Tag Archive for: Resident Spotlight

Since coming to Homeland two years ago, Anna Guidara has made many friends and has earned a reputation as Homeland’s “prayer chain queen.”

When people need a prayer for their health, they stop by Anna’s room, and their requests go into Anna’s prayers.

“When I retired, I had more time, so I went to church every morning, and I started praying and praying and praying, so I keep praying,” she says. “I pray every day for somebody.”

Anna’s steadfast faith has been a comfort through a life of tragedy, resilience, and family. That tight-knit family includes a granddaughter and great-grandson who work at Homeland, keeping them close every day.

Anna grew up in Steelton, the youngest of seven children. Her parents married in their native Italy, and the old country traditions remain central to her family. Her granddaughter, Homeland Clinical Manager Kelly Weldon, recalls, “We had spaghetti dinners every Sunday.”

“And meatballs,” Anna adds. “And homemade wine. They made their own wine.”

Anna’s father worked for the railroad but times were tough, and Anna left school at 16 to take a job in the packing room of ice cream maker Hershey Creamery, where two of her brothers were supervisors.

Two years later, in 1946, Anna got married. Not long after their 20th anniversary, her husband, Bill, went to work and was electrocuted on the job. He was 37 years old, and Anna was a young, widowed mother.

“My daughter was 12 years old, and I raised her,” Anna says now. “I put her through school, and she was a nurse for 40 years. I’m proud of her. I’m proud of all my family. God’s been with us all the time.”

Anna supervised the deli counter at Karns Food Store for about 25 years, and though she was busy with work and family, she still made the time to help the nuns at her church serve meals to students.

“I used to make around 500 subs a day for fundraisers,” she says. “Karns gave them the lettuce and the tomatoes. They gave them the ham. They sold them for a dollar. You can’t do that now.”

After she retired, Anna moved across the Susquehanna River to Marysville to be closer to her daughter and help watch her granddaughters.

“She liked to shop,” says Kelly of those years. “She always took my sister and me shopping for school clothes. It was a tradition.”

Another Italian tradition that Kelly enjoyed with her “Nanny” was holiday baking.

“We always baked a ton of cookies at Christmastime,” says Kelly. “We would give them out. We had a routine. We would pick up nut rolls the week before Christmas and hand them out. We would give out the cans of cookies, too. Now, my mom and I do it.”

When Anna could no longer live independently, Homeland was the logical choice because Kelly was working here, as is Kelly’s son, Drew, in dietary. Since moving to Homeland two years ago, Anna has enjoyed morning worship, exercise classes, walking, and her longtime passion – playing bingo.

“I know everybody here,” she says. “I talk to everybody.”

Faith remains an integral part of Anna’s life.

“I pray for my health and that everybody up here is well,” she says. “I pray for everybody who’s sick and everybody who’s in the hospital. Every time I talk to somebody, I’m praying for them.”

Kelly admits that she can’t cook as well as her grandmother, but she learned more essential lessons from Anna.

“Faith, number one,” Kelly says. “And I learned to be strong. Nanny was a widow at a very young age. She raised my mom by herself. She did remarry, but her second husband was very sick, and he died when I was young. I’ve learned from her what it’s like to be a strong, independent, do-everything-on-your-own person.”

Anna hopes that she has been an inspiration.

“My one friend said that God has me here for a reason,” she says. “She said, ‘He’s not done with you.’ I’m 93 years old. When He’s done with me, He’ll take me. Everybody says I don’t look 93. They say I look 75. I say, ‘Get out of here.’”

Hannah Sprow is Steelton born and bred, but her heart belongs to a cabin in the woods.

From childhood, Hannah and her family would spend summers amid the forests of Pine Grove Furnace.

“I loved that place,” she says. “It was more like a home to me than my own home.”

Today, Hannah is a resident of Homeland Center skilled care, enjoying the company of attentive staff and offering her family peace of mind from knowing that she is well-cared-for.

Hannah’s father was a tax collector and sheriff, working in the Steelton Borough office. Her mother cared for Hannah and her siblings.

One day, while walking to high school, a friend pulled up and said that his friend, Bob Sprow, would like to take Hannah out on a date. Bob had already graduated from high school, but they started going steady.

“That’s where it started,” Hannah says. After she graduated from high school, they got married – but with a twist.

“We were married six months before anybody knew it,” she says. “Marrying him was the best thing I ever did.”

They kept their marriage a secret because Hannah was still young, but when the family learned the news, “they didn’t have much to say about it,” she says.

“My father helped me. My mother helped me,’’ Hannah recalled with a smile. “Every time I wanted to cook something for dinner, I’d call her on the phone, and she’d tell me what to do.’’

The young couple got an apartment with a view up and down Steelton’s main street. Their three children, two boys and a girl were born while they lived there.

Soon after the birth of their youngest daughter, Luanne, the family moved to Steelton’s East End, where they enjoyed being part of the tight-knit community. Across the street, her friend Lucille fixed up her basement, and the women would get together for exercise while the kids were at school.

The Sprow boys were athletes at Steelton-Highspire High School. Luanne was a cheerleader. Every Sunday, the family stepped out the back door of their home and walked a few steps straight to the side door of their church, Mt. Zion Methodist.

“I never got bored,” says Hannah. “I always had something to do.”

Luanne agrees that those were eventful years.

“It was great,” says Luanne, who still lives in Steelton and remains a proud Steel-High Roller. “We had a lot of fun. I was a lot younger and the only girl. We enjoyed being together.”

Those summers in Pine Grove Furnace are etched in Hannah’s mind. When she was a child, the family would stay in the historic ironmaster’s mansion, now a hostel and event venue. In 1944, they built a cabin on their land – Hannah’s dad completing the shell and her husband fitting out the interior.

“It was beautiful,” Hannah recalls. “Our porch was so big that when it was hot, the kids would sleep on the porch.”

For years, the cabin was the Sprow family getaway, and it remains in the family.

“As soon as school was out, our bags were packed,” Luanne says. “We stayed all summer long.”

After Bob retired, the couple continued spending summers in Pine Grove. They also traveled to Myrtle Beach in the winter – although they were usually ready to come home before their three months were up.

Bob died in 2011, after 70 years of marriage. Hannah, who has six grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren, came to Homeland in 2018.
“I meet a lot of nice people,” she says of Homeland.

“It’s wonderful,” Luanne agrees. “They’ve been very good to my mom. They’re taking very good care of her. We’re very happy with Homeland.”

Judy Hess has lovely memories of childhood in Hershey, named for the famous chocolate company where her father worked in the Hershey Foods power plant. She would see the renowned founder — Milton Hershey — driving around town.

“Mr. Hershey believed that everything he did was for his workers,” she says. “He was a very forward-looking man, a very bright man. Hershey was a wonderful place to grow up. I think we were really very spoiled.”

Today, Judy is a resident of Homeland Center, where she marvels at the professionalism of the staff and the meticulous upkeep of the building. She should know because she spent a career in nursing, trying new experiences whenever she had the chance.

Looking back on her youth, Judy remembers Mr. Hershey’s majestic movie palace, the Hershey Theatre, with its famous ceiling.

“When you sat down and watched movies, you could look up and see clouds and stars overhead,” Judy says. Then as now, Broadway touring companies would come through, and Judy saw all the shows, including the Rodgers & Hammerstein blockbuster, “South Pacific.”

In Hershey, she met her future husband – Paul Hess – who was her classmate from Kindergarten through 12th grade.

“We never dated at all in high school,” she says. “Never once. But we did walk down the aisle together at graduation.”

They walked down the aisle together as husband and wife after he came home on leave from the Navy at the end of World War II. Judy was in town as well, on vacation from nursing school.

“We had one date, and he asked me to marry him, and I said yes,” she says of the answer that launched their 61-year marriage as a shell-shocked world sighed in relief that the fighting had ended. “We both decided that we were war-weary. It lasted a long time.”

Judy’s contribution to World War II made a lasting impression on her life. She had dreamed of becoming a teacher, but she joined the United States Cadet Nurse Corps when the war started.

The Nurse Corps was founded in 1943 to provide free nursing education for civilian nurses to fill the home-front posts as experienced nurses joined the military.

“I still tell people I’m tired from those three years,” jokes Judy. “I never worked so hard in my entire life.”

Judy served at Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia, where she and her fellow student nurses cared for patients and attended classes without fail – even after working 12-hour night shifts.

“It was a tough life – but worth it,” Judy says.

The young nursing students shared a house where they had a 10 p.m. curfew. With the intensity of the experience, the group stayed in touch for the rest of their lives.

“When we had reunions, we would always say the same thing,” she says. “It was hard, but we would not have wanted to have missed it.”

That experience launched a fulfilling career in nursing. For many years, her nursing jobs “moved with me” as she and Paul traveled for his Navy career, from which he retired as a captain. While Paul was working on his doctorate at the University of Delaware, Judy served as head nurse for the university’s Student Health Center.

Following the Navy, Paul became a respected environmental scientist and retired as the Hershey Foods Corporation environmental affairs department director.

Judy’s career also came full circle when the Hess family returned to Hershey, and she enjoyed 15 years as a school nurse for the nearby Annville-Cleona School District. One summer, she also worked in the psychiatric ward of the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center (now Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center).

Judy and Paul had a daughter, Paula. While Paul conducted research at the University of Delaware Marine Science Center in Lewes, the family spent many summers in that quiet seashore town, watching boats come and go on the Intercoastal Waterway. Sometimes, Paul would say, “I’m going to take Judy on a cruise.”

“And we would take the ferry over to New Jersey,” she says, laughing.

Judy arrived in Homeland Center’s skilled care unit in spring 2021. She has visited many nursing homes in her life, “and this is by far the nicest one I have ever been in. I don’t think there are very many that could compare to this.”

“It’s a wonderful place,” she says. “It’s bright, and it’s cheery, and they keep everything in such good repair. I am amazed at how well appointed it is. Everything is just as you would want it to be.”