Here's quite an interesting story, not only to demonstrate its final outcome , but the trip along the way:
One night I received a call from an condominium complex that one of their ladies was acting out of character. She was only in her 60's but, according to them, had gone off the deep end and was threatening her neighbors with bodily harm.
I went over there on a fact finding mission. I invited my fiancee to accompany me so he could see what I did for a living (actually I needed him to keep her busy while I searched through her papers).
I found the following: Her name was Evelyn.
Evelyn had never been married. She owned her own condo. She had worked her entire life at low level positions. She had quite a chunk of money and had no debts. It probably took me an hour to glean this information from her papers. I found that she came here from West Virginia in the 1960's but I could not find any family records.
In the meantime my fiancee was chatting with Evelyn. My fiancee (just like a lot of guys) considers himself an expeert in the stock market. So when Evenly asked him if he wanted to see her trading records, he agreed. Out came books and books of detailed stock transactions that Evelyn had made over the years, recorded virtually to the penny. According to my expert, she had done amazingly well.
But sometime about 4 months earlier, the records ended abruptly. About 15 minutes into the conversation, her grasp on reality had ended as well. If I had taken another 10 minutes, my upcoming marriage would have ended as well. It wasn't too difficult to figure out that some event, a mini-stroke or something like that had happened and although she was still functioning, she was in trouble living by herself.
My fiancee took me to the closet and showed me at least 50 shoe boxes, each filled with papers. Each shoe box represented all her keepsakes and memories from ocean liner cruises she had taken. Each box was labelled with ship and date of cruise. Fifty shoe boxes meant she had taken 50 cruises. She loved cruising. She had the money, she was spending it.
Those days the next step in situations like this was to apply for an emergency temporary guardianship. A guardianship court is asked to determine if the person is competent to handle their own affairs. There's a lawyer for the condominium complex who we filed for, and there is a court appointed lawyer assigned to protect Evelyn.
Evelyn was to be examined and at the Court hearing her competency is adjudicated by a judge or a general master. In order to take the necessary steps to protect someone in this scenario, you have to be appointed the guardian or work for the guardian. The court met and determined that Evelyn was fully competent and did not need a guardian.
My fiancee was dumbfounded. He couldn't believe it. He was ready to call the newspapers and the t.v. stations and make a big stink. I told him to wait. It would all work out, not to worry. Six weeks later Evelyn attacked her next door neighbor with a spoon. Luckily spoons do not do too much damage. Evelyn was taken in and held for psychiatric examination in a large lock down facility. The same court people as before, came in and committed her.
No one expected Evelyn's reaction, but when she saw the large facility and the large dining area, she settled right in for the "Cruise of the Rest of her Life".
She was safe. She was happy. She made friends. She had activities.
Strangely enough, this was the best thing for Evelyn and my (now) husband has never forgotten her story and never will.
Ronnee
For more information contact Senior Solutions at (954) 456-8984 or toll free at 1-800-213-3524
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