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“I love living at Longview!”

Anne Frierson greets visitors to her home at The Longview Assisted Living Residence with Southern hospitality. The gracious Tennessee native enthusiastically shares the stories behind the art and antiques adorning her suite.

“These are my grandfather’s baby shoes,” she says, “and this is my 4H pin.”

Two years ago, the energetic 97-year-old was living in an independent-senior apartment complex in Texas when she suffered a heart attack. Her health-care team recommended a move to assisted living.

“I asked her to come to New Jersey to be closer to me so I could help her,” says her daughter, Carol Campbell of Wayne.

Internet research led Mrs. Campbell to Longview. Here, personalized care in a secure environment supports and fosters each individual’s maximum level of independence. Longview offers 24-hour nursing support, customized levels of care, and a diverse calendar of daily events. Longview also includes the Courtyard, a warm, friendly community for individuals in the early to mid-stages of memory loss and dementia. Longview and the Courtyard recently unveiled exquisite renovations and refurbishments which were supported by Christian Health’s 2015 and 2016 Annual Funds.

For seven consecutive years, Longview has achieved Advanced Standing designation by the Health Care Association of New Jersey and the New Jersey Department of Health for excellence in quality of care, and has earned Bronze and Silver National Quality Awards from the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living. Longview also received an Excellence in Action Award from NRC Health for outstanding resident satisfaction.

“I can tell you exactly when I knew that Longview was the place for mom: When I toured, a grandmother and grandson were playing checkers. At other assisted-living residences I visited, I didn’t see that kind of interaction,” Mrs. Campbell says. “It was very impactful.”

“Longview really is a wonderful place,” agrees Mrs. Frierson, a retired teacher. “I do love living here.”

Mrs. Frierson appreciates the outpatient short-term rehab services available at Longview, as well as the diverse activity calendar. She recently joined the Christian Health Resident Speaker Bureau, through which she shares her stories of building the atomic bomb in Oak Ridge, TN, in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project and decoding Japanese in Washington, DC, from 1944 to 1946. As a college graduate with a degree in math, Mrs. Frierson was a sought-after candidate for these top-secret government jobs. At the time, less than 5 percent of American women had a college education.

“In my area at Oak Ridge, I was the only woman working alongside 14 men,” she says. “I didn’t know that we worked on the bomb until it was used against Japan on August 6, 1945.”

The summer following her work at Oak Ridge, Mrs. Frierson journeyed to Washington, DC, where she played a pivotal role in helping the US and its Allies win World War II through the highly complex work of deciphering encrypted messages. The stories of courage, service, and scientific accomplishments of the 10,000 women who were code breakers are told in Code Girls: The Untold Story of American Women Code Breakers of World War II.

Following these classified jobs, Mrs. Frierson went back to teaching, married her husband in Florida, and raised a son and daughter. Today, she is content living in her Northern home at Longview.

“Mom is happy and well-cared-for at Longview,” Mrs. Campbell says. “She constantly comments that she would not have found a residence like Longview anywhere else in the country.”

For more information about The Longview Assisted Living Residence, call (201) 848-5200 or visit christianhealthnj.org.