the BEACON Newspaper, Indiana Beacon Oct 2017 | Page 3

October 2017 THE BEACON Page 3 Preventing Senior Abuse This month: Can you identify this interesting item? What is It? So many wonderful answers were given about the portable chicken coop that was the mystery item last month. Some of the stories are so entertaining that we included them in this month's article. Elaine Heitz of Hidden Valley said, "This is a chicken crate. Growing up, we had dozens of them. My father would buy 2,000 day-old chicks at a time. It was my job to make sure that they had water and that they were all under the hover (heat source) for the night. He built a huge laying house when I was about 10 years old. When the pullets began laying eggs, he would load up each chicken crate, stack the crates in the back of the pickup truck and haul the young hens a mile down the road to the new laying house. He had a hired man who did nothing but feed, gather eggs, wash them, and grade them. It was a full-time job. One time I had a pet squirrel which I kept in one of the crates for a short time. Those were the days my friend..." "The current challenge is a chicken coop. My dad used these for shipping chickens into Cincinnati on his twice weekly trips to sell to local grocery stores the chickens and eggs he received in exchange for groceries on his huckster routes!" replied Beverly Hahn. "This does bring back memories," said Patricia Ertle. "It's a chicken crate. I can remember when Mom & Dad would cull the hens that weren't laying and put them in a crate and when Dad had a load of hogs to go to the Cincinnati Stock Yards, and he would take the chickens across the street from the stockyards and sell them. Lots of times I Last month's item was a portable chicken coop. would ride with him." "It is a chicken crate used to take chickens to market. We used to stay up all night picking up the sleepy birds and handing them up to the truck driver to be thrown into the crate," shared Curtis Nice of Lawrenceburg. Other readers who answered the question correctly were Barb Ward, Aurora; Cindy Rottinghaus, Aurora; Dave Baugh, Bright; Mark Busching; Barb Nieman, Cross Plains; Paul Hillman, West Chester; John Kruse, Sunman; Marita Cord-Mergenthal, Batesville; Robert Sommer, Bear Branch; Don Paulin; Gayle Rolfes, Harrison; Jan Leugers, Bright; Ed Oehlman, Brookville; and Ed Campbell, Bright This month's challenge is more of a challenge than last month's. Let's see how many of our readers remember this interesting item. Please e-mail your guesses to [email protected] by Monday, Sept.26. Good luck! provided by Cornerstone Realty/Lutz Auction Services Continued from page 1 problem and needs money for the purchase of illegal narcot- ics. In these types of situa- tions, the victim may be em- barrassed or afraid to question the abuser’s actions because they have been threatened with bodily harm or being sent to an institution. The victim can be embarrassed by his or her inability to control the situation and alleviate the financial abuse by himself. Or perhaps the abuser is a close family member whom they do not wish to expose. "Financial exploitation is huge and hard to trace," said Ms. Deddens. "No matter what the reason, adult abuse of any type is im- moral and illegal. Our goal is to raise awareness of this kind of abuse while reaching out to help victims find the proper organizations to protect and represent them." Adult Protective Services is a state organization estab- lished to investigate reports of abuse and to provide interven- tion and protection for vulner- able adults. Eligible adults must be at least eighteen years of age and physically or men- tally incapacitated. "Abuse occurs in all lev- els of social and economic status," stated one representa- tive for the Dearborn County Adult Protective Service office. "Abuse occurs more than people realize or want to realize." One of the challenges of helping a victim of adult abuse is that the individual may be unwilling to speak up about the situation. He or she may be afraid of the repercus- sions or may not realize the gravity of the situation. A case worker may have to visit a po- tentially abusive environment several times to accurately assess whether abuse exists and if the victim is willing to cooperate. If the victim is of sound mind, he or she has every right to make his or her own decisions about the situ- ation. The APS representative can only advise and provide resources to the potential victim. Should a victim be deemed unable to care for himself, a process is in place that in- cludes semi-annual reports to the court to monitor that per- son’s progress. Many times a guardian may be found for the individual resulting in the per- son’s needs being taken care of and the services of APS no longer bei