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After 20 years in player development for Atlantic City casinos, where she watched players win and lose lots of money and even accompanied them on a Trump jet to his famed Mar-A-Lago Club in Florida, Diane Rhea-Collins needed a change of pace.

She became a funeral director.

“I wanted to give back to the community for people in need of emotional healing,” said Rhea-Collins, 47, of Northfield, who manages Jeffries & Keates Funeral Home in her hometown. “I always liked working with people. This is just a different way of doing it. I am outgoing and compassionate and I understand people, so this is a good place for me.”

Initially, Rhea-Collins wanted to become a surgical nurse, but her husband, Stephen T. Collins, a funeral director at Roth-Goldstein Memorial Chapel in Atlantic City, thought she would be great in the business he knows best.

Rhea-Collins says she is glad she made the career switch, even though the jobs could not be more different.

“The difference is you go to a casino to enjoy yourself and be entertained and you can always come back and try your luck,” Rhea-Collins said. “With a funeral home, it’s your worst day. And it’s my job to help them get closure.”

A memorable reunion

Longtime Cape May County residents remember Sea Isle City’s Mercy Hospital. For some, the hospital that closed in 1969 holds such a special place in their hearts that 19 former employees got together recently to reconnect and share memories.

“The people that worked there all became very close over the years,” said Sheila M. Boyle, a retired registered nurse from Dennis Township. “When it closed, we were only given three weeks notice, so our ties were severed quickly.”

The gathering at Duffy’s on the Lake in Wildwood Crest also was attended by Delores Glassford, of Upper Township; Rose Ennis, of Woodbine; Ann Cardwell, of Upper Township; Augusta Hogan and Barbara Buffalo, of Sea Isle City; Sandy Johnson and Judy Tauge, of Lower Township; Marty Meyer and Helen Turchi, of North Wildwood; and Mary Lou and Sandy Ditzler, of Avalon, as well as former supervisor Sister Agnes Marie, 87, who now lives in Philadelphia.

“We were all certainly up there in age,” said Boyle, who recently turned 80. “It was quite a happening. The years just melted away, and we got to know each other again after all of these years. When I was there, I was a young mother with young children. Now, I’m a great grandmother.”

Short stories

Northfield’s Annie Goodman, 10, raised $1,000 with her homemade bake sale with items she baked along with friends and family, at the Northfield Cardinals junior football game. She organized the bake sale to raise money for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a Northfield family that has someone with cancer.

Audrey Wolfson Latourette, a Cherry Hill resident and Richard Stockton College of New Jersey faculty member since 1977, was selected by Marquis Who’s Who for the 2009-10 Who’s Who in American Law and for the 2010 Who’s Who in America for her activism and dedication. The professor of business law will present her article, “Legal Implications of Academic Advising,” at the national conference in Atlanta in November. The article also will be published in New York University’s “Network: A Journal of Faculty Development.”

The Kiwanis Club of Greater Mays Landing dedicated a tree planted in Memorial Park in memory of Alan Ferguson, a longtime Kiwanian from Mays Landing who recently died.

Everyone Has a Story appears Sundays and Wednesdays. To share your story, call Scott Cronick at 609-272-7017 or e-mail him at scronick@pressofac.com.

1 comment:

• Namaste (5) posts 6:18 am

  Thank you for this wonderful column! It's wonderful to read about neighbors and members of our community in such a positive way!

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