At 101 years old, Minnie McTernan knew how to rock – even if she had to do it from a wheelchair.
“During the senior picnic she would have me wheel her out to the parking lot and had me hold her hand,” said Carol Stuart, one of the seniors who had come to mourn McTarnan’s passing. “She told me to stand right beside her and dance, so that she felt as if she was dancing, too.”
McTernan, a resident of Impreveduto Towers, was one of the eight residents of the town’s senior citizen buildings to die this year, and was among those honored in this year’s Housing Authority memorial service held at the Kroll Heights Community Room on May 17.
This event – designed in the mid-1990s to help senior citizens living together in a senior community – acknowledged the passing of people they have come to know.
Because the town has three senior citizens buildings – one located across the town from the others – not every senior citizen knew everybody in the community. Yet in many cases, people saw each other in community rooms or at joint events such as the town’s concerts in the park. They sometimes traveled the Housing Authority bus to supermarkets or other stores, nodding at acquaintances who later passed on.
Although now officiated by Social Services Director Nina Villanueva, who set up the room with candles and arranged for singer and organist Janet O’Brien to perform, the idea came from Erin Jones, the previous social worker for the Secaucus Housing Authority, in 1997.
Jones had come to realize that over time, people rubbing shoulders on a daily basis became part of a community, sometimes closer to other seniors than to their own families. When someone died, these unrelated family members found themselves grieving.
The mourning service became a way for people to express their grief, and during the 30-minute ceremony and during refreshments afterward, seniors recalled moments in the lives of those who had passed on.
How Alfred Sabbag had always had a kind word for everyone, and how deeply religious Katherine Paytas was.
During the service, Villanueva lighted a candle for each person being mourned: McTernan, Sabbag, Paytas, Frances Bodnar, Albina Muller, Ellen Nidowicz, Bernard Schuer, and Leonard Turi.
“We light one more candle for anyone else we wish to remember,” she said, pausing over the last of in the line of flickering flames.
For Deputy Mayor John Reilly, who came in place of Mayor Dennis Elwell, the moment had great significance since two of his dearest and departed friends from years earlier had played a big part in helping to build and maintain these senior buildings. In recalling Daniel Flanagan – the former Housing Authority member for whom the community room was named – and Rocco Impreveduto – for whom one of the senior buildings was named – Reilly came to tears, mourning both men as people who had helped shape his life.
“Without them, my life would have been totally different,” he said.
Rev. William C. Mosser, of St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church, Chaplain Bonnie Fee from the Center for Hope Hospice, Rev. William Henkel from the First Reform Church, Sister Christina from Immaculate Conception Church and Dorothy Fowlkes from The Church of Our Saviour each added words of comfort to the event, giving the living hope and the people being mourned a moment in which they were remembered.
As with every other solemn event over the last eight months, the clouds of Sept. 11 hung over even this event, as several speakers talked about the changed world in which people now live. Fowlkes, however, managed to bring it down to a human level, talking about peanut butter and crackers and grandchildren. Sister Christina talked about suffering and the test each person faces in handling suffering in their lives.
As each person spoke, a dozen or more residents nodded slowly, many glancing at each other as if to say: “That one’s still here.” Each of these residents sang the songs of mourning from “How Great Thou Art” to “Eagles’ Wings,” yet no song seemed to reflect the moment better than the traditional “Amazing Grace.”
Although each person had a different story as to how they arrived, many knew their lives would likely end here, and like Carol Stuart, had come to remember those who had become close to her over the years.
“I think they were good people,” she said.