Question: What made you choose the career path that you did?
Answer: “I worked for 30 years as a nurse and I worked in psychiatry. I was initially going to retire at 65 but I stayed on part time until I was 77. I always wanted to be a nurse and I’m not sure why. My mother tried to talk me out of it for a long time. She thought it was dirty and hard work with a lot of walking. I just liked coming into work and got along well with the staff. We all worked together as a team. I was a staff nurse at Saint Mary’s hospital in Richmond Heights. We did a lot of talking to the patients when they have problems, because you know, they want to voice their feelings. We had some patients that were suicidal and others that were schizophrenic and heard voices. We would give them their prescribed medications in a timely manner, help them with their baths and showers, all sorts of things. You just want people to feel better, you know? We would sometimes play games with them to keep their minds occupied and we also had group therapy. I wanted to go into the mental health side of nursing because I didn’t like dealing with the medical side of surgeries and things like that. I didn’t like to see all the blood and things that came with it and my daughter is the same way – she works in mental health as well.” – Frances Hu, resident Friendship Village Chesterfield
#WeAreFriendshipVillage #seniorliving #retirementcommunity #FVatHome #assistedliving #MemoryCare
The above photo and text are part of a year-long project we call We Are Friendship Village. We are posting these photos and brief interviews to our website’s blog section every day as we talk with residents at Friendship Village Chesterfield and Friendship Village Sunset Hills. The idea is to give a short introduction to the residents who make up our wonderful senior living communities and give you a peek at something you might not know about them!
At this year’s end, we will publish A BOOK featuring all the great residents who participated. AND PARTICIPANTS get A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK! During this year, we will also be sharing these photos and stories on Facebook and other social media such as Instagram, so look for them and please follow the hashtag #WeAreFriendshipVillage to stay current with the project!
We think it’s a great chance to share a bit about who we are! Residents’ participation takes less than ten minutes, so it won’t take much time to be a part of it and we think everyone will enjoy getting to know their neighbors and friends a little bit better!
If interested in participating (or know someone else who might be), feel free to give us a call at (314) 270-7837 or email at nagysteve@fvstl.com or drop by the marketing suites in Sunset Hills or Chesterfield. We have 365 of these to do over the course of the year, so everyone is welcome!
We look forward to seeing you as we get to share insights about the senior living residents who are making our Friendship Village retirement communities so great!
Thanks again!