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?