“They Just Do It Right” – A Story of Love

 “What a relief it is to have someone take care of your needs
before you know you have them.”

Dr. John and Jacqueline Pifer share a loving moment. "I am grateful because Samaritan allowed me to keep John at home as we both wished and allowed me the time to love him and communicate with him as his wife, not his nurse," said Jacqueline.

Caring for both her mother and her physician husband, Jacqueline Pifer was grateful for the Samaritan hospice help she didn’t realize she needed.

Jacqueline Pifer grew up around good old-fashioned medical care and married into it when she met the love of her life at age 45.

“My mother, Blanche Ryder Rowand, was one of Dr. J. Harris Underwood’s first labor and delivery nurses,” she said. “Yes, that Dr. Underwood, the one the Wodbury hospital is
named after.”

Jacqueline’s husband, Dr. John Pifer, was a family physician and medical school educator who had cared for the Amish in Pennsylvania with Jacqueline as his nursing assistant.
Caring for her mom with John during the last months of Blanche’slife reminded Jackie of those earlier happy times. She and John had returned from their retirement home in Georgia to the Glassboro farmhouse where Jackie grew up to provide Blanche’s daily care.

Two years before, however, John had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, said Jacqueline, who has also lived for some years with multiple sclerosis.As the caregiving demands became greater on both of them, Dr. Joseph Dilisi, Blanche’s long-time family doctor and friend, broached the topic of bringing in Samaritan to help. At first Jacqueline resisted. After all, she reasoned, she and her husband knew best how to care for her mother!

Dr. Dilisi, however, eventually made the referral. “Within one week of accepting Samaritan’s care,” said Jacqueline, “I called his office and said, ‘Tell Dr. Dilisi I love him!’  You know, you just keep pushing yourself and then you realize what a relief it is to have someone take care of your needs before you know you have them.”

“My mom loved her Samaritan caregivers,” she continued. “They bathed her and cared for her as gently as I ever could.” “Just two weeks after Blanche began receiving Samaritan’s care, her hospice nurse gently suggested that it might be time to ask John’s doctor whether he, too, should begin receiving hospice care,” Jacqueline said tearfully.

Clockwise from top: Entrance to the still-working peach farm where Jackie grew up. Blanche Ryder Rowand, RN, as a young nursing graduate.Dr. John Pifer and Jackie enjoy reminiscing about family photos.

When Blanche died peacefully at the age of 102, family, friends and many community members remembered her civic service and generosity. “The funeral director spoke,” said Jackie, “and rightfully called her ‘an institution’ in Gloucester County.” Just days after Blanche’s funeral, John’s condition worsened. Jacqueline said, “Samaritan helped me learn how to accept each step. It helped me acknowledge death for what it is – a natural step that everyone who is born will have to face.”

She likened her difficult caregiving journey to someone racing down a highway at full speed, “and then Samaritan quietly placed pillows along the side of the road to cushion any crashes into the wall. Please let people know what a gift Samaritan is.”

In addition to his nurse, social worker and home health aide, John looked forward to visits from Margie Neal, Samaritan’s Certified Massage Therapist, who helped relieve the numbness that often afflicted his legs. Margie said, “John was so happy that Samaritan included
massage because he was such a believer in holistic medicine in his own practice, long before it was well accepted.”

Jacqueline remembers John as “such a sweet doctor whose patients just adored him and whose students had been calling him to send best wishes.” The greatest compliment, therefore, came from this revered physician and educator on the night before he died. In speaking of Samaritan’s care, he whispered to Jackie, “They do it right.”