St. Jude Methodist Retirement Center
St. Jude Methodist Retirement Center for the Indigent is a fictional place. It only exists in the pages of a White Feather Mystery. The fictional facility first appears in book one of the series, "Ludwig's Fugue", as a side story. The Undersheriff of Rockcliffe has placed his uncle-in-law in the facility, but Benny is not adjusting well. Chief Crab has to take time out from his murder investigation to try to get Benny to stop being a menace at the home.
In book 2, a new character, Franklin D. Roberts, is accepted into the Retirement Home and meets the notorious Benny Cook who is still menacing the residents despite all efforts to get him to settle down. When he dies mysteriously of an apparent poisoning, Frank and his new friends Albert, Ralph, Monty, and White Feather form the "Sleuthkateers" club and try to solve the murder. This mystery, which ventures into the genre of "Geezer Lit" is a humerous and sometimes poignant story of five old geezers competing with the Sheriff and his deputies in a mystery with a Hitchcockian twist.
The building on the cover and used in promotional material is actually the administrative building of the Hudson River Mental Institution in New York which was closed years ago. Those who search for the location based upon descriptions in the books will not find the turn off, road, or building described. That part of highway 69 is just ranch land.
