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Homeland resident Robert Zimmerman: A life of art, church, and family

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Homeland residents bring their cherished furnishings, heirlooms, and art to their bright, comfortable rooms.

Robert Zimmerman brings an extra-special touch to his walls – extraordinary watercolors and one oil – painted by him.

“Patty on the Porch” shows Zimmerman’s wife gazing at the lovely scene at their son’s Long Island place. In other images, waves crash on the shores below lighthouses, a curious giraffe halts its grazing to gaze at its photographer, and a man and two boys in silhouette cross a farm field.

“Zimmy,” as his friends call him, has been settling into his personal care suite since April 2024, making Homeland his home.

“As soon as we walked into Homeland, I got the vibe,” he said. “You can tell from the warmth of the place. The warm colors, wood, and homey elements gave us a good feeling.”

Zimmerman can reflect on a life full of art, family, work, and church. He grew up in Harrisburg after his father moved the family from Middleburg, PA, to ensure his children got a good education.

He met his wife when they were high school students. She was babysitting for a neighborhood family and invited his gang of friends to visit. As they were leaving and Zimmerman was walking down the steps, he thought, “If I don’t do something about this girl and me, I’m going to miss an opportunity.”

They married in 1954 and had two sons, Andrew and Craig. After his first job with the city water company, a friend who worked for Central State Door Service suggested he apply there.

Calling the company “the best place to work,” Zimmerman stayed for 42 years as a garage-door installer for homes and industries. During that time, he also served 10 years in the Pennsylvania National Guard.

Meanwhile, Patty got a job in a Central Dauphin School District elementary school cafeteria, rising to cafeteria manager and eventually to administrative assistant in the superintendent’s office. When the district adopted computerized operations, Patty took computing classes and helped lead the conversion.

“They both worked really hard to put my brother and me through college,” Craig Zimmerman said.

Robert Zimmerman’s introduction to art came via a gift from Patty. She had a cousin whose husband, Don Lenker, cofounded the Seven Lively Artists, Central Pennsylvania’s preeminent group of painters, founded in 1956 and still going strong. The couple enjoyed their shows, and one Christmas, Patty presented Zimmerman with a large box. When he opened it, her surprise gift included a sketchbook and pigments. Lenker noticed that Zimmerman had a talent for watercolors, and Zimmerman started joining the Seven Lively Artists on their painting retreats.

“The first year, I wouldn’t even let them see it,” Zimmerman recalls.

Finally, they called him into the sunroom at Warm Springs Lodge sunroom in Perry County and told him they had voted him into the group.

“That was one of the highlights of my artistic life,” he said.

The experience led to other memorable moments, including the group’s Christmastime showing at the Pennsylvania Governor’s Residence and a dinner with Gov. Ed Rendell.

The Zimmermans’ devotion to their church included Patty’s service as a youth fellowship leader and Zimmerman’s as a church elder. He also wrote and directed Christmas plays for the church, putting new spins on classic Christmas tales. He still recalls “Marley,” his reworking of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” which gave the beleaguered, enchained ghost of Jacob Marley a shot at redemption.

Zimmerman cared for his beloved Patty for 10 years before she passed away. Their lives included gifts of passage to Europe on Queen Elizabeth II for their 30th anniversary and Queen Mary II for their 50th.

Craig Zimmerman said Homeland is a good place for his dad to live.

“He’s a social guy, and he’s had that opportunity here,’’ Craig Zimmerman said. “People are so friendly and helpful.”

Homeland Resident Carmen Vishnesky: Enjoying People, Music, and Empanadas

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Carmen VishneskyCarmen Vishnesky, a cherished resident of Homeland Center, passed away on March 25, 2025. We remember her with deep affection and gratitude for the vibrant spirit she shared with our community.

As a resident of Homeland since early 2023, Carmen Vishnesky has come to love the people. 

“The residents are great,” Carmen said. “Certainly, the workers are exemplary. I don’t have any relatives, and I don’t know what I would have done without the people here.”  

Carmen grew up in rural Mountoursville, PA. Her father worked for Sylvania, which made Kodak Instamatic’s rotating flash cube for cameras, then later traveled as an analyst for a vending machine company. Her mother, a trained classical pianist with a music degree from Lycoming College, traveled the area with a violinist friend, playing at events. 

Carmen studied with her mother’s teacher and became an accomplished pianist herself, but she stopped playing when she attended Bloomsburg State College (now Bloomsburg University) to concentrate on her studies as a French major.  

She also earned her master’s degree from Millersville State College (now Millersville University), then known for its foreign language school. This led to a 35-year career teaching French in the Central Dauphin School District. Outside of the classroom, she found her niche running the high school drama program.  

Carmen met her husband, a physics teacher and assistant principal, and they married in 1981. Though she had never been a sports fan, she “inherited” the world of Penn State football fandom from him. They attended games in the slush and snow in their early years together, but she said she ultimately drew the line in attending games after October. 

 “At that time, he went with his friends or with his son,” she said with a smile, “Then he wanted to sit home and watch it on TV with me.” 

After her husband retired, he pursued his passion for cooking by teaching at the Carlisle Kitchen Shoppe and Cooking School. She was still teaching when he suddenly announced that he wanted to attend a culinary school in France. Before he left, she taught him two French words: “rouge” for “red” and “blanc” for “white.” 

“I knew nothing about wine, but I told him that when they asked him about this vintage or that, he could just say ‘red’ or ‘white,’” she said. “That’s as sophisticated as it gets. We laughed about that forever.” 

Today, Carmen looks back at her “wonderful life.” When she retired, she and her husband traveled together. They went to France multiple times, especially loving the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean region of Camargue, where horses frolic in salt flats. The pair also traveled to Poland and Southeast Asia.  

In Budapest, they rented an apartment and lived like locals, even though they didn’t speak Hungarian.  

“I loved the food,” she said. “I loved walking across the street to the market and pointing to whatever I needed to buy. It was just wonderful. The people were wonderful.” 

At Homeland, Carmen originally lived in skilled care before moving to a spacious end unit in personal care. Here, she indulges her childhood love of classical music. On days of “Piano with Ralph” during lunchtime, she and her friends at the table enjoy a dose of the classics. 

“He plays Rachmaninoff,” she said. “He knows Italian music. He knows Beethoven.” 

She also enjoys Homeland’s cooking classes and was looking forward to an empanada-making class with the Homeland activities staff. 

“I told them I’d just been to a Mexican restaurant and the restaurant’s empanadas were not nearly as good as ours,” she said. 

Homeland Center offers levels of care including personal care, memory care, skilled nursing and rehabilitation. Homeland also provides hospice, home care, home health and palliative care services to serve the diverse and changing needs of families throughout central Pennsylvania. For more information or to arrange a tour, please call 717-221-7900. 

Ed and Marlene Sickora: Making Homeland their Home

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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.” 

Homeland Residents Sue and Steve Valoczki: A Life of Adventure

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Sue and Steve ValoczkiSue and Steve Valoczki spend a lot of time joshing around with Homeland staff. 

“The staff is very nice,” said Steve. “They’re interactive and make sure you’re comfortable. They have a good sense of humor. I have to be on my toes for them.” 

“They tease us a lot,” added Sue.  

Since coming to Homeland in February 2024, the Valoczkis have settled into spacious adjoining rooms in personal care. The stylish décor in Steve’s room includes ceramics collected over the years and an antique trunk converted to a coffee table. 

Steve immigrated to the United States from Germany when he was five years old. When Steve arrived in Detroit, Steve’s father worked in a steel mill and his mother worked in food service.  

Steve’s Hungarian father and his German mother met in a displaced persons camp after World War II. His father, a proud Hungarian who hated the Nazis and the Communists, was conscripted to command tanks for the German Army. After leading in 44 tanks in Stalingrad, he was told to stay there waiting for supplies.  

Instead “he got up one day, got all his guys together, and said, ‘Menjünk haza,’ which is Hungarian for, ‘Let’s go home,’” said Steve. “He turned those tanks around and went back to Hungary. He gave himself up to the English and sat in that camp until the war ended.” 

From his father, Steve learned never to give up. 

“My father lost his leg in an industrial accident,” he said. “He healed and went right back to work.” 

Sue grew up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, with three sisters, including a twin. Her father, who was in advertising, created a famous Chevy commercial showing a car floating down a raft in the Grand Canyon. She was a high school athlete, competing in “all the sports – tennis, basketball, lacrosse, swimming.” At 17, she and her twin took up competitive sailing.  

“Then we’d go to the regattas at night and have a fun party,” she said.  

Sue and Steve met at Ferris State University in Michigan. 

“He was a lot of fun, and we were pretty much a hot couple on campus,” Sue said. “We had a good time together.” 

They got married in 1971. Jobs were tight. Steve graduated in 1970, but through a fraternity brother, he got a job with a distributor of Gallo wines just when Gallo was amping up its marketing efforts 

Steve embraced the work and stayed in wine and spirits sales for his career. The couple lived in Detroit, Wisconsin, Miami Beach, Chicago, and West Chester, PA. In Miami, Steve acquired accounts that even the top executives couldn’t crack “just by service and showing up.”  

The jobs took the couple all over the world. Throughout Europe, they were treated royally, with five-course meals and behind-the-scenes tours of wineries. In a wine cellar in Spain, Steve lightly touched a bottle high up, and suddenly, they started rattling.  

“My heart stood still,” Steve says now. Luckily, the bottles stayed in place.  

Sue had a successful career in banking. Aside from the “exciting times” — her term for the two robberies she experienced — she was responsible for growing the business and connecting with various people. 

While living in West Chester, the couple raised their children: a daughter who is now a cardiac intensive care unit nurse and a son who played football at Penn State and today sells medical devices. Their five grandchildren inherited their grandmother’s athleticism, playing softball, field hockey, and football. 

At Homeland, the Valoczkis’ constant companion is Rue, their personable, seven-year-old rescue Jack Russel terrier. The first time they met her, she hopped onto the picnic table where the Valoczkis were sitting and kissed Steve on the nose. 

Sue keeps dog treats handy for staff to give Rue.  

“We should get some sort of compensation because the people here love her,” she joked. “She’s like a therapy dog. She really does bring a lot of comfort to people.” 

Homeland Resident Nancy VanKirk: Volunteering and Encouraging Others

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Resident Nancy VanKirk smiling in front of shelvesIn the early 2000s, Nancy VanKirk’s mother and stepfather lived at Homeland Center. From the attentive care they received, VanKirk knew that Homeland would be her home when the time came that she would need care.

“It’s a very friendly, homey atmosphere,” she said. “There’s no place quite like it.”

The time came in early 2022 when Nancy moved into a personal care suite. Since then, she has become a fixture in Homeland’s gift shop, devoting her Friday mornings to tending to the residents and visitors who need a snack, a gift, or a toiletry item.

Nancy grew up in Harrisburg’s North Allison Hill, the daughter of a salesman and a homemaker. At age 16, Nancy was sitting around a campfire while attending church camp when she suddenly felt a calling to serve in a Christian capacity. She wasn’t sure what that could be, but she thought being a minister’s wife would be marvelous.

The pastor’s wife of her church didn’t try to dissuade her but said, “Nancy, it’s no bed of roses.”

Nancy had already met Don VanKirk as a teenager in the same neighborhood. They were in and out of each other’s lives for seven years, until one day, the phone rang, “and there was Don VanKirk.”

They married in 1954. Back then, he was a printer’s apprentice. About a year into the marriage, they attended a camp meeting at Mt. Gretna when he felt the calling into the ministry.

“I was elated,” Nancy said. Don VanKirk graduated from United Theological Seminary in western Ohio, and for the next 40 years, the VanKirks and their son and daughter lived in 10 different places, mostly in central Pennsylvania. They went where the United Methodist Church assigned them.

“I always was very much involved in whatever needed to be done,” she said. “I was there to do it.”

Don VanKirk died in 2006, and Nancy moved into a retirement home. She kept busy volunteering, including 20 years on the board of the Neighborhood Center of the United Methodist Church, which provides community services in Harrisburg.

When health challenges complicated her ability to stand, Nancy knew it was time to come to Homeland. She appreciated the stability in staffing and the leadership that ensured quality care.

Before long, Nancy noticed no one was operating the Homeland gift shop on Fridays. Ever ready to pitch in, she offered to volunteer. She picked up quickly on the routine and applied her 10 years of experience as an independent contractor displaying home interiors and gifts for home shows.

“I’m a people person,” she said. “Plus, it was easy for me to keep stock in place and to realize that whatever we had for sale needed to be on the shelves where people could see it and buy it.”

The Homeland gift shop offers practical items and little delights. Tastykakes and snacks are sold at bargain prices. Residents can find the toiletries they need. Visiting families can pick up coloring books and puzzles to occupy the children. Anyone looking for a gift can find scarves, hand-crocheted throws, jewelry, and cards.

In the gift shop, connected to the Homeland Diner, Nancy deftly manages an array of tasks — stocking the ice cream freezer, breaking down small boxes, making sales, and tracking residents’ accounts.

“I enjoy it,” she said, adding that she likes being helpful. “I’m an encourager at heart. That’s sort of my goal in life.”

Homeland, she adds, “is a very good place to live. I expect to live the rest of my life where I am.”

 

Homeland Center (www.homelandcenter.org) offers levels of care including personal care, memory care, skilled nursing and rehabilitation. Homeland’s outreach program, Homeland at Home provides hospice, palliative care, home care, and home health to serve the diverse and changing needs of families throughout central Pennsylvania. For more information or to arrange a tour, please call 717-221-7900.

Resident Kitty Deaven: Loving life at Homeland

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Resident Kitty Deaven relaxing in a Homeland suiteIs Kitty Deaven enjoying her time at Homeland?

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”

Kitty loves everything about Homeland, and so do her daughters.

“It’s given us peace of mind not to worry about her,” said her eldest daughter, Judy Deaven, of Susquehanna Township.

Kitty came to Homeland on Memorial Day weekend this year and has settled comfortably into her bright suite overlooking one of Homeland’s picturesque courtyards. The décor is straight from the home she lived in for 74 years, with family photos and ceramics on the built-in shelves, a painting of a country church on the wall, and cow figurines lining the windowsill.

The cows recall Kitty’s time growing up on a farm near the village of Linglestown, in Lower Paxton Township. She was one of six children raised by a loving aunt and uncle and attended a one-room schoolhouse through fifth grade.

At a soda fountain off the Linglestown square, Kitty met Harold Deaven. He helped run the family farm, and his hardworking mother sold homegrown vegetables and homemade cottage cheese in her own downtown Harrisburg produce stand.

Harold was also a music lover who taught himself to play the clarinet, saxophone, and piano. They would go to Hershey Park Ballroom on their dates to see big-name acts such as singer Vaughn Monroe.

“It was so full that you couldn’t dance,” Kitty recalls.

Harold served in the U.S. Army, driving a coal truck in Japan and sending love letters home to Kitty. The two married in 1950 and built a house in Lower Paxton, raising two daughters, Judy and Renee.

In addition to tending the family farm, which included cattle, chickens, and turkeys, Harold worked full-time at the Olmsted Air Force Base. Kitty was active in the PTA and served as a Brownie troop leader.

Harold died in 2014, and Kitty stayed in the home they built until this year. Homeland was always Kitty’s choice for a continuing care community because her beloved uncle had lived here in the 1980s.

Kitty never forgot the attentive care her uncle received, and her daughter, Renee Edgett, said Homeland was the family’s first choice.

“It was always Homeland,” Renee said. “I don’t think there’s been a day that she’s been here that she’s sorry. She doesn’t even ask us what’s going on at home. She likes it here.”

Homeland staff helped the family apply and sort through finances. During a tour, President and CEO Barry Ramper II walked up and introduced himself.

Kitty chose the personal care suite adjacent to where her uncle had lived. After moving in, Kitty learned that her neighbor on the other side was a classmate from that one-room schoolhouse.

At Homeland, Kitty doesn’t miss a beat. She loves the food and the people, stays busy taking craft classes, and attends music sessions played by visiting guitarists and a harpist. Kitty said that the Homeland salon styled her hair so perfectly that she didn’t need a perm.

Kitty has four grandchildren. After a visit, one granddaughter contacted her mom, Judy.

“Don’t worry about Grammy,” Judy texted her mother. “She’s really happy. She’s different than I’ve seen her in the last several years. None of us have to worry about her.”