At home with Elmer and Mary Bartels :
Elmer and Mary Bartels are pleased when a visitor says their house appears ordinary. That means they have achieved what they desired — to have a home that appears like everyone else’s despite the fact that Elmer, longtime commissioner of the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission and advocate for people with disabilities, is a quadriplegic. He has relied on a wheelchair since a hockey accident while playing for his Colby College fraternity team in 1960.
Although he needs help getting in and out of bed and showering, and he is driven to work and back in his accessible van, he says his home life is as ‘‘normal’’ as possible, and that is their goal.
‘‘There are people who have all kinds of gizmos, but we decided to live like everybody else,’’ Mary says. The two, married nearly 44 years and living in this home 40 years, have been working at this together ‘‘as a great team,’’ says Elmer. They met the year of his accident at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital when Elmer was undergoing rehabilitation and she was his nurse. At 71, she is four years older than he.
The two started their married life in Maine, where Elmer completed his undergraduate degree, then moved to Somerville while he attended Tufts University. A few years later, they relocated to Bedford while he worked for MIT, later switching to a position at Honeywell until the appointment to his current position in 1977.
‘‘We didn’t intend to come out this far,’’ recalls Mary, who worked with a real estate agent to find an accessible home back in 1965. But when she saw this ‘‘flat ranch with one step’’ into the house, she knew it was ideal. ‘‘All we had to do was put on a ramp out front,’’ she says.
However, over the next several decades, they’ve renovated four times, adding a family room and patio; converting the garage into a playroom and building a new garage; updating the kitchen; and, finally, constructing a sunny master bedroom with a convenient, accessible bathroom for Elmer. The bathroom has a shower seat and a Hoyer lift that transfers him in and out of the seat as well as his bed, a lovely oak design the two sleep in. Until last year, they didn’t require the Hoyer; Mary moved her husband for 43 years until a heart bypass put an end to that. Other than the bathroom, none of the renovations had anything to do with his limitations; rather, they were to provide more space for themselves and their children. They have two adult daughters and a granddaughter.
The kitchen renovation was for Mary, who felt the original kitchen was too congested. One day she ‘‘got out my coal chisel and knocked down the brick wall’’ separating the kitchen from the entryway, a room that doubles as a den. When Elmer returned from work that night, ‘‘the bricks were outside,’’ she says. They hired a contractor to finish what she started, and add an island and new cabinets. The quiet property on a circular street includes grounds that Elmer likes to frequent in nice weather. ‘‘I usually find him in the pine grove reading,’’ says Mary. Or else he is in his home office, decorated with a loon theme, with everything from wallpaper border, a loon lamp, and a loon chair cushion resting on a Colby college chair in one corner. He also collects high-end duck decoys. Mary collects lighthouses, birds, and Byer’s Choice carolers. The loons and ducks remind Elmer of favorite times in Maine, where he spent summers as a boy at Camp Agawam, and later joined the board. ‘‘Unfortunately, most people with disabilities are poor, and I feel very fortunate that I’ve been able to escape that,’’ says Elmer, adding, ‘‘I have chosen to live as normal a life as I can despite the fact that I have a disability,’’ he adds, stressing, ‘‘Disability ain’t the story — it’s in spite of disability.’’