 Home | Recent News | Newton | Ermal Mcfarland 14 Dec 2007 Ermal McFarland invests in future of senior care |  | | Ermal McFarland makes comments during the Manor’s recent campaign
announcement. |
Ermal McFarland rarely misses a
trick. “My eyes don’t work very well
anymore, and my memory lets me
down from time to time — but I am
100 you know,” she said.
Noting her erect posture, coifed
hair and manicured nails, an observer
can easily see the doctor’s wife, the
world traveler. Look more closely,and the clouds of cataracts do little to
hide the twinkle in her eyes.
A woman who knows her own
mind and isn’t afraid to speak it,
she’s also a woman who’s always
been ahead of her time.
“It wasn’t that many years ago, I
contacted a broker, and he wouldn’t
give me the time of day,” she said.
“Guess he figured a woman had no
place in the stock market. Now, that
wasn’t very smart of him, was it?”
Ermal met fellow Iowan Ray McFarland while studying drama and
public speaking at Drake University
in Des Moines, Iowa. After they
married, she began teaching high
school to support the young couple
during the lean years of her
husband’s residency.
Following his internship,
Dr. McFarland accepted a position in
Wichita, where the couple would
make their home until he retired from his pediatrics practice.
“I started investing when we first
came to Wichita,” Ermal said.
“When my girlfriends were going to
the movies, I was studying The Wall
Street Journal. I wasn’t very good at
it at first — but I learned!”
When Dr. McFarland decided to
retire from medicine in 1978, the
couple carefully considered their
retirement home choices.
“We chose the Manor because it
offers everything we were looking
for,” Ermal said, “namely freedom
and having everything taken care of
for us.
“We didn’t have to worry about
insurance, painting, maintenance —
any of those obligations that come
with home ownership,” she
continued. “This just relieved us of all that responsibility so we could
travel.”
And travel the couple did. “We
went all over the world,” Ermal said.
Some of the artwork collected on
their trips graces the walls of her
room today. But after her husband
passed, the travels ceased. Ermal’s
love of investing lives on, however.
“I don’t really do it for the money
anymore,” she shared with a wink.
“But it keeps the brain sharp, you
know? I do it for the challenge.”
When the opportunity came to
help fund Presbyterian Manor’s
renovated health center, Ermal felt
strongly that it would be a good
investment.
“There are getting to be so many
of us elderly people, and there has
to be a center like this,” she said.
“Everyone deserves a homelike
setting in which to live, and if I can
help make that possible, then it’s a
wise expense.”
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