Saratoga News

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Sister Bridget McCormack looks out the window from her room at Our Lady of Fatima Villa.

Air Force Rescue

A former Vietnam pilot now steers the work of Our Lady of Fatima Villa

By Sandy Sims

It's not so farfetched to think that Dominican Sisters from Ireland could be patients in a nursing home in Saratoga. But who could have imagined that a crusty retired Air Force pilot who flew missions over Vietnam would play a large part in carrying on their mission?

But then, they say God works in strange and mysterious ways.

It was need for a place to fulfill their mission that got the Dominican Sisters to Saratoga in the first place. It was need that got the owner of the property where Our Lady of Fatima now stands to sell her land to them in 1947. It was need that caused the Sister's nursing home--Our Lady of Fatima Villa--to grow, and it was because the ranks of Dominican Sisters were shrinking that they needed to reach out to the secular world to help them carry on their mission.

"The sisters scratched this place out of nothing," Preston Wisner, retired Air Force major and the Villa's chief executive officer, explains.

And so they did. The large quadrangular building that sits on a rise off Highway 9 is a kind of miracle. With the long stone retaining wall, a sign that says "Our Lady of Fatima," and a lovely statue of the Madonna at the crest of the rise it might be mistaken for a convent. In fact, it's a nursing home with a small convent inside, as well as a chapel.

As part of their missionary work, the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine of Sienna of Kenosha, Wis., bought the land 50 years ago and created a nursing home. On July 15, the Villa holds an open house from 4 to 7 p.m. to celebrate its golden anniversary. The community is invited for refreshments and tours of the villa, which has changed more than a little over the past 50 years.

Today, six of the sisters are patients there (three are in their 90s, two are in their 80s and one is 79), cared for by some of the staff they once supervised. However, the convent section is empty, and the old chapel is mostly unused.

With fewer and fewer women going into the religious life, the number of Dominican Sisters has dwindled considerably. For many, this is a sad realization, but Sister Susan, the Prioress General of this particular congregation--and at age 50 the youngest sister in the congregation--has a larger view.

She explains that this is not really unusual; anyone with a sense of history knows that there is always this shrinking and growing of institutions and that this change is affected by many things. "The sisters don't feel sad," she says. "It just means there is a change going on in the spiritual world. We just can't see it." Dominican Sisters will always be here, she explains, adding that what is happening right now just might be God calling on the lay people to do his work. "And the sisters' job is to support that change."

To give support, Sister Susan travels the country, touching base with those who have taken over the various Dominican missions. "In Saratoga they are so kind and gentle," she says. "I have never had one concern over the treatment of patients there." Sister Alice, in Kenosha, says Saratoga is one place the Sisters have successfully passed on their mission to the laity.

Wisner, who has a Ph.D. in finance, has unwittingly become one of those carrying on the mission. About 10 years ago he was brought on as a financial consultant because the villa was having difficulty. He was also to find a candidate for CEO of the villa. He interviewed about 60 candidates and presented six to the board, but the board kept asking him to stay just a little longer.

In the meantime, he got hooked on the villa and the city of Saratoga and accepted the CEO position himself. He has moved the financial condition of the villa from the red into the black. "The sisters didn't want to raise the rates," Wisner says. He knew they had to. These days, it costs $134-$184 per day to stay there. They raised enough money to put $3 million in repairs into the buildings. "It costs $200,000 a year just to keep this place up," he explains. They've also managed to buy the fireman's hall (adjacent to the villa) on Oak Street for future expansion, but for now, they rent it out for weddings and other functions. Eventually, they'd like to add an assisted-living unit.

Wisner has also made the villa a part of the community. Sheila Arthur, Saratoga Chamber of Commerce executive, says "Preston has connected the villa with the community. They used to be so quiet up there." The Chamber and other groups conduct their meetings in the villa's meeting room. Wisner was the executive director of the Chamber for two years. He's in the Rotary Club and gets involved in community activities. He was not only a street captain for the Celebrate Saratoga! parade, he convinced the villa staff to enter a float.

The villa has changed considerably over the years. On a rise at the back is an old, yellow cottage, a remnant of the home for women with mild mental illnesses that was there when the sisters bought the land for $78,000. There were five small cottages, one large building and a grove of redwoods on the land.

In those days there were few options available for elderly people who could no longer live alone. Aging people who could not move in with their children were moved into a nursing home. The need for good nursing homes was critical. This was the mission the sisters took on as an expression of "the healing hands of Jesus."

The kind of loving care that the sisters gave at the villa was rare. "We never had one bedsore," says Sister Esther who is now living in retirement in Merced. Sister Esther was director of nursing at the villa in the late '60s and again in the late '70s. "I made sure the girls turned the ladies properly every night, and we changed them every two hours. That's why there was never a bad smell there," she recalls.

The villa's reputation spread, and children were bringing their mothers from places as far away as San Francisco. A waiting list grew, and the Sisters knew the place needed to grow. From money both donated and raised by auxiliaries, the sisters were able to build four wings that formed a quadrangle. This included 85 patient beds, the convent and the chapel. The chapel served the religious needs of the sisters and the patients.

For years the Rev. Bill O'Connor, the villa's resident chaplain, held mass in the chapel. But he added a little more than just religious ceremony to the villa; he added heart. "The ladies loved him," Sister Amelia, one of the patients at the villa, says. "He sang Irish songs in his beautiful tenor voice, and he knew all the words." Father Bill left in the '80s to go to Good Samaritan Hospital and was there until Columbia Health Systems decided to cut religion from its services. Since Father Bill left the villa, a priest from Notre Dame comes daily except Saturdays to give mass at 10:40 a.m. at an altar in the multipurpose room, which is more easily accessible by wheelchairs than is the chapel.

The villa staff has always believed patients need more than physical care. "We care about the quality of life of our patients," Wisner explains. And a glance at the activities planned by Terry Becker, the activities director who has been at the villa for 13 years, reinforces this notion. They offer art and music appreciation classes. Musicians come in and play for the patients. They hold bingo games and socials and go on outings to the Ice Capades, Santa Cruz and the county fair. A hairdresser comes in twice a week. Staff members can adopt a patient who has little or no family and visit the patient regularly. Volunteers come in and visit and help the activity director. There's even a newsletter that goes out to family members and patients. And once a month patients can invite family members or friends to a candlelight dinner

Some of the staff learned their high standard of care from the sisters. Maria Salazar, who has been at the villa since 1963, recalls the image of Sister Mathilda folding up her habit sleeves when she demonstrated a nursing technique. "The sisters were strict. We had to wear our hair back and could only wear wedding rings and watches for jewelry. But we didn't care because the sisters were kind," recalls Salazar, who at age 65 is now working part-time. "I love to work here," she says. "It's like a family."

Many staff members have been working at the villa for a long time. Elna Tharp has been there for 19 years. Her mother was a patient in the Alzheimer's unit that today houses 13 patients. Michelena Teal has been there 10 years. In fact, Wisner says "40 percent of our staff has been here over 10 years, and 60 percent over five years."

The staff has also been well cared for. Salazar earned her C.N.N. and rehabilitation nurse status at the villa. These days the staff goes to school on their own time, and the villa pays 80 percent of the cost of their books and tuition. Two of the staff have received their R.N. degrees, and two are in school now. Corine Bernard was hired more than 12 years ago as a medical records clerk, got her B.A. in health administration through the villa and is now the office manager in charge of medical records.

Bernard has witnessed big changes in the needs of the patients over the years she has been there. Originally, many of the patients were coming in younger, ambulatory and not terribly ill, she says. They stayed longer, sometimes as long as 10 years, but at least six months to one year. In more recent years patients have been older and sicker. The average stay is just one month, and the average age is about 84.

These days, the community is doing more to keep the elderly independent. There are home health aids; assisted-care homes where a person can receive meals in a dinning room, housecleaning and even help with bathing; there's a meals on wheels program and all kinds of retirement housing. "There are some vacancies now at the villa, though the myth persists that there is a waiting list," Bernard says. People also think this is a place for the religious. About 60 percent of the patients are Catholic.

"We miss the long-term patients," Tharp says. "We've had some wonderful people stay here," such as George Strong, who was once the dean of the University of Santa Clara Law School. "He always played classical music in his room," Tharp recalls. When the university wanted to give him an honorary doctorate, the staff at the villa equipped him with a portable oxygen tank and carted him off to the school for the ceremony.

The first man to be a patient at the villa was a longtime Saratoga resident. Wisner was the one to talk the board and the sisters into admitting men just a few years ago.

Even with many high-profile patients, one outsider observed that a MediCal patient is treated the same as any patient. "There is no difference in care," she said. With all the rate changes and more community and business orientation, the villa's focus on loving care for all the patients has never changed.

"I really have a sense that we are carrying on the mission of the sisters," Mary Ellen Barber, the director of nursing and 16-year staff member, says. She's been asked to join the Dominican Sisters this July on a pilgrimage. They will walk the path that St. Dominic, the preacher who started the Dominican Order, walked 800 years ago in Portugal. "I feel so privileged," Barber says. She believes the experience will give her a deeper understanding of the mission to which the Dominican Sisters have dedicated their lives.

Wisner is a little surprised at the notion that he is one of the lay people who is carrying on the mission for the sisters. "I'd never heard it put quite that way," he said.

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