Sifting through Gold
Precious Women Elders Comment on Aging, Turning Points, and Love.
Sifting through Gold
Precious Women Elders Comment on Aging, Turning Points, and Love.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the five precious women who have so generously shared their time, memories, enthusiasm, and hearts with me over our many years of friendship. May women of every generation feel empowered by your words, images, stories, and insights.
It is your gold that is contained in this book. Thank you for your legacy.
Inspiration for the Book
The precious women elders that formed my thoughts around aging, life, and love are dear to my heart. They are inspiration for generations to come.
Inspiration for the Book
The precious women elders that formed my thoughts around aging, life, and love are dear to my heart. They are inspiration for generations to come.
The inspiration for the book
An Introduction by Mary LaCasse
It’s been over two years since the inspiration for this project first took hold of my heart. It happened while I was strolling through a Target store in California. My phone rang and I received news that a beloved eighty-seven year old woman friend who lived in Montana was in the hospital with life threatening injuries. Jan had fainted near the wood stove in the log cabin where she lived alone, and miraculously managed to set down a kettle of hot water she was holding before toppling over backwards down the hallway. It was nighttime. Her leg was broken, yet she managed to drag herself to the phone for help. It was several hours before she arrived at the hospital. She had a fever.
We were all very worried that we might lose her. And I was frustrated and sad that I hadn’t taken the time to learn more about her early years or asked the deeper questions about aging and what really mattered to her. I felt a sense of urgency to know and understand what compelled her to live in the forest by herself without electricity, use oil lamps for light, burning up to ten cords of wood in the stove for heat during long winter months with snow, ice, and frozen water lines, and endure the risk of forest fires that frequently flared up after summer lightning strikes.
Through perseverance and a strong will, Jan was able to return to her cabin a few months later and slowly recovered from her injuries. That summer, I had a long visit with her and we began a dialogue and that included a list of questions and ideas that eventually formed the bones of this project. Later, after thinking about our conversation, she wrote down her thoughts and feelings about aging, turning points, death, love, and her history, and sent them to me in letters over the next eighteen months.
That summer, I also posed similar questions to four other elder women friends, Evelyn Bennett, 88, Ludell Deutscher 85, Sr. Dorothy Pulkka, 76, and Betty Jonasson, 95. I asked if they would like to be included in this project. They were curious and agreed. Gradually, their comments arrived in various forms -- as lists, post-it-notes, and letters. Many were hand written. Soon, I began to notice that although the women were very different, they shared similar attitudes and beliefs. The paths they have followed brought them great joy, tremendous hardships, unusual adventures, fulfilling careers, and deep, meaningful relationships. Each woman has a unique story to tell. Most don’t know each other and they live in different states, but what they have in common is their courage, integrity, humor, grit, ability to forgive, and their loving, peaceful hearts.
Their Gold
Inspiring stories about resilience and grit that seeks to redefine beliefs about how women age.
Their Gold
Inspiring stories about resilience and grit that seeks to redefine beliefs about how women age.
Age 95
I am asked about turning points in my life. This leads to an anecdote. Seventy-three years ago, I attended a dance with a blind date. He was tall. I was short. All evening his size fourteen shoes collided with my toes. So I decided afterward to never date him again. Four years later he returned from war service and we were married. And later we had six healthy and accomplishing children. Sadly, I lost my husband to Alzheimers sixteen years ago. Today I am a cheerleader from my wheelchair (watch out woodwork) for seven grand children and five “greats.”
Age 90
When asked about what she believed was most important in teaching children, Jan was passionate about how children need to be respected for what, where, and who they are. They need love, attention, guidance, time, and to be truly liked. She mentioned the kids who were the most irritating and difficult in class and how important it was to find something to like about the child. Find something to enjoy about each child—“they can feel it,” she said.
Age 85 (Passed away in 2013)
Ludell took art classes at the California College of Arts and Crafts and Mills College. She taught ceramics and ran the art program at Civic Arts in Walnut Creek, California for over a decade. Her work moved from wheel throwing to large-scale ceramic sculptures, that were consistently bold, expressive, and leaned towards feminist imagery. She was interested in the women’s liberation movement and also in spirituality (especially Buddhism), meditation and questions about the soul.
Age 88
When I was four or five, I watched my mother as she ice-skated. Her skimming over the ice made quite an impression on me and by the time I was six, I was asking for skates. Somebody, either my mother or grandfather, sent away for hockey skates in my small size. When my skates arrived, mother and I went to the small pond at a neighborhood park near where we lived in Binghamton, New York. There she began to teach me how to skate. The encouragement she gave me was an important part of the instruction. I simply loved this new sport, even though I was down on the ice much of the time. Later, I would walk to the pond by myself where I developed a lust for skating.
Age 76
At age 72, Sr. Dorothy found her calling as a weaver. Although she had been interested in the process for years, there had not been time or the means to do it. In 2006 she attended a weaving workshop and was completely “hooked.” It has been a fulfilling, contemplative activity that she does in a studio that now contains two floor looms and a bounty of yarns of all types in a stunning array of colors and textures. Samples of her prayer shawls, stoles, scarves, baby blankets, and other weavings cover the walls and the sound of sacred music quietly echoes in the large space.
Share Your Gold
We'd like to invite you to tell us about the wise women elders who have inspired, mentored, and enriched your lives.
Share Your Gold
We'd like to invite you to tell us about the wise women elders who have inspired, mentored, and enriched your lives.