Lessons of Fort Hunt

Fairfax Neighborhood Learns by Doing In Managing Its Large Elderly Population

The second of two articles

Traffic along Fort Hunt Road moves more slowly. The local beauty salon does a steady business of "roller sets" under bubble hair dryers, and the barbershop around the corner offers shaves. Full-time attendants at the service station pump gas, check tires and clean windshields because so many customers can't.

Just up the road, a variety store hearkens back to the dime store, its shelves chockablock with everything from bobby pins to popguns. Its fastest-selling items are canning jars and sewing notions. The former Hollin Hills Elementary School is now a retirement community, a mix of assisted- and independent living for about 150 people. Another school has become a senior center, offering Jazzercise, line dancing, bridge, military history classes and trips to see "Menopause, the Musical!" in Baltimore.

The Fort Hunt area -- which fans out from Fort Hunt Road and includes the Mount Vernon, Tauxemont, Hollin Hills and Hollin Hall neighborhoods -- was one of the first suburbs in Fairfax County. As the population in Washington's suburbs ages, Fort Hunt is already grayer than most and offers a glimpse of America's future.

More than 22 percent of Fort Hunt's population is 62 or older, compared with 9.9 percent countywide, according to the 2000 Census. It's a place where transportation can be a problem for those who don't drive because everything was built around the automobile, and where the design of a house can determine whether residents can live out their lives in their homes.

Most of all, gestures that might be considered courtesies elsewhere are necessities. Elderly neighbors check in by telephone with one another, and those who can still drive ferry those who can't to the grocery store, the pharmacy or the doctor.

For one group of ambitious seniors, it means building an organization that would formalize this spirit of cooperation. Following the lead of Boston's Beacon Hill, about 40 residents have been meeting since March to create Mount Vernon At Home, a nonprofit entity that would help them manage their daily affairs. It will need to attract at least 300 dues-paying members to offer a service that would depend on professionals and volunteers to arrange for rides, meals, home repairs or other assistance.

"Aging in place" is the new buzzword for people who prefer to live out their remaining days in their homes, close to the people and places they have known for most of their lives. Owing to a combination of good fortune and foresight by businesses, government and ordinary people, a large number of senior citizens have so far succeeded.

Full Service at the Gas Station

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At 6:35 on a hot, sticky morning, Ruth Ann Harvey, 84, parks her car at the Hollin Hall Automotive Service Station and walks a little shakily over the oil-stained cement toward the building, her purse tucked under her arm.

Frank Brown, 66, an attendant at the gas station for 15 years, meets her halfway. Brown takes her hand, and they walk past a huge smiling portrait of her near the door and over to a stool behind the cash register.

This is where Harvey will preside for the next six hours or so, just as she has been doing since her husband, Frank, died in 1966 and left the business to her and their seven sons. It has become an important fixture for other seniors, not just for those who stop by to chat with Harvey, but also for their vintage Cadillacs, Lincolns, Buicks and Oldsmobiles.

Three full-time attendants, in bright white shirts with green name patches and matching caps, go to work whenever a car pulls in, pumping gas, cleaning the windshield, checking the oil level. Inside the garage, several mechanics labor over cars, often while a white-haired customer hovers. If elderly customers need a ride home while their car is in the shop, an attendant does it.