Allen Place Atlantic, IA

When I walked in Allen Place, it felt good. It did not feel cold or like an institution. It felt like a home. From what I saw, everything looked clean. They needed a better sign on a main street to let everybody know where the place is.

I was very very close to a widow who was adamant against going into a "nursing home," even after she'd had a stroke. She was a stubborn farm wife, but she eventually realized that she would die alone at her farm if she didn't move into assisted living. Moving into the Allen House was to be temporary for the winter, just so she wouldn't be alone in her home during the winter months without someone to check on her daily. As Spring arrived, her family approached her about moving back into her house. This stubborn farm wife refused, saying Allen House was her home now, and that the community had become her family. I visited her there and saw a woman who had, at 87, a renewed zest for life. She was proud to show off her apartment, introduce me to all of her new friends, and to show me all of the amenities that she was taking advantage of. Before she moved into the Allen House, she was lonely and was slowly regressing after the progress she'd made after her stroke. The day I met with her at the Allen House, she didn't even need to use her walker to show me around. Her enthusiasm and virility was something I hadn't seen in her since before her husband had died. She died there less than a month after I visited from natural causes, and I can't tell you how thankful I am that she was surrounded by her new "family," in a place she called "home," instead of dying alone in her old home, lonely and waiting for someone to find her. Right now my widowed grandmother is ambivalent about going into assisted living, and I'm gently trying to convince her to get into Allen House. My older friend's sense of autonomy, abundance of companionship, and feeling of belonging is exactly what I would want for my own loved one in her golden years.