Children have become familiar sight at home for seniors

By REBEKAH DENN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Stanwood's mix of old and new is most prominent at the Lutheran-affiliated Josephine Sunset Home, which includes 160 nursing home residents and 55 assisted living units.

But the most striking presence at the home is the children who are now in constant sight there, integrated into day care and early childhood education programs throughout the campus.

The day care started out as a benefit for employees, says communications manager Scott Campbell, but it was soon clear it was a benefit to both the children and to the senior citizens to bring together the older and the newer community members.

"It's now part of our mission to integrate these two populations together, so they can have each other to -- I guess just to enjoy each other," he says.

"And they really do enjoy each other."

"So many of our residents have such long ties to this community, and have been coming here since they were little children," he adds.

Daisy Twiss, 98, smiled as she looked at a picture of the home's opening day in 1908, on land donated by an early settler whose wife had died in childbirth.

"I was there," Twiss says, pointing out a small child in the photo whose head barely reached the home's fence. "I was the little girl with the hat on her head."