Developer's family continues tradition of helping elderly

MERRIMACK, N.H. (AP) -- The elderly in Merrimack have found their guardian angel in a family of developers.

Before developer Dana Patterson died in 1991, he would build new roofs for those who couldn't afford repairs and he would never charge them.

''He would just do everything and say nothing,'' said Ida Allard, 83.

For the past 20 years, Allard has lived in the Wentworth apartments, built by Patterson in 1980 as Merrimack's only subsidized housing for the low-income elderly and disabled.

A lot of Patterson's compassion for the elderly seems to have rubbed off on his daughter, Jennifer.

With her family, she decided to transfer Wentworth Place I and II apartments to Neighborhood Housing Services of Greater Nashua, a nonprofit organization. Neighborhood Housing assumed the mortgages on Aug. 9.

The 20-year federal subsidy on the apartments was about to expire, one of the thousands of developments in danger of losing federal aid in today's national affordable-housing shortage.

Patterson said her alternative would have been to pay off the mortgages to the government, put 80 elderly families out on the street, then rent out the apartments to people willing to pay top dollar to live there.

''How do you live with yourself after you do that?'' she said. ''I don't think I could.''

The change in ownership will not affect the residents, she said. The only things that will change for them is where they send their rent checks and where they call for service.

105-year-old proofreader retires from newspaper job

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (AP) -- For nearly 40 years, Audrey Stubbart pestered young reporters about spelling, grammar and pesky facts. Her sharp eyes caught misspelled words, warring verb tenses and wayward commas.

At age 105, she reluctantly put up her dictionary and retired in August from her job editing copy at The Independence Examiner, a daily newspaper in suburban Kansas City.

''We have a void in the newsroom with her not here,'' executive editor Dale Brendal said. ''We miss the inspiration she provided.''

An avid reader who eschewed alcohol and tobacco, Mrs. Stubbart had worked 40-hour weeks at the Examiner since 1961, when she came to the newspaper after a forced retirement at age 65 from her job as a proofreader for Herald Publishing.

''Everybody knew if you slipped copy by her and it had a mistake in it, she would call you on it,'' managing editor Sheila Davis said. ''Audrey didn't just correct the mistakes. She made sure to let the offenders know their mistake and teach them the correct way.''

Mrs. Stubbart and her late husband, John, settled on a remote Wyoming plot of land in 1916. She taught in a one-room school house and raised five children. Her expertise with words dates to memorizing English grammar books while minding sheep.

''I don't think the newsroom has changed that much since I started,'' she said. ''You used what you needed, and you needed what you used. It's always been that way.''