Headline News
Elderly discover new community in Reformed Presbyterian Home
Monday, July 31, 2006
By Diana Nelson Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
At the Reformed Presbyterian Home on the North Side's Perry South neighborhood, community takes on an almost familial air, as old friends who were active in the denomination throughout their lives rediscover their ties.
Mrs. McMillan's late husband Robert went to seminary with Clark Copeland, who lives at the home, and her daughter is married to the nephew of Bob Hemphill, who lives there, too.
About half the residents are Reformed Presbyterians, said Faith Martin, executive director of the Reformed Presbyterian Women's Association, which runs the home.
Mr. Hemphill, who worked for decades at the denomination's Geneva College in Beaver Falls, refers to the entire collection of residents as "family."
Teasing resident Henry Birsa one day in the library, Mr. Hemphill said, "He fits in pretty well with the family, even though he's Catholic," to which Mr. Copeland responded, "Haven't kicked him out yet," and they all laughed.
"Lots of people sit at the table [in the library] and work puzzles," said Mr. Hemphill. "We have this community jigsaw puzzle going right now, but we're stuck. I wish someone would finish it."
Almost half the 100 beds at the home in the North Side's Perry South neighborhood are filled with people who can get around.
Mrs. McMillan is one of them, and her life attests to many and varied transitions.
She was born in Russia, where her father died from wounds suffered in the country's revolution. Her mother moved the children to safety but was unable to feed them. When the baby died of starvation, their mother put the surviving children in an orphanage near Warsaw.
"She came to see us, but one hour only" each time, Mrs. McMillan recalled, smiling. Her face has remained free of the etchings of hardship and pain. Of three published books she has written, one is titled, "I Sing Because I'm Free."
Her next big move came at 18 when she was chosen as a soprano in a choir to tour the United States. A missionary to Poland from Brooklyn, N.Y., took her under his wing. He helped her get into Muskingum College in Ohio. The school paid her way as she earned a degree in English, and a childless couple provided her a home when she was on break.
She met and married a fellow student, Robert McMillan, and they started their lives together in Pittsburgh. After graduating from the Reformed Presbyterian Seminary here, he spent 50 years as a pastor in cities and towns as far-flung as Connellsville and Seattle, where she taught for a few years.
"We returned here to live in the home," she said. "He died four years ago."
Her walls are filled with pictures of their children and their families, and a map of the world hangs on the back of the door. She tends flowers on the deck of the home and her windowsill is filled with blooming African violets.
"Almost all the people here are friends, and we have a very nice relationship," she said, "but I miss the neighborhood outside the home. My husband and I used to take walks all the time. Now the hills are too steep for me."
Her husband knew Mr. Copeland, a native of Kansas, from attending church retreats when they were boys. They renewed their friendship at the seminary and again at the end of Mr. McMillan's life.
Mr. Copeland came from a devout farm family and spent three years in mission work at an English-speaking school in Cyprus.
He returned to Cyprus with a wife and child after his seminary education, and the family grew by three during the next 14 years on the island, where he was a school principal and supporter of his congregation's mission.
The Copelands returned to the United States in 1959. He spent a few years as a pastor in southern Illinois, then returned to Pittsburgh to teach at the seminary for the next 26 years. In 1998, he and his wife decided to move to the home "and not trouble our children," he said. "We knew almost everybody in the residential area, and I knew some people in the nursing area."
They held a giant yard sale before moving into a two-room unit at the home. "When she died, I moved into one and I'm quite happy in it.
"Some of them work puzzles together, but I haven't moved into that phase yet."
Mr. Copeland calls Mr. Hemphill "our painter" because his walls are almost completely filled with his own paintings.
Mr. Hemphill prizes two paintings that his daughter did. One is of a white house in the country, the other a yellow house in town.
"We built that one on an acre of land and lived there 50 years," he said, motioning to the white house.
"When we retired, we moved into Beaver Falls," he said, pointing at the painting of the yellow house. "That had been my wife's [family] house.
"My wife lives upstairs now," he said. Upstairs means the nursing center. He had cared for her at home until he couldn't any longer.
"We decided we were going to have to come to the home. She agreed," he said, his voice faltering. "She said, 'I guess so.' "
He added, "I have a little trouble standing, but I'm glad to be on my feet. Some of us can push other people in wheelchairs if they need us to."


This story originally appeared on post-gazette.com, the web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

At the Reformed Presbyterian Home on the North Side are, from left, Nadzieja McMillan, Clark Copeland, Henry Birsa, Bob Hemphill and Winifred Elliott.
- Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette

Click photo for larger image.
First Reformed Presbyterian Church
Before falling asleep on her first night in the Reformed Presbyterian Home, Nadzieja McMillan recalls thinking, "Is this my life now? Four walls?"
The move to assisted living is a poignant milestone, but for someone who grew up in an orphanage, the full circle of this transition was particularly so.
It is an acknowledgement that you have lost or given up most of the things that represent a full and independent life. It means leaving neighborhood bonds to join a collection of strangers. But community is the one thing that does not diminish when you trade streets for hallways.