Senior living communities keep their residents active by offering things like bingo and bringing in outside entertainment. But at one Rockford facility the highlight is its homegrown choir. WNIJ’s Yvonne Boose has more on how music benefits residents and choir members themselves.
Wesley Willows offers independent and assisted living, memory care and skilled nursing. It also gives some residents the opportunity to sing.
About 40 of them are a part of a choir that performs twice a year — around Easter and Christmas.
Walking into the community’s Castle Town Center was like entering a church on a Sunday morning. More than 100 people were listening to The Bards of the Willows perform its “Risen Indeed” concert.
“We love singing for the Lord,” explained choir director Richard Stiltner. “We love singing about the Lord. And that's what we do here at Christmas and Easter, we review and remember through song the great story of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
He said the choir was started over a decade ago by his predecessor, Marilyn Smith, whose husband lived in the memory care unit.
“It grew and grew and grew until we got to this point where most of us enjoy music," he said. “We enjoy being in a choir. We've been in a church choir or community choir before, and now we get to do it at Wesley Willows.”
Research from Linnaeus University in Sweden finds that singing can significantly improve memories of personal experiences, including time, place and emotions.
Stiltner said music excites the memory.
“We can sing songs we learned way back when we can't remember much else,” he said. “I've had a couple of members unsolicited this year saying how much, how meaningful this year has been for them, and largely because of their participation in the choir.”
Claire Burke is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and Art Therapist at the Institute of Therapy through the Arts in Evanston. She works closely with people with Alzheimer’s disease. She said older adults need this kind of cognitive stimulation.
“These older individuals kind of come to life because they get this joy,” she added. “They have this sort of wonderment. It often feels like a childlike wonderment of the arts.”
Barb Turley, 88, made her way from the choir as the concert ended.
“I love the people in it,” she said. “I love the feeling that we get being together, and we make lots of singing mistakes, and we get to laugh at it and enjoy it and then get to work hard and sing right.”
She and her friend Ann Badaluco both sang in choirs when they were younger. Badaluco said singing makes her "feel warm."
“I feel like a person,” she said. “I don't know how to describe it, but the words for me, when I sing, it is just like I'm talking to God.”
Badaluco’s husband died about six months ago. She said now that he’s gone, she must start doing something for herself and being in the choir helps.
Resident Lavonne Arendsee said listening to the choir will fulfill her for the rest of the month.
“It just makes me feel so good,” Arendsee said. “And I kind of wish I could sing with them, but I don't have the voice anymore.”
As the concert comes to an end, Allen Shuler leads the group in prayer. He’s the chaplain and director of spiritual care at Wesley Willows. He said singing brings the choir members joy.
“That they are able to share with the community,” he added, “their gifts and talents and it resonates — that joy and that sense of community, beloved community.”
Shuler directed his attention back to the choir as they closed things out with one more song, “Risen Indeed.”
The next concert isn’t until Christmas time, but the seniors will still come together every week for practice.
