Two seniors teeter on brink of abyss. One falls in; Stockbridge woman survives.
This grisly scene was on the verge of replaying in the Stockbridge-Gregory area. But residents recognized the warning signs and stepped forward. Image source: sites.Google.com.
by Patrice Johnson
“An 80-year-old Detroit woman lived in filth. Nobody knew until she was found dead, eaten by her dog.”
–“Unfathomable” by Tresa Baldas, Detroit Free Press, Sunday edition, Aug. 4, 2019, p. A001. (See link below.)
This grisly scene was on the verge of replaying in the Stockbridge-Gregory area. But residents recognized the warning signs and stepped forward.
Barbara (name changed) had dropped a startling amount of weight since the recent death of her husband. Her attendance at monthly meetings of the Stockbridge Area Garden Club had become sporadic. Chuck and Nancy Wisman, long-time friends of Barbara’s husband, noticed her yard was overgrown. Nancy called neighbor Cal Brown. Since he mowed it in the past, would he please mow it again?
“Sure,” Brown said. “But Barbara won’t like it.”
To describe Barbara as a curmudgeon would be an understatement. She was estranged from her family and lived alone in the country with dog Blondie. Barbara belonged to one organization, the garden club.
On July 13, member Molly Howlett called to remind Barbara of an upcoming meeting.
“Oh yes,” she said. “I would like to attend.”
Howlett offered Barbara a ride, and two days later arrived to a freshly mown yard. But tall weeds around Barbara’s tires indicated her SUV had not moved in some time. Howlett knocked more than 10 minutes with the dog barking in the background before Barbara answered the door. This normally fastidious person stood before her in a profoundly soiled bathrobe. Hair unkempt. Dentures missing. Legs swollen.
“I forgot,” Barbara said. “I was sleeping on the couch, and you woke me up.” She would catch the next meeting, she insisted and waved Howlett off. No, she didn’t need anything.
Shaken, Molly drove away. But she expressed her concerns to attendees seated at her table. Fellow member Nancy Wisman offered to discuss the situation with husband Chuck, a retired social services inspector. Acting on his advice, she and Andrea Stickney contacted Michigan’s Adult Protective Services the next morning.
The days were hot, and Barbara had persnickety tastes, so while APS was preparing to act, this writer decided to deliver Barbara daily milkshakes. Slow to answer her door and clothed in her dirty pink bathrobe, Barbara’s greetings were always the same.
“Why are you doing this?” she would ask, suspicion in her tone. Hair uncombed. No glimmer of recognition. No invitation to enter.
“Because you look thin.”
She would brighten. “You’re my friend, aren’t you?”
A day or two later, a business card from a representative of APS jutted from the locked storm door.
“I see you had a visitor,” I asked. “Did you have a nice chat?”
Barbara glimpsed at the card and set it on the windowsill. “No, I didn’t speak with him.”
Chuck Wisman, grateful to Barbara for her generous actions toward his terminally ill mother long ago, offered to ride along on a milkshake delivery. A heads-up phone call prompted Barbara to dress, and she answered the door in loose-hanging slacks and a blouse, both dirty.
“Would you be interested in Meals on Wheels?” I asked.
“Good Lord, no!” she exclaimed.
“May we come in?” Chuck inquired.
“Maybe next time,” she demurred. “Thank you for being my friend.”
An email was circulated among garden club members, and a meal-delivery schedule took shape. With each visit, people offered to assist in a variety of ways. No, Barbara said, she didn’t need any groceries. She didn’t need help with her laundry. The dog didn’t need walking or feeding. She didn’t need the 40-pound salt bags on her steps carried in. And no, we couldn’t come inside.
Then one day, as Nancy Wisman was dropping off a meal, Barbara asked her to carry some of the containers inside.
“I was shocked!” Wisman said. “The doors to the kitchen cabinets were open and empty. Dirty dishes mounded two feet above the sink. Dog poop was on the carpet inside the back door.”
“May I help wash your dishes?” Nancy asked.
“Get out,” Barbara told her.
Wisman discovered a woman, Jan, was taking Barbara out to lunch on occasion. Chuck Wisman spoke with the social worker whose name was on the business card. Yes, he had met with Barbara, the representative said, but she wouldn’t agree to anything. Who was her doctor, he asked, and did anyone know the names of her relatives?
Nancy ran a Google search and located two daughters. “I’ll try to call them tomorrow,” she emailed. “I’m heading there tonight with turkey breast, fruit, green beans and potato salad.”
July 23: Another shake delivery in the company of Judy Williams, garden club CFO (Chief Flower Officer). Williams had delivered chicken soup the day before.
“Won’t you come in?” Barbara asked with a toothless smile.
Inside, the dining room table lay covered under 14 inches of mostly paper products. Barbara’s Lifeline necklace interlaced among the mess, so this writer picked it up and suggested Barbara might like to wear it.
“Put it down,” Barbara said, her voice stern.
July 25: Nancy Wisman and Linda Collins brought Barbara a meal. After prolonged knocking, they called 911. Ambulance and police personnel responded.
“The toilets were dry, and the faucets didn’t work,” Wisman said. “The sheriff convinced her to get dressed, so we could drive her to a doctor.” As Wisman transported Barbara to emergency facilities, she had to take a bottle of liquid from her. “She was so thirsty, she tried to drink my hand sanitizer.”
At St. Joseph/UM hospital in Chelsea, Barbara was diagnosed with severe malnutrition, dehydration and inflammation in one leg. But she was alive, thanks to the observations and selfless efforts of a cadre of caring individuals.
As of Aug. 5, Blondie, the dog, was thriving in a new home. Visitors relayed that Barbara was recovering, as evidenced by the hard time she was giving staff. Neither daughter has expressed interest in becoming involved, so the case is slated to go to a probate judge who will appoint a guardian and decide where Barbara is to reside.
“She will not be returning home,” Wisman reported during the garden club’s August meeting. Then she added with a smile, “The nurses told me she ate ten yogurts for breakfast.”
“Everyone needs to look out for their neighbors,” Wisman wrote, “and if there is a sign of something amiss, seek help for them.”
If not for a community rallying in demonstration of those values, Barbara’s life story may well have ended like the news story about Detroit-resident Sally Honeycheck:
“The puffy corpse slumped over the chair had no eyes, nose or mouth – just hair on a skull, and bones sticking out from under a red sweater and plaid pants.”
Stockbridge Area Garden Club. L-R: Sue Lindemer, Patrice Johnson, Nancy Macaluso, Janine Falk, Susan Daily, Roberta Ludtke, Joan Tucker, Debbie Shellenbarger, Linda Risner, Connie Risner, Andrea Stickney, Judy Williams, and Julia Neuhaus. Not pictured: Jean Bliss, Dorothy Craft, Bev Glynn, Molly Howlett, Karen Lunsford, Laura Morehouse, Tammy Porter, Connie Spadafore, Normi Spadafore, Audrey Price, Terry Sommer, Jeannine Wayman, Dorene White, Mary Wilson, Nancy Wisman, Vicki Woolcock.
Patrice Johnson
Editor in Chief of Stockbridge Community News. Author of national award winning, "The Fall and Rise of Tyler Johnson"