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.
