By Loretta Humble
Bear with me folks; it’s time for my semi-annual brag-on-my-own-company column. And could you blame me? Cedar Lake Nursing Home once more got singled out by Medicare and US News and World Report as one of the best nursing homes in the country, with another five-star rating. That’s big, folks. Last year we were the only one in something like a 10-county area. This year several more got five stars. South Place in Athens did, and so did Mabank Nursing Home. But we are the only ones anywhere around here who have got this award two years in a row.
And, if I may say so, we deserve it. Cedar Lake Nursing Home is a wonderful place. The people who work here are the best. It has been our pride and joy for 46 years now. But I guess we’ve been taking it for granted a little bit, because we totally forgot to celebrate our 46th anniversary last week. The reason Sonny remembered it—after the fact—is because one of our favorite former nurses (who now works at Beau’s nursing home) reminded Sonny she was born on the day we got the nursing home. I would tell you who, but Sonny says she might not want her age printed in the paper.
I usually take time on our anniversary to bring out my little story of how Doug Humble Jr. and I became owners of Cedar Lake way back then. If we’d been a little older and had got a little more cautious, we probably wouldn’t have done it. With no money down, no reserve in the bank, and three little kids to support, we took on three notes to make Cedar Lake our own. It had 30 beds then, and only 20 of them were occupied. Doug had about a year’s nursing home experience; I had none. The place had never turned a profit. Now it had to not only support itself, but our young family as well. Somehow it did.
It was a big gamble. But I am so glad we took it. We put our whole lives into it, and the people who worked there and the people who lived there became our family. They still are. Many of those first staff members stayed with us until they retired. Quite a few of them later became residents. We have had several instances of three generations of the same family working for us through the years. (Not at the same time usually, but with Beulah Avant’s family, maybe.)
I can’t tell this story without mentioning Charlene Owen. She was Charlene Abbe then. She was a young nurse who had come to work the year before we came, but she was already becoming the mother hen of the place. She took us by the hand, and together we made it work. Later she got her administrator’s license, and ruled with a firm but gentle had between the administrator years of Douglas Humble Jr. and Sonny, Douglas Humble III. Much of what the nursing home is today has its roots in the good start Charlene got it off to.
As the nursing home filled, we added first one wing and then another, and then in 1983 we expanded a new way by starting the first local home health agency in the area. Then in 1988 we finally got up the nerve to build the nice 90 bed facility we have now. It is hard to believe we’ve been in our “new” nursing home building that long.
Time flies when you are having fun.
Would like to Bragg on nursing staff they are so polite and always have a smile on their faces they take time to answer questions and walking down the Hallway to the one I am visiting I notice how they care for their patience. As I am visiting they always stop by to let me know how my friend is doing mrs. Pogue and she tells me how much she loves the staff it is great to know your loved ones are being taken care of and not being mistreated. I can tell how hard the nursing staff works. Also I would like to say that Amanda hall and Annette Pouge are for being such wonderful and caring nurses. May this great nursing home continue its great legacy of caring for many more years to come.
What a nice comment! I just found it. I’m going to pas it on to folks at the nursing home.