Ed and Marlene Sickora: Making Homeland their Home
A health crisis brought Ed and Marlene Sickora to Homeland in the fall of 2024, but they knew immediately that they were in the right place.
“We’ve met so many nice people,” Marlene said. “They’ll introduce themselves and talk to you. We didn’t know anybody when we came here.”
“I still think they put something in the water that makes everybody so nice,” Ed added. “They’ll do anything for you.”
Ed and Marlene were high school sweethearts who grew up in Coal Township near Shamokin. Ed was raised by a hard-working single mother who cleaned houses for a living. Marlene’s mother worked as a stay-at-home mother, and her dad was a proud Pennsylvania Railroad trackman, laying track and, when needed, restoring it after train wrecks.
“That’s all my dad wanted to do,” said Marlene. “That’s all he talked about.”
The couple met in Coal Township High School when he was a sophomore, and she was a freshman, introduced by friends of his. After Ed graduated from high school in 1953, he worked at an electronics store selling the then-new technology: television. He would drive to the nearby town of Sunbury to pick up the latest Westinghouse models. (Coincidentally, he learned at Homeland that his upstairs neighbor worked for Westinghouse in Sunbury around that time.)
Marlene grew up with music, singing in the church choir, playing piano, and learning to play the pipe organ from the church organist. She and two cousins formed a vocal trio, traveling to churches and sometimes singing songs in the style of the Andrews Sisters.
“I worked in a sewing factory,” she said. “That’s where girls went to work in those days.”
They got married in 1956. Ed studied drafting at Williamsport Institute of Technology, getting his first job as a draftsman for Bendix Corp., a Department of Defense contractor in York. After seven years, he went to another defense contractor, HRB Systems (now Raytheon) in State College, where he would stay for 33 years before retiring. The couple built a home in nearby Boalsburg, raising a son and daughter and vacationing at Disney World in Florida whenever they could.
“The first time we went to Disney, we paid $36 a night for four people,” Ed said.
Living near Penn State, they took advantage of all that the campus had to offer, attending football games, wrestling matches, student musicals, and more. After their son entered school, Marlene worked for 14 years as the Penn State Conference Center receptionist.
“I liked that job very much,” she said. “I got to meet everybody.”
Ed rose to be a senior designer at work. After retiring in 1996, Ed and Marlene continued their Disney excursions until 2018.
They also traveled throughout the United States, and in their cheery personal care suite at Homeland, a banner displays an array of pins and medallions — mementos from decades of adventures. There are pins from Disney World, the Grand Canyon, a Baltimore Orioles spring training game, the American Music Theatre in Lancaster, and excursions with Volksmarch, the international walking club. Volksmarch trips included walks in Ocean City, MD, Philadelphia for the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, West Point, NY, and a Stewartstown, PA, wine festival.
“That’s how we travel now,” said Marlene. “We look at the pins.”
Ed and Marlene have five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. When it was time to come to a retirement community, their daughter, who lives in nearby Linglestown, researched the options and liked Homeland the best, suggesting that her parents schedule a tour.
“We didn’t even get halfway through, and I really liked the place,” Ed remembers. “I said, ‘We’ll take it.’ It was so clean, the people were so nice, and it looked good.”
He was also amazed to find a Penn State fan base built into the Homeland community. People will wear Penn State jerseys to the dining room on game days. Sometimes, the school’s famous chant will ring out.
“You’ll be going down the hall, and someone will yell, ‘We are . . .,’ and you’ve got to yell back, ‘Penn State!’” he said.
Even though Ed and Marlene had to leave their Boalsburg home, where they lived for 61 years, they love being at Homeland.
“We’re happy here,” Marlene said. “We’re not in our home, but we’re home.”
