Erin Steele: When Seniors and Children Help Each Other (Pt 1)

And some of our seniors have cognitive deficits, and so the kids are actually mentors to them.

Are you kidding?

So like our preschool class just a few weeks ago did an Easter egg where they had to had to match the colors, and we have a lady that isn't able to do that anymore, and these preschoolers go and they're helping her.

I mean, it's like completely flipped.

But like that that empathy and compassion and that's they don't question that because.

They know her and they know that she can no longer do that. They also know that she has a story where she used to be able to do that. Do you know what I mean? She used to be a teacher, and I do. I do a lot.

Actually, how could you not watch it?

It is and it's natural, it's very natural. Like a lot of those things I don't plan, They just happen.

And even in my sketch books, I didn't sketch those things.

They just are When you put people together and they're actually building relationships, beautiful things happen.

Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father. I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis, and the last part it somehow led to an oscar for the film about our team. That movie is called Undefeated. Guys, I believe our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses on sinon and box, but rather by an army of

I'm from Wamego, Kansas, which okay, kind of in between Tapeaka and Manhattan.

I feel like we should do a hea hal salut when we say one mego, how me go?

That's right.

How many folks live in Onemigo, Kansas.

I don't even know, maybe five thousand somewhere around there, so.

Have a small area. Hou's flight in flew in, right, yep, just.

Yeah, that's right. So I've seen it all.

But yeah, yeah, I'm glad Alex picked you up. Sometimes he makes guess take ubers or he is laid.

He made it very easy on me, Yes, yeah he did.

Maybe he's improving at his job. What do you think it was only the one time I hear I bought that car stopped working one month. Then yeah, that's one of the guests that I had an uber from the airport. Oh no, it's because he bought a hooptie that didn't work.

Well, CarMax A good impression.

Quite embarrassing, really, I love it. So Aaron, who is Anita Morn.

So I was actually telling him I don't actually know her. I think she knows my brother that lives in western Kansas.

So here's here's what we got on April seventeenth to twenty twenty four, which means it took Alex a whole year to get you here, so nice job. Way to work on it quickly. Good job, Alex.

The first note was just singing our praises you Google.

Oh read that first though, because it's good. Oh okay. March twenty seven, twenty twenty five, see you jumped on it. Nice job out. Anita Maran is a listener and she just said thanks to the micro podcast for introducing us. I was on Mike's podcast or Mike was online. We were on both, but I don't know what she listened to. And she said, I've become addicted to your podcast. So Anita,

For me, it was just normal. I grew up in the family.

I was number twelve of eighteen, so I mean that's just that was life for me.

I didn't know any different.

No twins, same two parents.

Same two parents. That's right.

My mom wanted a dozen babies, and my dad just really liked my mom and said, okay, whatever.

You want, honey.

Eight teens, eighteen kids, all right. When I read that and then watched the video of you and thought of it, how many bedrooms were in your home?

So we had well, the boys had like what we called a dormitory in the basement, so I mean literally it was a big, huge, open room that they just had beds, and that was pretty much.

If you were a senior in high school, you got your own room in the basement.

So there was that when you were a senior and got your own room, and then the girls. We had three rooms upstairs that we shared, and then we had a study that we've turned into a room.

There was a bed and living room.

You know, what did your father and mother do for Well, your mother had to have just raised children. There's no way to work outside the home with eighteen kids as there.

She pretty much did until she did start working when my youngest brother, well actually my second youngest brother was born, she started working. But my dad was a postmaster and then my mom.

I mean a good living, sure, but eight how do you feed that many people?

Well, I don't know.

They my dad went to the store every single day for bread and milk. He would stop at the store after work, that is true. Yeah, and there were times you knew, you know that we were waiting for a paycheck because we might have ham and beans for four days.

But I mean, for the most part, they just did whatever they had to do. My mom also did work. She would do like.

Evenings and nights, you know what I mean, to kind of supplement or she that's how she paid for Christmas.

And I think on that web, I think on that video there were pictures of you as a kid with some of your siblings that had to have been I mean you say, for you, it was what you knew, so it was normal, but you had to have known. Nobody else was one of eighteen. But it looked like you guys were thickest thieves and just had a cool life together.

We absolutely, I mean we were very close. We fought like normal siblings. I mean I had my moments that like my sister that was four years younger than me, I hated her, you know when I was in high school and she was middle school. I mean we had all those but for the most part, we were very close and your best friends were your siblings. And it's still kind of that way. There was always someone to play with, always someone to do something with.

You know, what was the spread? What's the youngest of the oldest, Like when the youngest was one? How old was the oldest?

Let's see, I think Jimmy's the oldest, and he would have been, well, he's fifty fifty six, fifty seven, don't quote me, and Tigan's.

Thirty twenty yeah, twenty six years.

She had one every year until me and then stir breastfeeding. Then it's every other year that intil the last two are a little spread.

Apart, but that is on the Anybody ever suggest your mom and dad to get.

A hobby, well that was usually the joke growing up. That was usually what everybody said to me, you know.

But you know, I my mom was Catholic, my dad converted, so you know, they had their beliefs that way. But my mom always wanted a dozen kids. And like I said, my mom pretty much got what she wanted. And my dad just said, okay.

Did she drive a school bus? I mean, how in the world.

We had around stretched blue van and literally, I mean it was it was a stretch van.

We and we'd just pile out. We the high schooler would drop, you know, make all the stops at the schools.

And I bet, I bet pileout. I just died when they saw y'all comment.

Yep. When we traveled, we would sleep on the floorboards.

That's old school.

Yeah, I mean we didn't have like I was fine.

My mom would hold one up front and be several of us laying on the floorboards and.

The Yeah, it's just it seems to me growing up like that though, as tight and piled down on top of each other. You have to be with all the love and everything else that has to be inherent in a home like that. You do have to develop a sense of understanding of the people next to you, some empathy and that kind of thing. I mean, am I grasping there or do you think that's right? Yeah?

I absolutely think that's right. I think the biggest thing you learn is you can't be selfish. Nothing is really ever just about you. So you kind of learn at a very young age to give to others, you know what I mean, You share everything, and if you don't, then.

There's seventeen others that don't like you.

I mean, you know there was a time where you try to hoard, like cookies or things like that. But I mean we from a very young age you shared everything you had. You didn't get everything you wanted. We passed on things. That's just what we learned, and I think we all have those qualities as adults because of that.

I think that's so healthy.

It absolutely is.

As a mom, I only have three children, so trying to teach those lessons to your kids when maybe they could have what they want.

But we just learned it naturally. We didn't get everything we wanted.

You know, there was a time I felt very jaded because of that, you know, like during your selfish year is probably middle school, high school. But then now I'm like, oh my gosh, like I see how much that made me into the person I am.

Now I love that. So we have four and four years and I've always thought that was chaos until I heard your story, and now I know we're just pikers. But one of my things was even when my business started doing well, and certainly I wouldn't describe what we became as rich, but we started making a nice living and we bought a bigger house with a couple of acres. Well, that's a lot of grass, and it was all landscape.

You know, I just put family first.

I mean that's kind of how I grew up, and I think it was kind of natural, like we always did things together as a family, and my kids kind of have grown up that way, whether it's their cousins or their And I think, yeah, work ethic is a huge, huge thing, like, you know, we'll get into the business, but my kids literally helped us do everything in that to get it going.

They will kind of tease the first year we bought it, their phrase was, I can't my mom bought a nursing home. Can't. We can't go on naication, We can't this, We can't that, you know. But what they're learning from that experience is far greater than.

One of the dues and don'ts of an interview is never ask a question you don't know the answer to, because you might get thrown off guard. I did not know the answer to the question that I asked you just now, but I absolutely suspected it. Given the way you grow up, what you're doing now, so it's not surprising, but I think it's beautiful. And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first, our next live interview in Memphis will be on June twelfth with Father Mark Hannah.

And sure all that my youngest brother has down syndrome. So I was very intrigued in special education. The last one, the last one, the very last one, which was he had some health condition also, and so the doctor said no more, surely, no more kids than you can't, which is why she probably stopped. But otherwise, so he I always kind of had a passion for that, and so in high school I kind of shadowed in a special ed classroom and did that and loved it, and that's

I want to be a nurse.

And so I kind of changed what I what my plan was and decided I want to be a nurse, and I wanted to be an OB nurse. And I've never been an OB nurse, but.

That's you know, and you married your sweetheart, yeah, yes, yes.

So my husband and I started dating when we were junior and senior who he happened to be my brother's best friend.

And not going did your brother take that? He went running and he didn't speak to us for about them month.

Really is that right? Then?

He's our you know, my daughter's godfather, and he was my husband's best man.

But he didn't he didn't take it very well at all.

Yeah, that's so even in a family of eighteen, big brothers are still being big brother.

Yes, absolutely, absolutely, and he was pretty protective anyway.

So but yeah, so then.

Where did your husband live? By the way, it was pretty.

Close across the street from us.

Well that made it too convenient.

It was a little too convenient.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, when there's eighteen people in this house and only a couple over here, there's a pretty good place to go hang out.

Absolutely. Actually our first kiss. All of my siblings were hiding. I shouldn't say all of them, not all of them. There was a handful of my little sisters.

They'll tell the story. They were sitting kind of behind the bushes, like.

There's no way all of your siblings said behind a bush, there's bush big enough. There's no big enough bush. Todd seventeen, So this is high school neighborhood sweetheart. Yep.

So we got married then a year our daughter was thirteen months old when we got married.

Got it.

He he got a job for West Star. It's kind of an energy He worked at a power plant. And that kind of allowed me.

To go to school.

And you became a nurse.

I became a nurse.

Yeah, and I've I kind of started, you know, along the track of med surge, which they kind of recommend, you know, get your experience.

I've done a lot of different things.

Probably the most paralleled to what drew me to Obi was like, I was a hospice nurse for four years and I loved that. I was very passionate about it, which I kind of bring into what I do now. You know, hospice is the idea is six months or less to live. But you know, for me working with elderly, you know, you might get a year or two. You know, you get to spend yes, you get to spend their final days typically with them and hopefully make them meaningful, not just six months.

All right, So now let's let the listeners in on this. You are the founder of Heritage Home, which is something I've never read before, and I'm gonna get there. Just you sit over in hush, gosh, just sit there and push buttons and make the sound right. All right. You're the founder of Heritage Home and Intergenerational Senior Living Facility and Childcare Center and Alma, Kansas. So we're gonna say that, okay,

So I after hospice, I started kind of working in senior care, you know, so nursing, your traditional nursing homes.

I worked in several of those, so you.

Were the nurse in the home, in the nursing home.

In the nursing home.

So I kind of started long term care working in that field and really fell in love with that.

Is that like assisted living or take me help me, because I've I don't know. There's there's like assisted living, then there's full health, there's like levels of senior living, right sure, yeah, absolutely, so explain those.

So I worked in skilled nursing facility, which is I mean the highest level of a nursing home, your traditional nursing home what we probably all picture when you talk about a nursing home.

I also worked in one that was very similar to assisted living.

So I was the nursing supervisor at that one, and I did that during COVID, and of course nursing homes kind of traditionally have a depressing feel. I grew up being scared of nursing homes. My grandma was, well, my great grandma was in one, and it was like smelly and.

Scary, and everybody I just I just had like this.

Stick anybody, No, No, it's the smell, it's all the things. And so I kind of which is interesting because then I ended up working in one. But during COVID, it was just so depressing, and you know, as a team, you're doing everything you can to kind of boost them around in the facility. They're lonely, they're isolated, they're not seeing their family, and so you know, we're spending all this money, all this resources, trying to rack our brains

You know, we can't tell.

No. It was literally we were inside watching out the window and these kids were just doing an East Ray hunt and the joy like that brought to them.

I thought, that's kind of the ticket, Like, that's what we need to do. It's kids like you know that bring them joy.

And so then I kind of the idea kind of started to evolve. And originally it was going to be I was going to do a playground at my nursing home.

I was like, I'm going to do my own and I'm going to do this, and then it kind.

Of evolved into a childcare there where you can actually build relationships, not just watch kids play or actually interacting.

And okay, let's let's take a quick diversion, because I think it's worth talking about one. I talked to a guy today three hours before meeting you, who said he was concerned about his grandmother dying of loneliness, far before she died of anything that was a physical element that would actually at take her life. He said, she is just sad. How real is that in the nursing home world? Is that is that a one off? Or is that more times than not talk about that?

I mean, I would say that's definitely I mean depression is like nursing homes.

I mean that is probably the memory. Yet absolutely I.

Think some of it is just for them, maybe this is the last like this is all you know, I move here and this is it. A lot of it is, you know, you're taking away everything they love and new their home there. You know, a lot of times you're selling their home. There's a lot of factors that play into that. But in general, it is very depressing for them to be in a nursing home and people are

I guess I've.

Heard horror stories often about kind of state run type institutions that the level of care is substandard, but even worse than that that there is often abuse in elderly care facilities that I'm not certainly talking about your yeah and abuse oftentimes looks like just leaving someone to kind of rot for an extended period of time, all the way up to not wanting to hear anybody gripe or want something. And how real is that in elderly care around the country.

I would say it's it's very real. I've never, you know, been a part of that or worked at a facility that that's happened or as far as I know, but I do think that is definitely. I mean, you're talking about people that you're hiring an entry level position and paying them not very good money to do a very very hard job. So to find good people to do that, trustworthy, all of those things.

It's hard.

My brother in law, Ben is a person with special needs. He has been a number of different facilities, and it dawned on me some years ago when you're paying a twenty one year old not very well trained that they title versus tech or whatever, which actually requires almost no education, and you're paying them thirteen bucks an hour to deal with a very very challenging human being in a very very challenging environment. It's fraught with.

Opportunity, absolutely, I mean, it takes a very very special person to do that and do it well, especially for that money. Like my biggest thing I say in every interview is you can't be doing this for the money. You know, you have to have a greater purpose to do this work or a sign of work.

You know, we'll be right back. So the whole point I'm asking these questions is this, I'm fifty six. You know a lot of people have heard my story. But my dad left them when I was young, and I didn't grow up with a whole lot, and I had a fair amount of dysfunction in my house. I worked hard. I threw a paper route, I washed cars man, I hustled up money anywhere I could to have what some other kids just walked in the house their parents came. But that's cool too, because that defines who I am.

I think that's a fair assessment.

That's also kind of what I feel compelled to do is to make that better for them. You can still have some enjoyment, you can still do some things, you can still it doesn't have.

To be a sad thing. It can be life giving and you know all.

Of those, which is why you're here because what you're doing is incredibly special. But absent you sure, I think?

Yeah?

Unfortunately, that's the reality for a lot of people who have given a ton to our society during their lives, and to me, that is just so desperately wrong. So when you hear the depression, that clinical depression is a big deal in nursing care facilities, well, if you actually really take stock of it and put yourself in that position, I'm fifty six. I don't want to be there in

And I think all of those things you were saying, you know that you're then you throw in that you're very vulnerable because you have to rely on someone else to take care of you. You can't do things for yourself, and your health may be failing. You know, all of

And you slur your words, you know what I mean, and so.

But you are exactly right, Parkinson's is not the person, and so kind of taking the disease out, yes, this person has way more to offer than just that, you know, to teach you if you sit and listen, just kind of what we do with the kids their way.

They had a full life they you know, and oftentimes.

The kids are very surprised, you know, they were a basketball player, they were a football coach, because they're in a wheelchair and maybe they can't do anything right now and maybe they're even slumped over and you can't barely understand them. But they have a life story, you know, and it's not over and they can still share it.

I also have a soul in a mind, and so that.

For really, yeah, and to be able to share that and relive that. That's kind of part of the idea too, because that brings them joy, you know. That's that's who they want people to remember them as.

So I don't know, you're driving around and old folks home shuts down, you think I want that what happened.

No, that is not so I kind of I I would kind of go home.

I worked, you know, in a few different places, and they all had wonderful qualities, but it just wasn't the essence of exactly the care I wanted to give.

And a lot of times in the corporate.

World you can't make changes because you know, they got to go through this and this and this and this, and so I got very frustrated by that process. Even as a supervisor, you couldn't make those changes that I felt like needed to happen.

So I'd go home and my husband kept saying, you're just going to do it yourself.

Husband, Joe, Joe. So you go home and say, yo, Joe, I ain't down with this. I got a better idea.

Well probably about five thousand.

Times, and then maybe I whittled him after it took a minute to say. First he'd say, you got to do it yourself. You gotta do it yourself, and we did.

He did say that, yes, well, to his credit, good for him.

Absolutely so, And I was like, no, I couldn't. Like, I was like, I don't think I can do that. But I'm a normal person.

I plus, I mean, he owes you. He did mess around with his best friend's sister. He owed you one, right, that's right, that's right.

He owes me a lot.

Absolutely, No, he was probably the one that encouraged me more. You know, I I kept I'm just a normal person.

You know, I can't run a business. I don't know the first thing about that.

You're a nurse with an idea, yeah, and a husband and three children.

Yeah yeah, And we don't come for money. We don't have.

Yeah.

Well that's not even if even.

Everywhere, even if your father left a will, it was split eighteen ways. There ain't much left.

Well, true story, that is very true.

Everybody gets to go to Applebee's. Yes, that's about it.

We got to go to McDonald's if we got a's and we got to go. So if you got straight a's at semester and then on your birthday, you got to go to eat.

I got to go. I'm so I got to go to Wendy's or straight ice on a report card. That's true. I always raised the same way.

It was a big deal.

It was a huge deal.

And now my kids are like, we don't want to eat out.

Yeah, yeah, losers, Yeah, spoiled brass. I raised four of them too. It's terrible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway, so during you know, we kind of started looking to build one, but again we're.

Not that's expensive, very expensive.

And then COVID you know, everything prices and we went to the bank a few times and it was like, we're never going to be able to do this. I am very faith driven, did a lot of praying. I had this journal that I would literally, I mean, I just kind of kept ideas to kind of keep me inspired.

So I had this and I would write.

Down things each night and be texting my sisters, Oh, this is what I'm going to name it, and you know whatever, to kind of keep inspired.

So this nursing home came up for sale.

I had a good girlfriend that lives in Alma, and she knew my dream and she said, you need to go look at it. The nursing homes closing and I said, that's not what I'm that's not what i'm doing, that's not what i'm thinking.

Nonetheless, as far as almost it's like.

Thirteen miles from where I live in your neighborhood.

Yeah, yeah, and it was. It's a very small town, so it was very devastating. It was a corporate facility that was closing. But I was kind of resistant because that wasn't my idea. I was going to build this, you know, exactly what I wanted, and da da da. But we went and my husband pretty much said, if you're going to do it, I think this is your shot.

But he's like, I think we could do it. This setup was kind of how we we it would work.

And so how are you going to buy this thing?

My father and mother in law graciously helped us, and then we my husband and I pretty much put everything out and your kids scrubbing. Yeah, so they get it inher a.

Red face and say, mom, why can't we get a contractor like normal people all the day?

Yeah, pretty much every day.

Too bad.

I think they still are know we have enough to hire somebody for that yet.

And that concludes part one of my conversation with Aaron Steele, and you do not want to miss part two. That's now we'll be able to listen to together. Guys, we can change this country, but it starts with you. I'll see you in Part two.