A Retirement Resources Blog for Seniors and Retirees – HOME

 

Faith Callahan pictured with her daugher and son-in-law Blythe and Ed Stanton. 

Faith Callahan was awarded the Bishop’s Award by Grant J. Hagiya, Resident Bishop of the United Methodist Church at the June, 2009 Pacific Northwest Annual Conference.  She was honored for her years of ministry as a lay church leader.

Faith could write a book about Wesley Homes.  It’s been her home and the home now for three generations beginning in the 1950’s:  Faith’s father Reverend S.A. Chappell, her husband Reverend Bill Callahan, and her daughter Blythe and her husband Reverend Ed Stanton.

Faith and her husband Bill retired to the campus cottages in 1972.  Faith is the senior most resident at Wesley Homes.  In October, 2009, she will celebrate her 105th birthday; a cause for much celebration on the Wesley Homes campus.

Faith spoke about the levels of care at Wesley Homes that she has personally experienced over the last 37 years of her residency.

“First there are the amenities,” said Faith, “Wesley Homes rates very well for all levels of care.”  So she’s quite content with her quality of life here.  When it came time for Faith to transition from the cottage to an apartment she recalled what it felt like to make that move. 

“I loved to cook, and the cottage had a big kitchen so I was afraid I’d miss that,” she said, “but I hated gardening.”  So that was the trade-off; more low maintenance and convenience in exchange for the bigger kitchen.  She found she enjoys dinner more as a social affair now; visiting her daughter in the cottages or meeting her friends in the dining room.

Plus she enjoys having health and beauty services on one floor “where you can monitor your health, get foot care and get your hair done,” she said.  She is also grateful for the nearby Health Center where she has stayed on occasion when recuperating from illness. 

“The second floor is for assisted living,” explained Faith, “where you can get a little bit more help with dressing or counting out pills if you need it.  That’s where you really get pampered.” 

Faith related what it was like when Bill became ill.  At the time they were living in the cottages, but for the last year of his life he was cared for at the Health Center and she visited him daily. 

Living only a block away, at the cottages, made the separation easier on Faith and Bill.  It was during a visit to Bill that one of the nurses at Wesley Homes invited Faith to go swimming to relieve the stress of care giving; a habit of exercise that still serves her well today. 

Faith’s stories about life at Wesley Homes comes from the perspective of a physically and mentally active woman who still organizes her life around her favorite activities; church, theater, good books, and daily exercise.

She loves a good story and is an avid theater goer.  She has season tickets to the Intiman Theatre where just this week she enjoyed Arin Arbus’s production of Shakespeare’s Othello.  “I thought Desdemona’s voice was a little weak, but Iago played by John Campion was tremendous,” she commented.

Faith is a published writer and her late husband an amateur photographer.  She was published both in the Modern Bride Magazine and in the Christian Science Monitor.  One such article was entitled “Ten Foolish Brides” published by Modern Bride, and inspired by the Bible. 

“In 1954 we manned a lookout at Mount Walker for a summer,” said Faith, “I wrote an article about that experience.”  Click on the article: Summer in a Doll House to read the article published July 16, 1956 in the Christian Science Monitor.

One of her favorite memories is of the time she dropped off her girls, then 6 and 9, with her mom and took off with her husband to circumnavigate Mount Rainer on the Wonderland Trail.  This was in 1938.   They hiked 105 miles with no sleeping bags or rain gear. 

“There were no sleeping bags in those days,” she explained, “so I sewed a couple of wool blankets together and I carried that on my back.  Bill carried a frying pan and not much else besides an oil cloth to wrap food in.” 

Over the years the couple walked many paths together both physically and spiritually; paths that forged their unique bond and respect for one another’s leadership attributes. 

Now, years later, she still displays Bill’s photography and she laughed as she told me that they had planned to devote a wall to her article rejection slips.  “Some of the editor comments were really funny,” she said. 

What I saw was that her writing and his photography were living memoirs of their rewarding lives together.  
 

–ilene little for Wesley Homes

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 8:56 pm and is filed under General Info. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.