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Mardi Gras

Westview resident, Ethel Parker, celebrates in customary fashion for the health care facility’s annual Mardi Gras event.

 

 

DAYVILLE — Beads, masks, costumes, cake and punch were just the beginning of Westview Health Care Center’s annual Mardi Gras festivities.  The facility’s Formal Dining Room was magically transformed into a scene that could compete with a Bourbon Street celebration.

 Bespeckled in the traditional colors of purple, green and gold the attending residents and patients arrived dressed up in appropriate flamboyant garb for the event. Mardi Gras, meaning “Fat Tuesday” and derived from a Christian holiday, is a pre-Lenten, carnival-like celebration filled with food, music and dance. 

We Got Rhythm!, a classic song-and-dance duo from Bolton took center stage providing the crowd with a myriad of sights and sounds. Cycling through numerous instruments including guitar, trumpet, steel drum and the eye-catching boomba, Larry Ruhls and wife, Ellen Iovino sang and tap danced their way through an eclectic set of traditional American music and island-infused harmonies. 

In addition to the musical entertainment, residents indulged in food and drink including slices of “King Cake”, a cinnamon-sugared sweet bread that, as part of tradition, had two small plastic babies baked inside. The two residents whose piece of cake revealed a plastic baby was later crowned as the new king and queen of Westview Mardi Gras. “Westview’s annual Mardi Gras event is something that we look forward to every year,” said David T. Panteleakos, administrator. “For us, it is a celebration of life.”