The Story of Charter Oak Home Care

With Charter Oak Home Care’s birthday coming up in November, we asked company Founder and Chairman Newt Schoenly if he would tell us the story of the company’s founding.  We are grateful for the indelible mark he and his wife Barbara have made on the company and for their continued guidance.  Below are Newt’s remarks.

A broken back due to a car accident brought me home from college for 8 months while my grandmother was dying of breast cancer.  I was paralyzed from the waist down for 36 hours and was then on my back for 2 months and in a body cast for another 3 months as my back gradually healed. During this time I had plenty of time to think.  As a multigenerational family living in the same home, my mother had her hands full caring for both me and my grandmother.  When I was well enough to walk in a partial body cast, I pitched in to help care for my grandmother.  Fast forward several years and 1982, we learned my mother was dying of the same cancer as my grandmother.  This time, I left my marketing job and helped my exhausted father take care of her until she died at home 6 months later.  I don’t regret a minute of the time spent taking care of each of these great mothers in my life.

 

Adversity and family impressed upon me the importance of caring for loved ones at home.  Both my mother and grandmother had felt loved and cared for until they died in the comfort and security of their own homes.  Having worked in nursing homes, I had experienced first hand the difference between institutional care and care at home.  These experiences gave rise to the idea of starting a company that was dedicated to coming alongside older adults and their families.  In November of 1985, my wife and I opened the doors of Charter Oak Home Care with the motto “Commitment to Serve” and a desire to care for our clients like family.  In those early days, we did everything from answering  phones, surveys to scheduling clients and providing direct care.  While we wore many hats, at night we would share stories with each other about our clients, their lives and how we were able to help them that day.  The long hours were rewarding as we knew we were making a difference in peoples’ lives.  As it says in the  Bible, “do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.”  Caregiving is a high calling and we are grateful for all of the exceptional caregivers with whom we’ve had the privilege of serving.

 

As the years passed, without advertising, we grew and grew, primarily through word of mouth.  In high school and college, both of our sons came to work in the company.  They experienced the same satisfaction that we had found while caring for others.  In 2019, our oldest son Conant chose to return to the company following business school.  He began the hard work of transforming the company from a mom and pop organization into a vibrant 21st century operation.  As a father it has been gratifying to have a son choose to carry on our original vision of “ Commitment to Serve. ”  With God’s continued help, it is my sincere hope that we will be able to provide present and future seniors with the dignified, experienced, heartfelt care that I tried to provide to the first two women in my life.