Quakers Mark a Century of Care for Elderly : Charity: The Pennsylvania group has opened more than 36 residences in the U.S. Its focus is on ‘homelike’ shelter that preserves the dignity of the residents.

Sallie A. Sharpless and Lydia H. Hall appeared at their quarterly Quaker meeting and expressed concern about an older Friend who appeared to need help.

Others at the meeting responded, and according to the minutes, it was decided to research the possibility of starting a “home for Friends of limited circumstances, where they might have the comforts which they could not have unaided.”

That was in October, 1890.

The meeting led to The Hickman, a retirement home that celebrated its 100th anniversary in the spring, and a national legacy of caring for the elderly in specially built homes.

The Philadelphia Quakers, also known as the American Friends Service Committee, have opened more than three dozen homes in the United States, pushing for the best care possible for the nation’s elderly.

Their focus is on “homelike” care, preserving the dignity and respect of the residents of their homes.

“There’s no feeling of inferiority suggested or implied,” said John Moore, an 86-year-old resident of The Hickman, located in West Chester in the Philadelphia suburbs.

A Quaker seeking shelter at the home in the 1890s was taken in, without question, he said. “It was expected that you were in needy circumstances, but there was no inquiry into what the circumstances were.”

In the late 1890s, the Quakers were split into two camps--Hicks Site and Orthodox.

The Hicks Site Quakers had opened The Hickman, and the Orthodox wing felt compelled to follow suit. Three years after The Hickman opened its doors, The Barclay was opened just a few blocks away.

From 1896 to 1898, six more homes were opened in the Philadelphia suburbs.

The money for the homes came from Anna T. Jeanes, who then oversaw the construction of a seventh home and moved in when it was completed in 1904. After her death in 1907, she left the Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia a $1-million estate to be used to care for elderly Quakers.

Jeanes’ estate continues to help fund local Quaker homes and other programs for the elderly.

The Yearly Meeting’s Committee on Aging gives out $500,000 in grants annually, said Betsy Balderston, the committee’s executive secretary.

One woman was given money to build a bathroom on the first floor of her house after she became too infirm to climb to her second story. A second grant provided a temporary homemaker for an elderly Quaker.

Last summer, another program for the elderly was added.

Friends Life Care at Home Plan, for lower-income Quakers in the Philadelphia area, offers the care a person would receive at an institution, but the person stays home.

The retirement community industry has become extremely competitive, with a large push by for-profit companies in the 1980s, said Leah Dobkin, a housing specialist for the American Assn. of Retired Persons.

There are up to 22,000 retirement homes of all types in the United States, she said.

One type of retirement home is the continuing care retirement community, or CCRC, a “life-care” facility offering housing for independent living, as well as long-term health care. The housing is usually apartments on the same grounds as a nursing home.

The Quakers “are pioneers in this type of housing,” said Dobkin. She added that the Quakers have been at the forefront of an accreditation movement among CCRCs.

Foulkeways, a 236-apartment CCRC in suburban Gwynned, was opened in 1967--making it one of the first of this type of housing in the United States.

Balderston said Foulkeways’ success was immediate. Constructed using a $300,000 loan from the Committee, the community paid the loan off in less than five years, she said.

There is more than a two-year waiting list to get into Foulkeways.

While Dobkin said the trend in the retirement industry is to larger facilities, the Quakers remain “concerned about providing a homelike quality.”

That concern is evident at The Hickman, three buildings spread over a city block. Antique furniture with bouquets of fresh flowers line the carpeted halls. Residents furnish their rooms as they see fit.

“A lot of the institutions don’t allow personal furniture because of institutional space regulations,” John Schwab, director of the home, said.

Henry Maconachy, 85, and his wife live at The Hickman. They had looked at another retirement community. It was nice, he said, but too much like a fancy hotel. Maconachy and his wife are not Quakers, like about half the residents of the Quaker-run homes.

Schwab has been leading a fight against state regulations he said discriminate against smaller retirement homes because they require paperwork and more employees.

One such regulation calls for an employee to be awake and alert 24 hours a day.

“In small homes it’s still a cottage industry,” Schwab said. “Quite often it is a husband and wife caring for eight or 10 people.”