Lynne Dewey’s treatments from certified reflexologist Edith Hoerster improve her posture and relieve her back pain.

Lynne Dewey was introduced to reflexology 25 years ago on her return trip from England aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2. She had daily sessions to ensure she would feel rested throughout her voyage. The half-hour massages from her feet to her knees did the trick. She danced till 3 a.m. each night and woke up feeling fine.

These days, the Henry Ford Village resident receives weekly, hour-long treatments right on campus from certified reflexologist Edith Hoerster. More comprehensive than her previous massages, these are complete head-to-toe—or more correctly, toe-to-head—experiences.

They’ve improved her posture and enabled her to tend the expansive garden beyond her patio. “I have scoliosis, stenosis, and osteoporosis in my back,” says Dewey. “[But] after being with Edith, I’m comfortable. It helps me live a daily life that’s satisfying.”

What is reflexology?

Reflexology involves applying pressure to the feet and hands. Practitioners believe those areas are divided into reflex zones that correspond to specific parts of the body.

Pain in the reflexes indicates blockages—tight muscles—in the corresponding body parts.

“If the reflexes hurt, then I know where the blockage is,” says Hoerster. “From there, I go to the tight muscles, because they can cause pain and reduced blood circulation.”

But reflexology doesn’t aim to replace conventional medical care; the two often work hand in hand.

“We have traditional care with doctors and medication. And we also have holistic, self-healing, and self-help programs,” says Henry Ford Village’s Director of Resident Life Kelly Moran. “The holistic approach, which is noninvasive and preventive, is very appealing [because] not everyone wants another test or another pill.”

She’s personally benefited from reflexology.

“Edith discovered my sciatica by doing my feet,” she says. When Hoerster touched a certain place on her foot and Moran yelped in pain, Hoerster worked on its corresponding body part—Moran’s lower back. “It was the first time in a long time that I got through the day and my leg didn’t fall asleep,” says Moran.

Array of holistic health offerings

The Village’s first holistic offering was massage therapy. One of the community’s two certified massage therapists, Linda Klebba says residents and staff alike come to relieve stress, muscle aches, pains, and tension or to improve circulation. They also use massage therapy to relax and sleep better.

O.J. Roll has gotten massages since he moved to Henry Ford Village ten years ago. He comes at least once a week, sometimes for two-hour sessions.

He’s had two knee operations and last year had back surgery. He believes massage helped his recovery from all three. It’s even helped relieve numbness in his toes. “Kicking in the swimming pool helped,” he says, “but the massages have done the most good, including for balance.”

His Village neighbor, Caryl Kerber, is also a fan of massages. But she’s been at it much longer than he.

Considered a “health nut” when she was younger, she shopped at health food stores, raised her children on whole grains and fresh vegetables, avoided white foods, and rarely saw a doctor—certainly not one who’d prescribe pharmaceuticals. “It’s paid off as far as I’m concerned,” she says. “I’ve had very little illness.”

She reads health food magazines, researches related topics online, and takes a mix of natural supplements. She also practices feng shui, an ancient Chinese system of aesthetics that directs the arrangement of a person’s environment to receive positive energy and deflect negative energy. She’s applied it throughout her one-bedroom Hilshire apartment home. In her eat-in kitchen, for example, she’s hung a mirror over the stove so she can see behind her. On her bathroom door are three mirrors to reflect light from nearby rooms and stir the air so it won’t get stale.

“I’m feng shui to the max,” she says. “It’s one of those alternative things that people like me do.” The ability to do it is one of the reasons this 13-year resident likes the Village so much—here she can live life on her own terms.

Fox Run resident Doug Williams and his granddaughter, Mary Wolfe, Fox Run’s personal moving consultant.

Surrounded by eight women upon sitting down to dinner in a Fox Run restaurant, Doug Williams takes it in stride. “Women have been telling me what to do all my life,” he jokes. “I had six sisters and five daughters.”

Mr. Williams and his wife, Frances, moved to Fox Run in spring 2007. He brought her to see the campus two years earlier, but couldn’t motivate her to move.

Then Mrs. Williams took a bad fall, and daughter Sharon convinced her that Fox Run was the place to be. “The good Lord was looking out for us because we ended up here after all,” Mr. Williams says. “We moved in and I’ve been happy ever since.”

Changing with the times

Last September, Mrs. Williams moved to the community’s long-term-care neighborhood, Renaissance Gardens; she has Alzheimer’s. Mr. Williams visits every day, and because Fox Run’s buildings all are connected by climate-controlled, glass-enclosed walkways, the weather never plays a factor.

Prior to her move, he had spent his time caring for her instead of socializing with their Fox Run neighbors. Even now, “my life’s pretty much devoted to her,” he says, but because she’s receiving such good care at Renaissance Gardens, he started participating more in community life.

For example, after neighbor Jack Beggs saw Mr. Williams playing billiards with a family member, he asked him to join Fox Run’s billiards group. “I was a pool room bum before I met my wife,” Mr. Williams says, “and I hadn’t played seriously since then. But Jack bugged me for eight months, so I joined the group. We play on Monday nights—about 19 of us. I’m really enjoying it!”

He also frequents the on-campus fitness center, where he uses the recumbent cross-trainer.

Family-style living

A former insurance agent, Mr. Williams claims he could sell Fox Run better than he sold insurance. “I like the camaraderie here,” he says. “Everybody’s so friendly; it’s like one big family.”

If anyone should know about big families, it’s Mr. Williams. He was one of 11 children. And besides their five daughters, he and his wife raised three sons. They have 15 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren—and that doesn’t include the spouses! When everyone gathers for special occasions like Mr. and Mrs. Williams’ anniversary or birthdays, they share celebratory meals in a private dining room in Fox Run’s Ascot Clubhouse.

Mary Wolfe, a Williams grandchild—and also Fox Run’s personal moving consultant—reserves the room.

“Whenever I see Mary,” says her grandfather, “there’s always a hug and ‘I love you.’”

“We actually have to schedule our visits,” admits Wolfe, because both have such packed schedules. “But it feels nice to know that he’s very close by. When we get together, we talk. I go to his apartment and just hang out.”

Family members, it seems, are always dropping by. They visit Mrs. Williams, play some billiards, or like Wolfe, simply relax in Mr. Williams’ apartment home.

“I don’t think they have an apartment nicer than the one I’m in,” he says. A Hamilton floor plan, it has a large bedroom, one-and-a-half baths, and plenty of room to gather—in the spacious living room, on the patio, or in a kitchen big enough to seat eight people.

Living on the terrace level is also convenient; Mr. Williams’ car sits right outside his door.

Such easy access makes it a cinch for him to drive to other family get-togethers, like those with a sister who lives in the area and a brother near Mount Pleasant. Or to his latest singing engagement—one of Mr. Williams’ siblings recently talked him into forming a karaoke trio.

Leslie opened the door, Porch walked in—and fell in love. “I decided then and there,” she says. “I put down my deposit. I thought I’d list my house and if it didn’t sell, I would move anyway.”

What made up her mind was the custom work the previous occupant had commissioned. “The first thing I saw when I came in from the hallway was a beautiful door wall,” says Porch, referring to the unit’s wood-framed patio door. The glass was double-paned with tiny horizontal blinds between the panes.

When she looked down, she saw wood-grained flooring in the dining room, living room, and kitchen. And in the bedroom, she discovered the large walk-in closet offered storage space not only on hanging rods and open shelves but also behind doors and within drawers. She couldn’t wait to move in.

Henry Ford Village’s Personal Moving Consultant Doreen Forbes helped simplify that process. She connected Porch with trusted specialists who could help with every aspect of her move.

Mapping out a move

Porch selected a real estate agent from Forbes’ list of professionals to sell her house in Dearborn Heights; the agent specializes in senior moves. Porch’s house was a ranch style with two bathrooms and three bedrooms, one of which had been converted to a den. It also had a garage, a large patio, and an expansive yard landscaped front and back.

She and her late husband lived there for 20-plus years, but because they’d had work done every year to keep things in good repair, she didn’t need to do any updating. On Forbes and the agent’s advice, she focused on decluttering—removing family photos and rearranging furniture.

Her house sold in late October.

As the move approached, “Doreen brought a floor plan with the dimensions of my apartment,” says Porch. “Most of the furniture I had, I could use here. She did a wonderful job of placing my things.”

What wouldn’t fit, Porch sold or gave away; the movers that Forbes recommended helped relocate leftovers, many of which she donated to the Village’s Treasure Chest, the on-campus resale store.

In terms of packing, “I didn’t do much,” she says. She and her niece packed some small items, “but the movers took care of the bigger things. And they did a marvelous job—like the china cabinet. They took everything out and packed everything in bubble wrap. There wasn’t a thing damaged.”

On moving day, Porch arrived at her new apartment home as the movers finished unpacking. “And I just stood around!” she says. “They had everything arranged, and in the cupboards, all like things together. They even removed all the packing boxes.”

Life gets even better

Because Porch had used professionals recommended by Forbes, she received the full $2,000 moving expense reimbursement from the Village’s Move On Us program.

And, like icing on a cake, a Village neighbor made Porch’s transition even easier. “I met Mary Krill,” she says. “She knows everybody here, and she took me under her wing. We’ve been friends ever since.”

Porch has slipped right into the rhythm of Village life. On campus she participates in a low-impact aerobics class and enjoys dinner with Village friends. Twice a week, she volunteers off campus at Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village.

She talks about the Village all the time: “My favorite thing is the security,” she says. After a day of volunteering, “The minute I drive through that gate, I feel so peaceful. And the security cars go around and around all night long. I feel so safe here. That’s the thing I really like.”

Franklin Road Christian School students Kayla Nannoshi and Brittany Ward enjoy digging in the dirt to plant Fox Run’s Friendship Garden.

Franklin Road Christian School students Jacob Petri, Gerald Dixson, and Evan Ramsey are busy planting flowers with the help of Fox Run Adopted Grandparent Glo Whan.

When Helen Weingarden talks about Fox Run’s Adopted Grandparents program, her face lights up. “If you love children, this is a rewarding experience,” she says.

The program brings together volunteer grandmas and grandpas from Fox Run in Novi with 4th graders from Franklin Road Christian School next door. The groups take turns hosting one another for monthly activities that vary with the seasons—autumn poetry, holiday carols, and spring plantings.

Original idea

When Fox Run opened seven years ago, a 4th grade parent gave the class flowers to take as a welcome gift to their new neighbors. Teacher Geri Yost and the kids delivered them in person.

Yost, who expected to find a nursing home, left surprised by the vibrant community she actually encountered. She proposed an intergenerational program to Fox Run staff and received an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

Today, about a dozen adopted grandparents and twice as many children are involved.

“Grandmas” Helen Weingarden and Barb Birmingham, among the first residents to join the program seven years ago, still participate. “We find the interaction with the kids to be lots of fun,” says Weingarden. “They’re so excited when they come here. They love to see you, and they run up and give you a hug.”

Monthly activities

September is get-acquainted month. In October, Weingarden—who could make anything fun—leads a poetry class. She reads poems and explains how to write them. Then the grandparents help the kids with ideas and encourage them in their efforts. The children write poems on the spot, copy them, add drawings back at school, then send the poems to Fox Run, where they’re displayed near the café.

“I never think they’re going to like poetry because it’s like a lesson,” Weingarden says, “but they really like it! One year, when we went to the school for a Christmas tea, a 5th-grade boy told me how much he enjoyed the poetry session the year before. He even said he still had his poem.”

Each new crop of 4th graders has high expectations for the get-togethers because the 5th graders have clued them in. Even 3rd graders get a taste of the future when all three classes troop to Fox Run’s Fireside Restaurant at Christmastime. The kids fan out to sit at tables with residents, and everyone sings carols together.

This year’s March program was a surprise—and had the kids hanging over their seats with excitement, says Birmingham. That’s because a Fox Run staff member, illusionist John Millheim, put on a magic show in Fox Run’s performing arts theater.

“He ‘cut off’ a staff person’s arm, made pennies appear out of nowhere, and pulled rabbits out of hats,” Birmingham says. “The kids were absolutely enthralled. ‘How could he do that?’ they kept asking.”

The end-of-school-year flower planting at the Friendship Garden by Fox Run’s aquatics center is a much-anticipated tradition. The kids kick off shoes and socks, get down on hands and knees, and with guidance from the grandparents, plant annuals as a gift to the community.

“After we show them how to dig that hole, they want to do the planting themselves,” says Birmingham. “They’re proud of doing the work.”

When the planting’s done, “The best part is hosing off the children’s feet at the end, and they’re screaming because the water’s cold,” says Weingarden. She laughs and adds, “We don’t have any grandparents brave enough to take off their shoes.”

Channel 11 volunteers Tom Radtke on left, Warren Rivera, and Theresa Hess. “I never thought I’d be involved with TV,” says Radtke, “but it’s just terrific doing this.”

If Tom Radtke walks every hallway at Henry Ford Village, how many miles will he put on his sneakers? Who cares? Not Radtke. He tackled that exact project last December while shooting a video of residents’ holiday displays, and it was a labor of love.

The retired computer programmer and database administrator became a video journalist about a year after he and his wife moved to the Village. Radtke’s career change started in mid-2005 when he attended Erickson Living’s video boot camp; the Village, like other Erickson communities, has its own in-house television station, Channel 11.

Boot camp lived up to its name. “It was 21 days straight, including the weekends,” says Radtke. The program taught him to locate and tape stories of interest on campus and in the larger community—not only how to interview people and shoot video, but also about editing, lighting, and incorporating music.

“The station is all run by volunteers, and they needed trained people,” Radtke says. “There’s one staff person, Anne Diaz-Perry, who’s the station manager.”

Behind the camera

Videos air three times a day for four days, three different videos a week, so the journalists are always looking for stories.

Earlier this year, Radtke put together a video that aired for Memorial Day and will likely air again for Veterans Day. He downloaded images and photos from the Internet of major U.S. conflicts, from the Revolutionary War to the war in Afghanistan. He incorporated subtitles and integrated the visuals with songs recorded by the U.S. Army Band & Chorus.

He’s especially proud of his on-location zoo video. “All the animals acted just right,” he says, “and I threw in a little narrative history. I never thought I’d be involved with TV, but it’s just terrific doing this.”

In 2007, when the station started airing live shows, Radtke trained to work in the studio; it’s computerized, so it fit his background. Now, with feet in both broadcasting camps, he spends as much as 20 hours a week on TV projects. And he wrote Diaz-Perry a database program that keeps an inventory of all her show tapes. “Channel 11 is pretty much my favorite activity,” he says.

Live from the Village

Besides Radtke, the three-person crew includes Warren Rivera and Theresa Hess; they’re veterans of the same training as he.

They work on Channel 11’s sole live show, Prime Time With Pete, featuring conversations with the Village’s Executive Director Peter Crane. Sunday church services in the Village chapel are also televised. The Dish, a cooking show, is in the mix as well. It features a Village chef who prepares a meal—which the studio crew enjoys after the taping.

There’s even a news program of sorts, This is the Life, which showcases Village personalities and activities.

“Henry Ford Village taught me a whole new career,” says Hess, a former homemaker. She feels privileged to televise the Village’s Catholic chapel services. “I love what I do. We all do.”

And they share the load. Radtke had help covering the Village’s seven buildings to produce the holiday displays video; Rivera shot in two buildings and June Ebert covered another. But Radtke, who Rivera says spends more time than anyone in the studio, spent nine hours editing three hours of footage down to 55 minutes. He went to bed tired, but happy.

“That’s the most important thing about the whole operation,” Radtke says. “You’re supposed to have fun. And we do.”

Jane and Jack Wolfe met, married, and held their reception all at Fox Run.

Four of the five married couples who met at Fox Run, from left: Connie Buydens and Jim Paul, Agnes and Howard Hilving, Jane and Jack Wolfe, and Ruth and John Horne.

When romances bud at Fox Run, weddings sometimes follow. Since the community opened in 2003, five couples have officially vowed, “I do.” Here are some chapters from their stories.

Early wedding bells

Three marriages took place in 2005. Agnes and Lee Hilving, who married on St. Patrick’s Day, were first. (See “Love makes a splash” on page 5.)

Jack and Jane Wolfe were next, on June 18. He’s an avid golfer. She’s the longtime chair of the Fine Arts committee who arranges Fox Run’s group trips to Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s “Coffee Concerts,” the city’s art institute, and Michigan Opera Theatre rehearsals.

Faithful Coffee Concert ticket holders John and Ruth Horne were the third couple to marry. They met at a swing dancing class on campus. “He asked if I would be his partner at the class,” she says. “It ended up that I became his partner for life.”

“Sometimes you seem to be happy with a person from the beginning,” says her husband.

As their relationship grew, he suggested it would be nice if they could travel together. She told him she didn’t travel with men. “Well,” he said, “then we’ll have to get married.” On July 30, they did.

It was in the cards

Fast-forward to 2009, when two marriages took place a month apart.

Connie Buydens had barely moved to Fox Run when she met Jim Paul at a duplicate bridge game. “Shortly after,” she says, “a man called and asked me to be his partner the next week. I hoped it was Jim, and it was.”

Besides bridge, they found they shared a love of theater and a strong faith in God. When she said she was looking for a church—she’d moved from Grosse Pointe Shores—he invited her to his, Hope Lutheran in Farmington Hills.

“It was nice to find someone I could talk to. I definitely wasn’t looking for a romantic relationship,” she says, “but this is a good place to develop a friendship and see where it goes.”

He took the lead in that department. Early last year, he brought her to a “mystery” location. They ended up at a jewelry store. “I want to buy you a ring and get engaged,” he said.

Although they had already professed their love and passed muster with each other’s families, “I was floored,” she admits. He says he’s been smiling ever since she said “yes.”

They married July 11 at Hope Lutheran Church, honeymooned in Puerto Rico, and moved to a two-bedroom-plus-den, Wentworth style apartment home at Fox Run. It provides an office for him and a crafts room for “the bead lady”—she teaches jewelry making at Fox Run. He’s on the grief support committee, and together they attend Bible study and belong to Befrienders, a campus group that helps people cope through difficult situations.

And speaking of friends at Fox Run, within a month of Paul’s wedding, his best friend Vic Mesenbring followed suit.

Fox Run’s Newman and Woodward

As often as they tease one another through quick wit and lively barbs, you’d think Gerri Flowers and Vic Mesenbring married decades ago instead of last August. He says she kept her surname because she thought it was nicer than his. She says one of his best qualities is that he vacuums. He chuckles. “I hope you catch that we get along very well.”

He’d noticed the tall blonde well before they officially met in 2008 at a Fox Run club expo. As chair of the pinochle group, she was sitting at its display table. “I walked by, and she talked me into coming to Thursday night pinochle,” he says. “I told her I hadn’t played in 40 years, but I would come.”

“Then he won!” she says with mock indignation. “He won for several weeks!”

He was winning at more than pinochle. In no time, he began walking her home every Thursday night. Her terrace apartment home in the Wood Bridge residence building was on the way to his apartment in Hickory Grove. “Just about as far apart as you can get,” he says. “But he needed the exercise,” she quips.

Her patio became a rest stop for those cross-campus treks. The two discussed their similar experiences—his life as a Lutheran pastor, her Lutheran upbringing and long marriage to a Presbyterian minister, her four children and his five.

“We just kind of clicked,” he says. “She was so easy to talk with.” Their repartee continued. They even talked, rather than danced, through a Fox Run gala.

For all that conversation, he never actually proposed, but he believes he suggested they think about marriage. “She didn’t say yes, but she didn’t decline either,” he says. A good thing, he adds, because he was getting tired of those 11 p.m. hikes.

Married at Hope Lutheran, where Mesenbring had pastored, they held their reception in Fox Run’s Derby Room and moved to a two-bedroom, two-bath Kingston apartment home. Yes, they have a patio. But their favorite room is the larger bedroom, which they’ve furnished with their recliners, TV, and computers to create a family room.

They still play pinochle, and they volunteer at Providence Park Hospital. But they also do their own things—he’s taken up woodworking in the hobby shop, for example, and schedules speakers for Fox Run’s interdenominational Wednesday night vesper services.

But when they come home now, things are different. “Somebody’s waiting for you,” she says. “Before, I’d return and there was no one to share things with.

“I didn’t come here looking for a man,” she adds. “I thought life here was wonderful! But then I got the bonus. I found love.”

Love makes a splash

Howard and Agnes Hilving were the first Fox Run couple to marry. They met in the swimming pool.

Agnes and Howard Hilving met at Fox Run in 2004—in the community’s all-season swimming pool. As he swam lap after lap after lap, she couldn’t help but notice his athletic skill. He noticed her, too, and swam over to say hello. “My goodness,” she told him, “what stamina you have.”

That’s all the encouragement he needed, and the two of them began a conversation that continues to this day. In fact, he says he knew immediately that she was the one for him.

It took her a little longer. “I thought my life was pretty well set,” she says. The idea of marrying again had never entered her mind.

“Then,” she says, “at very odd moments when I was with him, especially when he would fall asleep in his chair, I thought, ‘This man really needs me, but I don’t think he realizes he does. Perhaps in taking care of him, we could take care of each other as a couple.’ It was a wonderful revelation.”

It took a series of natural disasters to separate them. After four hurricanes raked the state of Florida, Mr. Hilving flew down to check on his property there. Before he left, he told his sweetheart he loved her.

After much soul-searching, she went to Florida, intent on saying face-to-face that they should stay “just friends.” But the right time to say those words never materialized. Instead, they married at Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales, Fla., on St. Patrick’s Day 2005.

“We’re settled in now,” says Mrs. Hilving. “Love grows and has a way of becoming very satisfying in the continuity of life—that’s what’s so beautiful. We’re not in the romance stage. We’ve found a different, deeper kind of love.”

Joanne Tokatlian weeds a flower bed at Henry Ford Village. The row of marigolds is her nod to the Garden Club of Dearborn’s ‘Grow a Yellow Ribbon Garden’ initiative.

As an Advanced Master Gardener, Henry Ford Village resident Joanne Tokatlian sows the seeds of her expertise by giving talks on soil and plants at local nurseries and garden clubs.

But mainly she volunteers at Henry Ford Village, where her green thumbs benefit her neighbors. She helps care for the large perennial garden in the Henry Ford Birthplace Park, which sits at the Village entrance and is tended by Village volunteers. In addition, she tends flower beds at Renaissance Gardens, the Village’s extended-care neighborhood.

Last year, Tokatlian received a grant from the Master Gardener Association of Wayne County to purchase plants for both gardens.

She hopes to have the Birthplace Park eventually certified as a butterfly garden, so her grant funded season-spanners that attract butterflies: Joe-Pye Weed, butterfly bush, butterfly weed, and bee balm, to name a few. For their “gorgeous flowers,” she planted Japanese tree peonies—one a deep red, the other yellow. And she put in red lobelia to attract hummingbirds.

The plants are doing what Tokatlian intended: “We are attracting the butterflies, and we’ve seen hummingbirds,” she says. She expects the garden’s bat house, constructed in the Village wood shop, to attract other winged creatures.

Prolonging beauty

The huge and beautiful Birthplace Park draws lunchtime picnickers and walkers throughout the day. It’s also a popular wedding site. “But its perennial garden is basically a spring and very early summer garden,” Tokatlian says. “I’m trying to get it to be fresh-looking from the end of summer into the fall.”

Some varieties she planted at the perennial garden also found homes in Renaissance Gardens’ flower beds. More deeply shaded areas at Renaissance Gardens called for special plantings such as ornamental grasses and coralbells whose leaves flaunt dramatic caramel to brownish black-colored leaves.

Tokatlian also introduced early-blooming plants in those shady spots to provide blossoms before the trees leaf out: sweet woodruff, Solomon’s Seal, and woodland poppies. And to rejuvenate the soil and keep down weeds, she’s applying mulch and more mulch.

Personal plantings

Inside, Tokatlian tends delicate Phalaenopsis orchids, croton, schefflera, and dracaena plants that thrive on the windowsills in her Henry Ford Village apartment home.

And she grows peppers, tomatoes, and annuals in three 8-feet-by-8-feet personal outdoor garden areas. This year, she bordered her 24-foot-long garden span with cheery yellow marigolds and a yellow ribbon—it’s her nod to the Garden Club of Dearborn’s citywide “Grow a Yellow Ribbon Garden” project.

The campaign’s roots lie in the National Garden Club’s “Golden Days,” a 1945 initiative that honored America’s armed forces during World War II. This year, the Garden Club of Dearborn resurrected the movement to pay tribute to those currently serving the country.

Once Tokatlian spread the word, her Village neighbors planned their own Yellow Ribbon Gardens—a row of blooms in a garden outside, yellow flowers in a hanging basket, or yellow artificial arrangements on a hallway shelf. “We have so many vets here at the Village, it’s a way of saying we know who you are and we thank you for your service,” she says.

Life beyond plants

Besides gardening, “There are so many things I can do here at the Village,” says Tokatlian. “I swim, I take tai chi, I’m active in church, and I play cards.”

Throughout the year, she also makes time to get together with 14 friends from high school. They celebrate birthdays, enjoy a meal, “and laugh for four hours.”

The month before last, she played hostess. She arranged a catered lunch at Henry Ford Village in the community’s St. Clair Restaurant followed by dessert and coffee in her apartment home. Things were “cozy,” Tokatlian says, but there was plenty of room for everyone. Her apartment home boasts a long living room, and there’s additional space to entertain because her second bedroom is furnished as a den.

The den also suits her personal time. “After dinner, when I have nothing planned for the evening, I can come up here and veg out in my La-Z-Boy,” Tokatlian says. “I can channel surf or go on my computer. I’m in and out all day. My apartment is my safe haven.”

Warren Rivera, also known as ‘Mr. Fixit,’ helps neighbor Carl Saldeen solve a computer problem.

Here’s some good news for folks at Henry Ford Village whose computers are giving them fits—Warren Rivera makes house calls!

Rivera is among the community’s computer club members who troubleshoot glitches for their Village neighbors. Here’s how it works: A frustrated computer user calls Community Resources. If the problem is with a PC, the call is referred to Rivera. If it involves a Mac, other club members field the call. The service is entirely free of charge, though from time to time, grateful neighbors thank Rivera with candy bars.

He gets SOSes nearly every day. Some, he handles over the phone. “Other times, it takes a visit to show people which button to push,” he says. “It’s a lot of fun, and every time I help somebody, it’s a different computer from the last one, so I learn something new.”

Bitten by the computer bug

Rivera discovered electronics in 1942, when the Marine Corps trained him to maintain radio and radar systems for aircraft. When his military service ended, he stayed in the field, teaching at the Electronics Institute in Detroit.

His first computer was one he built from a kit in 1968. He admits it didn’t do much. “It was mainly a patch board with little pins,” he says. “You plugged them into certain holes and a certain result—mainly blinking lights—would occur.”

Today he has two computers, both PCs, and like many of his neighbors, he keeps in touch with family and friends via e-mail. He does his private accounting on the computer and even reads the daily newspaper online.

A hand in everything

An avid photographer, Rivera also uses his computer to process and print photos. “I’m uploading and downloading photos all the time,” he says. His Village neighbors aren’t always so adept. Many seek his help to download extra-large photos e-mailed from children and grandchildren.

And when their TVs, radios, or tape recorders go on the fritz, they call on this “Mr. Fixit.” At one time, Rivera even had a business maintaining personal entertainment equipment. “I tackle everything they hand me that’s a problem,” he says.

The multiskilled Rivera volunteers at the Village’s in-house TV station, Channel 11. He shoots footage for videos and does studio work during live shows. And he still maintains his FCC license. He’s not job-hunting, but “the license allows me to work as a chief engineer for any radio or television station in the country,” he says.

To raise your computer IQ, Rivera recommends coming to computer club meetings. He’s on the committee that plans the discussion topics. Current favorites include e-mail, ordering airline tickets online, and shopping at sites like Amazon.com.

She began preparing to move in spring 2009, plunging into a downsizing chore that was 39 years in the making. “I started by cleaning out the basement,” she says. “There was a lot of stuff to be sorted.”

With help from her cousin, she listed seven large pieces of furniture on the Internet and sold them all. Removing the furniture visually enlarged her three-bedroom, two-bath ranch house and allowed the family room and fireplace on the main level to shine.

Fox Run’s Personal Moving Consultant Mary Wolfe offered staging advice to give the house buyer appeal—and Wertanen followed through. Otherwise, she believes, “The house would still be on the market.”

When Wolfe suggested taking down wallpaper in the kitchen, family room, and bathroom, “I didn’t want to do that because of the work involved,” says Wertanen. “Then I realized buyers would think the same thing: ‘What a lot of work!’”

Her nephews helped by painting six rooms, but Wolfe recommended hiring a contractor for some other updates. “We’ve dealt with contractors before and had bad luck with them,” Wertanen says. “But [the one Wolfe suggested] did a good job.”

She doesn’t know which change caused the buyers to make their offer, but they said her house was “beautiful.”

Referrals make job easy

Come moving time, Wolfe recommended professionals who packed Wertanen’s kitchen items and clothing; she packed the rest. There wasn’t much because she’d bought several new furnishings for her two-bedroom Flagstaff apartment home at Fox Run.

She’d been planning to move for a little while; in fact, she decided she wanted to move to Fox Run a few years ago after she and her niece toured the community. Wertanen especially liked the continuing care aspect. “That kind of takes the place of a long-term-care insurance policy,” she says. The time was right in summer 2009, when Wolfe helped her get moving.

She moved in December 15, 2009, and notes that her favorite feature in her new apartment home is her living room’s bay window. “It’s nice and big,” she says, “and when people come in, they say it’s so light!”

Now, enjoying the sunshine from a park bench on campus, she is convinced choosing Fox Run was a smart decision.

“People here are friendly,” she says. “And there’s such a variety of people. Everybody has their own story, which makes it interesting. And I really like being able to walk outside like I am today.”

Andrew Tonkovich, on left, and Ruth and Richard Gatza all have special connections to Henry Ford. The men are Ford retirees, Tonkovich shares Ford’s July 30 birthday, and the Gatzas volunteer with Ford-related organizations including The Henry Ford.

Mr. Gatza is one of many Ford retirees at the Village, but no Village residents are as involved in Ford-related activities as he and his wife, who moved there last August. The joy they get from their community involvements made them decide to stay in Dearborn instead of heading south. One example: The Henry Ford.

“We volunteer wherever they ask us,” says Mrs. Gatza. That can range from interpreting at Greenfield Village to handing out brochures at mall events to providing crowd control for special gatherings at the museum.

During her ten years at The Henry Ford, Mrs. Gatza has amassed more than 4,500 volunteer hours. She laughs and says her husband signed on because he wanted in on the fun she was having. Now in his eighth year, “there’s joy in talking to people and trying to make them smile every day,” he says. “I get satisfaction from that.”

He even gets paid for one of his efforts with The Henry Ford—leading tours at the Ford Rouge Factory. Mr. Gatza knows the factory inside and out because he worked there for 32 years.

Activities at Henry Ford Village

The Gatzas aren’t only about volunteering. Their calendar also lists activities such as golf, Thunderbird Ski Club events, and trips to Florida to visit her dad. They spend little time in their Stafford apartment home, but it suits them perfectly.

The couple chose their end-unit apartment for its seven large windows. “We like a lot of light coming in,” Mr. Gatza says. “Ruth and I live an active lifestyle. By moving to Henry Ford Village, we hope to continue that lifestyle for many, many years.”

“If we can’t do some of our (outside activities) when we get older,” adds his wife, “there are at least 139 clubs at the Village. Surely we’ll find something we like! And with the medical center here, it’s like having an extra insurance policy.”

The Gatzas are getting to know their many Village neighbors. “We always eat dinner at a big table in the dining room,” Mrs. Gatza says, “and people are so friendly, it’s unbelievable.”

She’s read that it’s human nature to gravitate to people like yourself. “So,” she says, “I figured we were safe moving to the Village. People here have such a wonderful attitude about life.”

The Ford Legacy Plan

Available exclusively at Henry Ford Village, the Ford Legacy Plan offers people affiliated with Ford Motor Company a 10% discount—up to $10,000—off the entrance deposit on any apartment home at the Village. Since the plan’s introduction in 2004, 166 Henry Ford Village residents have benefited from it.

Ford retirees as well as current employees are eligible. So are spouses, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, parents, parents of spouses, and grandparents of Ford retirees or employees.

The savings are in recognition of the role Ford Motor Company has played in the development of metro Detroit’s most dynamic, energetic retirement community. For more information, call 1-800-610-5079.

Henry Ford Village is an Erickson retirement community in Dearborn, Michigan. Erickson manages a network of 19 communities nationwide that combine a maintenance-free, active lifestyle with social activities, amenities, and medical offerings proven to improve both physical and mental health.