In the United States, we love touring old homes, ghost haunted battlegrounds, and museums. We are in awe of the majesty of antebellum mansions, we mourn our losses at Gettysburg, we are drawn to events and activities that honor our past. We spend millions of dollars annually to meander the alleyways and hallways of our fore-mothers and fore -fathers. We have an interest in these aged places because they tell a story, the story of who we are, where we came from and oftentimes a clue to where we are going. We cherish these places. We hold them dear. We nurture these places. They deteriorate, we fix them. They hold a special value, these old things. Yet, when it comes to human lives, the lives of our older citizens, we view them as outliving their usefulness. Often, our elderly become nothing but victims of entertainment in the minds of sadistic narcissists who are to care for our older adults.

This post will address elder abuse in America including a personal story of abuse in my backyard.

In the US, according to the National Council on Aging, 10% of Americans over the age of 60 have experienced some form of elder abuse. During the pandemic, those numbers shot to 20%. One percent is too much. Ten to twenty percent is barbaric. We cherish old things but abuse old people.

What is elder abuse? Abuse takes many forms. Elder abuse can range from financial abuse, emotional abuse, and or physical abuse including neglect and mistreatment. Yes, here in America, we abuse our elderly. We abuse them in our homes, and in our facilities that we entrusted to care for our loved one(s).

And in doing so, we not only impact the elderly victim, but we also forever scar the lives of those who love them.

I would like to share a story about abuse of a very special woman who touched my life.

I was about 9 years old when a family with a young daughter moved next door. I was ecstatic. I learned quickly that mom was the gatekeeper. Mom was Alice Longenberger. As a youngster, she stood at least 8 feet tall and put fear in my soul. Initially, she scared me. I just wanted to play with her kid and here she stood at the doorway, looking at me. I knew she was looking straight through me and taking inventory of my soul. I thought her daughter must be royalty and she was assessing my value. That fear melted away as she welcomed me into her home. She was a no-nonsense woman and you always knew where you stood with her. She was strong. Unbelievably strong. Next to my grandmother, she was the strongest woman I had known at that time. She was kind and caring. Only when the family had plans would she tell me Lynn, her daughter, could not play. Mrs. L always made me feel welcome. Without saying a lot to me, I always felt she cared about me.

Time, of course, moves forward as we do in life. The Longenberger family moved, I graduated High School and left the area. Fifty years later, I returned, only to find out that my beloved Mrs. L. needed the services of a care facility due to the deterioration of her health. As I read the morning paper, horror and anger filled my veins. Mrs. L had been a victim of the most denigrating and sickening abuse. Staff members entrusted with her care had taken pictures of Mrs. L, as she struggled with dementia, in inhumane and compromising positions. These pictures were then uploaded to the internet for the world to see the true meaning of evil. In an event the employees found funny, Mrs. L was stripped of her dignity, her human dignity. Yet, despite her mental decline, she survived this sadistic “entertainment” found pleasurable in the twisted minds of two employees. Mrs. L was not going to be a victim. The woman I knew was still the same strong woman who was the gatekeeper of her home 50 years ago. She also raised two daughters who would not allow their mother to be a victim. Her daughter, Lynn Fiedler sounded the alarm. She organized Alice’s Army, and the Journey for Justice began. After a year of pain, guilt, and disgust, justice was somewhat served and the ringleader who was even questioned by the judge about her moral depravity, was sentenced.

Unfortunately, Alice passed away on July 15of this year, leaving a grieving family and her army of friends to celebrate her life while mourning her loss. Yet, we know this is not the end of the story and in many ways, it is only the beginning as her daughters and their families continue the battle cry, as they work with state representatives, the local district attorney, and other concerned citizens to pass SB 885 which will be Alice’s Law.

The question I cannot stop asking is how did this happen? As a society, have we lost all sense of morality? Do we no longer respect the wisdom of the ages? As we renovate old buildings, protect old documents and value our antiques as priceless, how have we tossed away the significance, the dignity and the respect of the generations before us? Alice Longenberger along with the entire elder population carved an America that gave us the Baby Boomers, the women’s movement, the Black Rights movement and the gay revolution. They are our Freedom Riders. They were our barometer on the Vietnam war. They are the children who lived through WWII, watched their fathers go to war and witnessed the horrors of the holocaust. They opened the doors for women on so many levels.   They are our mothers who empowered us daughters to realize dreams beyond the kitchen sink. They offered our generation and subsequent generations the opportunity to reach for the sky with our dreams, our imagination and our hope. So when did they become worthless? When did we make them throwaways?

Did the Baby Boomers create this type of environment? Did later generations create our blatant disrespect for our elders? When and how did we allow our elders to become disenfranchised? Have our moral compasses become so broken because of the factions within our country or because of fractures in our souls? When did demeaning and disrespecting other human beings especially those who hold the wisdom of the ages become an internet sensation? Where have we failed as a community, as a nation?

Unfortunately, I do not have the answers as I can not answer for everyone. As human beings, we are to protect our most vulnerable. We are to honor and respect our elders. We are to adhere to the code we were raised with of “do unto others.” Yet, somewhere we lost our way. We no longer are concerned with our neighbor. We ignore the cries of loneliness from our parents and grandparents. We take humiliating and disgusting pictures of our elderly and post them on the internet as in a contest to see who can be the most inhumane. We no longer care about human dignity.

What happened to Alice Longenberger and so many elderly people in the care of their families and facilities are not isolated incidents. Abuses to our elderly are a daily occurrence across this nation. It is time for us to re-calibrate our moral compasses. It is time for us to give less attention to things and more emphasis on people. It is time for us to embrace the legacies of our elder population. It is through their lives that we move forward. It has been their struggles, their successes, their losses and their triumphs that forged our paths. And it is time for us all to reckon with the reality that how we treat, care for and nurture our elder population as it is a direct reflection on our own humanity and that humanity will be judged for generations to come.

If you are being abused or know someone who is, PLEASE contact the National Abuse Hotline:

Elder Abuse: 1-800-490-8505

Child Abuse: 1-800-422-4453

Until next time! Remember BE KIND!