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Resident Spotlight: Miriam Mackert celebrates her 100th birthday with family

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miriam mackert

Miriam Mackert celebrates her 100th birthday with family!

When Miriam Mackert was married to a Pennsylvania State Trooper and raising her children, she worked hard and always put family first. On a Saturday in April, 2017, her loved ones put her first with a 100th birthday celebration at Homeland Center that, unbeknownst to the birthday girl, brought together the whole family.

“I just wanted to try and make her happy,” said her daughter, Karen Jackson. “She didn’t know the kids would be coming. She only thought it was going to be cake.”

What Miriam believed would be a small get-together was actually a party for about 20 family members and fellow Homeland Center residents. A performance by barbershop quartet Gents Nite Out helped revive memories of her 50th anniversary party, when she and her late husband, Howard, thoroughly enjoyed an appearance by that same group.

Shortly before the party, Jackson did tip off her mom about the extent of the guest list, but Miriam was still thrilled.

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“It’s terrific,” she said of the turnout. “A little surprising. My daughter, she talked to everybody. I’m so glad she got everyone together here.”

Dressed in a bright coral-colored sweater, Miriam said she feels pretty well on many days.

Miriam’s son, Jack Mackert, found it “pretty amazing” that his mother was celebrating a century of living. “She’s a good woman,” he said. It was time for a party because “how many people get to be 100? It’s pretty special.”

Jack’s wife, Susan Mackert, calls her mother-in-law “the Energizer Bunny.”

“She’s an amazing lady,” she said. “She has a young attitude. She’s always thinking about other people. She puts other people first.”

The Gents Nite Out performance was the highlight of the afternoon. They sang classic barbershop quartet fare, such as “My Old Kentucky Home,” spiced up with jazzy versions of “Georgia on My Mind” and “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,” plus a moving rendition of the World War II standard “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

Jackson invited Homeland employees and residents to the party and the quartet’s performance to demonstrate the family’s gratitude for Homeland’s excellent care.

“I’ve been very pleased with her care and with the kindness of the nursing staff,” she said. “They can make her smile and make her laugh. To me, that’s important.”

Miriam grew up in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, and got to know her husband, of nearby Lewisburg, at local dances. She supported her son’s school sports pursuits, and she remains a big football fan, sometimes questioning the referees’ calls.

When Miriam was raising her two children, there were home-cooked meals every night, said Jackson, of West Hanover Twp. Miriam’s husband retired from Pennsylvania State Police as a sergeant, and throughout his career, she supported him through transfers around barracks statewide. Together, the couple constantly working as they cared for their home and family property in Lewisburg.

“She has given all of herself,” said Jackson. “It was always about us. Always. She did without for a lot of years. We didn’t live an extravagant life. She was all about the family. That was her world.”

Resident Spotlight: For Lura Hile helping others as a nurse was a lifetime goal

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Lura Hile

For Lura Hile, helping others as a nurse was a lifetime goal.

Lura Hile always knew she wanted to be a nurse. Even as a girl, she set up a nursing station in the backyard of her Harrisburg home.

“I wanted to be a nurse from the day I was born,” says the Homeland resident. “That was my goal in life, and I became a nurse.”

Hile was born in Harrisburg in the same hospital where she first trained as a nurse. Lura was named after her grandmother on her father’s side, a woman she remembers was “a sweetheart.” Throughout her life, she says, the unusual name “was a good conversation opener.”

She grew up in the city in a neighborhood near Reservoir Park, the hilltop park that affords views for miles. She and her three sisters – Lura was the oldest — would jump rope, play hopscotch, and go sledding down steep, closed roads during the winter. Her father, a truck driver and then office manager for Sun Oil, was a good-natured man who graciously took all the teasing he got about having four daughters and no sons. While he worked hard, his wife and daughters vacationed annually in Wildwood, NJ, staying at a hotel owned by Lura’s aunt and uncle.

“I can’t swim, so I didn’t go too far out in the ocean,” she says.

Lura’s mother was a stay-at-home mom who had once worked as cashier at the Alva Restaurant, a Harrisburg establishment fondly remembered by longtime city residents. She was “a peach,” Lura recalls. “Everybody liked her.” One morning, her mother let the kids sleep in while she went to the market.

“We stayed in bed, and she came home with a bunny rabbit!” Lura recalls.

After graduating from John Harris High School, now Harrisburg High School, Lura immediately pursued her dream of nursing. She trained at Polyclinic Hospital, the uptown Harrisburg facility that’s now a campus of PinnacleHealth.

“I loved taking care of people,” she says. “I always felt I was born to be a nurse.”

Lura met and married George Hile, whose job in the office of Hecht’s Department Store took the young couple to Washington, DC. They lived in the nation’s capital, and Lura continued her nursing career at Providence Hospital, in Northeast Washington. While there, she was named Nurse of the Year, an award she believes she won for her caring attitude toward patients.

Two other children followed after the couple returned to the Harrisburg area. When the kids were older, Lura returned to her beloved nursing.

“I wish I could still do it,” she says today.

At Homeland Center, Lura enjoys every activity she can. She succeeds so readily at bingo that she has to give away all the candy bars she wins. She enjoys books by Beverly Lewis, the Lancaster-born, Christian novelist whose romances feature Amish characters. She does word search puzzles because “they make you think.” A lifelong fitness enthusiast, she continues to enjoy exercise classes.

At Homeland, the food is good, and “everybody’s really nice,” she says. She appreciates the dedication of Homeland nursing staff, who are “really friendly and nice.”
“I think nurses almost have to be nice,” she adds, with the voice of experience. “They have to like people.”

Resident Spotlight: Lou Hepschmidt sets example for women in philanthropy

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Lou Hepschmidt sets example for women in philanthropy!

He heard hints about a surprise birthday party.lou hepschmidt greeting guest

“I heard rumors, but nobody would talk,” she said.

Then came a Saturday-afternoon message that a package was waiting for her in the Homeland Center Ted Lick Room. That “package” turned out to be a room full of friends and relatives, wishing the Homeland resident a happy 90th birthday.

While Lou is known to friends and family for her generosity, she is also a recognized philanthropist, contributing to many central Pennsylvania causes and setting an example for women in philanthropy. Her many gifts to Homeland include her sizeable collection of Hummel figurines and plates, donated with custom-made display cases, and on display in the Gathering Room.

At her birthday party, Lou’s guests included three nieces who don’t live in the area but who visit regularly. As children, the girls would go to their aunt and uncle’s home for summertime stays.

“One day, she came home and told my uncle she had gotten a kitten, except there were two kittens in that box,” said niece Betty Hoffman with a laugh. “That’s how she got two kittens.”

No matter what, “She was always very good to us as kids, and now to our children,” Hoffman added.

For many years, Lou worked with her husband, John E. Hepschmidt, Jr., managing the finances of their tile business. Today, Lou channels her philanthropy through the HEP Foundation, which she and her husband created in 2003, before his death in 2008. She guides her beneficence to such bedrock causes as the Bethesda Mission homeless shelter, Friends of Fort Hunter and Wildwood, and public broadcasting station WITF.

In addition to Homeland, Lou is a fervent supporter of the Girl Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania, the 30-county council covering central and northeastern Pennsylvania. She became interested in the Girl Scouts when her sister, Homeland resident Winnie Reese, worked for the Girl Scouts in their native Philadelphia.

For her many charitable works, Lou was recognized in 2011 as Philanthropist of the Year by the Pennsylvania Association of Fundraising Professionals, and as a Women in Philanthropy honoree by The Foundation for Enhancing Community’s Women’s Fund.

lou hepschmidt winnie reese

Lou’s positive impact on Homeland Center reaches into every corner. Visitors see her family’s impressive Hummel collection in the floor-to-ceiling custom cherry wood cabinets that were originally in her home and that she donated as well.

Outside, Lou donated the funds to create a beautiful butterfly pond in Homeland’s garden in honor of her late husband, John Hepschmidt. Through generous contributions from HEP Foundation, she makes it possible for Homeland to continue offering benevolent care and never asking anyone to leave because they have exhausted their resources.

A past member of Homeland’s Board of Managers, Lou was among the first to become a charter member of the 1867 Society of Homeland, created and tasked with raising $20 million by 2020 to support the $3 million in benevolent care Homeland provides annually.

“Other places did not have the same ambience and décor that Homeland has, and the same treatment of the residents,” Lou said of why she donated her Hummel collection and supports Homeland. “I am so pleased with the way they treat everybody here. I know I’m treated royally.’’

Resident Spotlight: Ellen Warren devotes her life to community service

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Editor’s note: We are saddened to report that Ellen passed away unexpectedly and quietly on Saturday, Jan. 28. Our sincere sympathy to her husband, Bill, and her family.

Ellen Warren min

Ellen Warren

Ellen Warren devotes her life to community service!

When she was in first grade, Ellen Warren would sneak into the art room while her classmates went to recess. Ostensibly, she was helping clean the chalkboard erasers, but the teacher knew she just wanted to draw.

That introduction to art launched a lifetime of devotion to artistic endeavors and to supporting the performing and visual arts wherever she lived.

“I believe the soul needs creativity,” says Warren, a Homeland Center resident since late 2016. “The spirit needs creativity.”

Warren was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and grew up in nearby Scranton. Her father was a mining and metallurgical engineer. Her mother was a homemaker and community volunteer for “anything and everything” – American Red Cross, Girl Scouts, a local performing arts center, a health care facility.

The mother’s community spirit continued in the daughter. In Scranton, Warren was involved with the YWCA and the Everhart Museum. In neighboring Waverly, she chaired the F. Lamott Belin Arts Scholarship committee, fielding applications from artists worldwide seeking the prestigious award that helps them pursue their dreams.

“Whatever your child wants to do that is creative, encourage them,” she believes. “If it’s dance, if it’s violin, if they play the tuba, encourage them,” she says.

She moved to Harrisburg in 1988, when her husband, Bill Warren, joined the administration of his Scranton law partner, Gov. Robert P. Casey, Jr. In the capital city, she dove into a thriving arts scene. She has served as board president for Theatre Harrisburg and the Harrisburg Symphony Society, on the boards of Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra and Harrisburg Art Association, and was very supportive of the Historical Society of Dauphin County.

Warren is most proud of her fundraising and “friend-raising” skills that have helped sustain the arts and community causes. With the Harrisburg Symphony Society, she co-chaired its first – and to date, most financially successful — Symphony Showcase, where local decorators display their works in a mansion, room by room.

Warren also had a long career in commercial interior decorating, helping businesses craft efficient workspaces. It started when she worked at Bloomingdale’s flagship store in New York City, where she haunted the renowned design and furniture floor. In her career, she has worked with the Palumbo Group in Scranton, as director of interior design for Harrisburg-area Benatec Associates, and with her own business.

All the while, Warren pursued her artistic talents, loving the immediacy of pencil on paper, or producing landscapes and seascapes in oil or acrylics.

“Three hours can go by on one painting, and I’ve no idea that time has passed,” she says. “I think most painters are like that.”

At Homeland, Warren enjoys the quarterly art exhibits. Homeland is another of her causes, with past service on the Homeland Board of Managers.

“It’s very friendly,” she says. “The aides and the nurses care about people on an individual basis.”

The Warrens have two grown children and “three beautiful granddaughters,” ages 12 through 25.

“They make me happy,” she says. “They tell me they love me all the time.”

Warren and her husband decided long ago to do most of their charitable giving locally, to help strengthen community bonds. As she learned from her mother, volunteering is “perfectly normal and acceptable. It’s part of who you should want to be in your community.”

 

 

 

Resident Spotlight: Porcelain maker and seamstress Kathryn Steigler found life in America

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Porcelain maker and seamstress found life in America!

kathryn steigler

Kathryn Steigler reminisces about working in a Bavarian porcelain factory after World War II.

The German province of Bavaria is home to one of the world’s rare deposits of kaolin, the clay mineral capable of withstanding the intense firing needed to produce delicate, translucent china. In the unsettled days after World War II, Homeland Center resident Kathryn Steigler worked in a Bavarian porcelain factory, and like Bavaria’s durable clay, emerged from hardship to find her life in America.

Kathryn Schlafman Steigler was born in Hungary in 1925, in a village of ethnic Germans. Her family worked a small subsistence farm, raising their own food and livestock. Her brother tended the horses. She learned from her mother and grandmother to bake bread every day and to weave fabric on a loom and sew it into clothing. Any extra crops were sold to a neighbor’s shop.

“Mom and dad, they worked so hard, and the young ones had to help, too,” she recalls.

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Kathryn Steigler (center, front) started working at a Steelton garment factory and, with her seamstress skills, became “forelady.”

Porcelain maker and seamstress found life in America!

World War II upended the family’s way of life. Kathryn’s father died during the war. Her brother vanished. The Communists who regained control of post-war Hungary collectivized the nation’s small farms and expelled ethnic Germans, even though they hadn’t supported the Nazis or the German war effort. Their land confiscated, Kathryn and her mother trekked through East Germany and crossed into West Germany. Settling in northern Bavaria, they lived in old barracks among thousands of other displaced persons hoping to reach America.

In the same region where the Goebel factory was producing its famous Hummel figurines — including those in the collection adorning Homeland’s gathering room – Kathryn found work in a porcelain factory. She worked with the clay mixture that would become plates and cups for diners. Workers would make the mix, put it in a mold, and let it sit until it dried. After the mold was cracked to release the piece for firing, the mold had to be rubbed clean for its next use.

“That’s the way I made my life,” she says. “It wasn’t easy. You had to work for something.”

In Bavaria, Kathryn met her future husband, Alois Steigler, a fellow Hungarian refugee of German heritage.

When they immigrated to America, the sponsor they expected to meet in New York never showed up. Instead of going to Ohio, as originally planned, they went to Steelton, PA, home of Steigler’s uncle.

kathryn steigler dress factory 1960

Kathryn Steigler (underlined, front) and the women she oversaw at Deborah Dress Co., Steelton, posed for a group photo on a winter day in 1960.

In Steelton, the Steiglers joined an immigrant community. Kathryn, raised in a German-speaking village and taught Hungarian in school, learned to speak English. Alois worked in the Bethlehem Steel plant for 30 years before retiring. She worked for 30 years in a factory producing high-end designer clothing for sale in New York. Using her seamstress skills, she became the factory “forelady,” making patterns and teaching the other workers – all women – to turn them into garments.

“I had to teach different girls how to sew a sleeve together, and how to put it on the machine,” she says.

The Steiglers had two sons, one still in the Harrisburg area and another now in Boston. Her two grandsons live in New York City and Boston. She is a member of Trinity Lutheran Church, Steelton.

In all her years, Steigler says she would “keep working wherever I can find it.”

“I know how to work a little bit,” she says. “That’s how I got along, one after another. That’s life. One after another.”

Resident Spotlight: Friendliness and hard work help Mary Yanich reach her 100th birthday

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Friendliness and hard work help Mary Yanich reach her 100th birthday!

As she nears her 100th birthday, Mary Yanich credits hard work for her longevity. She has owned a grocery store, sold shoes, been active in her church, and even helped her family’s bootlegging business as a girl during prohibition.

What’s the secret to living 100 years? Homeland Center resident Mary Yanich credits her devotion to hard work – even when that meant tending her father’s moonshine still during Prohibition.

“I loved to work,” says Mary. “I asked my mother once why she always asked me to do things when there were other brothers and sisters around, and she said, ‘I know, but when I call for Mary, Mary jumps.’”

Yanich’s birthday on Oct. 27, 2016, represents 100 full years — upholding the traditions of her parents’ native Serbia, raising a family, supporting her church, and working inside and outside the home.

Mary, who had six siblings, was born in Farrell, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Midland, Ohio. Her father owned a gas station and a farm, where apples, pears, and grapes grew in the orchards.

“I have a picture of me up in a tree eating an apple,” she says. “It was a beautiful, beautiful farm.”

Mary doesn’t hide her family’s bootlegging past and the whiskey produced to bring in income. At 8 years old, according to her son, Ted Yanich, she worked nighttime, two-hour shifts tending the fire under the still. She also rode with the milk man on his morning rounds, carrying whiskey hidden in hot-water bottles that she distributed to customers along the route.

“What revenuer would stop an 8-year-old?” says Ted Yanich.

Mary Yanich’s life was full of music. She could play piano by ear. Her mother and uncle sang traditional Serbian songs in the home. She met her husband, Ben, when his church choir came from his hometown of Steelton to sing at her church.

Mary and Ben married in 1943. He shipped off to the South Pacific, where he was wounded while serving as a tank commander. After recovering in Hawaii, he came home to Steelton, where Mary was living with his parents.

With Mary’s industrious, friendly nature, she dove into the life of the tight-knit mill town and St. Nicholas Serbian Orthodox Church, next door to their home. The avid sports fan attended every Steelton-Highspire High School football game for 53 years, bundling up for even the coldest games. She cooked for church events and was recently honored as a founder of its Mothers Club, established in 1956. She still attends services.

“Members of the church still say she was one of their favorite people there,” says Ted.

In 1954, Mary convinced her husband to buy a grocery store. They worked different shifts, even as he kept working at the steel mill. The money earned helped put their two sons, Ted and Donilo, through college.

Even after they sold the store in 1964, Mary kept working. At Pomeroy’s Department Store, she sold shoes, just as she’d done at another department store in Pittsburgh years before.

“The people I worked with were nice,” she recalls. “They were nice company, and we had fun together.”

Ted Yanich says his mother taught him and his brother compassion, especially for those weaker than others. She also urged them to uphold Serbian traditions of building bonds among families.

At Homeland, Mary enjoys music programs. Ted, who has seen many retirement communities in the course of his work, ranks Homeland as one the best because “everybody in this building is a caregiver,” whether they’re certified nurse assistants or maintenance workers. Mary agrees.

“The people are so friendly,” she says. “That’s so important. It’s not hard to be nice.”