By Brenda L. Holmes
AVON — Maryjane Allen has no idea just how many angels she has collected. She said she might count them one day, but that day has yet to arrive.
“If angels do protect you, I should be pretty well protected with all of these around me,” Allen said.
She said her collection began when she was trying to find a way to connect with her patients at work.
“I worked at a nursing home for over 25 years and angels kind of became a common ground,” she said. “It was a way for me to relate to them.”
She had always had a fondness for angels and now that people know about it, she receives them as gifts year-round.
“Most of these I have received as gifts either for my birthday or Christmas,” she said, while holding her poodle who is appropriately named Angel.
Allen said she feels that she has her own angels. Her husband, James Allen, died seven years ago.
“So I have my husband, a daughter who passed five years ago, and now a son who died at 54 last April,” she said.
She also lost a child in infancy.
“I started out with five children and now I have two,” Allen said. “I tell them I am going to put them in a safety deposit box.”
Allen has taken her losses in stride and looks to the brighter things in life, like her 19 grandchildren, 26 great-grandchildren, and her first two great-great-grandchildren now on the way.
“I’ve been blessed with a large family,” she said. “They are all my angels. At least that’s what I tell them!”
At 80, Allen continues to work as the community relations director at Crestwood Village.
“Like me, seniors are living longer,” she said. “We don’t have any residents that are 100 right now, but we have several that are 99 and many more that are between 95 and 100.”
brenda.holmes@flyergroup.com
