PRINTMemory cues: A room in a nursing home
A woman with dementia is surrounded by mementos of her long life
Christina Manolis
Vi Campbell is a former MU Student Health Center nurse and a patient with dementia. She is surrounded in her nursing home room by photos of her past and present.
November 4, 2010 | 12:00 a.m. CST
A laminated sign above the bed where the 95-year-old woman lies sleeping reads “Viola ‘Vi’ Campbell.” It was printed on copier paper with a border of autumn leaves. Sounds of nurses greeting residents or being summoned on the intercom trail inside the room and mingle with the chatter of Kathie Lee Gifford that blares from the television.
The view from her bed falls on a patchwork of photos of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The names of the youngest are written carefully in Magic Marker on white slips of paper tacked above their pictures: Jacob, Connor, Addie, Ryann and Caiden.
- A beautiful home: The room of an interior designer
- The cooking nook: The kitchen of three Chinese women
- The kids' corner: A second-grade classroom
- Room of dreams: A 3-year-old's bedroom
- The safe space: The women's center
- Room for development: A photographer's darkroom
- The art of folding: An origami artist's studio
- Drag Duds: A drag queen's bedroom
- Man cave: An outdoorsman's underground lair
- Sewing sequins: A seamstress' workroom
- On the inside looking out: A pastor's office with a view
- Artist Hideaway: A painter's studio
- Clippers: One man's living room barber shop
- A room of their own
To the left of the images, an industrial paper towel dispenser stands as a mounted reminder of Vi’s sterile confines. A small photo revealing a younger Vi is displayed in a silver frame atop a table filled with medical supplies, extra blankets and copies of Reader’s Digest. The young Vi gazes to the side while looking solemn and distinguished in her military jacket and tie. Her shapely lips appear to be painted in lipstick. Her short hair curls neatly under her garrison cap. Next to the photo is a white coffee mug filled with dusty plum-colored tulips. A black-and-white photo of her late husband, a uniformed Army colonel with salt-and-pepper hair, a round nose and black-rimmed glasses, is perched on another shelf high in the corner next to the TV.
A colorful painting of a German village hangs next to her bed. She painted it after World War II while she and her husband were stationed there — he a soldier moving up in the ranks and she an Army nurse. The work shows a red towel hung out to dry on the balcony of a ceramic-shingled cottage. The careful inscription reads “V. Campbell 1952.”
The only relic of her many travels as a widow is another photo tacked to the bulletin board to the right of her bed. A gray-haired Vi stands with two girlfriends on the Charles Towne Princess, a sightseeing boat in the Charleston Harbor in South Carolina. Vi’s smile makes her eyes shine above her round, plump cheeks.
Today Vi doesn’t remember any of this. Today she drifts in and out of sleep under a thick blue fleece blanket as nurses come and go from her private room while evidence of her long life lies on display around her.
