NURSING HOMES - APPROPRIATE STORIES |
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NURSING HOMES - APPROPRIATE STORIES |
SOS: SEARCHING OUT STORIES AND INFORMATION - NURSING HOMES - APPROPRIATE STORIES
Advice, Comments and References from Storytellers, Teachers and Librarians
(excerpts from Storytell posts plus original research)
Book titles and online links are in blue and underlined. Click on them for more information.
Story and song titles are in quotation marks.
To retell any stories, get permission from the copyright holder if the material is not in the public domain.
Storytell posts are added as they are received by Story Lovers World.
1) I've done some performances for mixed populations like that --one thing that helps is a strong visual component, lots of color and motion (I wear a tie-dyed outfit and juggle multicolored hula hoops, you mght come up with something different) -- that way those who aren't following the narrative thread have something to pay attention to...
2) A story that I often told in old age homes was the tale of "Hina and the Moon", a version on Laura Simm's tape with Yellow Moon Press called Moon on Fire: Calling Forth the Power of the Feminine
3) I don't know if you feel up to a fart story, but one was posted about a year ago. Old lady in chair, slowly tilts over to one side. Attentive nurse immediately restores her to the perpendicular. Few minutes later tilts slowly to the other side - nurse gently pushes her upright again. This repeats, from side to side. Asked later how she like the nursing home. "Well, they're too damned polite for my tastes - won't even let you fart!"
4) I always find The Three Wishes (An Easy-to-Read Folktale)
http://sacred-texts.com/neu/yeats/fip/fip67.htm
Note from JB: You can find a full-text version of "The Three Wishes," a Spanish Fairy Tale (1920) (public domain) at
http://www.story-lovers.com/grandmaskneethreewishes.html
RESPONSES:
a) This is also a wonderful story for children. I used it last year in a program in elementary classrooms celebrating our elders in nursing homes. It was very well received.
b) I agree. And I've told the story with two children walking in the woods who are poor and very hungry when they save the life of the wood fairy. It adds a whole new dimension to the story. In my particular version, he as a banana dangling on his nose. And, of course, their wishes are completely different. I've used it for birthday parties and personalized the story. It is just a gem to work with.
c) Thank you all for your helpful suggestions for my Nursing Home Program. Marilyn and Mary suggested The Three Wishes (An Easy-to-Read Folktale)
d) Is this the Grimms Tale that I know as "The Fisherman and His Wife"?
If so, it is at: http://www.bartleby.com/17/2/10.htmlAdded response to d) above: Oops! That's not the same story at all. Sorry! The fisherman catches a fish which offers him 3 wishes in exchange for tossing it back into the sea. The fisherman goes home to tell his wife and wishes for a sausage. The wife, disgusted that he wasted a wish scolds him and ends her scold by saying "I wish the sausage were on your nose!" There is nothing left to do but use the third wish to get it off. I have heard this story livened up in many wonderful ways!
e) I never heard it with a fisherman. It's usually a woodcutter in the versions I've heard. But your fracturing made me think. We have a Horseradish Festival in nearby Collinsville, IL. Yes, it is the "Horseradish Capital of the World." There's something in the old Mississippi bottom land that produces the finest horseradish. So, they have the horseradish queen, horseradish throwing, etc. This year they had the radish carved to look like soapbox cars and had races. Sometimes they ask me to tell and I've told Gigantic Turnip, The (Tell Me a Story) (Hardcover with CD) (Book & CD)
with a horseradish in its stead. But The Three Wishes would be a hoot also. I can just hear the poor husband say, "Oatmeal! Oatmeal! Why I'd rather eat anything but another bowl of oatmeal. I just wish I had a, a, a, horseradish instead of oatmeal!" And in comes this big ole horseradish - root, complete with leaves and dirt and lands in front of him. Of course, the only time this would be really funny would be during the Horseradish festival. In case you are wondering. The Horseradish Festival is over this year. But it's held in Collinsville, IL - the home of the largest ketchup bottle. But that's another story for another time.
f) I did a version of The Three Wishes. I didn't change the story a whole lot, but I drew Bill and Hillary Clinton as the husband and wife. You know it took on a whole new twist just by changing the characters! I didn't have to change a lot of the lines or story. It takes place in a magical land called Washington DC. basically the story is the same, but here is how is twist a bit. Just like the original story, Bill still complains he is hungry and wishes for the sausages, Hillary scolds him for always thinking with his stomach and wishes the sausages on the end of his nose. They then go through a whole list of ideas for what they are going to do about the president having sausages on the end of his nose. At first she says lets just deny the sausages are there. Just say, "I did not have sausages on the end of my nose." Of course everyone will see the sausages, you cant deny them! We cant deny it. They then say, lets wish to be filthy rich, and then buy a golden bag, and we can cover up the sausages. Of course we can't cover up the sausages, everyone will see the bag, and know we are trying to cover something up! We cant just cover it up. Finally they waste the last wish and wish the sausages back on the plate. Bill of course is still happy because he got what he wanted in the first place, a plate full of sausages. And I end with the Moral of the story. "It's Washington D.C, there are no morals."
g) Nursing home patients always seem to enjoy "Jack Stories." Also tell fractured fairy tales.
6) How about the 60-year-old man with a 60-year-old wife who wished for a wife 30 years younger than himself, and zap, he was 90.
Last night at the Dublin Yarnspinners session, Attracta Dooley from County Offaly told this. Her young granddaughter asked her how old she was. She said she had had so many birthdays she had forgotten. Kid said, "Look inside your knickers [panties]. It says 'age 5-7' inside mine."
I had forgotten I knew this before Attracta told it. Researcher goes to nursing home to learn secrets of longevity, asks stooped old man, he says, "Milk. Milk for breakfast, lunch, dinner, before bed." "How old are you?" "93." Next old man, more stooped, "Whiskey. Whiskey for breakfast, lunch, dinner, before bed." "How old?" "94." Next, really stooped, broken-down, feeble, shaky, "Women. Women for breakfast, lunch, dinner, before bed." "How old?" "45."
Dan Culliton of County Laois told this one. (Both Dan and Attracta are well ripened by age.) Man went to London to work, worked hard 6 months, exhausted, went to doctor who gave him medicine that would make him a young man again, decided to send it to his mother in Ireland, returned to Ireland after another year, walking down main street of town saw gorgeous young woman wheeling a pram (baby buggy), introduced himself. She said, "You're gone 18 months and you've forgotten your own mother?" "What happened?" "I took some of that medicine you sent me." "Who's the kid?" "Your father. He got most of it."
7) I couldn't agree more that nursing home residents enjoy story for enjoyment. I have just finished a year's program at the seminary teachers college on Movement and Exercise for the elderly, which involved fieldwork doing sessions in a senior residence which has a large nursing home section. On my third visit I decided to let go, and gave the lesson with two dog puppets, the kind that go on your hand, in this case one goes all the way down my arm. I had them first make finger movements like a barking dog and then do ears so they would have their own dogs! Participation was super in the whole lesson. Of course you yourself have to be a bit wild, but else how be a teller?
8) "Little White Box" by Roger Dean Kiser
Story:
"What is it that Mrs. Mathers keeps talking on about?" I asked the nurse at the front desk of the nursing home where I had been working for about a week.
"I don't know. I just don't know. She has been here for two weeks. The family knows that she will not live for another month. So they choose to place her in a nursing home facility. She constantly goes on and on about some damn little white plastic box," the nurse replied.
"Something about a box?" I questioned.
"Just get her dressed for bed and forget about her rambling ons," she instructed me.
"Yes Ma'am," I said as I walked away from the nursing station.
Every day when I came to work, Mrs. Mathers would ask about the little white box. She lay in her bed all day, with her hands partially covering her face. Each time I moved her hands away from her face, in order to wash them, I would see tears rolling down her cheeks.
"Before I die. My little white box. Please..." she would say out loud.
"Mrs. Mathers. I don't know what you mean, " I would tell her. Every day it was the same routine. No matter what I would say to her I just could not understand what it was that she was taking about.
Several times, over the next week, the doctor was called to attend to Mrs. Mathers. I would stand outside her room to see if the doctor would pull her through. After the doctor would leave, I would go in and wipe her forehead and make sure that she was comfortable.
"My house. My little white box. Please..." she would start saying, over and over.
At three thirty, as I was about to get off work, I walked up to the desk and I pulled out Mrs. Mather's chart.
"1333 Whitmark" was her last known address. I drove the five miles or so until I located the address that I had written down on my pad. When I arrived I saw that there was an estate sale going on. There were cars, and people, everywhere.
"You're going to have to get a number if you are going to bid," said one of the men, as I walked up.
"I'm not going to bid," I replied.
I walked around the house for about ten minutes looking at what all had been tagged for sale. As I entered the dining room, I saw a gentleman wrapping various items and stuffing them into cardboard boxes. Sitting on the edge of the table was a little white plastic box. "Excuse me. By any chance did you buy this little white box?" I asked him.
"I bought everything in this room," he stated.
"Could I look inside this little white box," I asked him.
"Sure. There's nothing in there of any value," he told me.
Slowly I opened the box and I looked inside.
"OH MY GOD!" I said to myself.
"Can I have this box?" I asked the man.
"Not worth nothin' to me," he said.
I ran out of the house as fast as I could and I headed back to the nursing home. When I arrived, I walked into Mrs. Mather's room. "Mrs. Mathers. It's me, Roger. Look what I got!" I told her. Slowly she opened her eyes. She began to shake as she reached out and took the little white box from my hand. "Water," she said to me.
I walked over to the sink and I got her a cup of water. I sat it down on the dinner tray and I just stood there.
"Thank you, dear," she told me.
"You're very welcome," I told her, as I patted her on the hand.
I wanted her to know I understood that she was a fine lady and a private person. I bowed my head forward as I left her room in my most gentlemanly manner.
When I returned to work the next day, I learned that Mrs. Mathers had passed away during the night.
Of all my years of working in nursing homes, though there were many deaths, I only attended two funerals. One was that of Mrs. Mathers.
I stood by the casket, for more than an hour, as many people filed past. I could not count the times that I heard her friends say, "Jane looks at least twenty years younger with her dentures in."
Stories from "The Life and Times of Roger Dean Kiser"
http://www.rogerdeankiser.com
9) Two years ago I compiled helpful hints for telling to 3-5 year olds and use it in a workshop I do called "The Perfect Story from Nursery School to Nursing Homes." You can go to my website at
http://www.marilynkinsella.org/
and look under "Teacher Teller."
Marilyn K. 12/7/05
Created 2005; last update 1/10/10
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