- Good afternoon. Welcome to the Bloomington Rotary Club's weekly celebration of service. I'm Steve Wicks
- and I'm honored to serve as your president this year. Please silence your electronic devices. On this
- day in history, June 16th, 2024, 105 year old Virginia Hislop graduated with a master's diploma in education
- from Stanford University.
- 83 years after she had to leave early. Hislop had completed her coursework, but had not finished her
- thesis when she left school to marry her boyfriend who had been called to serve in World War II. In
- honor of Flag Day and this week's Juneteenth holiday, please stand if you are able for the Pledge of
- Allegiance.
- I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands,
- one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Judy Schroeder will share a reflection. Hello.
- When I signed up to do the reflection, I didn't know the topic of today's meeting was going to be senior
- reminiscence. This is what the reflection is, so we're getting kind of a jump start on it. May 5th,
- 1987 was my 46th birthday. It was also the day that I read in the Herald telephone that the United States
- Supreme Court
- had decreed women had to be allowed to join rotary clubs in the United States. Huh, I thought. A month
- after that, Rotary International passed a decree allowing women to join clubs in the United States.
- And in 1988, Rotary International extended that to Canada. And in 1989,
- they extended it nationwide. I mean, worldwide. Well, early in 1988, my graduate school buddy,
- Kent Owen, who once described himself as the entire left wing of the Monroe County Republican Party,
- asked me whether I'd be interested in
- joining Rotary. I knew nothing about Rotary, but I did know about the Supreme Court. So I said, does
- Rotary discriminate against people on the basis of race or religion? And that's when Kent explained
- to me the international part, that there were members of all races and all religions. So I said, OK.
- I didn't hear anything more until he called and invited me to an induction
- at the poplars where this club then met. I got there and Charlotte Zitlow, Joyce Poling and I were inducted,
- bringing the grand total of Rotarians in this club to six. Also inducted was Bob Salzburg, who had refused
- invitations until such time that women
- were admitted. Bud Core was the president of the club at that time. And Bud was also CEO of Bloomington
- Hospital in that he really spearheaded this club's involvement in Polio Plus. This club in 1988 pledged
- $100,000 towards Folio Plus. Well, Bud called me after my induction and I saw that the club was in trouble.
- They had just inducted someone whose salary was $25,000 a year, a single mom whose elder son had just
- finished his freshman year of college and younger son was a junior in high school.
- But I decided I'd be the best rotarian I could be in ways that didn't cost money. There's lots you can
- do. You can be a member of a committee. You can commute community service projects. You can sponsor
- a rotarian. I was even able to host members of the group study exchange because I had empty beds in
- my house. Well, this club,
- has changed a lot. I've changed a lot. Rotary International has changed a lot in the last 38 years.
- But I'm still very proud to be a Rotarian. Now 20% of members worldwide are women, 33% in the United
- States, and 40% in this club.
- Hey, don't clap too loudly. There's a club in Bloomington, Illinois that has 55%. You might say that
- the Supreme Court caught my attention, but Rotary has held my heart. Thank you. Thank you, Judy. And
- you're still giving today. You're working, volunteering at the front desk this morning. So thank you.
- Peggy Frisbee will introduce our guests today. Good afternoon, everyone. As I say your name, would you
- please rise so we can recognize you? That means the guests. Okay. First of all, we have, actually, it's
- going to be our speaker, Bill Eskew. And so, well, that's wrong.
- and is the speaker. So let's recognize Phil, okay? Okay, I'll get better here. We also have Brett Becker,
- guest of Wendell St. John. We have Bill Nyhill, guest of Phil Eskew.
- April Settles from Old National Bank, guest of John Zote. Becky Wan, guest of Brad Meyer. Betty Coffey,
- guest of Glenda Murray. Ed Ryan, guest of Steve Engel.
- Two more. Felix Breeden, guest of Mike Wade. I think two more. And Frida Cruz, guest of Tyler Martin
- Nichols. If you are having a good time today, which we have all the time, want to know more about Rotary,
- please ask anyone at your table or certainly
- our fearless leader over here. Thank you, Peggy. Laurie, do we have any guests online? We do not have
- any identified guests today. Thank you. Birthdays and anniversaries. We have a number to celebrate since
- we're having the picnic next week. I went ahead and did two weeks worth. So on the 20th of June, three
- Rotarians, Marshall Goss, Jim Harvey, and Peter Kroner.
- On the 24th of June, a young man sitting over at that table, John Hobson, has a birthday. And then on
- the 25th, Alan Boyd. Also have a number of anniversaries. On the 18th, Martha Wales, 13 years with the
- club. On the 20th, Forrest Gilmore and Amy Kendall, both three years with our club. On the 22nd, sitting
- over at the main desk, Amy Osajima, nine years with Rotary Club.
- On the 23rd, Ashley Wesley, 11 years. And then finally on the 27th, Hannah Hirsch, three years.
- Announcements. So many of you have signed up to help for weekly meeting during the next quarter. There's
- still more slots to fill. Our new president, Tracy, doesn't want to do everything herself. So please sign up.
- Roundabout is the best way to do it. Just look for the link in the roundabout. Our host last Tuesday,
- the Neil Marshall Black Culture Center is a co-sponsor for the City of Bloomington Juneteenth celebration.
- Takes place from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, June 19th at Switchyard Park. So there'll be the usual Friday
- food trucks. There'll be family-friendly activities, a beer garden, multiple musical performances. It
- should be a fun time.
- Next week, reminder, we will not be here. This is one of the weeks when the union is fully booked. So
- we've scheduled our club picnic, and it will be from noon to 1, Brian Park Woodlawn Shelter. So please
- join us. Fourth announcement, Jill Jaloff has accepted our offer to fill the open executive assistant
- position. She plans to start at Thursday's board of directors meeting.
- Tyler is still here. I haven't run him off yet. But you still have time, Tyler. Lots more announcements.
- We're running a little bit short on time. So please check the roundabout for the other announcements.
- And now Alain Barker will take us through Bloomington Rotary Foundation's annual meeting. Thank you,
- President Steve. Hi, everybody. It's great to see you all.
- and I've got Ron Bonds here who's gonna be stepping into the same role. I am the current president of
- the Bloomington Rotary Foundation. How many of you are very clear about the distinction between Bloomington
- Rotary Foundation and the International Rotary Foundation? Okay, so you know the difference between
- the two, fantastic. Good, so I'm here, what's that? About 50% of us know about that. So what I'm gonna
- do is I'm gonna go through a quick slide deck here.
- Let's see if I've got the, here we go. I've got this. I'd like to be able to just distinguish exactly,
- well, to identify and confirm exactly what the foundation is. The foundation is a 501c3 corporation.
- That is a corporation that can receive funds that in many instances are tax deductible, but I won't
- go into exactly how and why because I'm not a lawyer or an accountant. But it is a 501c3 and
- that distinguishes itself from the club, which is a 501C4 corporation. So the Bloomington Rotary Club
- is a social welfare organization, 501C4, and the foundation that we have, that we run, that all of you
- are members of, is a 501C3 that is specifically designed to support the good work of our organization.
- So it's supporting charitable work of the club. And for that matter, we also provide services to the
- other two rotary clubs in Bloomington. It's a membership organization, as I mentioned, all of us are
- automatically members of the organization. We have a very capable board that is made up specifically
- of club members. So that's just wanted to be clear about exactly what it is.
- It does have history, and I want to thank Sally Gaskell for putting together this PowerPoint here. We
- were founded in 1986 and have done some really spectacular work along the way, including supporting
- Teachers' Warehouse as it was formed in 2004.
- We, with the Rotary Toast, we are the entity that receives the funds and then distributes the funds
- for the Rotary Toast. And then we have the 80-20 fund that was established in our centennial year. Was
- it Mike Baker? Who was it who did that? Lawrence Stutter? We'll remember who it is.
- was anyway, basically, it's $20 a quarter that goes towards the foundation to support its work. And
- it's $80 a year. And then I'm going to be talking about the Fountain of Youth campaign that was initiated
- by Lauren Snyder in 2022. So
- We are primarily focused in the foundation on supporting the scholarship initiative. We distribute four
- high school scholarships and then three scholarships to Ivy Tech every year.
- It's a spectacular, as you well know, it's a spectacular project. And the endowment, when we talk about
- the Bloomington Rotary Foundation, the foundation runs an endowment through the Bloomington Rotary Community
- Foundation. And the funds that are invested in that endowment are specifically designed to support the
- scholarship activity of the organization. So just be clear in your minds that the endowment is about
- scholarships. We also receive funds
- from the district to support the district grant. We receive funds to support community projects. And
- then there are other individual passion projects that we've run that related to international work or
- the refugee work that we do that we've also circulated funds through the foundation. So the foundation
- functions as the recipient of gifts that you give for the good work of the club.
- The only distinction I want to make here is that specifically in relation to the scholarships, a portion
- of the funds that go into scholarships come from an endowment that we're building. Any questions? Are
- we good about that? District Grant Match, we support that, and I've mentioned the Rotary Toast.
- Moving along, I want to talk now about an announcement that we're essentially going to be making.
- I was at 2022, Lawrence Snyder had this, within consultation with members of the club, had this vision
- for what he called Fountain of Youth. And that is that our endowment was sitting at about 110,000 or
- something like that. And he said, wouldn't it be amazing if together as a club, we developed the funds
- to be able to get to, was it 50,000? Oh, wow. Okay, well, we started at 50,000. So that's a very important
- correction there.
- So in 2022, we started at $50,000 in our endowment. And Lauren said, wouldn't it be amazing if we together
- over the next, between 2022 and 2030,
- develop the funds and support that would get us to $200,000 so that we could endow those $200,000 and
- then get what is it 4% a year, which is I believe somewhere around $8,000 to support in perpetuity the
- scholarship program. Now I'm here to say today that we've met that goal. And
- which is absolutely incredible. And Sarah Laughlin and Sally Gaskell are the two people who have done
- most to really get us to where we are. So I want to congratulate the two of you.
- So what's great about that is we have, I think it's like in the endowment, I had a look at it the other
- day and I can't remember what the figure was. It was something like $198,000 in the endowment right
- now. In addition to that, we have pledges that go well beyond the amount that would amount to 200,000.
- So as you well know, the scholarship program this year elevated the support for high school students
- to $2,500 a piece. I believe that it was at $1,000 before then, right?
- It's been slowly moving up. It was $800, then it went to $1,000 and $1,500, and now it's $2,500
- times four. So we believe that the scholarship support that we give these high school students, as well
- as Ivy Tech, is transformational, highly impactful, and we want to be able to continue to do that down
- the road. So if you are inspired to support this Fountain of Youth project and you feel that there's
- an opportunity to continue to give to the endowment, please feel free to do so.
- do so by contacting Ron Barnes, who will be in my position, or anybody on the Foundation Board. Or you
- can actually go to the Bloomington Monroe County Foundation website, log in there, and then give a gift
- directly to the Rotary Club through that portal as well. So there's a way. Or you could talk to them.
- So how to support the Bloomington Rotary Foundation? I've spoken about the 2080 fund. So basically,
- if you would like to enter into that, please speak to Steve or anybody there. If you'd like to donate
- to the Fountain of Youth program, if you'd like to donate cash,
- for projects that you support directly or make a bequest as you think about your giving long-term. Then
- we also have a memorial fund that we have in the foundation. I'm going to move on to the reason why
- we're here today. We're going to be, first of all, thanking the previous board members. You can see
- them up here. Those with asterisks are actually rolling off the board. They've timed out. I want to
- thank Sarah Loughlin, Sally Gaskell, Hank Walder, and John Weichardt very much for their service.
- Thank you very much. And this, I'm pleased to say, is the slate for this year. We've got Ron Barnes,
- who's going to be stepping in as president of the foundation, Amy Osojima, who's going to be vice president.
- Our secretary will remain as Sarah Laughlin. We've got Don Cedar coming in as treasurer. And then myself,
- John Zodi, will stay on. Can I just take one second? John Zodi, where are you? Please stand up.
- Can we thank you for all the work that you've done as Sergio and Feliciano? Yeah. He has done
- an extraordinary job. Then we've got Gerona Rotich, Jim Capshaw, Mike Wade, Jeff Richardson, and Carol
- Ann Hossler. So with that, I would like to open up if anybody would like to move that we accept the
- slate and vote on it. So moved by Tracy Ivanovich.
- seconded by Steve Wicks. And I would like to ask you all to say aye if you support the slate.
- Those in favor, say aye. And anybody against the slate? Anybody online? Congratulations, we have a new
- board. I would like to anticipate this year by thanking Ron for being president of the board this coming
- year. Thank you very much.
- Thank you, Alan, for that happy report. Rotarian Filescu will introduce today's speaker. How many of
- you were at the Christmas party at the country club seven years ago when I talked about
- Anne's Christmas miracle. Do you remember that story? Well, today you have Anne. Anne started her education
- at Purdue in nursing school for one year. Purdue was not accredited as a nursing school at that time,
- so she transferred to Indianapolis to the IU nursing school. She got her bachelor's. She got her master's.
- She's a pediatric nurse practitioner. Went to St. Vincent, spent 25 years in education.
- which means you educate all new nurses, teach them how to do new techniques in pediatrics and the neonatal
- intensive care unit. From there, she went to IU Health North in Carmel, helped open that hospital, and
- then she served as the interim chief nursing officer. From there, she went down to Riley and was a
- head of neurological services for Riley Hospital in several different areas. Because of us moving to
- Bloomington, she applied and was chosen, and she is the director of women and children's services and
- served here until she retired in the year 2020, one week before the pandemic shut everything down.
- She has a passion for people with dementia because both of her parents had dementia. Her father had
- Alzheimer's and her mother passed away of Lewy body dementia. So we now live in Bloomington. She is
- currently the secretary of the Bloomington Sunrise Club and a fellow rotarian. And last year she was
- rotarian of the year, but she didn't quite make it this year. So
- Please welcome my wife, Anne. Thank you, Phil. That was nice. And as you heard, the majority of my career
- has been in pediatrics.
- my biggest passion did come from my parents. And I've been doing a lot of reading, research on dementia,
- as well as the different forms of dementia-related diseases. Phil mentioned that my dad had Alzheimer's,
- but my mom developed Lewy body dementia, which is far more intense than watching your dad pass away.
- I've started doing the making memories and benefits of reminiscing and senior adulthood. When I look
- at the group, I initially started off with this thinking that the majority of people in here were of
- retirement age, but I see that's not true. But even for the younger people that haven't quite reached that
- point in your lives yet. You probably have been touched by grandparents or parents that are in early
- stages of having some memory issues. I think many of us go through what's the name of that or what's
- the name of this. But just keeping that in mind, it's not totally about those of us that have reached
- older adulthood, which is what I like to call it, as opposed to being a senior citizen.
- So, um, who are we? Many of us are rotarians. Many were all men and women. Uh, many of us are 65 years
- of age or older. Um, and again, that's where the senior citizen comes in. That's the actual, um, definition
- of senior citizen. A few, uh, statistics as well as, um, information that I'll share in regards to, um,
- being in an aging society, approximately 17.5% of Indiana's population is over the age of 65. Projections
- show that by 2030, and that's only four years out from here, 20.1% it will increase with 85 year plus
- people growing the fastest. So we're all in that aging population and we're all
- staying a little bit more healthy and also getting older and older. Life expectancy of a 65-year-old
- male is 83 years versus that of a female that's 86 years. In Indiana, we have as well as in other states,
- very different county variations. The highest life expectancy is in the county of
- Hamilton up in northern north of Indianapolis and the Carmel Fishers areas and the life expectancy is
- 81 years versus that of those in Scott County down near Madison of almost 73 years. So a big difference
- and you look at the populations in those areas and what they were, what they're doing. Projections show
- that 65 year old men and women
- A non-smoking couple in relatively good health will have at least one of those partners living to the
- age of 92. So we're going to be around a while. And what can we do for our minds?
- as we age. I know John mentioned taking a walk down memory lane, and that's truly what I'm going to
- do with all of you today. Um, and hopefully you get some tips and some points that you can share with
- your families, your spouses, your kids of things that they can even do. I hope our Children are doing
- some of these for families for their kids to come as well. Um, remember
- all the good times, but also the bad, because those truly do impact our lives and how we deal with our
- lives down the road. Memories and nostalgia let us help resolve issues that we've had in our lives,
- come to an understanding of it, and also look at the negative as well as positive emotions and understanding
- our lives moving forward. Did I skip?
- This is from 1941. Phil had one of those lovely birthday cards that comes, that goes through everything
- that happened in that year. You've probably all seen those. This one in 1941 life expectancy was 60,
- about 63 years. A new house costs $4,000 new car, $850. Yes. Wow. Look at the young man saying, wow,
- up here. Gas was 12 cents a gallon.
- It's coming down though, I understand. So that's a good thing. Eggs were 20 cents a dozen, bread was
- eight cents and milk was 54 cents a gallon. So lots of changes since 1941.
- Some of the challenges that we have with our growing population today in Indiana is that the median
- household income is approximately $50,000. Cost of living is 15% below the national average. Indiana's
- sales tax is among the highest in the nation. Our state's overall health care system for seniors is
- average at best.
- This little stat I threw in here between 2020 remember the pandemic had hit and 2022 firearm deaths
- in our state were higher among men aged 65 and above. So some of those men that lost their jobs during
- that time were faced with enormous financial challenges while the drug deaths rates were higher for
- black older adults compared to white older adults. So
- just a stat. So what is reminiscing? Reminiscing is the act of recalling personal experiences, feelings,
- and events from the past through informal chats with loved ones, family, and friends, or it can be through
- a more structured exercise with a caregiver.
- There's many, many ways to reminisce. We're going to go through some and I'll have some photos of them
- as well. But using our five senses is one of the biggest things that we all utilize for reminiscing
- smells that bring back memories of something or photos that you see.
- things that you hear, music, looking at photos, photo albums. I know Phil's mom was a huge scrapbooker
- in her life. She made 49 scrapbooks for members of the family. So again, everything included in those
- listening to your favorite music that you had as a youth participating in memory cafes. I know I gave
- this talk to my PEO chapter and
- Many of them live at Meadowood and they actually do memory cafes over there for groups of their residents.
- Using virtual reality or virtual tours, the goggles that you can put on to actually take a trip back
- to Scotland that you did when you were younger. And then also watching classic movies and sports highlights.
- So this is our home, lower level.
- kind of our memory source in our house. Phil has several walls filled with many things from throughout
- his life, including his professional career as a physician, the activities that he was involved in.
- That's the one on the far left there. The one at the bottom is his rotary wall.
- as well as his DePaul wall. And then all of our IU things, I got relegated to the upstairs, is in our
- den. So we have much of our memorabilia on those walls. And the kids have kind of chuckled when they
- see this room because we feel like we could use it as a visitation parlor when the time comes. Won't
- have to put everything on the easels in the funeral home, but can have a big party at our house with
- with the memorabilia. Now the one on the top right is interesting. These are all of our pictures. We've
- been to many places. We've done lots of things. But unlike Phil's mom, I have failed to put these in
- scrapbooks or photo albums. So everything is cataloged. We've at least made it that far. And our goal
- is to really take care of all of these pictures in the next few years. But
- Um, it gets kind of cumbersome because in at Christmas time, when this photo was taken, um, we had to
- move everything out of our storage room to get to the Christmas tree. And that was all of these. So
- they're now back in the storage room out of sight, out of mind, um, until winter comes and hopefully
- we'll be able to do something with them. School yearbooks, um, going through those, having those reunions
- with your classmates, those can all be
- sources of reminiscing, watching your favorite movies. Think about the first movie that you want to
- see at a movie theater as a kid. And then reliving holiday traditions. I know I love getting our Christmas
- tree out. We collected ornaments from all over the places that we visited. And I love to go through that. And
- As I put them up, think about where they came from, what we were doing, who we were with at the time.
- And then another one is looking at what you did during those times, like with baking cookies with your
- mom or your grandmother. And I know one of our favorites is Easter. Our kids always came for Easter.
- We'd have a big Easter egg hunt in the yard up at the lake and Phil would bake a bunny cake. One of
- the cakes with the icing and the
- coconut with the grandkids. That was always a big event for them to participate in doing that. Hearing
- impactful songs, as I mentioned, is one that we can all think back on to what we were doing as a teen
- or maybe at our wedding. Music has a true power that's really been proven to help those patients that
- suffer from dementia and dementia-related diseases.
- having music therapy for those specific types of patients can be a huge benefit. Looking at keepsakes,
- jewelry, possessions that the family member has, and then also the use of technology, sharing Facebook
- memories, creating digital scrapbooks, and also diaries. The top right picture, you probably can't quite
- tell what that is, but that is a box full of diaries that Philip
- Newton SQ has kept since he was 13 years old. So he has every single one of them. And it's like, what
- do you do with that box? He started actually compiling them when we retired down here in 18 and started
- a Word document. So he's going back, looking through what he did on that specific day when he was 15
- or whatever.
- putting it into that word document at the bottom. So what are the benefits of reminiscing? It preserves
- our family history. It leaves something for our kids and our grandkids of personal value, keeps our
- stories alive, encourages seniors to share their stories and preserves these memories and strengthens
- our family bonds. It does help improve our
- coping skills, recalling past successes and moments of resilience can help deal with current challenges
- and with a more positive outlook. And it encourages problem-solving skills. It does reduce and has shown
- in studies to reduce symptoms of depression. Research shows that reminiscing can
- be an effective tool for easing depression in adults, recalling positive memories, meaningful connections
- in our lives and providing a sense of purpose and belonging. Sharing stories with others detracts us
- from worrying about what's going on, having fun while sharing memories. And when sharing in a group,
- we can receive the affirmation of, wow, that's really cool or that's really great and promoting positivity.
- It promotes physical health. Happy memories don't just lift our spirits, they do reduce our stress levels.
- Again, this has been shown in studies. Chronic stress raises our cortisol levels, which is linked to
- heart disease, obesity, and immunological problems. By lowering our stress, reminiscing may help support
- heart health, improve our sleep quality, encourage healthier habits,
- as well as exercise, nutrition, and relaxation. Reminiscing through storytelling, I threw this research
- article in that came out in a journal. It's the BMC Geriatrics out of the UK. While it was a small study
- population, they really found some great information. The experimental group participated, oops, sorry,
- participated in an eight week life story intervention using their personal memories and photographs
- and objects and past experiences. It gave them up gave them a platform. To reflect on their lives and
- the participants attitudes truly did change about aging and it improved sorry.
- me dead out of that one. So in this picture, some of you may be familiar with these. The top two are
- from a company called Story Worth. I don't know if anybody's done a story worth book. Anybody in here
- besides Phil? Good, good, good, good. But this is something online that you sign up for, you register
- and every week they send you a question and you answer it.
- You can also change the question. You can add your own. You can put in pictures at the end of the year
- time that you've done this, then they will publish your book for you and send it to you. And it's a
- great, great reminder. The bottom one is actually very similar, but it's for grandkids. So grandparents
- will do this one for their grandkids.
- So the findings on that study actually showed that the experimental group had a significant increase
- in positive attitudes toward aging compared to that of the control group. Fostering that positive attitude
- is key for enhancing psychological well-being and successful aging. Ageism for many people kind of equates
- with being older, sorry, being older and
- giving us a feeling of incompetence, helplessness, and illness. But the experimental group demonstrated
- that this isn't true. It gave them increased awareness of age-related changes and made them the ability
- to adapt to those changes. So other things you could do, write a book. This is a book called I Remember When.
- that Phil's mother wrote at the age of 89 following her 55th wedding anniversary. She wanted to have
- something to give to her grandchildren to remember her. And she spoke to things that happened in her
- life during that time. So Phil had it bound and we gave it to all the grandchildren who've all read it.
- And they've passed it on to their children now. So a huge remembrance for a great, great lady. You can
- do journaling, just writing to yourself. Many of us did that as kids, keeping our own little journal diaries.
- But reminiscing isn't just storytelling. It's a powerful way to improve mental, emotional, and physical
- health. For all of us, sharing memories strengthens relationships, preserves our histories, and enriches
- our daily life. Being encouraged to reflect on the moments that shaped us will show us the joy and wisdom
- those moments bring. So, if you remember Phil's box of diaries,
- coming to a bookseller near you in late 2026. He's got a publisher. He's finished putting everything
- into that Word document that you saw the first two pages of earlier. And so we're kind of excited about
- this. He's not sure who's going to read it, but it's got some great information and reflections of life
- in it. And I think it'll be fun. So
- You're going to help me with this. Um, the final one that I want to share with you is called odd of
- the memory banks. This was an app pro or is an app program that was developed by our niece who lives
- on the East coast. And she did this, um, because her mother developed Alzheimer's disease and she wanted
- to capture, um,
- moments with her mother that were still her mother. And it's a great app to use. This is actually my
- brother-in-law whose past was her climate and this was her father-in-law. So if you want to click maybe
- on the college, but you can see
- You go in and the app will ask you questions. You have two minutes to answer, and then you can upload
- it and put pictures in it and whatever else you want. Just hit play and they can get an idea of the
- first one. It's really cool because it keeps their voice. I had read a book about Paul Dirac, who was
- one of the great physicists of the 1930s and helped to invent quantum mechanics.
- And it talked a little bit about quantum mechanics. And that just fascinated me. It was such a strange
- thing. The way things worked in those days is the dean of men told you which college you could go to.
- That is, he had a certain number of slots from Harvard, MIT, Princeton, all of those. So he was your
- guidance counselor as to where you could go to college.
- I felt a little bit bad about going to MIT, because if I'd gone to Columbia or RPI, since they were
- in New York State, I would have had a scholarship there. I graduated from MIT, and I wanted to get to
- the West Coast. So I had applied to, but I was trying to. So you can see that
- You decide what you want to put in there. You decide your chapters. Um, you ask your questions and it
- tapes your voice, which is something that I really, really miss from my mom and dad is hearing them
- talk. So Phil's working on his, so I have his and I'm working on mine. So our kids have mine. Um,
- But I think it's a great, great app that's easy to download and easy to use, as well as putting in pictures
- from the past. So I'll take questions. Am I good on questions? Anybody? Jeff?
- Yes, sir. Maybe. Thank you. Oh, I don't know. Can you put that resource? Okay. Sure. Yes, I can share
- it. I can send it to you, Steve, if you want. Yes, ma'am. Michelle. Sorry.
- One of the things that I've learned from my family is that the younger generation is really not at all
- interested in anything that you have in your home. None of the antiques, none of the reminiscence. They
- just don't want it at all. Their life is very different. So how do we handle that? And what do we do
- with our things that we appreciate? Well, like we've done, we're getting rid of a lot of those things.
- But I think the
- the books or out of the app, not that I'm trying to sell an app, but that app is something that they
- can have access to. And I know Herb's kids have all done an actual app presentation with theirs that
- they did for their dad on Father's Day. So they've gotten involved in that, and they're getting their
- children involved in that as well.
- I can't give you any better because our kids don't want our stuff either, but maybe the app, maybe the
- book. Yes, sir. There was a, this lady who is our, my nephew's wife started this, her mother was in
- the nursing home and she went over there and asked her mother says,
- What do you remember about your wedding? Well, this talked about it. She came back a week later and
- she played it for her mother and her mother said, that's my voice. Well, you didn't tell me about this.
- You didn't tell me about the folks that came. And then she went on and on and on and talked about all
- the memories that were stimulated from hearing her voice. So she's the one that has this thing. I mean,
- it's great.
- And you say your kids don't want anything that may be true, but you heard what Ann said, how I miss
- hearing their voice. And it's, you know, it's something that kids at some point in their life will want
- to know. Can you all think of the things you wish you would ask your father or your mother? Oh my, I
- just had another 30 minutes. Yep.
- And thank you for your talk. So I'm the youngest of five. Uh, we've lost our oldest sister, but it's
- interesting of the four of us remaining when we get together in two of us or three of us or four of
- us and share memories, one, how they're different. And then also how our personalities, uh, there are
- two of us who are definitely glasses almost full and there's one glasses is empty.
- It's just really interesting. We had many of the same experiences, but we remember different things
- and we certainly look at them in different ways. But for my one sister whose memories tend to be negative,
- I actually think in her case, when we talk about things, it doesn't really help her. So can you maybe
- comment for those who have lots of bad memories, the positives and negatives about reminiscing? Is she
- older than you?
- Yeah, she's eight years older. OK, just from a medical standpoint, that's her trigger. And there's probably
- nothing that you can really do to change that other than making sure that you continue to include her
- in the discussions. And maybe between the other three of you, you can make light of the fact that, well,
- I don't remember it that way.
- or I do remember it that way. Um, but to kind of calm that trigger a little bit, um, triggers, especially
- with people that may be having some stressors in their lives and have some, I won't say dementia, but
- forgetting or not remembering some of the things. If she's feeling that because she doesn't remember
- that, that's a huge trigger. Yes, Jeff. Sorry.
- Oh, I'm sorry. I keep forgetting. I would also say to piggyback on that is I think it also matters about
- birth order because the context in which I grew up, and I'm the oldest, was very different in the context.
- My two younger sisters, one is four years younger than I am, the other is 10. And they're combined experience
- because they mostly grew up in California when my parents had more money.
- made things quite a bit different. Interesting. Just build on Steve's point. In addition to focusing
- on the person who's having bad memories or memory issues, what's your advice for also people who are
- living with people who are having these issues, the caregivers, the loved ones? What advice or guidance
- do you give them as this journey
- continues. There's a lot of great resources out there from the Alzheimer's Association. That's one place
- to go. But I think learning as much as you can, they also have a really great support structure on that
- website that can connect you with people via zoom. If you can get into a support group around here,
- also that would be a
- a good thing to do just to support that journey because everybody's is different. And it does take a
- lot of work to really be accepting of things. I know when I first moved my mom into a facility, it was
- really tough for me because they didn't want me to come and visit. They wanted her to get used to the facility.
- And I was used to seeing her every day, sitting with her while she ate, doing all sorts of things. And
- when I went back, when I was allowed to go back, I realized that that was her new family. Even though
- she knew I was her daughter and that I was visiting, but those were the people that were taking care
- of her. So, um, so it's a hard journey, but it's one that I would never trade. Um, her last.
- Moments were some of the most special in my life. She loved music. She loved listening to prayers and
- that's how she left this earth. So knowing that and working with that really helped. I just have a very
- basic question about the app. Is the information just all cloud-based or can you actually download and
- preserve that yourself? It's all cloud-based, isn't it, Phil? Yes.
- Hi there. My husband's children kept wanting him to give them his memories. They sent him tape recorders.
- They did this. He just did not want to do it. I finally realized he was not going to do it, but he would
- talk to me about his memories and I would write them down. We got one of those books.
- services and we had questions and I I'd ask him and he'd answer and I'd write something and read it
- to him and then he'd edit it and say no at you know and and the year after he he didn't we didn't finish
- the questions before he died but my year of grieving I I finished I put the book together and sometimes
- I asked his children for a particular memory or a friend and
- I gave that to them on their birthdays and they were very grateful. I will tell you that with the app,
- when we first learned about it, we were visiting out East and our daughter or our nephew's wife came
- in, was at the apartment and was asking Phil questions. Herb and Liz were sitting there in the living
- room and she asked Phil some questions, not knowing that she was recording it.
- And so then she played it back. And so you can sneak in that phone a little bit with that recording
- and capture those voices. But that's how we actually found out about the program itself. OK. Thank you.
- Thanks so much. And thank you.
- You're obviously aging with grace and competence. In honor of your talk, a donation will be made this
- quarter to Wheeler Mission. I'd like to thank today's volunteers, Katie Cerniak, Peggy Frisbee,
- Phil Eskew, Laurie Garrity, Judy Schroeder, Bob Zaltzberg, Michael Shermis, Jeff Richardson, Amy Osejima,
- and Alann Barker. Don't forget, we won't be here next week.
- We will be at the Bryan Park Woodlawn Shelter, noon to one. There'll be no Zoom next week. So please
- attend the club picnic if you're able to. Tyler, would you share the graphic for the four-way test?
- And please stand if you're able. Of the things we think, say, or do, first, is it the truth?
- Second, is it fair to all concerned? Third, will it build goodwill and better friendships? Fourth, will
- it be beneficial to all concerned? And fifth, is it fun?