Good Shepherd Home Computer
Tells Residents ‘You've got mail'
March 12, 2000

PIX#1 - Surfing the net D an Road reads an e-mail at a computer station at Good Shepherd Home. Dan and his wife, Estelene, were the first pople to receive an e-mail at GSH. Residents of GSH now have access to the internet and this can allow them to keep in touch with family members and friends.

The computer has changed the language of human communication dramatically.

It wasn't all that long ago that terms like e-mail, dot-com or internet were largely unknown. Today almost everyone is familiar with them.

What's more, it's never too late to bone up on the latest developments on the technological front. That's what the folks at the Good Shepherd Home are discovering.

The home has recently purchased a computer for the residents' use and so far the most popular use is to send and receive e-mail.

The first residents to receive an e-mail were Dan and Estelene Rhoad.

"I saw a girl working on the computer," said Dan. "She was down on her knees. I stuck my head in the door and I accused her of being in the wrong room.

"I said, ‘You're not in the chapel. It's on up a ways' She said she was putting the final touches on the computer.

"Then I went on. The next thing I knew she was running to catch up with me. She gave me the (e-mail) address of Good Shepherd. I called my son, Bill, that night and gave him the address.

"He said he'd try it that night and we got the first on the next morning. Yesterday we sent him an e-mail Valentine."

Of course, much more than letters can be sent floating along in cyber-space.

"With the first e-mail Dan and Estelene received, they also got a nice picture of their grandchildren," said Activity Director Cindy Swartz.

It was a picture taken of the grandkids at a Halloween activity at school.

By the way, the wayward worshiper-slash-computer technician was Kathy Flewelling, Good Shepherd's director of ancillary services.

The residents' computer was the idea of Good Shepherd Director Chris Widman.

"Any resident of the Brethren Court or the Good Shepherd Home will have access to the computer," he said. "Our activity department will help them. We've had volunteers help residents send e-mails to family members."

One of those volunteers is St. Wendelin eighth grader Betsy Bouillon, granddaughter of Rachel Holman, who is in charge of special projects at Good Shepherd.

We've received compliments about the service from residents and family alike," said Chris. "Whenever I said that we were thinking about doing it, I received positive feedback."

"I appreciate the fact that they have it," said Dan. "I think it's going to be nice. I'm expecting some e-mail from our great-granddaughters up in Risingsun."

It will be nice. It will also be the wave of the future. As time goes on, nursing homes will serve residents who are going to move in with not only their clothes and furniture, but with their PCs as well."

In fact, Chris said that current nursing home construction and renovation includes upgraded wiring to accommodate residents' computers.

However, the present generation of Good Shepherd residents came of age before television let alone computers. So their computer in the Brethren Lounge will help introduce many of them to the machine that is changing forever the way we live.

"We see it as a way of meeting the needs of today and tomorrow," Chris said.

And a good thing, too. After all, that tomorrow always seems to have a way of getting here with a rush.