{"id":147608,"date":"2026-02-13T21:29:48","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T02:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=147608"},"modified":"2026-02-13T21:29:48","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T02:29:48","slug":"resident-at-gracedale-celebrates-60-years-of-marriage-with-a-special-valentines-luncheon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=147608","title":{"rendered":"\ufeffResident at Gracedale Celebrates 60+ Years of Marriage With a Special Valentine&#8217;s Luncheon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>[Northampton County, PA]\u00a0\u2014<\/strong>This Valentine\u2019s week was special for residents and visitors at Gracedale Nursing Home. On Wednesday, a love-themed luncheon was held for resident couples, their spouses, and partners, where the Gracedale Life Enrichment team captured photos. The menu included a choice between creamy parmesean chicken picatta and pan-seared Atlantic salmon, with triple chocolate cheesecake for dessert.<\/p>\n<p>Dorothy Silfies and her husband Ray Silfies were one of the couples in attendance.\u00a0Dorothy and Ray met when they were just 9 or 10 years old and grew up in Bath just blocks away from each other.\u00a0They were friends in school and started dating when they were 16.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe went to prom together and graduated together,\u201d said Ray Silfies. The couple was married on October 17, 1964, and bought a home in Nazareth where they raised three children.\u00a0With Ray working long hours to make ends meet, he wasn\u2019t home often, and says, \u201cI give her all the credit for raising them.\u201d Dorothy worked first as a secretary, and later as a daycare provider, which she says was the joy of her life.<\/p>\n<p>The decision to have Dorothy move to Gracedale was a difficult one for Ray. He is usually at Gracedale visiting her for 4 to 5 hours each day.\u00a0Events like the luncheon help the couple reconnect and enjoy those special moments, such as Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019d have to go to a restaurant to get food like that,\u201d Ray said. \u201cThe plating on the meal and the dessert was 5-star.\u201d<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mail.google.com\/mail\/u\/0\/#m_-7832654933815710272_\">In addition to the luncheon, the Friends of Gracedale nonprofit held a bake sale and basket raffle. All proceeds from their sale go back to the residents and activities held for residents throughout the year, including the in-house beauty parlor and barbershop.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Northampton County, PA]\u00a0\u2014This Valentine\u2019s week was special for residents and visitors at Gracedale Nursing Home. On Wednesday, a love-themed luncheon was held for resident couples, their spouses, and partners, where &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=147608\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">\ufeffResident at Gracedale Celebrates 60+ Years of Marriage With a Special Valentine&#8217;s Luncheon<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147609,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-valley"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/gracedale-couple.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147608"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=147608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147610,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147608\/revisions\/147610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/147609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=147608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=147608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=147608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}