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Retirement Reflections
Sharing resident stories from Canterfield
Hosted by: Lee Martin & Carol Giusty (Juice-tea)
Produced by: Patric E.K. Bundrum
Music by: Parkcore
Retirement Reflections
Quilt of Life
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Lee and Carol interview Jo Pierce about her 46 great-grandchildren, music, and textile art hobbies.
Welcome to Retirement Reflections Podcasts, coming to you from the library of Canterfield of Kennesaw Independent Living in Kennesaw, Georgia. My name is Lee Martin. I'll be your co-host along with Carol Juicy. Our podcast producer is Patrick Bundram, who will oversee the entire life cycle of this podcast, which simply means if something goes wrong, it's going to be her fault. Welcome to the library, Carol.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you, Lee. And the library is now being changed over because I have two new bookcases.
SPEAKER_03But you had like 42 new books, didn't you? I have a lot of new books, yes. We've got a special guest today, and every guest we have is special, but today, a very special guest. You want to introduce her? You want me to point the Would you please? I'll do it. Joe Pierce is with us today, one of our residents. She lives down the hall from the library, and we've listened to her at different times and know that she has a lot to say. So say hello, Joe. Hello, Lee. Hello, Carol. Hi, Joe. We have we have a kind of an ongoing theme. I said kind of, it's not official. But it basically moves on the assumption that there's three phases in life: youth, middle adult, and then old age. And the idea is that someone once upon a time said youth is for fun, middle age is for work, and old age is for God. But we don't necessarily agree with that. We feel like that all three of those is in all those stages. Maybe the place to start with you is introduce yourself and your background. We want to know all the dirty secrets about your family.
SPEAKER_01I don't know about that, but I was born in Borough Queens, New York City. And when I was eight years old, my aunt gave me her very fine upright piano. And still being in the depression, the teacher charged 50 cents an hour and she came to the house. And when I got proficient enough in the summertime with the windows open, of course we had no air conditioning, I would be playing the latest pop tunes and singing. And my neighbors would hear me and they said to my mother, You need to give her singing lessons. But they couldn't afford, they could only afford the 50 cents a week.
SPEAKER_03Did they give you wanted to give you singing lessons because they thought you had potential or because you were really mad at that bad?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. That's what I was wondering too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So then when I was 11, a neighbor of my aunt's took me up in his piper cup, and that became my other passion. I got crazy about flying.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
SPEAKER_01So in high school, I decided that I wanted to pursue aeronautical engineering.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01My senior year, when it was time to start applying to colleges, my advisor said they'll never hire you because you're a woman.
SPEAKER_03That was probably typical.
SPEAKER_01In 1949. Yeah. Yeah. So that what else can I do? Well, I had sewn ever since the sixth grade, made a lot of my own clothes in high school. So I signed up for home ec. But under the umbrella of home economics was early childhood education. And that's what uh was my specialty there. When I graduated, I became a stewardess for American Airlines to get my airplane crazy out there. And six months into my job there, I had a schedule that was taking me from Chicago, which was my home base, to Boston. And then I got a call from the scheduler saying, We're changing your flight. You're still going to Boston, but you're on a different flight. But the plane that I was supposed to be on went down in a storm. And so Kent, who was in his senior year, says, We're getting married. I also forgot to mention that we met because his fraternity and my sorority were getting an act together to get into a show they called Victory Varieties. We didn't get into the show, but he asked me out and I went to a dancing. On our third date, we were listening to classical music and he proposed.
SPEAKER_03That's why that's why I don't listen to classical music. It makes it makes me do things I'm really not sure I wanted to do. Yes, at the time I thought that was kind of funny, actually, you know. You mentioned a while ago your well, you didn't mention your family. Siblings. You have siblings? No, only child.
SPEAKER_01You're an only child. Okay. But I've got five daughters, 14 grandchildren, 40 great grandchildren, and two on the way. Oh my goodness. My goodness is right.
SPEAKER_02So you have lived quite a wide range of experiences in your whole life, from the time you were in grammar school all the way through the day that you were married and beyond.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. We lived in Speedway, Indiana, which is home of the Indianapolis 500, actually. It's not in Indianapolis, it's in Speedway, Indiana. And that's where I taught school as well. Well, I want to know, she said, how many grandchildren and great grandchildren? 14 grands and 40 grapes, two on the way.
SPEAKER_03Okay. We're live, so I'm going to put her on the spot. Who's your favorite? Oh, that's a that's a really you know they'll be listening. We want them to listen. We want to get all kinds of things started.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I'm sure they're all very special.
SPEAKER_01Well, my youngest daughter has eight children. She says that she tries to what is her to love them equally. Oh, she has another thing, she put, you know, and they all have different personalities and you love them for different reasons, you know.
SPEAKER_03People ask me, they say, how many uh grandchildren do you have? I said, two. He said, Well, how many great grandchildren? I said, two. I mean, they're all great, aren't they?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they're all great. They're all great. Your early childhood education really must have come in handy raising five daughters. Um and now I'm particularly interested in early childhood education too, because that was one of the first things that I did and I truly enjoyed. And it was not a real popular form of education at the time that you did it or the time that I did it. So you actually worked with well, I had yet a school. Yeah, I did. I graduated with a degree in education, but I particularly loved those, the little ones. Did a lot of parent education. I'm sure you did too. I've always been very interested in the creativity part of it and teaching them creative activities and how what was your specialty in reading.
SPEAKER_01I had a chip on my diploma, something about reading. In fact, I had when I taught second grade, we were integrating children that had prop, you know, of lower mental capacity and all that into the regular classroom instead of separating them. And there were I had two boys one year, and I was able to teach both of them to read. Really? Yeah. Did you have a specific way of doing it? No, we uh the teachers got to vote every five years when we changed textbooks.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01And we always chose the one that had several different methods, whether it was uh sound or sight words or different, you know, it wasn't so many of the things had just one way of teaching. And that doesn't reach every child if you teach, you know, just one way. That's right. And it's like this cursive writing that they're not teaching anymore.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_01I had a girl either had uh cerebral palsy and manuscript writing, you know, where you take one letter and lift a pen pencil at the time, she had a terrible time. When we did cursive writing, because there was a flow to it, she could do that very legibly. Now, why do you think they stopped cursive writing in school? I don't know, maybe they just didn't want to add another subject to the the day, but there's so many things, like for instance, if you wanted to go into your ancestry, uh if you've ever seen those things on uh finding your roots, that show that's on, and all of the old things where people had their names signed in, like when they immigrated and stuff like that. Everything's in cursive writing. I sent a note to one of my great-granddaughters, she couldn't read it. She had to have her mother read it to her. Wow.
SPEAKER_03You mentioned a while ago creativity, you know, and teaching. Jo has some creative activities she does here, quilting and sewing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I made a lot of my clothes in high school and college gowns. Having five daughters, made lots of clothes all through the years, prom gowns, all of their wedding dresses, bridesmaids' dresses.
SPEAKER_03Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_01Are you able to do anything like that now? Yeah, I'm still quilting.
SPEAKER_03Are you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. After I discovered quilting, I gave up making garments.
SPEAKER_03I want a quilt made out of my old t-shirts.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, I have a friend that does those, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I I have got tons of t-shirts. Of course, I got certain sayings on them. Some there are from churches that I've been at or activities I've gone to. I thought that would be really cool.
SPEAKER_02So you're you're going to get into quilting. No, I said I would like to have.
SPEAKER_03I didn't say I was going to do. One of the uh one of our residents here passed away uh I don't know a couple of weeks ago, Dave Moreland. Right. He collected ties. And his daughter said they brought like 13 ties when we had a memorial service up here, but they said he's got probably close to a hundred ties. Don't know what we're gonna do with them. And my wife said, Why don't you make a quilt out of them? And they got all excited, just a lap size quilt out of all of these ties.
SPEAKER_02Joe, could you teach Lee to make a quilt out of ties and t-shirts?
SPEAKER_03I wouldn't think that would be I don't have a I don't really have an interest other than receiving it. I don't want to do it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm I'm hearing who used to do that, take t-shirts and make quilts. She's no longer with us, unfortunately, or ask her to do yours.
SPEAKER_03I had some other things on my notes. Oh, yeah. Moving into a facility like this, into an independent living, because you said one of your interests was music. Tell us a little bit about your background in that. And are you doing anything now, or has your voice just gone? You can't do that.
SPEAKER_01I did get into it somewhat a little bit earlier when Kent graduated. His company sent him up to South Bend, Indiana to supervise construction on the toll road that was being built then several miles away.
SPEAKER_03So you were sitting at toll gate and sang to people when they came by?
SPEAKER_01Well, you're trying to distract me. No, no, no, no, no, no, not me. Anyway, we went to a downtown church in South Bend. It happened to be a Presbyterian church, and they had a large, very fine choir. So by then we had our first child, and and he said, you know, they have child care. Why don't we go and join the choir? So we did, but my voice, I couldn't sing high anymore, but I couldn't sing alto because I couldn't read that part. So the president of the choir sat next to me. She was an alto and she helped me. And then Kent on this trombone would help me learn my part. So then when we moved back to Indianapolis, we were charter members and starting a new church. And Kent was asked to do the music. So we were renting an episcopal church after they were finished with their services, and they had this old reed pump organ that sounded like a pea whistle. It was just awful. Kent says, We're not singing to that. So we did everything for a year, a cappella, and he would teach me the alto part on the trombone because we didn't have a piano yet. And by the end of that year, I began to be able to hear where the alto fit in and start being able to sight read it. So then later on, he was reading in the Anneapolis Star that the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra was going to be doing Benjamin Britton's War Requiem the next year. He said, We're gonna go audition. I said, What? Yeah, I was gonna say that I'm not doing any solo for somebody that's gonna be. So we went and told him we weren't soloists. So he gave us a hymnal and had us both sing the melody and then each sing our part. Right. And we got in.
SPEAKER_03You have a favorite style of music, a favorite well, classical. Classical.
SPEAKER_01But I like jazz too. Kent, of course, played played jazz. Yeah, so we were in for 29 years, and some of our closest friends still around were part of that group. Are you still singing? Well, we got to go to the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall with the symphony. We all flew out there. We got to go uh a smaller group twice to the Aspen Music Festival, the Berkshire Choral Festival. We sang in the Indiana Christian Corral. We did a tour of Germany and Austria, and then we went on some cruises with a group from the Simponic choir where we concertized on the ship and then also on land. Those were fun. Yeah, lots of music.
SPEAKER_02Well, you have had a wide, wide range of interests, talents, and abilities over the years. I'm sitting here thinking that my life has been relatively, relatively unimportant. I don't think I've done much of it. I'm gonna do what you just did though here. You wrote out some of the things that you've done. I have to do that and then bring it out every once in a while. More than you realize, yeah. Lee, you have I'm still interested in Lee trying to do this quilt.
SPEAKER_01Well, we moved moving right along. We moved to Georgia in 2013, and we both the following fall joined the Primetime Singers, which is an over 55 adult non-denominational choir that is sponsored by Roswell United Methodist Church. Oh, cool. Uh after Kent passed away, I moved to Roswell and joined the church and sang in the sanctuary choir until I moved over to Kennesaw. And uh so primetime singers I had been in for 13 years. Kent was two, he passed away. And I'm not singing this year for reasons I won't go into, but anyway.
SPEAKER_03One of the experiences that I've had both in Kansas and here, I've had friends that were members of the Episcopal Church, and they have quarterly concerts, like on a Sunday or a Saturday afternoon, and it seems to always be jazz. Matter of fact, one of the people that come here for our happy hour, I met her at the Episcopal Church down the road down here. One afternoon, she and her four or five other participants gave a jazz concert. And I thought that was interesting, you know, that church would sponsor something, which is good. I mean, I liked it. I really did, really did. Hey, listen, time-wise, we're we're moving along here, but I want to ask uh Joe a question. What kind of challenges did you experience moving into a senior facility?
SPEAKER_01Well, this is the third place I've lived, which we're all independent living. Getting along with all the different personalities that you meet.
SPEAKER_03There are a lot of them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And some have become good friends at each place I've lived, and I still see them. Most of them don't drive anymore, so I have to drive and pick them up and go see them.
SPEAKER_03Be sure to tell them about the podcast because we want them to listen. Yeah. Because then their kids will listen and their kids' kids will listen. I I think the other day Patrick told me that we had reached over a hundred and twenty five or so. It's not viewers, but listeners, I guess, people that Well, I didn't know you were already broadcasting that. We are. Now, this isn't live today. It'll be edited, and then yours will be on next next week. Now, having said that, a lot of different generations listening to us. If you had to go back to your younger self, what would you do different? Or what would you tell today's younger generation things they need to know about life or preparing for retirement or anything along that line?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think they need to develop some interests because that can carry them all through their life, whether it's music, reading, some kind of craft, woodworking. You know, a lot of men like to do woodworking.
SPEAKER_03I think a lot of times, you know, we we struggle with that because we again back to the idea of the young age being for fun and the middle age being for work, you know, a lot of a lot of median age adults really don't get into the fun aspect of life because they feel like they have to work. Of course, then when you get our age, we wish we had worked more so we've got some income to take care of staying here. But I think transitioning from one age or one uh experience to another is always difficult.
SPEAKER_01One thing I did, I took French and Spanish in high school, three and two, three and a half years of French, two of Spanish. My daughter was marrying a man from Belgium, from the French-speaking part of Belgium. His family were coming to Atlanta for the wedding and they spoke no English. So I started taking French classes at adult night school so that when they came, my French was passable enough that I could communicate with them. Then I enjoyed it so much that I took more classes and then had a private tutor for a year. Then we went to visit his parents in Belgium, and the three days we spent at their home was like having a year's worth of lessons because his dad was so kind in helping me when I'd be trying to express myself. And your brain doesn't try to think English anymore. It's expecting to hear French, and so you can learn much more quickly. And so I've I've got a lot of workbooks and I haven't had the opportunity to speak it much recently, so I've gotten a bit rusty. But when I go to visit my daughter in Florida, I really should uh have Vincent speak to me in French so I can get some of it back. He Skypes his his dad every Saturday, and I get to speak to his dad when he calls it.
SPEAKER_02You remind me of being a lifelong learner. In other words, you're always curious and you're learning. And I think that's part of what developing interest as we go along in our early years and mid-years, and to be curious, really take part in learning. We haven't had a lot of conversations, but the few times that we have talked, I've always known it that you are very articulate and you are aware of what's going on and whatever you're doing.
SPEAKER_01Truly blessed to have a friend that said they've got all their marbles and they're round.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay. That can paint. I'll have to paint a picture of a square marble. A square marble.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_03Oh. Well, you know, we've had a good time today, and uh we're limited sometimes on our time. Carol, you think of anything else? There's so many things that Joe can. I think it's interesting for people here to know kind of uh what generations we're dealing with here. So is it improper to ask how old you are? I'll be 94 next month. Wow. No wonder she's done so many things.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. My goodness.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_02Carol, you got anything else that you think of that you have? Oh, I could talk to Joe for a long time, just about education, about reading. We are in the same book club. Um, I enjoy listening to Joe. She has shared what she has done in her life. And that's what I really enjoy about being in independent living. I have met so many people that are curious, they're articulate, they're intelligent. It's fun learning about each other.
SPEAKER_01So I I find it interesting too that many of the people, mostly men, but a few women, because we're able to live comfortably in in a place like this and not have to go to some really awful place, have been very high up in their fields.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01I've noticed that too. You know.
SPEAKER_03I'll tell you what surprises me. You talk about men. You know, I lead the Sunday morning worship service here, a non-denominational service, and the percentage of men that show up is just amazing to me. I think last week we had 24 in attendance, and I think nine or ten of them were men. And, you know, historically in churches, uh, there's way more women than there are men. But a lot of our men attend, you know, the worship service. Uh we've got the gentleman's club, and but you know, there's just a lot of things because of the level of business or whatever they have been in, I think they feel maybe more comfortable participating uh because they've been in places of leadership. Right. But we're glad, Joe, we've got folks like you because you really help us to understand our own lives, sometimes how little we've done.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03You know, if you could do it over, if you could do it all over again, is there any of those things that you maybe would not have done?
SPEAKER_02It's a hard question. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Or the harder question would be is anything that you would have done better?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03The answer would be, yeah, all of them, you know. I wouldn't have yelled at my kids as much.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02Well, how could you not yell at five daughters?
SPEAKER_01And they were all under six and three-quarter years old. Five kids. Well, today you probably get a- when I started teaching, I couldn't do that. I learned that if somebody was acting up, all I had to do was stop talking, give them the eagle eye. Oh, I love the eye. And I wish I had, I kept a very clean house. I wish I'd spent less time cleaning and more time playing with my children. Not the only regret, I guess.
SPEAKER_02You talk about the eye and the look, and I'm well aware of how what the look is. And even today, I can give the look, and it'll stop pretty much what's going on. Yeah even my grown sons, I can give them the look, and they'll say, just don't look at me like that.
SPEAKER_01When John Knox finally had a choir, uh, Kent was direct, he directed for 16 years without remuneration. Um, then he decided to pass it on. So then he became another bass in the back row with two of our good buddies that we traveled with, and they were always forcing around and creating a commotion in the back row. And I would turn around and give them the look. Our friend Neville said she would give me that first grade teacher stare and old boy.
SPEAKER_03I remember sitting in the choir one time in church. On Sunday night, the youth got to sing with the regular choir. Sunday morning was just the adults. But I remember on Sunday night, me and my friend were in the back row of the choir, and he leaned over and real quietly whispered, Is your mother looking at me or you? So we didn't know which one. So like that. Well, listen, we've about run out of time. And so, Joe, we're glad that you can come and share with us today. It's been fun doing that.
SPEAKER_02Carol, I'm gonna have to go. Good. You go and look at your shirts and see what you could be make out of them.
SPEAKER_03I may do that. Bye. See you later. See you later.
SPEAKER_00Bye.
SPEAKER_02Bye.
SPEAKER_00Hey there. Producer Patrick Bundram here. We now have a new exciting feature where you can send fan mail on our website. Access the message board on Buzzbrook by clicking the fan mail link on any episode. We appreciate your continued support, and we'll be back next week. As always, retirement reflections does not claim to give any advice, and the personal beliefs of hosts and guests do not necessarily reflect the Canterfield community official policies. Thank you again for joining us.