A day in the life at Shillman House

While every 2Life campus has the same fundamental features — including community space, dedicated staff, and quality programs — each also has a unique personality, brought to life by the people who live and work there.

This is the first in a series on everyday life at each of 2Life’s communities, exploring the many different ways that supported senior housing looks, feels, and thrives.

At Shillman House, you never play to an empty room. The heart of the campus is alive at any time of day with card games, scheduled activities, and friends meeting for coffee. This is a tight-knit community that likes to have fun.

This is what life is like here at Shillman House. 

The place

“It’s not just their apartment that’s their home. It’s the whole building that’s their home.” 
- Vicky Zeqo, Assistant Director 

Stepping into Shillman House puts you at the heart of the building. On your right is Marsha Simpson at the front desk, often accompanied by a volunteer resident. She opens the secured front door, hands out packages, signs you up for activities, and helps solve just about any problem you have, from missing glasses to lost keys. 

On your left is the spot with the cozy chairs and stone fireplace, most notably the place where residents gather around 4:00 pm before going to the bistro, just on the other side of the fireplace. The bistro is pleasantly full all day long. This is where coffee hour happens in the mornings. It’s where groups of residents kibitz over homemade soup at lunch. In the evening, groups gather around the round tables to play cards. There is always something happening in this inviting spot, even when nothing is on the schedule.

Today, the schedule starts off with “Betsy’s in the Bistro,” which is just what it sounds: a chance for residents to start their day off with coffee and a chat with Betsy Closs, the Executive Director of Shillman House.

Just across the hall is the multipurpose room, which lives up to its name by hosting dinner (adjacent to the tables set up in the bistro) along with any number of events during the day. 

At 2:00 pm, Betsy and Jen Rich, Shillman’s Resident Services Director, lead the Monthly Building Meeting in the multipurpose room, which is arranged in the style of a lecture hall for the occasion. Residents weigh in on the posting of political signs throughout the building and ask questions about upcoming events, including a party at the end of the month to celebrate all residents with May birthdays and welcome new residents to the community. It is not uncommon for staff to rearrange this room four times in a day to meet the different needs of scheduled activities. 

Not surprisingly, there is a lot going on at Shillman House. Every day. The typical newsletter Jen sends out each week is loaded with announcements and a schedule of events for each day of the week. 

Some events happen at the same time every week, such as the Ice Coffee Social at 11 am on Mondays and Joyful Connections, the social club geared toward people with memory loss, at 3 pm from Monday through Thursday. Others rotate, such as spiritual care programs, art classes, and guest lectures. 

Next to the multipurpose room is a community meeting room sized for a smaller group. Today, Garry, a resident with an interest in history and literature, is facilitating a book-club-style discussion on short stories at 10:30 am. Today’s story is “The Lady, or the Tiger?” by Frank Stockton. 

Continuing down the hall, you pass a quiet library meticulously organized by a resident volunteer. The library is well-stocked, but if you cannot find the book you are looking for, you can request it from the public library and the bookmobile will deliver it to you at its twice-a-month visit. 

The rooms with the best windows on the first floor have to be the gym and the art studio, both of which are equipped with everything you need to exercise your body and your creativity. Today, Joyful Connections takes place in the art studio at 3:00 pm. Staff take turns facilitating the group, and today that’s Eleanor Jaspherson, Resident Services Coordinator. Residents work through a crossword together as the mascot of Joyful Connections, a 14-year-old dog named Roxie, snoozes in her dog stroller.

One of the most popular rooms is the game room that residents can reserve by writing their name in a slot on the paper tacked to the door. The 1:00 to 5:00 pm time slot is most popular, and this is when canasta, poker, and mah jong are played. These are appointments that cannot be missed. 

By 4:00 pm, residents have been asked to clear out of the bistro and the multipurpose room to make way for dinner prep. Place settings, menus, and centerpieces are rolled out. Tonight’s menu includes braised beef brisket and almond crusted flounder with lemon butter sauce. 

When you look out the windows at Shillman House, you mostly see trees. The campus backs up to conservation land where residents can step out the door to walk rolling wooded trails. You also see a courtyard with tables and umbrellas. Around the corner are raised beds for gardening and a pollinator garden planted with flowers. 

Even while located on a quiet street in the Nobscot neighborhood in Framingham, residents at Shillman House are a five-minute walk to a CVS, banks, restaurants, salons, and the library. New developments are on the way that will bring even more retail to the neighborhood. Residents who do not drive have access to a chartered van that takes them to places like Market Basket in Waltham or T.J. Maxx in Sudbury.

The people

 “I always tell people when they’re moving in, especially if they’ve lost a spouse, that in six months they’re going to have a ton of new friends. They never believe me. But then, they do.” 
- Betsy Closs, Executive Director

There is a solid group of well-known residents who help make the community what it is today. Geri shows up to nearly everything, sitting in the back to help latecomers with the door. (Read more about Geri here.) Nancy runs the Iced Coffee Social. Elaine is famous for helping anyone who needs it. Members of the Shillman House Resident Association organize several events each year and help keep the building running.

What creates buzz? Well, gossip — but in a good way. If there is a new baby in the community, a new grandchild of a resident or new child of a staff member, everyone knows it. If someone has not been down to dinner for a few days, residents notice and reach out. Everyone wants to see pictures of your vacation and celebrate life events, like someone getting citizenship or celebrating a family member’s wedding. 

This community does not pass up an opportunity to celebrate. That spirit has led to an all-time favorite event: the Shillman House birthday party. The building opened on June 2, 2011, and every year in the first week of June the parking lot is taken over by tables and tents, Jen becomes DJ for the day, the kitchen crew cooks a mean barbecue, and residents try their shot at a dunk tank (with staff standing to get dunked, of course).

Dunk tank aside, residents here love their staff. Every person who works at Shillman House is very much part of the community, from the director to the chef. If something is happening in the building, Derrick from the maintenance department knows before anyone else. Residents love to compliment Vicky Zeqo, Assistant Director, who comes to work every day dressed to the nines. Staff know residents’ children and grandchildren, and in some cases they have known them for a decade or more. 

The staff can be found doing absolutely anything. Rita, a resident who has been at the building since the beginning, says of the staff: “I really would like to see a copy of your job description.” From paying bills to moving furniture, the staff do it all. 

For staff like Jen, there is no typical day. Everywhere she goes, Jen greets residents by name, and more often than not that greeting leads to a question to answer, a problem to solve, or an idea to consider. You can find Jen running around the first floor making sure that two programs starting at the same time have everything they need. You can find her in her office getting to know a new resident, learning about their specific interests and letting them know that a table of new neighbors is expecting them at dinner. Or, you can’t find Jen, because she’s in a resident’s apartment helping them transfer groceries into a new refrigerator that better suits their accessibility needs. This is true for Resident Service Directors across 2Life, and it’s true for all staff at Shillman House. 

The best compliment this community has ever received came from a resident years ago, who said that Shillman House is a place to come and have a new life. For a community buzzing with activity, that seems about right.