Puttin’ On the Ritz : An Intimate Candlelight Dinner Brightens Lives at Care Facility

It looks like a typical banquet hall. Roses decorate tables covered with red and white trimming, the wine is on ice, and a pianist gently taps out tunes on a Steinway in a corner.

Then the guests arrive--in wheelchairs. This is a room on the first floor of Western Medical Center--Bartlett, where once each month residents of the facility gather to spend intimate moments with their relatives and relive memories of pleasant times gone by.

The event is a highlight in the otherwise quiet life of Charlotte E. Miller, 92. Miller’s husband, Thomas, has been a resident of the skilled nursing facility ever since a stroke paralyzed his right side six years ago, leaving him with no voice and in a wheelchair.

Charlotte Miller, who drives five miles to visit her husband four times a week, prepares for the big event by donning her best clothes and practicing a few dance steps.

At the hospital, more elaborate preparations are being made. Beauticians arrive early in the morning to treat the residents to coiffures and manicures. Nursing aides help them into their suits and dresses. In the banquet room, kitchen workers arrange the food and drinks. A few patients have gone to the trouble of getting permission from their doctors to drink alcohol during the dinner.

The volunteer pianist, Mary Jane Smith, 75, plays vintage tunes--”It Had To Be You,” “My Fair Lady” and “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”

Miller, a New York chorus girl during the Roaring ‘20s, begins to kick up her heels between the tables, doing a little jig. Then she settles in a chair and begins to feed her husband.

“This (dinner) means everything in the world to both of us,” Miller says. “It reminds me of when he worked and we would go out to a fancy dinner at least once a week. I think about the nice time we spent together during our 58 years of marriage. I miss him very much. He can’t talk but I’m sure he feels the same way too.”

Thomas Miller stares into nothingness. When he wants to communicate, he points to messages taped to his wheelchair: “I want to go to bed,” “to go outside,” and “something to eat.”

Charlotte lifts the spoon to his lips. “We never had any children,” she says. “He’s my baby.”

About 90 of the hospital’s 153 patients are elderly people who have suffered strokes and other disabling illnesses. One resident, Lewis Windham, played professional football nearly half a century ago. Many of them have lived in Orange County for most of their lives and their rooms at Western Medical will most likely be their last homes. Kerry Davis, the hospital’s chief executive officer, says her staff urges residents to participate in the program to ease the pangs of isolation that sometimes grip their lives. Some seldom leave their rooms.

“This is one day in the month when they’re the boss,” Davis says. “They get to choose the menu and entertainment, but the best part is they get to see how much their relatives care and love them. That’s what it’s all about.”

Doris Flint, a 58-year-old Santa Ana resident, sat with her 81-year-old mother, Evelyn Morrisson, a stroke patient.

Flint says that it’s difficult to get her mother out of her room, except for the monthly candlelight dinner. “I see her every other day,” Flint says, “but this is our favorite (meeting). Mother and I make believe, like we are back in the old days having a good time.”