Pembroke Seniors Left in the Cold, Feb 8-11, 2013

Pembroke Community Media Center volunteers Louise Tanderes and John Hetman who both live in the elderly housing complex on Mayflower Court, have featured themselves in a video about the Snowstorm Nemo that hit Pembroke the morning of February 8, 2013.  Go to pembrokecommunitymedia.com to meet both Hetman and Tanderes as they talk about their experiences braving the storm. Both were trapped with no power, no heat, no phone, and snow blocking the doorways and access to their vehicles.

90-year-old Louise likes to be prepared and keeps a shovel in her bathtub.  She spent 2 nights in her freezing apartment before digging out and flagging down a vehicle in the road. “Well, I wasn't going to stay there and die, you know,” Louise said.  “It was time to make a move.  Nobody was coming to shovel us out, and I just couldn’t feel my hands or feet anymore.”  Tanderes went on to say, “You almost lost your friend Louise that day.  I know that if I had fallen asleep I would have died.  I've never in my 90 years been that cold.  I can still feel it.”

The second day of the storm, Hetman's family sent emergency personnel to bring him to his daughter's generator-powered home. “I heard a knock on my door, and it was the police.  My family had called them,” Hetman said. “I was so grateful since there was no way I could call.  Still though, there are people here worse off than me with oxygen and other problems. Why did nobody help them?”  Hetman went on to say that about 50 people were “left to freeze” over that 4 to 5 day period.

 

John Raymond Hetman is a handicapped widower who's lived in Pembroke Elderly Housing on Mayflower Court since his wife died.  The couple moved from Leesburg, New Jersey in 1954 to raise a family in their Mattakeesett Street home across from the present-day ball fields. Anne M. Hetman who passed away 13 years ago, served the Southeast Region of Massachusetts as Pembroke's Community Hazardous Waste Coordinator, was well-loved as Clerk of the Board of Health, and was involved with Pembroke's Housing Authority.

Louis Mathilde Faux Tanderes moved with her young son David from Brockton to Pembroke in 1955 where she married Ronald Manchester and had a second son, Ken.  They lived on Toole Trail.  Later the pair moved to 12 Raymond Avenue where Louise became the second owner of the home built in 1951.  Manchester passed away in 1967.   Eight years after her boys grew up and moved on, Louise married Eugene Tanderes who passed away in 2002.  At age 80 and after one year alone, Louise moved to Mayflower Court where she has lived for 11 years.

Pembroke Community Media Center was created by Pembroke residents and is run by volunteers with support from local businesses and people like you.  Go to pembrokecommunitymedia.com to see this and other local programming brought to you by the moms, dads, children, and elders of our community.