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Homeland residents, separate but together, keep their love alive

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On the rainy day when Don and Lorraine Englander first met, he was whistling “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.”

Don and Lorraine Englander

That was around 1978, and it has been their song ever since.

Today, the Englanders live in separate Homeland wings but they get together every day to talk, laugh, watch TV, and share meals. And they still share all their favorite love songs with each other and with fellow Homeland residents.

Don is an accomplished, lifelong singer and keyboardist who has performed with combos throughout Central Pennsylvania. On Valentine’s Day, he presented a program at Homeland, performing from a playlist of the Sinatra standards that he and his Homeland neighbors love – “Fly Me to the Moon,” “You Make Me Feel So Young,” “My Funny Valentine.”

While Don performs, Lorraine is at his side. Though his eyesight has deteriorated, he can still play his Yamaha keyboard because he taught Lorraine – who readily admits she “can’t carry a tune in a bucket” – to program the songs.

From Don’s cozy room, Lorraine recalls how she came to Homeland first, from their home on Reeser’s Summit, outside of New Cumberland, where they loved watching storms roll in over the valley. Don followed about a year later to join her.

“I wanted to come here,” he says.

“Because I was here,” Lorraine adds.

The Englanders met on that rainy day when Lorraine was a secretary at a YMCA, and Don dropped by on business. They married in 1979 in a Las Vegas service performed by a minister wearing an enormous beehive hairdo. They raised a blended family of six children and loved traveling together. A map on the wall is pinned with dozens of places they’ve seen in the U.S., Central America, and Europe.

Don is a World War II infantry and Rome Area Command veteran. From a hospital bed in Rome while he recuperated from wounds, he witnessed the last major eruption of Mount Vesuvius, in 1944.

“That’s something to see,” he says now.

At Homeland, they attend programs together. Lorraine enjoys “Sports Talk with Herm” twice a month. They also get out to see shows in local theaters, Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra concerts at The Forum, baseball games, and tours of Hershey Chocolate World.

“We just enjoy being together,” says Don.

Homeland’s flexibility has helped them stay and dine together despite their residences in separate wings, the Englanders agree. Lorraine is a familiar figure in every corner of Homeland, getting around via a motorized wheelchair with a sign on the back that says, “I traded in this Chevy for a Mercedes-Benz.”

When Lorraine arrived at Homeland, health issues meant that she could barely sit up. She was, she says, “in very bad shape.”

“Now look at me,” she says. “They have been wonderful to me, from the top person to the bottom person. The kitchen, the maintenance, they’re all wonderful. And my aides, they’re great. I love the people. Everyone’s been wonderful.”

Homeland resident Joe Bowers relives WWII service in B-17

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Joe Bowers stand by the Aluminum Overcast, a B-17 like the one in which he flew as a bombardier. Above is the Plexiglass nose he would sit in while guiding the plan over its target.

As World War II raged on, Joe Bowers was serving as an Army 2nd lieutenant platoon leader. His feet were on the ground, but his hopes were in the sky, with the B-17 “Flying Fortress’’ bombers winging overhead.

“I’d see these beautiful things flying around, and I think, ‘I’d like to get in there,’” he says today. ”Somehow or other, I got lucky.”

Bowers, a Homeland Center resident, served as a bombardier on U.S. Army Air Force B-17s as a 1st lieutenant for 26 months with the 305th Bomb Group, 366th Squadron. From January 7, 1945, to April 17, 1945, he flew in 35 missions over German cities including Karlsruhe, Munich, and Dresden. During that time he flew various B-17s bearing colorful nose-art and names like “What’s Crackin’ Doc,” “Miss Yvonne,” and “Fancy Pantz.”

On a rainy Saturday in September 2014, the 94-year-old Bowers relived his bombardier days when the Experimental Aircraft Association brought a restored B-17 to Capital City Airport in New Cumberland. Coincidentally, the airport is only a few blocks from the home where Bowers was born and raised.

The B-17s Joe Bowers flew in featured nose art, but nothing like the blonde pinup on the Overcast, he said with a laugh.

Seeing the plane parked on the tarmac – the B-17G-VE Aluminum Overcast — brought back memories for Bowers. The hefty B-17s, flying from England deep into Germany, flew in tight formation with nimble escort fighters that protected the bombers from air and ground attacks.

“Thank heavens they did their job,” Bowers said as he sat near the Aluminum Overcast. “We didn’t lose anybody in our crew. We all came through. We got shot at a lot of times, but nothing took us down.”

The formations were so tight, Bowers recalled, that “some wiseguy said, ‘Hell, I can jump from one wing to another.’”

As bombardier, Bowers sat in the plane’s clear Plexiglas nose. When the pilot ordered “bombs away,” Bowers would get control of the plane, with the critical job of maneuvering the ship into position and using the top-secret Norden bombsight to align the target and release the bombs, clustered as tightly as possible.

“All of a sudden, somebody would say go,” he said. “We kept our fingers crossed and away it went. Sometimes we were able to see it when it hit the ground. Not too often, because we were gone.”

Joe Bowers sits at the B-17’s radio controls.

To this day, Bowers wears a gold bombardier’s ring he bought long ago.

“I’ve always been proud of that ring, so I keep it around,” he said. “It’s a part of me, I guess.”

At war’s end, Bowers came home. He worked in a dental laboratory and at the Mechanicsburg Navy Depot until he retired. In retirement, he volunteered as a bus driver around the Penn State Hershey Medical Center. Until 2013, he and his late wife Pat, who had lived with him at Homeland, would attend every Hershey Bears hockey game.

“I was always a nutty fan for the Bears,” he said.

As he walked closer to the B-17 at the Capital City Airport, visitors lining up for a tour took photos and thanked him for his service. Asked whether his ships also had paintings on their sides, like the pinup blonde in a bathing suit on the Aluminum Overcast’s nose, Bowers turned to look at the artwork.

The Aluminum Overcast in flight (used by permission)

“Not like that,” he said, drawing a laugh from the crowd.

Though he uses a walker, Bowers eagerly climbed the steps to the side hatch and stepped inside the plane. He didn’t hesitate to maneuver across the ledge circling the ball turret and into the radio room. From there, he could see into a narrow catwalk and the bays holding the bombs. He smiled from ear to ear and laughed out loud.

Bowers remembers being frightened “more than a couple of times.”

“When you’re riding up front and all this stuff is going on, I got scared,” he said. “But we still had a job to do, and that’s what we did.”

As Homeland Center celebrates its 147th year, a former administrator recalls challenges and triumphs

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It was 1975, and Homeland Center’s first paid administrator had a lot to do – implement strict state safety codes, adopt city fire regulations and restructure how care was provided to qualify for Medicaid and Medicare.

But Isabelle Smith added another task to the serious safety and financial issues on her plate. Homeland’s main building, the brick structure dating to 1870, was painted an ugly yellow.

“It was grotesque,” Smith recalls. ”It was peeling and peeling.” So, Smith convinced the board president to sandblast off the paint and construct a presentable façade, so the building “looked like it should be there.”

Isabelle Smith became a Homeland resident in late 2012, but her Homeland history dates to her time as administrator from 1975 to 1992. Under her leadership, Homeland survived a crisis that threatened to shut its doors, emerging as today’s model of stability and responsive, responsible care.

As Homeland enters its 147th year, Smith looks back on the challenges she faced, as well as the triumphs.

History points the way 

Smith sits in her cheery room as she recalls the turnaround. In 1975, Homeland’s finances were shoddy. Conditions fell short of modern standards. “Destructive people,” ostensibly responsible for managing the home, seemed intent on shutting it down.

“There was a defeated attitude here,” Smith says. “It was broke and didn’t have a good reputation.”

In her daunting task, Smith drew inspiration from Homeland’s founders, the society women who learned from their maids and laundresses about the orphaned children and destitute widows in their midst in post-Civil War Harrisburg.

“I love them,” says Smith of the long-gone women she never met. “I love them.”

The founding women committed to caring for residents without regard to finances. That abiding principle remains intact. However, when Smith arrived, few residents had any means at all, and the little they had went straight to the bank, with no accountability. Smith wasn’t allowed to see Homeland’s financial records. She paid bills from a monthly allowance disbursed by the bank. There were no personnel files.

“They were operating like it was still in the 1800s,” she recalls.

Sparking a turnaround

The last straw came when the all-male board of trustees ruthlessly grilled Carolyn Kunkel, then-chair of the board of managers, about spending $300 to reupholster a tattered couch. Smith vowed that the shaken woman would “never, never have to do that again.”

“I’m going to perform the great miracle of Homeland,” she told Kunkel. “I’m going to make a budget, and they’re going to pass it.”

“That,’’ says Smith now, “was the end of that.”

Some trustees doubted a woman’s ability to manage, but Smith’s tenacity and methodical approach won them over. She tracked down funding, worked with state officials, and secured Medicare and Medicaid approval. She restored control over residents’ personal funds to Homeland. She established an internal bank for residents, issuing monthly statements detailing their resources.

With finances back in Homeland control, Smith figured she “had to do something with it.”

“I wanted people to have a good impression of this home,” she says. “I wanted them to think, ‘This is the place I want to be.’”

Maintenance staff painted hallways. Rooms received makeovers, with drapes and bedspreads made from “beautiful, beautiful sheets.” The board of managers gathered artwork for the walls. Homeland built its first wing, the 32-bed Medicare/Medicaid-approved skilled care area.

“The residents became so inspired with what was going on,” says Smith. “They were thrilled.”

Group effort

Homeland is now justifiably famous for the dedication and longevity of its staff, but when Smith arrived, many staffers were disheartened. She stressed education, the human side of caregiving, and the importance of each staff member to reaching exemplary quality levels.

“If I said I wanted something by such-and-such a time, then they better have it done by such-and-such a time, or I would hunt for them and get them by the ear and get them back to do it,” she says. “I had a reputation for having the finest staff you ever want to meet.”

Smith credits many colleagues for their help — medical director Dr. Donald Freedman; financial consultant Frank Caswell, who helped with the Medicare and Medicaid adoption; Tama Carey, one of Smith’s directors of nursing; and Nancy Snavely, Smith’s own daughter and an assistant who was “vitally important to everything I did.”

“I have met in my lifetime some of the most wonderful people that God ever created,” Smith says. “They inspired me. People wonder why I am the way I am. I know why I’m the way I am. I’ve met such fine, fine, human beings, and they gave me the strength to be me.”

As a Homeland resident, Smith’s favorite time of day is after dinner, when the dishes have been cleared in the dining room.

“There’s life in the home,” she says. “I love to sit after dinner and just listen. That’s when the chatter begins.”