Penn Borough's best-kept secret eases medical bills
Tiny Penn Borough doesn't turn up on any list of "Best Places to Live."
Trains still rumble through the once-booming Westmoreland County railroad town, but the coal mines that fueled its economy are history, and most of the factory jobs are long gone. The median income for the 187 households doesn't quite reach $36,000. There's no grocery store and little to do but gather at one of the three churches, Junior's bar, the fire hall or the rod and gun club.
But the town has a quality-of-life benefit that even many of its 450 residents don't know about -- free hospitalization for all of them.
Since the 1970s, anyone who has lived in the borough for one year and one day can tap into a trust fund set up by a physician's daughter to pay hospital bills.
The McKee Estate Fund was established by Edith McKee, whose father, Joseph, served in the early 1900s as a doctor in the borough. She moved to Wilkinsburg but never forgot the families of the miners and factory workers her father tended to.
When Edith McKee died at age 93 in a nursing home on Pittsburgh's Fifth Avenue in 1970, she left the bulk of her $222,528 estate in a trust fund to help Penn residents pay hospital bills.
In her will, dated Feb. 18, 1944, and handwritten in the ornate penmanship of her era, she gifted "Penn Station" with $192,467.20. If Penn would cease to exist, she wrote, the fund would be transferred to residents of nearby Jeannette.
The McKee fund, started in 1974, has grown to about $1 million in a borough with an annual budget of just $130,000.
Interest on the money can be used to pay bills at Mercy Jeannette Hospital and Excela Health Westmoreland Hospital.
"If they check in at the hospital, they just tell them they have additional insurance under the McKee Fund," said Randy Dreistadt, president of borough council. "Their name needs to be on our list. Any bills that need to be paid are submitted by the hospital to the charitable fund. The charitable fund checks to see if their name is on the list the borough provides to them. If it is not on the list, they contact me."
Patients with hospitalization must exhaust those benefits before using the fund.
"If you don't have hospitalization, this takes care of the bills on a first-come, first-serve basis," Councilman Jeffrey Darragh said. "They will only pay hospital bills, not bills from outside vendors."
PNC Bank manages the fund, but council was forced to set up guidelines over the years because people came up with creative ways to try to dip into the money.
"People wanted to break the trust fund," Darragh said. "People were coming in transient, claiming to be residents of the borough."
Transients would rent rooms at borough hotels that had seen better days -- the Union or the Wallace -- trying to pass themselves off as residents.
"The way we usually clear that up is by asking who they pay their taxes to," Dreistadt said.
Residents who meet the year-and-a-day requirement must simply register with council.
"Any resident ... in the borough needs to sign up for the McKee Estate Fund," Dreistadt said. "We want them to know it's available for them."
Town's history
Penn Borough grew up along a Pennsylvania Railroad line.
Coal mines opened in the 1850s, first on the north side of town, then on the south side. In between, related industries sprung up: the American Foundry and Pipe Co., the Hockensmith Wheel and Mine Car Co., the Penn Gas Coal Co.
Today, the Lee Thompson Fawcett Co., which markets Bell View condiments and other food products, runs a distribution center in the borough. Until the 1980s, Bell View had employed up to 120 workers who bottled pickles and relishes at the plant for about five decades.
The company and the townsfolk still have a good relationship.
"It's a very quiet, very business-friendly, laid-back town," said Steve Fawcett, one of the company's owners. "If you need something, they're always there. If they need something, they know where to find us."
The borough's two part-time police officers drive a 1999 Ford Taurus, a salesman's car donated by the condiments company.
"It's a cute little town," said Lori Simmers, a carrier for Penn's post office. "Everybody knows everybody."
Some retirees were born there and never left. Many residents are related. Yet some are not aware of the McKee fund.
One is Jeff Minor, 27, who has lived in Penn most of his life. He recently lost his job at Sam's Club and was denied a medical card.
"Right now, I have two bad kidneys, and things are not looking so great," said Minor, who plans to register for the fund. "It's like a blessing in disguise -- that's crazy."
Heather Rivardo has groomed dogs at Heather's Best Dog-Gone Salon in the borough for three years.
"I actually feel like I'm in a neighborhood here," Rivardo said. "Everybody knows everybody. They watch out for each other."
Debra Redding, regional manager of Northwood Realty Co. Better Homes and Gardens in Greensburg, was surprised to hear about the fund and said she would use it to market a house in Penn Borough.
"If I knew this was available, I would use it as a sales tool," Redding said. "It's the best-kept secret in town. I think it's a wonderful thing."
A blessing
The fund was a blessing for Mildred Downing. In 2002, she needed an extra day in Jeannette Hospital's critical care unit after a stroke, but her insurance company wouldn't cover it.
"Her doctor was angry," recalled Joan Downing, Mildred's daughter. "I told (the doctor) not to be concerned. We had this fund that covered hospital bills for Penn Borough residents. She was very relieved, as was my mother."
Helen Nelson, a Penn Borough resident for all of her 76 years, used the fund when her son, now deceased, was kicked in the face by a horse at age 9.
"It's priceless to those who need it," Nelson said. "Years ago, when my son was quite young, they stepped forward to pick up some expense. I know of elderly people who can't pay the fee at the emergency room, they pick up the fund. I hadn't even asked for it. They stepped up. It really was a godsend."
"People use it every quarter," Dreistadt said.
And they appreciate it.
"I think it's a wonderful thing for this town," said Mildred Downing, who has lived in Penn since 1941. "We have a lot of senior citizens who can't afford insurance.
"That was a wonderful thing those people did."
Another source
The McKee Estate Fund inspired one woman to set up a second medical fund for Penn Borough residents.
The Shirley T. Brown Trust was established in the 1990s. The interest earned on it is available to help residents who are totally blind or born prematurely and in need of medical help.
"She was born prematurely, and that led to blindness later on in life," said council President Randy Dreistadt.
Brown was born in the borough and spent her final five decades in Washington, D.C., but her affinity for her hometown never wavered.
Edith McKee's story spurred Brown to establish her own fund and "it has been used several times," Councilman Jeffrey Darragh said.
