The year Frank Martines retired from the Cleveland (OH) City Schools, a good friend died suddenly. He and his wife, Monica, looked at each other and made a decision.
“It’s time for us to do what we want to do,” Monica remembers saying, “because we never know when we’re not going to be able to.”
So they traveled, taking about two dozen trips to Europe over the years. They learned to ballroom dance on an Alaskan cruise and kept dancing for decades. And in 2013, they joined Kendal at Home.
Frank is now 88, Monica is 86. They live in Beachwood and enjoy watching their grandchildren grow up and going out to dinner with friends. They took some time to share more about their lives together and why they wish more of their friends would consider Kendal at Home membership.
Monica started her career as a newspaper reporter, including a stint at the then-Cleveland Press, then stepped away for a few years to start their family. When she returned to work, she moved into public relations and marketing, first at The Music School Settlement, then AmeriTrust, and finally Third Federal, where she led internal and external communications for nearly 20 years.
One of her favorite memories came when Third Federal went public. She helped plan the milestone and traveled to New York, where she got to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
“It’s a very interesting field, and it’s never boring,” she says.
Frank spent 36 years with the Cleveland City Schools, starting as a teacher and rising to the superintendent’s central office. He was there in the late 1970s when a federal court ordered the desegregation of Cleveland’s schools, and he helped manage the district’s response, including the closure of 50 school buildings.
He retired as director of school-based management, having served under 13 superintendents.
Retirement barely slowed him down. He spent the next 18 years as an educational consultant for the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation, visiting schools across northern Ohio to see the classroom projects the foundation funded.
“Teachers are very creative,” he says, “and kids are very receptive when they have creative teachers.”
Frank and Monica both helped care for their mothers, who spent their final years in nursing homes. Monica’s twin sister needed nursing home care as well. They knew firsthand how hard those years can be on a family.
Their son lives less than a mile away and their daughter is based in Chicago. Although they know their children would drop everything to help them if they had to, Frank and Monica didn’t want them to have to make that decision.
“I said, let’s see if we can figure out something that would make us independent when we’re older,” Monica says, “and not have to rely on our kids to figure out what to do with us.”
Frank remembers hearing a radio ad about Kendal at Home, and they received an invitation to join a luncheon to learn more. During the lunch, they ran into someone they already knew who was a member and described the support Kendal had given her in her first year.
Kendal at Home’s status as a not-for-profit rooted in Quaker principles mattered to them too. “They’re interested in getting the job done,” Frank says, “not how much money they can make out of the process.”
Over the past decade, Monica and Frank have experienced several challenges where they were grateful to have support from a care coordinator.
Before moving to their current home, Monica had a serious fall that left her with a broken vertebra. She spent weeks recovering in the second-floor bedroom of their three-story Shaker Heights home, with a card table and a TV for company. Kendal at Home arranged for a caregiver who came every day to prepare meals and help her with household chores.
Later, when Frank had hip replacement surgery, his doctor said he shouldn’t be home alone for the first couple of weeks. Kendal provided companion care so Monica could leave the house without worrying.
Several years later, Monica fell again and broke her femur. An ambulance took her to Hillcrest Hospital for surgery. Within 24 hours, their care coordinator, Melissa Neman, was at the hospital, meeting with her doctors and working through what would come next.
“I felt so well taken care of,” Monica says. “I didn’t have to worry about what was going to happen next.”
Melissa arranged physical and occupational therapy visits at home, then helped set up ongoing appointments. Today, Frank and Monica meet with a trainer once a week to keep building strength and balance.
The couple also has long-term care insurance, so they’ve seen how differently the two work. Their insurance requires a 90-day elimination period and detailed documentation before benefits begin.
With Kendal at Home, “you call up and say, ‘I’ve got a problem,’” Frank said, “and they say, ‘Okay, how can we help you solve the problem?’”
Two years ago, they moved to a single-story home in Beachwood, with the laundry, kitchen, and bedrooms all on one floor.
Shortly after they moved in, an inspector referred by Kendal discovered the dryer wasn’t venting properly, and this year he flagged leaking skylights before they became a bigger problem.
Staying in their own home also means staying near their church, their friends, and their neighborhood. And it means making their own decisions.
“As members of Kendal at Home, we make the rules,” Frank says. “But we’re also responsible for the rules we make.”
That distinction is what they try to convey when they talk with friends and family about Kendal about their decision. “It’s not just healthcare, and it’s not long-term care insurance,” Frank said. “It’s a support system.”
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