Finding a Community
How did you both come to Saint John’s?
Michael Barndt: My wife and I moved here in 2011. I was 68 at the time. I was a professor at UW-Milwaukee, and I knew a number of friends who had moved here. We really wanted the kind of intellectual stimulation that we understood was going to be at Saint John’s. Of course, people come here for the location and the view, which is spectacular. But I think what we both recognized right off the bat was the community aspect of Saint John’s, the involvement of the residents. Before I moved in, I became part of the program committee, helping work on ideas. I put together programs on classical music that I’ve been doing routinely since. The staff here is willing to let you develop any idea that others support. It’s really a co-production between staff and residents. One example is our library complex, the tech center and media library – it’s entirely resident-run.
Jim Fergus: I came to visit with my wife, and it did not take us any time to decide. The aura of the place, everything we saw – we signed up that same day. Everyone knows each other here, and when someone new arrives, people will start a conversation, and that was really impressive to me. When you get older, you lose friends. I think sometimes for men, we don’t have social support groups. But here at Saint John’s, I’ve made many new friends, and that’s a wonderful thing. What Michael mentioned about co-production is really important because staff can never know what people living here want as well as the people themselves do, and Saint John’s has us all involved in how the community is run. One thing that’s unique here is you see the CEO, the COO often just walking around the building. If you want to bring something up, you can talk to them right away.
What are some ways residents get involved?
Fergus: One point I like to make is that just because you move in here doesn’t mean your life outside stops. I have a friend here who works at the cancer ward at Froedtert. There are a number of people who own their own businesses. Residents take classes at UWM. That’s just a few examples. It’s not like your whole life is different when you move in. I was a teacher, so Michael approached me to work with him to teach a four-month course about AI.
Barndt: That was a pretty wild ride, trying to stay on top of AI. One highlight for me has been my involvement with the Fine Arts Quartet at UWM. When the university said they couldn’t afford to support it, a group formed here at Saint John’s to work with the university to preserve the quartet. We’ve been funding return visits by the quartet, which is now coming up on its 80th birthday.
What would you say to someone who’s skeptical about moving in?
Fergus: If you ask anybody here, “Did you move in too early?” everybody will say, “I wish I had been here earlier.” When you move in at a younger age, you can be involved in more of the things available here. One thing that’s amazing is our resident assistants. We have one at the desk at each tower, and there’s no problem they can’t solve – problems with your apartment, your car, navigating appointments with your doctor. They can help with everything.
Barndt: One of the important things about new people moving in is that they bring new ideas. One couple moved in and said, “Where’s the pickleball court?” They put it together, and now it’s a regular activity here. Another person moved in and was concerned about vegan food. She worked closely with our food venues to make certain vegan options are always available. One resident is a strong photographer and leads a photography group. The message I have for anyone thinking about moving in is, don’t wait.
Moving Done Right
What are some of the biggest mistakes seniors make when moving?
One is staying in your house too long. Unfortunately, we can’t predict our health or the health of our spouse, and if we wait until we have no choice but to move, it turns into crisis management. When that happens, the entire moving process has to happen at once, immediately – finding a new place, selling your home. To me, that’s a sad and avoidable situation. The best antidote is education. It’s speaking to professionals. At Bruce’s Team, we consider ourselves consultants, not salespeople. If we’re asked to come out, we provide information: How much is your home worth? What is the market like? What is the selling process? Where you can you move?
How do you help people with the transition?
For older adults, there’s certainly more emotion involved than someone in their 20s who’s thinking of moving. I wrote a book called Moving in the Right Direction about this for seniors considering making the move. As a senior real estate specialist, I’ve seen all the different circumstances that can be a factor – maybe a loss of a spouse or an illness or a financial concern. And I know how to be sensitive to these things and provide all the help someone might need along the way. Our tagline is, “Taking you from overwhelmed to ‘I can do this.’” And we live by that. We know how overwhelming the move can seem, but we have the tools to make it manageable. We also partner with different companies – packing, sorting, donating, remodeling – that we know are trustworthy and will help with the process.
What sets your team apart?
Many years ago, when I was first getting started, I went to visit a home where a daughter was helping her mother move out. I walked into the house and talked to the mother. I asked how she was doing, what she was thinking, so on. The daughter stopped me and said that the last Realtor they’d spoken to walked in, never looked at her mother, and just asked, “When can you have her out of here?” When I heard that, I was flabbergasted. I decided that I wanted to make my living helping folks who are going through this time in their lives, and to do so in a compassionate, thoughtful way. And when I’ve hired new people to join the team, I’ve made sure they have the same approach. I think that’s really set us apart.
Planning Ahead
What are the benefits of pre-planning a service?
Pre-planning is something that we absolutely recommend to every family. It provides peace of mind, not just for the person who’s planning but for their family. Ultimately, what you’re doing is relieving the burden on those family members who would otherwise have to make those decisions. After someone passes, it’s a time for grieving, but if you’re too busy searching for documents or trying to pull money together, it can take away from that grief process and make the whole thing harder. If someone has already pre-planned, we don’t need to ask their family 100 questions about the service – those big decisions are already made.
When someone comes into our offices to pre-plan, we start with a conversation about what they’d like the service to look like, whether that’s a traditional casket, cremation or a green burial. Do they want it at a church, at our funeral home, at a park? And then we can get into those smaller details – what kind of flowers they want, memorial cards. If someone wants to pre-pay, we offer that, and we guarantee the price at the time of planning.
What green burial services do you offer?
People think of green burial as something new, but it’s really not. It’s the way people have been buried for centuries. When we’re talking about green burial, there are two key things: no chemical embalming and no burial vault. It’s all natural processes. The casket we choose is completely biodegradable, like wood, sea grass, or a burial shroud. We also have biodegradable urns for cremation. Here, we have two cemeteries that offer green burial – Forest Home and Prairie Home in Waukesha.
What makes Schramka unique?
We have such a creative team that really cares about making every funeral as personal as can be. We take pride in the details. For one funeral, we transformed our funeral home into a beach, for another, a wood-carving shop. Those were important themes for the people who’d passed and their families, and it made the whole setting a great place to share memories. The family is there to remember a life, and we love to create a setting that helps that happen.
We also educate people in the community. We do presentations at libraries, workplaces. We’re hosting a Veterans Resource Fair at every one of our locations in November to explain how VA benefits work for funerals – what’s covered and what isn’t. And we’ll be showing veterans the options and resources that are available for them, including a demonstration of an honor guard.
We host coffee and conversation grief events that are open to the public. There’s no agenda. It’s an opportunity to talk to others who have experienced loss and find community there. And we do many more events like that. Being involved in the community is really important to us.
