The minute Mollie Smith saw six cartons of Katherine Wrathall's cigarettes stacked in a corner of the Giant supermarket, she says, she knew something terrible had happened to her 76-year-old friend.
For 23 years, Smith and Wrathall had shared a morning smoke outside the Owen Brown village Giant where Smith works. The store used to special order a certain kind of Winston cigarettes for Wrathall.
Days later, on June 25, an apartment manager found Wrathall lying dead on the floor of her Columbia apartment. The condition of the body and conversations with the woman's family indicate that she had been dead for about 2 1/2 weeks, police said.
Martha Denard, who lives in the Owen Brown Place Apartments on Cradlerock Way, where Wrathall died, is trying to organize her neighbors, most of whom are elderly, to guard against a similar incident.
"I know we can't stop death," Denard said. "But we can certainly fix it so that you don't lie there dead on the floor for two or more days."
At a meeting of residents this afternoon, Denard will promote her plan to help the elderly stay in touch by using tags similar to room service door hangers. An "I'm OK" tag would be hung on the outside of the door each morning. If someone had not put such a tag out, a floor monitor would ask an apartment manager to check on the resident.
What Denard and her neighbors are concerned about at Owen Brown Place reflects the growing challenge of helping older people who live alone stay safe while maintaining their independence.
Older Americans are living longer and are often choosing to live alone, frequently far from their relatives. Monitoring programs designed to assuage their fear of dying alone are multiplying across Maryland, said Pamela Causey, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Aging.
"People need a daily call or personal visit to stay connected," she said. "This helps them to feel that they are not being forgotten."
In Baltimore and Baltimore County, about 20 percent of residents are 60 or older. The proportion is closer to 17 percent in Howard. Each of the jurisdictions has an office that deals with issues involving aging.
The Department of Aging in Baltimore County recommends that older people participate in the buddy program, in which two people phone each other at least once a day, or Home Team, a program in which a volunteer telephones or visits an elderly person once a week.
The county is also looking into a program that issues to some people cellular phones on which only 911 can be dialed, said Betty Evans, manager of senior information and assistance programs in Baltimore County.
Howard County has check-in programs similar to those in Baltimore County that are publicized in local newspapers and in a newsletter distributed to the elderly. In addition to those programs, said Duane St. Clair, an assistant administrator in the Howard County Office of Aging, the elderly need to look out for one another.
"In senior buildings, or buildings that house a lot of seniors, there is usually a strong network in place," he said. "They look out for each other."
But watching out for your neighbors at times conflicts with the philosophy of minding your own business, said Elinor Ginzler, manager of individual living and long-term care for AARP.
"There absolutely is a cultural barrier that we have to overcome," she said. "In this country, people say, `It's not my house.' We don't invade other people's property here."
Mollie Smith said she thinks that is why residents in the Owen Brown building didn't check on her friend, and she is convinced that Wrathall lay dead in her apartment for four weeks.
"I just couldn't get nobody to go in there and check on her," Smith said. "Kathy kept to herself, but someone should have noticed something was wrong. It all boils down to looking out for your neighbor."
