Throughout her life, Luella Hinrichs had her share of Herculean
tasks.
At age 14, she had to plan a funeral for her mother and
two younger sisters, victims of a car crash. She graduated
from college, eventually becoming a teacher and dealing
with everything that comes with it.
Later, after marrying a handsome member of the Army Air
Corps, she was a mother six times over and not only had
dinner on the table every night but also made room at the
table for anyone and everyone her children brought home.
To hear two of her daughters tell it, Luella Hinrichs was
a super mom before society knew what a super mom was.
"Sometimes we thought she never slept," said
Leann Wilsey, one of Luella's six children. "When we
went to bed, she was up, and she was up when we got up in
the morning. She was always working, always doing something."
Wilsey said she remembered her mother working at an air
base when times were tight and sporadically bringing home
some young airman who hadn't had a home-cooked meal in some
time. Even after her husband died when she was 62, Hinrichs
still managed to keep on her feet, keep busy and keep active.
Over the years, memories of picnics at the lake and a dinner
table with an open invitation to anyone gave way to a feeling
that something was wrong. When Luella had a stroke seven
years ago, it became clear that the woman who cared for
everyone else her whole life now needed to be cared for.
Hinrichs was diagnosed with a form of dementia, not Alzheimer's
disease, but her paranoia and propensity for wandering made
putting her on Third Phillips a necessity. She's been there
about five years, said Wilsey and Karolina Dunn, Wilsey's
younger sister.
"She's always been a kind and gentle person, and the
disease brought out the worst in her," Dunn said. "To
me, she got mean, and that wasn't my mom. We knew we had
to do something."
Dunn works at the veterans home and gets to visit her mother
on a daily basis. When you're around her a lot, it's not
hard to see flashes and hints of the super mom that Hinrichs
always was, though the setting is different. More importantly,
the disease hasn't taken away the memories the family has
of their mother, who always worked hard and loved even harder.
In an age when families are smaller, Dunn said, her mother
was a super mom for giving her memories she'll never forget.
"It was like growing up in the Walton family,"
Dunn said. "We loved it."
The children of Roger Keeley, all five of them, have a name for themselves when they all go to Third Phillips to visit their father, Roger... Read more...
Leann Wilsey and Karolina Dunn grew up in a house where
their mother Luella was a powerful and caring presence. Caring
for her when she developed dementia is a whole different story.