Posted: 7/25/07
From the poor farm ... to The Villages
 Glad you're here, Ecumen administrator Steve Mork said to Clayton Anderson upon his arrival at the new care facility across town. |
Story and photos by
MaryHelen Swanson
It was the night before the "big move" and all through Green Acres Country Care Center the halls were empty, the resident rooms bare except for a bed and perhaps a small packed box, and the silence was eerie.
Down the hall on the second floor, for one last time, a small group of residents was playing bingo.
"Under the O, 72," called out Kathleen Stepp, a recreation director.
Although it was barely 6 p.m., sleepy heads nodded while waiting for the next number to be called.
The folks had had a busy day, as the packing and preparation for the "big move" to their new home was going on all around them.
There's no better way to end our stay at Green Acres, Stepp said, referring to the last bingo game.
Ninety-seven-year-old Clayton Anderson was among the bingo players on the night of July 16.
Continued from front
In a hurry to get to bingo, he used a wheelchair, instead of his usual walker, he said.
"It's the national past time here," Anderson kidded, speaking of bingo.
Anderson's history with the nursing home, with North Branch, go back, way back. Back to the time the care facility was known as the Poor Farm which opened, according to Anderson, to serve primarily as a home for single men who had no one else to take care of them. Women were in short supply, Anderson noted.
The original facility was closer to Sunrise, the present facility, in smaller form, was opened in 1898, according to Anderson.
Over the years the building increased in size in a piecemeal fashion, he noted, making it difficult to keep plumbing and heating systems coordinated.
For Anderson, born and raised in the North Branch area, the Poor Farm has a lot of meaning.
As he sat and placed poker chips on his bingo numbers, Anderson recalled there used to be a garden where the room in which he played bingo stood.
When coverall bingo was done, and the prize given out, it was time for one last cup of coffee at the old place.
Stepp had to search far and wide for cups, most everything had been packed away.
But the coffee was poured, cooled and was sipped, and Anderson and the players of the last bingo game were on their way back to their rooms, one last time.
Passing the bathroom, Anderson noted he won't have to go out in the hall anymore at the new place. He was delighted with that concept.
"But, it's a good room," he said of his domain at GACCC. "Don't misunderstand me," he concluded as he entered it one last time.
Back in his nearly bare room, Anderson looked out his window at the emerging housing development, again returning to his younger days. He remembered how he helped plant many, many trees around the home, now taken out for development.
He talked of family members who have called Green Acres home at periods in the past, including his beloved wife, Evelyn, about whom he could never say enough good things.
Green Acres - the Poor Farm - has been a part of his life.
Anderson talked, baring a soul that appeared apprehensive about the big move.
"No doubt it's a beautiful place," he said of the new facility, The Villages of North Branch, where he will be living from now on.
He recalled pitching hay at the site (of the new facility) some 75 years ago. His family is still farming the land around the new facility. He talked of rye harvests.
One hundred years ago, Anderson continued in his musings, there were 100 Andersons within a small area around North Branch, today, he said, they're scattered all over the United States.
Moving day
The sun was barely visible when the folks on the second floor started stirring Tuesday morning.
Anderson, however, is an early riser. As they left their rooms, for one last time, the residents clutched bags containing the few items they had kept with them to get the day started. Their other belongings waited for them in their new digs.
And then the trip began as they were assisted to waiting buses. Over 100 volunteers, young and not so young, were on hand to help with the move.
At Green Acres, they assured the residents of a safe ride, tucked them into bus seats and drove wheelchairs up ramps to get them on their way.
The buses rolled away from Green Acres every 15 minutes, taking 86 residents across town, the old building becoming emptier and emptier.
Across town, as the buses turned the corner off of Falcon Ave., the residents could see their new home, and the crowd waiting for them at the door. Why, there was even a tiny band, a tuba and accordion player, to serenade them as they stepped off the bus.
Wally Bjork was the first one off the bus and in the doors. The first one "home" as the welcomers said.
Ernie Strand was next, followed by a smiling Agnes Anderson, assisted by volunteer Becky Leuer.
Glen Anderson was next.
And then it was Clayton Anderson's turn.
A friendly hand was extended to Anderson as he sat in his wheelchair perched on the bus' lift. It was Steve Mork, waiting to welcome Anderson "home."
Mork has been administrator at Green Acres for a number of years.
But Mork had more then a casual association with Clayton Anderson, as it was the Andersons - Clayton and Evelyn - who provided the land west of the freeway for the new nursing home facility.
It was in 2003 that the Andersons offered the 20-plus acres to Chisago County at a greatly reduced price with this stipulation: "The Anderson family would like to promote the construction of a new nursing home in North Branch."
The agreement with the county stated "the parties acknowledge that this sale constitutes in part a gift to the buyer to the extent that the fair market value of the property exceeds the purchase price."
A beaming Evelyn and Clayton had signed the agreement in the basement of the Government Center as they offered the gift to the county (the county was still the owner of the nursing home at the time).
Eventually, Chisago County commissioners decided to get out of the nursing home business, a business that has seen decreasing revenues across the state and nation.
The county sold GACCC and property to Ecumen for $1 and provided the infrastructure to the new property.
Ecumen needed to sell the Green Acres property to a developer to garner enough funds to complete the Villages project.
There were some in the community who thought the county should have gotten more for the property, those who opposed moving the new facility across town, and other significant obstacles along the way over the past few years. Eventually, a groundbreaking was held and construction began.
And now it was July 17, 2007, and Clayton (Evelyn passed away three years ago) entered the doorway of that new nursing home for the first time.
Steve Mork said to Clayton Anderson "So glad to have you here."
Anderson, looking as apprehensive as a kindergarten student on the first day of school replied, "Pretty hard to say goodbye to the old poor farm, too, you know."
But Mork reminded Anderson that many years ago, as owner of the Ford dealership in North Branch, it was necessary to move the old garage.
And Anderson concluded, "That's the way it is."
Comment from LINDA ROONEY, 7/30/07
I enjoyed reading this article, just the other day I was wondering if Clayton Anderson was still at home. I'll never forget our first years in North Branch buying our Christmas trees from him, he was so kind to sell them all for $10 and I really enjoyed talking with him. Since I worked at HCMC where his son worked Mr Anderson enjoyed telling me all about him. My Mom told me about the poor farm, she was born and raised in Cambridge. I hope the residents of the Villages will enjoy their new home but there will never be the natural beauty that surrounded the old Green Acres NH.
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