Care in common: Senior companions aid each other in hard times

Dec. 06--Rosemary Ministeri loves the company she keeps: birds, monkeys, small-breed dogs and a sugar glider in her suburban home.

But when her health problems began to worsen, Ministeri, 66, knew she needed some help to be able to stay in her house with her animals.

When she was hospitalized with pneumonia last year, Ministeri -- who has chronic progressive multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis and has twice had cancer -- allowed a social worker to set her up with some services: health insurance through TennCare, SNAP benefits that provide a small amount to help with groceries, and thrice-weekly visits from Beth Ovsianik through the Community Action Committee's Senior Companion program, which matches seniors who need minimal help to stay in their homes with seniors who can provide it.

"We just clicked," said Ovsianik, 57, who also spends two days a week as senior companion to another woman, who's older with impaired vision and a fractured back.

The two had much in common: Both had grown up in New York, lived in Florida and moved from there to Knoxville. Ministeri is divorced and Ovsianik a widow, each with two grown children. And both have suffered losses, with Ovsianik losing her husband, best friend and parents, for whom she was a caregiver, in a relatively short period of time.

After her father died in 2009 and her mother in 2012, Ovsianik said, she found herself aimless. Her husband had owned a carpentry business that went under after his 2006 death, and she lost her Florida house because she couldn't make the payments, she said. She and her husband had evacuated from Florida to East Tennessee during Hurricane Charley in 2004, and she remembered East Tennessee so fondly, she said, she decided to move here. But she struggled at first; injured in two separate accidents, she ended up living on a fixed income. It's supplemented by the small stipend from her senior companion job, for which she saw a flier when leaving the library one day and took as a "sign."

"I thought, 'This is what I need' " to help overcome her losses, Ovsianik said. "A year later, I'm a different person. It has opened my eyes and opened my heart."

An animal lover, she wasn't dissuaded by Ministeri's menagerie. In Florida, Ministeri spent the 1970s through the 1990s running a respite center for primates, even training a few monkeys as service animals. She said "hundreds" of monkeys have "passed through my life," including her favorite, Kizzy, a Capuchin monkey who died a few years ago and with whom Ministeri did education and entertainment events for hire.

"Kizzy was a tough act to follow -- she broke my heart," Ministeri said. "But when it breathes, it's a very temporary thing, so love and be grateful."

When Hurricane Charley hit, Ministeri was in Knoxville visiting a friend who also had monkeys. She ended up living in a camper in the friend's driveway, with eight monkeys and two sugar gliders, for nearly four years while she waited for an insurance settlement from the damages from Charley and Hurricane Florence, then bought a modest rancher with a fenced backyard and an attached garage to use as a "monkey room."

Ministeri had planned to continue her education and entertainment business with the monkeys she had who enjoyed that socialization, but her health worsened to the point she wasn't physically able to do that. She began using a wheelchair outside and a wheeled walker inside the house.

Her homeowners insurance settlement, she said, was about a third of what she'd expected. The hurricanes destroyed a collection of old toys and an extensive record collection she'd expected to be able to sell for a "rainy day fund," and she eventually used most of her savings, she said, until the hospital case worker asked her, "You do realize your financial situation is fragile, at best?" and wanted to know whether she could "humble" herself to receive social services.

"I'm a pretty good budgeter," she said, but even after going through CAC's weatherization program, "my electric bill is still half my monthly income."

She counts herself lucky none of the monkeys so far has run up a large veterinary bill.

This year, both women will get food baskets through the News Sentinel's Empty Stocking Fund, which they said will aid greatly. The fund provides food and gifts to about 3,500 needy East Tennessee families during the Christmas season.

Ministeri now has seven older birds, four small-breed dogs, a sugar glider and four monkeys. The monkeys range in age from 24 to 57 and don't enjoy socialization with humans as Kizzy did, she said, but she's earned their trust and enjoys their company.

But, they're not "pets," she said: "Monkeys make terrible, awful, no good, very bad pets." Many of hers through the years were surrendered by people who'd bought them as pets without researching how much work the care of adult monkeys, who routinely live 40 years or longer, requires.

Ovsianik helps feed the dogs and birds and cleans bird cages, but said Ministeri insists on cleaning the monkey room herself. Ovsianik also helps with light housecleaning, sometimes accompanies Ministeri to the grocery store or medical appointments, and helps her prioritize tasks and do them.

Each says she's anchored by the other's love and support.

"Every morning, this gives me a purpose," Ovsianik said. "In helping her with her life, it's helped me to go home and say, 'I feel good, now let me help myself.' It really has changed my life. It has given me a reason to get up in the morning."

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