Ascension Living at Bethlehem Woods Village in La Grange Park celebrated its 35th Anniversary on June 29.
Out of 171 residents, 97 seniors turned out in the stifling heat for a BBQ outside the building at 1571 W. Ogden, once home to an orphanage.
“We’re trying to get our name back out in the community, saying, ‘Yes we’re still here and we’re still concerned with senior citizens,’” Ann Reiter-Emlund, community relationship manager for marketing said as she helped cook hamburgers and hot dogs for the residents.
Ascension Living is a St. Louis-based company that operates 40 different facilities, many in the Midwest — 11 in the Chicago area alone.
Ascension is one of the nation’s leading non-profit Catholic health systems, and provides a variety of different services, both in-house and at-home, including independent living, assisted living, memory care, and nursing and rehabilitation services.
Reiter-Emlund said that in recent years, there had been a falloff in communication between Ascension Living at Bethlehem Woods and related institutions in the area, such as La Grange and Hinsdale hospitals.
“I just basically started doing it again,” she said. “Prior to my coming on, those that worked in our business development never really went and visited people like social workers and discharge planners, so they didn’t have that connection with somebody from the outside world winding up in the hospital because they broke a hip and now no longer could go home but needed assisted living.”
Reiter-Emlund said that it was a matter of having someone on staff dedicated to one of Ascension Living Bethlehem Woods’ most pressing needs—outreach.
“We used to have somebody that could go to the hospitals to have that communication keeping up with what’s going on,” she said. “When I first started doing this, I had a lot of people say they didn’t even know we were still in existence.”
Reiter-Emlund noted that the immediate area was home to many of the resident’s grown children.
“They have children who live in the area, usually it’s La Grange Westchester, Westmont, or Burr Ridge,” she said, stressing that many of the senior residents were relocating from out of state or other Chicagoland areas far from La Grange Park. “They now want to bring them here so that don’t have that long travel in traffic going back and forth.”
One of the main advantages for a senior citizen spending their golden years at Bethlehem Woods was its connection to the church.
“We’re basically religious-run,” Reiter-Emlund said. “For those that are religious we do have the mass three times per week. The Sisters of St. Joseph (next door) opens their walkway so that they may attend mass on Sunday, so they have an opportunity to attend mass four times a week. We also do the Rosary every day and hold Confessions on Saturday.”
Residents spoke in positive terms about Ascension at Bethlehem Woods.
“My daughter lives nearby, she lives just a mile away on Ogden,” Marlene Vargas said.
Vargas, who moved in January, said that had her own two flat in Albany Park in the northeast section of Chicago, one of those places which was a challenging commute for her daughter.
“I had tenants and it was kind of hard keeping up with everything,” she said. “I had to pay everybody to do things for me because I couldn’t take care of the yard because I’m limited.”
Marion Vicek has been at Bethlehem Woods for 22 years after growing up and living most of her life in Oak Lawn and said she was very happy.
“Oh I like it, my husband and I came together, we needed something like this,” she said. “We looked at it and he said ‘let’s not look any further’, and we took it. I’m on the sixth floor…but he passed away 10 months ago, but I’m still here. We had a happy life here and I wouldn’t move. What else do I need?”
Mary Lou Lee moved into Bethlehem Woods a year and a half ago and is very happy with her situation.
“I like it here very much, she said. “It’s like my one son said, he said, ‘Mom you’re going to like it, it’s very homey.’”
Ascension staff member Mary Schatz, a 15-year employee of Ascension at Bethlehem Woods, singled out Reiter-Emlund for praise.
“Since she has joined us, we have flourished,” she said. “I’ve worked with a lot of marketing people and never, ever have we had someone as devoted as she is.”
The corporate office in Kansas City chimed in with congratulations.
“We are excited to celebrate 35 years of serving seniors in the La Grange Park area,” Molly Gaus, Ascension director of marketing and communications said in a recent email. “From the day we opened our doors, we’ve aimed to provide a compassionate, personalized retirement experience that’s right for each resident.”
For further information about Ascension Living, visit its website, ascensionliving.org
Hank Beckman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
