family homes, from apartments to palaces, Coyne dove into local cultures. In Taiwan, she witnessed a Chinese New Year’s parade and its dozens of men carrying the dragon. In Turkey, she rode on a circa-1905 Russian train. In West Berlin, her host’s home overlooked the Berlin Wall, patrolled by soldiers with dogs. She even got a pass to cross into East Berlin, giving up her passport for the day.

“Then you really knew what it felt like to be in a controlled country,” she says.

Coyne and her husband moved to Harrisburg in 1975. She immediately loved the area and started giving back – ushering for the Harrisburg Symphony, serving meals for the homeless, taking mission trips to support an isolated Alaskan hospital.

Through her church, Pine Street Presbyterian, Coyne began visiting Homeland Center residents in 1981. She then joined the Board of Managers and served several terms over 20 years.

“It was a wonderful, wonderful opportunity,” she says. “I enjoyed the employees and the warmth of their responses.”

As a resident, Coyne remains engaged in Homeland life, joining everything from picnics to crafts to bridge to chair Zumba. She credits her parents and her church for instilling strong values and the desire to give back.

“I love anything where you’re active but having fun doing it,’’ she says. “It isn’t selfish to have fun helping people.’’