The day of Valentine’s adoration is over, but the season of love is in full bloom in Snohomish.
There is at least one house for sale on a particular street. Rush and buy it if you want to live on a block with the ultimate caring neighbor.
Michael V. Martina / The Herald
Need a cup of sugar, bag of cat food, gas for the lawnmower or a ride to town? Joanne Carlton is the woman for the job. She lavishes her outgoing, giving nature on her neighbors, Robert Barber, 51, and Charles Barber, 48, brothers who need as much as she can share.
“Some people say we’re developmentally disabled,” Charles Barber said. “Some say we’re different.”
No one can quibble that the pair are the nicest men in the world in the devotion they show to their mother, Mary Barber, who lives in a nursing home. Though Mary, 86, doesn’t speak much these days, her sons visit her for three hours each day.
They usually sit together in the lobby and watch folks walk by, Charles Barber said. Their mom sleeps a lot, he added. They walk across town to visit every day from the family home on the east side of town where they grew up.
The brothers, who both attended special education classes at Snohomish schools, lost the income that kept the household running when their mother moved to the nursing home.
They work as janitors at their church to make about $200 a month, and have to make that stretch. The oil furnace is broken and they use two small portable heaters for warmth in the creaking old house.
They hang clothes outside on the porch to dry year round.
Carlton drives them to the food bank. The brothers eked out the property tax payment in October, but just barely. And they need help with the water and cable bills.
Last summer, Carlton noticed the men, who walk most places they go, and thought they were losing weight. She came up with a plan to approach them about lending a hand. She asked if their lawn needed mowing. If they had a lawnmower, was it out of gas? Could she lend them some fuel from her own small tank?
The lawn got mowed.
A beautiful friendship was launched.
“Joanne is a very nice lady,” Charles Barber said. “She has been a big help to us.”
For the past several months, the trio has ridden in Carlton’s car to the food bank or grocery store. The men get a few food stamps each month and watch for specials at Top Foods. When Carlton got wind about their financial problems, she began calling agencies to try to find them some help.
Windermere Real Estate in Snohomish, a company known for good deeds, gave the men $100 for Christmas.
“Their financial situation is a mess,” Carlton said. “I have lists a mile long of agencies.”
The Barber men are very appreciative for her help, Charles Barber said. His brother, Robert, did not want to come out to the cluttered front porch to talk. Robert Barber enjoys knitting, his brother said. Charles Barber made and sold a few pillowcases at Christmas time.
“We are very self-sufficient,” Barber said. “But we need money.”
He said he counts on his neighbor, Carlton, for help, but doesn’t like to ask for things. She reminded him to feel free to use the phone at her house. The Barber’s can’t afford their own.
What would they do in an emergency?
Carlton gave them assistance for filling out special needs forms, hoping the right agency would come forth with financial help. Carlton, 71, found out ways she could help the soft-spoken men across the street, in a gentle way.
“I looked for where I could step in and help out,” Carlton said. “I didn’t like seeing them so thin. You have to have food for energy.”
She has an eye for the health of others. A former house mother for University of Washington sororities and fraternities, the retired nurse with six grandchildren keeps going with her friends, gardening and positive attitude.
She lives on a fixed income, but gave the self-described confirmed bachelors a huge bag of cat food to feed their nine outdoor cats. She knocks on the door with a gallon of milk or juice.
“I have faith in humanity that someone will come through,” Carlton said. “It’s so sad in society today to see this going on. People who have less have to work so hard to get more.”
Columnist Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451 or oharran@heraldnet.com.
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