Aiding the elderly, year after year

NORTH CANAAN — It adds up to about 930 years. That’s how long 38 Geer employees have worked at the North Canaan retirement village, if you combine all their years of service.

The center includes Geer Nursing and Rehabilitation, Geer Adult Day Center and Geer Village, and these longtime workers help out in all sorts of capacities, including direct health care, food service, maintenance, administration and a variety of programs.

What they all do, though, is make life better for seniors who live on campus and off.

The 38 employees (that number has grown since last year’s ceremony) represent more than 15 percent of the combined workforce at Geer. And why were they being honored? All have worked at the Geer facilities for  20 years or more.

The celebration breakfast, held in the nursing home’s dining room on Jan. 29, is one of Geer COO John Horstman’s favorite events. It’s a reminder of how much people enjoy living and working there, he said.

It helps that there is so much real family going on. There are generations of workers coming from North Canaan and the surrounding small towns. They know the majority of the residents and bring a heightened degree of caring.

Horstman said the economy and Medicare shortfalls have forced a small number of jobs in various areas to be cut, but overall, morale remains high.

That was evident at the breakfast, where employees echoed each other’s comments.

“We’re a family.� “We’re treated well.� “The residents are treated with great respect.�

Ellen Carrozzo revealed she will retire this year, after 35 years of service. She began in 1974.

Those marking at least 30 years of service were Eileen O’Dell, Leslie Whitman, Laura Skorput and Laura Twing, with 31 years each, and Brenda McGhee, Patricia Tatsapaugh and Linda Strattman with 30 years each.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less