Bill loved Ena, for better or for worse…
and Menno Place kept them together.
Born in the same town in Holland, they didn’t meet until years later while teaching school in Maple Ridge.
“Her father and my mother were classmates, I knew her cousins, but I didn’t know her until we were both in Canada, so I guess it was a match made in heaven,” said Van Dam, now in his eighties.
Bill and Ena were able to stay together even as Ena’s dementia worsened by taking an apartment at Menno Terrace, an assisted-living unit in a large campus of seniors’ housing and care options in Abbotsford.
One of a handful of campus-style seniors-care communities, Menno Place offers a wide array of assisted living and residential care options in a single 11-acre site, which allows couples to stay connected even when their care needs are different.
“We moved in seven years ago in anticipation of what would come, when she would need residential care,” said Van Dam, who had cared for his wife at home until then. “I had heard that the care at Menno Place was very good and I wanted to be able to stay near her.”
