Retirement Home

A Cherry Hill developer wanting to build a retirement home on Kresson Road can expect a fight from Barclay Farm residents who oppose business encroachment in their Cherry Hill neighborhood. About 40 Barclay Area Civic Association members met Tuesday to discuss strategy for defeating the proposal for a three-story building at Kresson and Pearlcroft Roads. Because the 2.5 acres are zoned for residential use, builders Edward and Lee Rudow must win the township Zoning Board's approval for commerical use on the land.

Alvetta Bailey's baking may be one reason Haddonfield Home's open house is so successful each year. Make that a big reason. No, make that a very big reason, said Brenden Garozzo, director of the assisted-living facility in Haddonfield. The home's long-standing tradition - a holiday gift to the community - always features Bailey's Christmas cookies, apple cake, gingerbread houses, yule logs, sweet-potato pie, pumpkin bread, and other culinary delights of the season. This year's open house is scheduled for today.

When Gladys White turned 72, she could not afford a decent apartment and had little hope of living the next few years among friends. All that changed when she became a resident at Kearsley, a 223-year-old retirement community in the Wynnefield section of Philadelphia. White lives in a pleasant apartment, receives good care and goes shopping and enjoys other activities with her numerous new friends. Today, at 75, she cannot imagine what life would be like outside her new home. "Kearsley has been a lifesaver," she said.

Buying into a retirement community could be the biggest investment of your life, overshadowing even the purchase of your first house. Experts in and out of the industry suggested the following items to consider when planning for retirement living: BE A SKEPTIC. Understand that promotional material is just that. Brochures and pamphlets are designed to promote the retirement community and stress its best aspects. VISIT THE COMMUNITY. Spend a day or two looking around. Talk with the residents.

Studies have indicated that most older people prefer to live independently in their own homes as long as possible, counting on loved ones and community-based services for occasional needs. When that is no longer possible, however, choosing a retirement community becomes one of the most important decisions seniors can make. To help sort out the maze of options, ACTS Retirement Life Communities Inc., a nonprofit organization in West Point, Pa., has compiled the following list of tips for people contemplating a move: Consider the community setting.

Residents of the Barclay Farms section are expected to show up in force tomorrow to quash a proposed retirement home in their residential Cherry Hill neighborhood. Members of the Barclay area civic association have argued that the proposed location - on a 2.5-acre parcel on Kresson Road across from the James Johnson School - is a bad spot for a retirement home. At tomorrow's Zoning Board meeting, neighbors plan to ask the board to turn down the developer's request for a special variance allowing the home on a property zoned residential.

A plan for a retirement home in West Chester has been transformed into a proposal for 55 condominiums because the developer says the new project would make more money. "The financial climate has changed," said Paul Robino, chairman for Frank Robino Associates of Wilmington, testifying before the Zoning Hearing Board Monday night. Robino asked permission to build 10 units on the first floor of the former Denney-Reyburn Building, which is commercially zoned. He also requested the freedom to decide the size of all the units in the building, at 30 W. Barnard St., and to be exempt from having to landscape the parking lot. The board has 45 days to vote on his application, which was opposed by all but a few of the residents at the meeting.

Robert Ryan was just looking for a little direction from the Plymouth Planning Commission in his efforts to build a single-family home where he and his wife could grow old together. What he got from the commission Thursday night was an on-the-spot positive recommendation of his plans to the Township Council. Ryan, who is about to retire, owns a 3.79-acre parcel of land at 208 Township Line Rd., next to Valley Green Estates. He inherited the land when his father died. At the front of the property is a single-family home where his daughter and son-in-law reside.

At the end of the funeral procession down Broadway yesterday, George Fallon sat up in his casket and asked for a beer. To the rich sounds of bagpipes, drums and laughter, his friends handed the very-much-alive Fallon a green-tinted beer at the second annual "Finnegan's Wake" celebration at Ferry's Bar in Gloucester City. James Joyce's Finnegan was a bricklayer; Fallon is Camden County superintendent of elections. But no matter, he laughed - the spirit's the same. High, that was, with more than 80 people chugging, dancing and singing at the local fund-raising event ($30 a person)

An attempt to unionize about 160 workers at the White Horse Village Lifecare Community has failed by a vote of 82-55, a union official said. John Meyerson, the director of organizing for Local 1776 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, attributed the outcome of the vote, which was taken Wednesday, to about 60 part-time employees who didn't need benefits. Meyerson said he thought those employees, most of whom were high school age, were covered by their parents' health-care plans.

Sister Kathleen O'Neill, 84, a former assistant director of a retirement home for Catholic nuns in Rosemont, died Monday, April 2, of heart failure at Delaware County Memorial Hospital. A significant part of her ministry was spent outside the Philadelphia region, including 10 years in Ghana. Born in Philadelphia, Sister Kathleen entered the convent of the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus in Rosemont in 1945, the year she turned 18, and became known as Mother Mary Agatha. Her religious order founded Rosemont College in 1921.

From the outside, little has changed at the brick-and-stucco house Kevin and Victoria Austin purchased as a young married couple 22 years ago. Lace curtains hang in the front bay window. A small yard is tidily kept. A curlicue "A" marks the mailbox. Yet inside the front door, which no longer leads to a living room, it's a different place altogether. "I couldn't hear you, I was in the new house," Vickie Austin says, laughing as she refers to the 1,100-square-foot-plus addition made at the back of the West Norriton dwelling in 2010.

AS THE unofficial family historian, Marian Bradley knew everything about everybody, going back several generations. She knew about the Bradleys in Ireland and her mother's family in Italy. She could tell family stories that kept listeners enthralled - at great length. "She would get you listening after the first two sentences and have you laughing after five," said her brother, Edward J. Bradley, retired president judge of Common Pleas Court. "She would have everybody in stitches.

A Delaware woman was arrested Monday and charged with stealing property from residents of the Chester County retirement community where she works, police said. Shakeana Sims, 25, of Newark, was found with a watch, bank card, and stolen check that belonged to two elderly residents at a Kennett Square retirement community run by the Kendal Corp., police said. Sims works as a nurse's aide for Kendal. The company could not be reached for comment Monday night. The thefts were discovered after Sims was arrested during a traffic stop in Newark about 12:45 a.m., police said.

Richard M. Ketchum, 89, an author and editor who cofounded Country Journal, a magazine that offered a blend of the bucolic and the practical, particularly to city folk who had opted for the rural life, died Jan. 12 at a retirement home in Shelburne, Vt. Until four years ago, he had lived on his nearly 1,000-acre farm, Saddleback, in Dorset, Vt. Originally called Blair & Ketchum's Country Journal - it was started in 1974 by William S. Blair and Ketchum,...

Edith Fellows, 88, who as a child actress was the subject of a famous 1936 custody case, has died. Her daughter, Kathy Fields Lander, told the Los Angeles Times that Ms. Fellows died of natural causes Sunday at the Motion Picture & Television Fund retirement home in Los Angeles. Ms. Fellows' mother abandoned her as an infant, and she was raised by her grandmother, who took her to Hollywood. She made about 50 movies in the 1930s, '40s and '50s, including the 1936 film Pennies From Heaven . She later appeared on stage and TV. Ms. Fellows was 13 when her mother sued for custody.

Sister Helen Martin, 85, a Franciscan nun who ran nursing schools at three East Coast hospitals, died of cardiovascular disease Thursday, June 9, at Assisi House, the retirement home for the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, in Aston, Delaware County. Most recently, Sister Helen was a nurse at Our Lady of Angels Convent, across the road from Assisi House, from 1994 to 2007. Sister Helen was director of the schools of nursing at three hospitals, all named St. Joseph - in Baltimore from 1961 to 1970, in Lancaster from 1970 to 1974, and in Reading from 1974 to 1989.

I was apartment-shopping with Daughter Francesca when I realized that the sort of apartment that appeals to a mom is a lot different from the one that appeals to a daughter. Here is what she wants: pretty. Here is what I want: security. Here is what she wants: charm. Here is what I want: a doorman. Here is what she wants: sunlight. Here is what I want: a moat. Uh-oh. I thought we needed a better-managed building, and we rent an apartment together.

There's nothing better for the inside of a man, according to an old cowboy saw, than the outside of a horse. A friend who knows horses told me this. I don't know horses. Never been on one, never even petted one. Until Monday. "You'll lose your fingers that way," cautioned Sarah Barnshaw as I tried to feed a carrot to a beast named Wheaties. She showed me how to center the offering in my outstretched palm so the horse could retrieve it with practiced lips. Barnshaw was giving me a tour of what she called Chester County's best-kept secret, the Ryerss Farm for Aged Equines, the nation's oldest retirement home for horses.

Moms are advice-givers. Sometimes their wisdom helps us in the moment, but frequently, the brilliance of their counsel - which sounded odd at the time - becomes apparent only years later. As Mother's Day approaches, we wanted to highlight this gift of guidance by publishing your mothers' best advice - some strange, but all true.   My grandfather ran a small suburban hotel that had once been a retirement home. Many of the retirees chose to stay on after the transition.