Tough Beyond Years Many Elderly Stoic In Face Of Adversity

Dave Cook walked into the 40-degree living room Thursday and saw an old man sitting rigid in a chair, a stocking cap on his head.

Cook, a traveling nurse, feared the worst: hypothermia.

The man suddenly stirred and Cook realized another stubborn patient survived the night in a home with no electricity.

“I told him my fear was the cold would overtake him and he wouldn’t realize it,” said Cook, who wears a heavy sweater when making his rounds because so many patients are without power.

Hundreds of elderly Spokane residents are showing their rugged independence, shunning shelters out of fear their pipes will freeze or looters will make off with their treasures in the night.

Owners of some adult-family homes are sending residents to stay with relatives, while others are turning living rooms with fireplaces and kerosene heaters into community bedrooms.

At apartment buildings for the elderly, managers used flashlights to escort reluctant residents down dark stairwells and into waiting cars.

One manager provided little help at first. He actually needed some himself.

“Everyone was trying to find me to save people trapped in the elevator,” said Greg Schur, manager at Canterbury Court on the South Hill. “But I was one of the people trapped.”

Despite pneumonia, Tom Griner, 78, put on three shirts, pajama pants and two pairs of socks and settled into a recliner in front of the fireplace in his Spokane Valley home.

His doctor obliged, prescribing asthma inhalers in the place of the electric misting machine he uses four times a day to clear his lungs.

Cook makes daily visits to clean an incision from recent stomach surgery and make sure Griner stays warm.

It’s a challenge. “I’ve got a nightgown on, a robe, one sweatshirt, two turtlenecks - and I’m still frozen,” said Griner’s wife, Florence, also 78.

Leland Steen, 69, holed up in his South Hill apartment, although nearly all the building’s 66 elderly residents evacuated after the power blinked out.

“I’ve got too much money tied up here,” he said, wearing camouflage coveralls and baby-sitting a VCR, television and stereo he couldn’t use. “I don’t trust none of these clowns out in the street.”

Two stories up, Vladimir Nikolayev, 72, told his frustrated daughter-in-law he wouldn’t leave, no matter how cold. He’d suffered far worse weather on the Russian Front during World War II, he said.

“He doesn’t know why American people are in a big panic,” said Yelena Nikolayev, who brought him warm drinks.

“Because we’re pansies,” said apartment manager Kathy Gilstrap, chuckling.

Cooperation was the savior at some adult-family homes with no power and numerous Alzheimers patients.

Residents in a west Spokane adult-family home sat in front of a wood-burning stove and waited for a catered lunch of hot vegetable soup. The soup was donated by a South Hill home with electricity.

The west Spokane home, meanwhile, took in six patients from a third adult home with no heat whatsoever.

“Luckily, we have a wood stove and that’s been the life saver,” said social worker Barb Peterson.

Peterson set up extra hospital beds in the large living room. “I haven’t gotten much sleep,” she admitted.

By Thursday, nursing homes that were operating by candlelight and heating food in fireplaces had power restored because Washington Water Power considered them high-priority.

But some elderly living at home insist they’ll try to tough out the long wait.

“We just sit and look into the fireplace,” said Florence Griner, running her fingers through wet curls that wouldn’t dry. “It’s a wonder we don’t dream about it.”

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MEMO: Changed from Idaho edition.