THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 8, 1995 TAG: 9506060112
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JANE HARPER, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Long : 112 lines
The relationship between Wiley Eppes and Dana Long is like any grandfather and granddaughter.
Eppes enjoys watching the precocious 12-year-old play with endless energy. He proudly displays her school photos on his bedroom dresser. Dana, meanwhile, helps him around the house. She tends to him when he's ill.
But they are anything but traditional family. Indeed, the two are not even related. Nor are they of the same race.
They are, however, very good friends.
The two met some five years ago when Dana was just 7 years old and Eppes was 73.
Dana and her family had just moved to Lindenwood, in Norfolk, where Eppes has lived alone for more than 25 years. Eppes saw her one winter day, standing alone across the street, shivering.
As she peeked through a neighbor's fence at two dogs, Eppes called out to her and asked if she wanted to come inside and get warm.
Dana eagerly accepted, and the two started talking. Not long after that first meeting, Dana brought her mother, Jean Barton, to meet her new friend.
Even after Dana and her mother moved to Virginia Beach, she continued to visit Eppes regularly. She still sees him every weekend and stays even longer when school is out.
Through the years, their friendship has grown stronger, especially during a particularly rough period the past few years, when Dana and her mother, Jean Barton, helped Eppes through a series of illnesses and injuries that at times landed him in nursing homes.
``I don't know what I would have done without them,'' Eppes said recently as he sat on the balcony of his second-floor duplex. There, he grows tomatoes, flowers, herbs and strawberries. Dana helps him in his little garden.
Eppes was a cook and chauffeur for wealthy families, and also a bartender in the evenings for a catering company before he retired four years ago. He has suffered from kidney problems for years and undergoes dialysis treatments three times a week.
But it was a back injury in 1991 that first sent Eppes to a nursing home. He had ruptured a disk and was in the hospital for three months before spending another 18 months recuperating in a nursing home.
``They came by every night to see me,'' Eppes said of Dana and her mother. ``She wanted to see me every night so her mother had to bring her.''
Dana and her mother also went to Eppes' house almost daily, picking up his mail, taking care of his bills and starting his car to keep the battery charged. On Christmas, they brought Eppes to their home so Dana could show off her new toys.
When Eppes finally returned home, Dana was there to help him navigate the stairs leading to his apartment. Her mother helped, too, doing Eppes' laundry and grocery shopping.
Eppes was forced to return to the nursing home in August 1993 when he accidentally overdosed on his kidney medication. There was another hospital stay and more recuperation.
When Dana came to see him in the hospital, Eppes didn't even recognize her. It was a scary time, Dana recalls.
``But he's doing much better now,'' she says.
Their routine now is for Dana to come to Eppes' home after school on Fridays and stay through Sunday. Her mother drives over on Sunday evenings to have dinner with Eppes and Dana before returning home.
Dana says she looks forward to going to Eppes' home and seeing her many friends in the old neighborhood. She enjoys watching movies on his VCR and playing video games on the Super Nintendo and computer that Eppes bought for her.
She also likes to go roller-skating and play basketball with her friends. And in the summer, she likes to go to the pool or the beach at Ocean View. Eppes drives her in his old Cadillac.
``We used to go to the zoo, but I can't do all that walking around anymore,'' Eppes said. ``When we go shopping at Wal-Mart, she puts me in one of those wheelchairs.''
Dana's mother says she allows Dana to spend so much time with Eppes because the two of them look forward to it so much. Also, Eppes' neighborhood is safer than her Friendship Village area in Virginia Beach. Youths once cut Dana's head with a brick and have beaten her up, Barton says.
Barton, unable to work because of diabetes and high blood pressure, lives in low-income housing and said she can't afford to move to a safer neighborhood. She and Dana have talked about moving out of state. But they decided not to as long as Eppes needs them, she said.
``He's the only thing keeping us in Virginia,'' Barton said. ``We feel that if we were to leave, it would just kill him.''
When Dana misbehaves, Barton said she sometimes threatens to punish her by not letting her go see Eppes. But, she admits, she never has been able to follow through.
``That would just punish him, too,'' Barton explained. ``If I tell him she can't come over on a weekend, his heart is broken.''
Asked what she likes most about Eppes, whom she calls ``Mr. Wiley,'' Dana shrugged her shoulders and fidgeted.
``He's not mean,'' she said. ``He buys me lots of stuff. He's nice to my mom and helps her with her car problems and stuff like that. He fixes us dinner on Sundays.''
Eppes, who has no children of his own, said Dana is like a daughter to him. When she's not there during the week, he usually just stays home and watches talk shows or the O.J. Simpson trial on television.
Eppes said he expects their friendship to change as Dana begins to enter her teenage years, but he hopes it will continue.
``When the boys start coming around it will change,'' Eppes said. ``She won't be here so much.''
Dana assures him, however, that they'll always be friends. Eppes is confident that they will be.
``Till I go, I hope,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by GARY C. KNAPP
Five years ago, Wiley Eppes, now 78, and Dana Long, now 12, started
a friendship that continues to grow stronger as they get older.
by CNB