Lois Hartman: A relaxing time in Personal Care

Lois Hartman grew up in Philadelphia, but after moving to a slightly more rural setting, she enjoyed life amid the greenery. There was just one problem.

“In Philadelphia, we roller-skated on the streets because they were smooth,’’ she recalled. “When we got to Glenside, I couldn’t roller skate because the streets were macadam.”

Today, Lois is a Homeland resident who first arrived in May 2021. She loves her personal care suite and the freedom to do what she wants every day.

Lois grew up in the West Oak Lane neighborhood of Philadelphia until the family moved to the historic village of Glenside in Cheltenham Township. Her father was a Bell Telephone of Pennsylvania worker. Her mother stayed home with Lois and her brother and sister until the family moved to Glenside when she became a teacher.

In high school, Lois had an active social life, and while she was attending Pierce Business School in Philadelphia, she started dating a friend, Donald, from her church group.

“We were very active in church,” she says. “We did everything. We went roller skating. There were a million things that we did. We were just a group that got along.”

Lois and Donald got married in 1958, and she used her business skills to handle the paperwork for her husband’s business, a Hess gasoline station on Route 1 in Langhorne.

“It was very, very busy,” she says.

Lois and Donald had two children, a son and a daughter, but sadly, he was diagnosed with cancer after they had been married almost 20 years. It was in April, and by August, he had died. She took over the business, but it was in the days when self-service was coming to Pennsylvania gas stations. The company wanted to rebuild the old station, so she decided to give it up and sold it back.

“It was worthwhile work, but I wanted to work in a bank,” she says. She joined Girard Bank part-time, performing customer service in Warminster.

She enjoyed the work, helping people open accounts and taking loan applications. She got to know the ins and outs of the bank and was in line for a branch manager position, but love intervened again. She met her second husband, Jim, “after six years of being single.”

Jim worked hard to earn his psychology license and joined the Carbondale-Lehigh Intermediate Unit, which provides educational services for children with disabilities and learning barriers. He worked there until he retired.

Jim and Lois were very close through more than 30 years of marriage until he passed away around 2013.

“I like it very much here,” she says. “I like everything about it.” She plays bingo and goes on outings, such as a recent excursion to Gilligan’s restaurant. Her personal care suite is bright and cheery.

“I’ve been very happy here,” she says. “I can do what I want without anything bothering me. I like it very much. I like the way everything goes.”