SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Rena Wilkey has plenty of parking around her home. In fact, that's pretty much all she has.
Now that most of the 73-year-old woman's neighbors have sold their properties to Memorial Medical Center, Wilkey's one-story house is ringed on three sides by parking lots.
Wilkey said a hospital representative calls every year to politely ask if she's willing to sell.
“I told them I'm not selling,” Wilkey said of the home she's lived in for more than 50 years. “I'm comfortable here. And I don't care about the money. Money don't buy happiness.”
The hospital has bought dozens of nearby properties over the years to build the parking lots.
Wilkey said the lots are well-lit and that the hospital even clears the snow from her sidewalks. And she said she doesn't mind losing some of her neighbors – including those she said were troublemakers.
A message left for a medical center spokesman was not immediately returned.
Wilkey said it's the memories of living in the house with her late husband and their daughters that keeps her there.
“That's the reason I don't want to move,” she said.
