Mrs. Horton has died....
'Days of Our Lives' star Frances Reid dies - CNN.com

So sad. She was such an icon in the daytime drama world!

(and she looked like my Granny...)

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Mental that one, I'm telling you. ---Ron Weasley, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

I don't know if it's all that sad. She's 95!!!! Looks like she had a great life. I'm waiting to see how Days honors her.
What's sad is what I've been doing all this week. Trying to investigate my aunts death in Texas when I live in Iowa!! She was found dead in her home after a welfare check done by the police in mid-January. Her husband was in a care center from about 10/08 until he died in Feb., 2009. There was an APS worker assigned to my aunt and the APS worker closed her case in September because my aunt was "uncooperative". The death certificate says Alzheimers/Dementia and self-neglect. Well DUH, you don't close the case on an elderly person who sure must have needed assistance if she ends up dead within three months! I found out today that she hadn't used any water in her home from Sept on, didn't pay that bill so they shut off her water in January. From what we understand the power had been shut off too for awhile. She may have just laid in bed, got malnourished and died. I have spent about 12 hours making calls so far this week and I have a long way to go. I asked the APS worker why she wasn't commited or a guardian appt'ed but the worker said because she wasn't a danger to herself. I said "oh really? she must have been because now she's dead" and there was a long pause on the other end. So this is just beginning and it's a good thing I'm fesity! lol My mom is her only living sibling and she's in her mid 80's so I seem to be the one to take this on. My sis and bro wouldn't want to do it. Can you imagine living in the dark and just being so confused and probably just waiting to die? It's so awful.

marilynk: Thank you for the information about Frances Reid. I grew up watching her on Days of Our Lives. Thoughts & prayers going out to her family.

kathytheshopper: Thoughts & prayers going out to you as well. After reading everything you stated about your aunt, one question kept running through my mind. Did anyone in the family, including you, keep a check on her? Phone calls to check on her & such? My extended family is spread out over the country BUT we still check on the elderly relatives. There have been times that they could not be reached via phone & one of their neighbors was called to verify that they were okay. Not attacking you by any means & minimizing what you are going through right now.

Oh yes. They were very eccentric though and wouldn't necessarily answer their phones for weeks on end. Then my mom would get her on the phone and all would seem well and the cylce would repeat. They were very private and reclusive. She also had a sister-in-law on her husbands side that would call and check on them too. And whenver my mom talked to her she was lucid. I have a cousin in Wisconsin that would call several times a year too. She was always lucid with her too. We always got Christmas cards, etc... we always just figured it's the way the wanted to live as that's the way it's been for years. She would never go to a doctor either so in the back of our minds we always figured something like this would happen but not we saw no indication it would be soon at all.

If she was lucid with you and other family members, doesn't it stand to reason she was lucid with the APS worker?
I don't know.
If you figured this is what would happen, then perhaps a member of the family should have gone to see her and made the determination to have her placed in a care facility.

My mom and dad just had to place a member of their church congregation in the nursing home. The church was the closest family she had. Her son lives in California. Of course, Mom called her son who is coming now to deal with all of it. But, after Mom got the lady admitted, she went to try and clean the house a bit. There was milk in the fridge from JUNE 2009!
God love this lady, but she was cranky when she was in her right mind---she was downright quarrelous the last few months. If it weren't for mom and dad's proactive approach, they probably would have found her dead in her home.

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Mental that one, I'm telling you. ---Ron Weasley, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

I've learned that if you had in - person contact with her you might have spotted it. If she needed an APS worker to help her pay her bills, etc... combined with lots of other things it SHOULD be obvious to a trained worker that she wasn't going to fend for herself very well. Aren't APS workers trained to look for the signals? Isn't that their job when working with the elderly? I just found out today from the police that in a little over a year there were over 6 welfare check calls on them at their home and half a dozen other calls. That's on the record that the APS worker would have access to. She even told me the police were well aware of their siutation. Someone should have tried harder to find family, etc... we would have done something if we had known. It looks like there were enough signs for the APS worker to know this was not a healthy situation. If you aren't going to see a doctor, and that is your right, you probably will end up dying in your home. That we were prepared for down the road but not if she had an APS worker and Alzheimers (which we didn't know) and was left to fend for herself. I'm in my 50's and I haven't been to Texas since I was 7 so it's not like I could just buzz down there to check on her. She seemed ok on the phone calls with my mom and when you hear she has someone helping her you think she'll be ok.

I hadn't heard the news about Francis Reid. Seems that she had a long, full life- but it's still sad to see Mrs. Horton and her donuts gone from both the fictional Salem world, and the real world.

Thanks for posting. I've been a fan of the show for over 20 years, and just searched the internet a few weeks ago because I wondered if the actor that played Mickey Horton had died. He hadn't, but the timing feels odd!

I waiting to see what they do on Days. I bet they have her die on the show too so they can do a few days of memories and honoring her. They can do it very tastefully like they did with Mickey.