Making a home for a marriage at Friends Care Community

Ed and Nancy Vernot at Friends Care Community Extended Care Facility, where Nancy has lived since the summer of 2006, when she suffered a stroke that left Ed unable to care for her.

By Diane Chiddister

An independent woman, Nancy Vernot always loved travel. Throughout her marriage, she and her husband, Ed, found their way to each and every state in the union (except Alaska), including long road trips to California and vacations in Europe

“She’s a traveling girl,” Ed said in an interview last week. “Give her a map and she wants to go there.”

You could say that Nancy Vernot’s physical travels are mainly over, since health problems left her partly paralyzed and wheelchair bound at the Friends Care Community Extended Living Center, where she lives. But you could also say that her husband found a way to bring the world to his wife, and that the rich road of a long marriage has turned out to be the most satisfying journey of all.

Stories of kindness abound in the holiday season, and they are wonderful to hear. But the Vernots’ story is a story of devotion — kindness over the long haul — and a story of how physical limitations are only as big as you make them.

Enter Friends Extended Care facility almost any day in mid morning, and you’ll see Ed, 82, and Nancy, 84, by the large window in the center’s dining room. He’s most often smiling as Nancy leans back in her wheelchair beside him, reading the New York Times, National Geographic or a favorite book out loud. Ed leans toward her as he reads, and Nancy most often cocks her head toward him, watching, listening intently. You’ll see the same scene most afternoons, and he also reads out loud in the dining room at dinner. In the evening you can often find the couple in the center’s multipurpose room, answering trivia questions. Ed goes to their Northwood Drive home between the end of lunch and midafternoon, and also after dinner. He comes back in the evening to play trivia and say good night before going back home for the night.

As far as Ed is concerned, there’s nothing remarkable about the amount of time he spends at the center; he’s simply doing what he would do if she were home.

“Before she came here we were together all the time,” he said. “Now we’re still together.”

Nancy has lived at FCC since summer 2006, when she suffered a stroke that left Ed unable to care for her. A nursing home is no one’s first choice of residence, and this was true for the Vernots; Ed resisted the notion that his wife of almost 60 years could not live at home, according to Emily Baldwin, FCC director of social services. Gradually, with help from the couple’s children, he accepted that she had to stay there.

“We were afraid that their hopes would be dashed when she moved here,” Baldwin said. “Instead they found a new hope, that they could still be together, they decided to enjoy the life they had.”

At the care center, Ed has created a life for himself and his wife as a couple. It starts with Nan’s room, which he decorated with loved items from home, and extends to the space in front of the window where they sit every day. But they’re not exclusive; they always seem pleased when others join them, Baldwin said, whether that person is a staff member or an Alzheimers’ patient who wanders over.

“Even in an institution, he has made for her their own special home here,” Baldwin said. “It’s an inspiration to see.”

Nancy has had more than her fair share of health challenges, beginning with a life-threatening stroke in 1964, when she was the stay-at-home mom of five children, ranging in age from three to 15. With the help of family and friends, the couple pulled through that time, and eventually Nancy regained most of her abilities. But the year the couple retired, in 1998, finally finding the free time to indulge their love of travel, Nancy suffered a subdural hematoma, which set her back and led to gradual loss of almost all of her limbs. Still, he cared for her at home until the stroke in 2006.

But ask Ed how he and Nancy have coped with the difficulties in their life, and he seems genuinely puzzled. They weren’t difficulties, he says. Rather, they were simply life.

“I never looked upon them as being unusual problems,” he said. “I always looked at life as the present circumstances and how best to deal with them. I don’t dwell or think about how things could be different.”

Ed and Nancy first met on a blind date in New York City, where she had moved after college. Both raised in New Jersey, she had attended Oberlin College and afterwards lived and worked in Manhattan. He had attended New York University, and after college, her college friends fixed them up.

He fell in love with her independent spirit, Ed said, and thought to himself, “Now that’s the sort of woman I want to marry.” Within a few years, they did.

The couple moved to Yellow Springs in 1964, after Ed got a job as a toxicologist at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. They raised their five children — four boys and a girl — here and loved the community. A former music and French major, Nancy played the violin with musicians Shirley Mullins, Ava English and Mary Schumacher after she recovered from her stroke.

When Ed lost the Wright-Patt job in 1986, the couple moved to suburban Washington, D. C. and a new job, until his retirement in 1998. They had always wanted to move back to Yellow Springs and they did so, although the lack of suitable housing in town led to their renting an apartment in Beavercreek for a couple of years. But they were persistent, and found the home they wanted on Northwood Drive in 2000.

Of course, the Vernots’ life is not easy. Sometimes she misses her home, Nancy said, with a longing that makes her cry. But she and Ed both believe in making the best of what they have, and his upbeat presence helps her. She also feels she is receiving excellent care at Friends, and appreciates the many caring people who work there.

Along with their joy in being together, the couple takes great pride in their five children, who have all grown into adults they are proud of and with whom they feel close. They love their grandchildren. They also love watching outside the big window at the Care Center, following the change of seasons and the parade of people coming and going.

It’s the life they have, Ed might say, and while it’s not perfect, whose life is? It’s a life full of small pleasures and a big love that has not only lasted almost 60 years but that they both say grows stronger each day.

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com