Maxene Varga:  

Hi from Washington State! My husband John and I moved to this tiny town of 1200 with our two children after 10 years of marriage living in Bellflower Calif. We were spinning our wheels and not getting ahead and not willing to get into the 70's house flipping to make money, we were not able to buy commercial property in L.A. county so we were coaxed to Whidbey Island where my mother and brother Greg had moved in 1971. My mom was 4th generation here and was related to a lot of the town and they had just short-platted some commercial property on Main Street. We came to see it in Jan.1977 and sold the house, bought the property, packed up and moved here 31 years ago. My husband built a 4 bay auto repair garage and I went to work for a doctor's clinic and then on to our local hospital for the next 14 years. I went part-time to take care of my mother in 1988 when it was discovered that she had lung cancer and took care of her half the day and worked at the hospital the other half of the day. We were managing a 14 unit duplex complex at the time also. This turned out to be good experience for the future. My Mom died 9 months later in 1989. We decided since our two kids, Lisa and Scott had graduated and gone on to vocational schools we suddenly had 2 empty bedrooms (our "empty nest"} So we continued at our jobs and made plans to add an 1100 s.f. addition to our home and John's mother had moved in with us in 1994. His father passed away two years prior. John's twin brother Paul moved back home to help care for their father when he was sick and stayed to be there for his mom. But living in downtown South Los Angeles was really not safe for her any longer so she moved to live with us. She was here just over 9 months when she died at age 88 years old. We were used to taking care of senior ladies by this time so we opened an Adult Family Home and after the requirements were met we opened the first Sonshine House A.F.H. My sister Liz came to take care of the 3 to 4 ladies that we took care of and I worked at night getting up with them to use the bathroom etc. During the two years after opening the first Sonshine House, we designed and built the second A.F.H. right next door to John's Auto Repair's parking lot. We opened the 2nd A.F.H. and I hired a resident manager for the first year to care for the ladies during the day when I was at work at the hospital.(I am not a nurse, but I did need to take courses for adult family home caregivers as well as Nursing Assistant Registered. I again worked the night shift at the new house that my husband and I moved into to live and work. After the first year here I left the hospital. John had run his auto repair business for 25 years and was ready for something else. Two years later we decided to tear the garage down and build a Craftsman Style 4-plex for seniors. (kind of a step one before our A.F.H. if they needed to move in with us.) It was finished in 2003 and just this year we have converted the 4-plex into condominiums. They just went up for sale this summer. None of the residents that are renting are interested in buying so they are allowed to rent as long as they want (or live) Two of our tenants are 87 years old and live next door to eachother. The 3rd unit that is rented have just moved in this month and will decide at the end of their year lease if they want to buy or not. One unit is for sale or rent (whichever is first) but eventually we would like to sell all of them. As far as my job, I downsized as my residents passed away and tried day-care for senior ladies for a couple of years and am currently just doing 24 hour live in are on a one on one basis. Much easier, no employees, taxes...Expand for more