Wichita CommunityMatters May 2020

Wichita Presbyterian Manor

MAY 2020

Resident spent six years in the air for job she loved Ida Coombs became a pilot because of her husband Eustace, who purchased a Beechcraft Bonanza not long after their wedding on Christmas Eve of 1960.

Wichita Presbyterian Manor recently announced the winning artists in the annual Art is Ageless® juried competition.

“We are honored to exhibit artwork by seniors,” said Amy Watson, life enrichment director. “Art is Ageless is unique in featuring only the works of artists age 65 and older.

Our artists prove that art, in any form, is an ageless ambition.”

“He was a chicken man,” Ida said. “He was in the business of hatching chickens, and he used the airplane to visit chicken flocks in Kansas and Missouri and even into Oklahoma.

“He was older than me, and he was concerned that if something happened in the air, I might need to land the plane,” she said.

Wichita Presbyterian Manor announces Art is Ageless® winners

Winners in the Wichita Presbyterian Manor Art is Ageless juried competition were: Ida Coombs still has the plaque commemorating her first solo flight on July 1, 1961.

But Ida worried that if she ever found herself in that position, “I wouldn’t know beans about it. If I ever had to land it, I wanted to know how to fly it.”

That determination led her to take lessons at Beechcraft. She recalls learning how to control the plane by flying around a silo on an abandoned farmstead.

After she earned her license, she flew often until they sold the plane in the late 60s. Sometimes she piloted while her husband photographed the land where their chickens were raised.

“Oh, I loved it,” Ida said. “I would not say I was a fantastic pilot, but I enjoyed it. I had experiences that were interesting, but nothing that splendiferous.”

COOMBS – continued on page 2

Best of Show (professional): Elizabeth Corbett, “Secret Smile” Best of Show (amateur): Doris Korber, “Golden Gate Heaven and Earth Design” People’s Choice (professional): Mark Ward, “Fresh Start” Christmas (professional): Nancy Luttrell, “Poinsettias” Christmas (amateur): Nancy Keribach, “Celebrate Winter” Drawing (professional): Skip Kreibach, “For Greener Pastures” WINNERS - continued on page 5

Wichita Presbyterian Manor | A PMMA COMMUNITY

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COOMBS – continued from page 1

Ida did manage to remain calm on the handful of occasions she faced a challenge in the air.

One day, before delivering chicks to Perry, Okla., Ida neglected to close the back window, resulting in an eventful takeoff that left a trail of paper behind her.

Another day, she was flying back

from Emporia before sunset. She flew blind most of the way back to her home airport, relying on the instruments to navigate the small plane.

Though it was certainly unusual for a woman to earn her pilot’s license in the 1960s, Ida notes that she wasn’t the only one. She was a member of the Ninety-Nines, an international organization of

women pilots. Ida recalled a day trip the club took to Oklahoma City.

Born at West Street and Kellogg, Ida has lived in Sedgwick County her whole life. She is a charter member of independent living at the Westerly, where she moved in 2015. ◆

Eustace Coombs bought this Beechcraft Bonanza shortly after he and Ida married. The single-engine plane has been in continuous production since 1947.

Ida’s husband and son load chicks into their plane. They often flew to chicken farms in Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.

Ida often piloted the plane while her husband photographed chicken farms such as this one.

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WICHITA Presbyterian Manor

316-942-7456 ◆ Fax: 316-941-3806 4700 W. 13th St. Wichita, KS 67212-5575 WichitaPresbyterianManor.org

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COMMUNITY MATTERS | May 2020

Community Matters

is published monthly for residents and friends of Wichita Presbyterian Manor

by Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America, Inc., a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organizaton.

To submit or suggest articles: awatson@PMMA.org Amy Watson, life enrichment dir.

Courtney Wolfe, executive director Stephanie Bergmann, marketing dir.

Cherree Hudspeth, health care sales and marketing

OUR MISSION: To provide quality senior services guided by Christian values.

April 15, 2020

Dear Residents and Family,

We continue to “Stay the Course” despite the challenges of restricting all visitors to our PMMA communities. It has been a key prevention measure in the fight against the spread of the COVID-19 virus across the United States. In addition, the CDC guidelines and the emergency “Stay-at-Home” orders for the general public in Kansas and Missouri and the guidance to social distance issued by almost all of the states, has helped our employees to protect those entrusted to our care.

Just last week, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) released revised models that included a strong statement as to what social distancing is doing to decrease the number of expected cases of COVID-19.

The revised projections simply indicate that the policy of social distancing is working to reduce both hospitalizations and deaths, not only in the U.S., but also around the world.

What does this mean for all of the senior living communities in the PMMA system? It means that taking the stance to implement these extreme measures by the PMMA leadership, but one required by CDC guideline, remains the right thing to do to keep all our residents and employees COVID-19 free.

To this point, PMMA has a resident population of approximately 2,400 that are – as of today – COVID-19 free.

In addition, we have had only one non-direct care employee out of almost 2,500 total employees that tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, and appropriate steps were put in place to assure no other employee or resident was affected. It is difficult with these outcomes, to argue with the PMMA System success due to the key prevention measures implemented in March.

I sincerely thank you for your cooperation, patience and grace during this pandemic and please let me end with a personnel experience I had this past Easter weekend.

Most Easter mornings, I usually attend a Sunrise service at my local church. Unfortunately, this opportunity was not available due to the “Stay at Home” orders in Kansas. Therefore, I sat in my driveway, looking at the cloudy morning and listening to a Christian podcast of the readings from all of the gospels of the very first Easter morning. At the end of the podcast, the presenter read the following chorus from the Hymn, “Because He Lives.” The words were very reassuring to me in this very trying time. I hope this speaks to you also.

Because He lives I can face tomorrow Because He lives all fear is gone Because I know He holds the future And life is worth the living just because He lives God’s Blessings, Bruce H. Shogren President/CEO

SURGERY- continued on page 4 Wichita Presbyterian Manor | A PMMA COMMUNITY

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Veteran spotlight: Don Herold Don Herold listened to the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor in his fraternity house at the University of Kansas.

By spring of 1942, Don and a group of his freshman fraternity brothers decided to volunteer for the Army Air Corps. Everyone was accepted except for Don and future presidential candidate Bob Dole.

They both failed the color blindness chart.

A disinterested student who was “getting nowhere” in his classes, Don returned to Great Bend to wait for his draft call. Eventually, he visited the draft board in Great Bend and volunteered.

During basic training, Don volunteered for “jump school” in Fort Benning, Ga. There, he learned to pack a parachute and jump out of a plane at 800 feet.

“I won’t say I wasn’t scared,” Don wrote later. “But we had been trained going out mock-up doors so much that you just kind of did it.”

Less than two years later, he used his training to make a jump of less than 300 feet while under fire.

U.S. troops retook Corregidor, a small island in the Philippines where the U.S. surrendered to the Japanese earlier in the war.

Don was a member of the 503rd Parachute Regimental Combat Team that had taken the island of Mindoro, and before then Noemfoor in New Guinea. Don was in the Philippines when the Japanese surrendered, though it was more than three months before he got to go home.

On New Year’s Eve, Don returned to his parents’ house in Ellinwood, Kan. He stayed there before moving to Great Bend, Kan., with his new bride, Natalie. Other than a short stint in Topeka, where Don worked for the regional post office, they lived in Great Bend until Natalie’s death in 2008.

In 2009, Don moved to Wichita to live with one of his three daughters,

Don relaxes with a fellow soldier during some down time in New Guinea. all of whom live in the area. He came to Wichita Presbyterian Manor initially to recuperate from a surgery in the Post-Acute to Home program (PATH®). He has lived in the assisted living neighborhood since 2015.

Don says he doesn’t often think about his military service these days.

In 1997, he wrote a narrative of his time in the Army, which he dedicated to Natalie and his daughters Becky, Annie and Charlotte. ◆ Don was trained to jump from planes at 800 feet. In the Philippines he had to jump from less than 300 feet while under fire.

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COMMUNITY MATTERS | May 2020

WINNERS - continued on page 6

McHugh, “Unknown Passage”

Drawing (amateur): Duane Hanson, “Lone Eagle”

Quilting (amateur): Karen Funcheon, “Save the Bees”

Sculpture/3-D (professional): Jo Mixed Media/Crafts (professional): Pam Hayes, “Kansas Ann Rae Taylor, “Forces of Life (water and earth)” Meadowlark” Sculpture/3-D (amateur): Phillip Mixed Media/Crafts (amateur): Lovchik, “Cougar” Mary Davis, “Dollar Bill Origami” Local competition winners will join Needlework (amateur): Dwight winners from 16 other Presbyterian Freeman, “Gothic Cross” Manors of Mid-America Painting (professional): Nancy communities to be judged at the Luttrell, “6:30 Wichita” masterpiece level. Winning entries at the masterpiece level are selected Painting (amateur): Rick Brandorff, “Pacific Coast Highway” for publication in PMMA’s annual Art is Ageless calendar and note Photography (professional): Sue cards. The 2021 calendar marks Vautravers, “Love in Bloom” the 40th anniversary for the Art is Photography (amateur): Linda Ageless program.

Best of Show (amateur): Doris Korber, “Golden Gate Heaven and Earth Design”

Art is Ageless is a copyrighted program of Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America. For the competition, works must have been completed in the past five years. Started in 1980, Art is Ageless is an extension of Presbyterian Manors of MidAmerica’s wellness programs, which focus on mental, physical, social and spiritual health.

Presbyterian Manors of MidAmerica’s Art is Ageless program encourages Wichita Presbyterian Manor residents and other area seniors to express their creativity through its annual competition, as well as art classes, musical and dramatic events, educational opportunities and current events discussions throughout the year. ◆

Photography (professional): Sue Vautravers, “Love in Bloom”

Needlework (amateur): Dwight Freeman, “Gothic Cross”

Christmas (amateur): Nancy Keribach, “Celebrate Winter”

People’s Choice (professional): Mark Ward, “Fresh Start”

Mixed Media/Crafts (professional): Pam Hayes, “Kansas Meadowlark”

Wichita Presbyterian Manor | A PMMA COMMUNITY

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WICHITA Presbyterian Manor

4700 W. 13th St. Wichita, KS 67212-5575 RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED

Our Mission: to provide quality senior services guided

by Christian values Like us on Facebook to stay updated on news and events.

Mother’s Day Of all the special joys in life, The big ones and the small, A mother’s love and tenderness Is the greatest of them all. ~ Anonymous

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COMMUNITY MATTERS | May 2020