“We didn’t want to burden our only daughter” - A Victorian Village Testimonial

They moved in before they needed to. “We wanted it to be our decision. We’ve only got one daughter, and we didn’t want to burden her with taking care of us — or with making decisions for us.”

So they looked around at a couple of places, and Victorian Village was the one that Jean and Ray Dering fell in love with.

“We both come from big families,” says Jean, “and now we’ve got a big family again! The people are real nice, and there’s always a lot going on.”

They downsized from their home and brought truckloads of belongings to the Bibles For Missions thrift store, where Ray was a volunteer. It felt good to know that the things they no longer needed would now be a blessing to someone else. 

Ray admits, “We figured we’d live here, you know, the rest of our lives — maybe four or five years. Well, that was 10 years ago!”

So does living at Victorian Village contribute to good health and long life? “Being happy does,” says Jean, “and we’re very happy here.”