In 2012, Liz Moses-Culp started the senior citizen home, Moses Caregivers, to save her mother. She didn’t know if she could do it, she said, but she had to.
Moses is from Northwest, Indiana, and graduated from Portage High School. After school, she went straight to working and then owning a beauty salon for seven years. She transferred to the Porter County Expo Center where she became a manager of the bar and assistant manager for running the banquet center. She was there for 15 years when she changed jobs again, taking over a senior citizen group home in Portage.
“It was something entirely different!” she said of the senior home. “It was stressful. From a beauty salon to a banquet hall to a senior living center… Oh my Goodness, I really had to learn. I had to learn a lot. At first I didn’t know if I could do this, then I was like ‘I have to do this, it’s my mother.’”
While Moses was working at the Expo Center, she and her two sisters were also sharing the duties of caring for their mother who suffered from dementia. Quickly though, her mother was getting worse, and the sisters decided to put her into a small group home, not a nursing home. Unfortunately, the woman who owned the home decided to sell it within months of the move-in.
“Instead of selling it, I took it over,” Moses said. “I took it over for one year, then bought my own place.”
The new place is the Moses Caregivers duplex, which can house up to eight people, four on each side. There is 24-hour care, with two people assisting at the house at all times, Moses explained.
While Moses does all the management tasks, her niece Melissa Ridgley is the main caregiving nurse. Though it was nerve-wracking starting a complete new business, the two knew this was what they were supposed to do.
“My niece came on board right off the bat and was already helping take care of my mother,” Moses said. “She (Ridgley) realized that was what she wanted to do, to take care of somebody. So, I hired her the same time I took over the place.”
The home is just that: a big, family-like home. Guaranteeing the residents are as comfortable as possible and are able to call their living quarters home was the number one goal Moses and her staff wanted to accomplish and maintain.
When her own mother was in the home for a few months, Moses said they knew she was happy because she was able to call it home. So, that’s how Moses now runs her own place.
“We try to make it just like their home atmosphere,” she said. “Each person gets their own room and we encourage them and their families to decorate it the same way they have it at home.”
The staff manages the house with the same routines as living at home, such as having lunch at noon and dinner at 5 p.m., but if they don’t want to eat then they don’t have to, Moses explained. Snacks are offered when desired and family members are welcome to visit at any time.
“That’s how we do it here,” she said. “They live their life with dignity. I just keep saying I give them dignity. They are all loved, they are taken care of, and they see it as their home. Just like it was for my mother. She was able to say it was her home and that made us happy and that’s why I knew I had to do this, why I knew I could do this. I thank her all the time because that’s how I got to the profession that I love.”
Another unique, family-style benefit of Moses Caregivers is the home cooked meals prepared just for the residents.
Moses’ sister Diana Cheeks cooks each meal, and if knowing one resident dislikes something on the plate, then she will add to her menu to accommodate them, she explained.
“That is her main goal, to make them happy with eating,” Moses said. “She knows what kinds of cakes and desserts they like too. They are all big dessert people!”
The little extra steps, such as taking them outside to the see the fireworks on July 4th, and giving out presents and a birthday cake to each person on their special day, are ways the staff goes above and beyond to make this a truly home-away-from-home atmosphere.
Moses enjoys living in Portage near her family, and when she can she travels across the U.S to find more of Moses clan.
“I am a huge genealogy freak,” she said. She studies and documents her family tree, dragging her husband to family cemetery sites and is currently writing a book about her family’s past.
She is a member of the Portage Chamber of Commerce, and enjoys spending time with her family, playing with her cats, and helping her husband at his mechanics shop detailing the cars.
She is happy with her life in many ways, but especially thanks her residents of the home for bringing her a sense of joy she never had before.
“It makes you happy when you go in there,” she said. “You realize what life is. They are happy where they are living and that makes me feel good. That’s it the bottom line.”