The Amherst news-times. (Amherst, Ohio), 2000-02-09

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Amherst News-Time
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Wednesday, February 9, 2000
Amherst, Ohio
Dear, will you be my Valentine?
by STEVE BARRY
News-Times reporter
For most of the people who married 40 and SO years ago, the game
plan was simple. You found someone, fell in love, got married, had
children and planned on growing
old together.
There was no contingency plan,
no prenuptial agreements. People
made a commitment before God and
everybody and they just understood
that they had to learn to work it out
To them, love was a commitment,
not a feeling. Both parties did whatever was necessary to make it work.
And for the most part, an entire generation held to those standards.
We decided to ask some "senior"
couples, who had been struck by
Cupid's arrow decades ago, how
they managed to remain each
other's Valentine for so many years.
Ernestine Schmitz learned that
sometimes love requires some sacrifices, and that the needs of the marriage outweighs personal desires
and wants.
Her husband Henry mentioned
when they were First married, the
house they moved into in New Russia Township had no indoor plumbing. Bathroom facilities amounted to
an outhouse.
Ernestine remembered that in the
summer time there were the wasps,
that hung out in such places, and in
the winter you could freeze yourself
to the seat if you weren't careful.
"I came from town out here to the
sticks with him," Ernestine Schmitz
said, "I didn't know how long I'd
last with an outhouse."
One of Henry's first projects as a
husband was to build an indoor
bathroom, which happened within
the first few months of being there.
Their story began back in school
— they were high school
sweethearts. Both were on the band
drill team, and one day Henry asked
her to go to the football game with
him. She agreed to meet him after
band practice and he took her home.
They dated five years before marrying, because Henry wanted a
house before they got married. And
he said their financial policy has always been to avoid the trap of credit
cards and high interest.
They said one key to their long
and happy marriage has been resolving conflicts quickly.
"You're not supposed lo go to
bed mad at each other," Henry said.
"And we didn't either," Ernestine
added. "We apologized before we
went to bed. Even sometimes when
I didn't mean it."
And the Schmitzes found time for
one another as well. Even though
Henry worked all day in a factory,
then came home to work the farm,
the two found time to go square
dancing two nights a week.
To Nord and Mary Bartlome, the
secret to marriage is going to church
together and family traditions.
"You had to give a little and take
a little, and give ever"--* room to
CONTINUED on page 2
Couples share
their secrets
to happy unions
that last decades...
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Wayne and Kaye Browning
Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Browning on their wedding day.
Hospital officials
plan to revitalize
back
by KATHLEEN WILLBOND
News-Tribune editor
The health of Amherst Hospital
has been a topic of debate among
residents for the past five years.
Vital signs of the facility have
weakened, with workers, doctors,
and even city officials worried that
it might close.
Portions of the hospital are
empty, a modem birthing center is
used for storage and the outpatient
surgery area is only utilized half the
time.
Some recent layoffs of employees
seemed to spell trouble for the hospital which has been a fixture of the
community for the last century.
But according to hospital officials, the last chapter of the history
of Amherst Hospital hasn't been
written yet. In fact, the story may
end with the hospital becoming a
premiere specialty center where residents can seek spinal and back
care, help for chronic wound care,
or geriatric specialists.
The hospital was purchased about
five years ago by the Elyria Memorial Hospital (EMH) Healthcare System; Amherst Hospital was suffering financial losses prior to the buyout and has continued to struggle
with a deficit.
Now some help has arrived in the
form of a business solutions specialist: Robert Capreuo. Capretto is an
operations analyst with 20 years of
experience in the health care industry. After completing some consultation work for Kevin Martin, president of the EMH system, Martin
asked Capretto to help him turn
Amherst Hospital around.
Capretto, on the job for about a
month, hasn't let any grass grow
under his feet
When EMH bought Amherst
Hospital, Capretto said proper staffing and resources of the Elyria facility were believed to be enough to
jump start the hospital.
"But it basically meant business
as usual. It helped but it wasn't sufficient to give new life to Amherst
Hospital," Capretto said.
The smaller Amherst Hospital has
been competing with nearby Community Health Partners, which
opened an 80,000 square foot birthing center, and health facilities
' which have cropped up in the area
operated by Columbia Health Care
and the Cleveland Clinic.
"Lorain County is oversaturated
with ambulatory care (outpatient
surgery); there is no shortage of resources  to  deliver  same-day
CONTINUED on page 3
Debbie Watts, discharge planner, and Elise
Olexa, coordinator of quality assessment, review
patient charts at Amherst Hospital. They are two
of many employees who want residents, and
customers, to know they are committed to making the hospital a success.
Assistant superintendent
to leave job at school end
by STEVE BARRY
News-Times reporter
For 19 years Tim Logar
has been employed by the
Amherst school system but at
the end of the school year,
the assistant superintendent
will end his 37 years in
education.
He plans on remaining in
Amherst at least until bis
wife Jane retires from teaching from the Vermilion
School system about a year
later.
"I'm not going to be a
house mom — I'm going to
be very active," Logar said.
Logar started teaching in
the Lorain school system, and
taught at Irving and Longfellow for a total of six years.
He completed his masters
at the University of Akron,
majoring in school administration and served a stint as
principal at Durling Elemen
tary school in the Clearview
system for nine years.
He became a middle school
principal at Midview for two
years before becoming an
educational consultant for the
Erie County Educational Service Center, which had oversight over every school district in Erie County.
He particularly liked traveling to the schools on Kelley's
Island. They traveled there
twice in the fall and twice in
the spring. He was there two
years before coming to Amherst as the Director of Special Education in 1981. During that school year he coordinated a school levy program, which received voter
approval.
In 1982 Logar coordinated
all the federal school programs (such as Tide 1 and
Tide 6b programs). In 1983
he was named the Director of
Curriculum and Special Education Programs.
In 1986 they changed the
title to Assistant Superintendent, and included assisting
the superintendent in the day-
to-day running of the school
system.
In 1987 he became the
coordinator for Amherst
Schools Educational Foundation, which today has assets
of $1,156,088.25. This foundation is to benefit students of
Amherst Schools, and this
year it has given $50,000 in
grants and awards.
"I have been here 19 years
and I hope my work has
made a difference," Logar
added.
When asked if he has noticed much change in students
during his long career in education, he replied, "We live
in a different culture today.
When I was in high achool
and college I played (drunu)
in a rock band. Loaf aair
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