A life worthwhile

70- to 90-somethings share the secrets to eternal (or at least very long lasting) youth

Story by Christina Hughes Babb

Photos by Can Türkyilmaz and Benjamin Hager

American Industrialist Henry Ford once said, “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”

Ford touched on a secret that many Lake Highlands people have unearthed and embraced. Learning and doing create a motive for living well. These folks, some two decades past retirement age, are not ready to kick back and let the golden years quietly pass.

Norma Ward

Norma the Great

Lake Highlands resident Norma Ward — known simply as “Great” to her 10 greatgrandchildren and one great-great-grandkid — is 92 and still going strong. She’s an avid volunteer with a special interest in autism, which has affected one of her grandchildren, and in the last few years, she has attended parties and dances and cruises and she drives herself to two bridge games a week. It’s enough activity to drain a person half her age.

She won’t tell you this herself, but daughter Lynn says her mother is frequently the high scorer at bridge. In fact, Ward won’t say much about herself and asks, in her intoxicating southern drawl, why anyone would want to write about her. She says she has several “more interesting” friends. Of course, they are all 20-30 years her junior.

Ward moved in with Lynn in 2004 — she came to visit and never left, she says. Because she is a member of the Beta Sigma Phi sorority, an international service and cultur- al organization, Ward has friends no matter where she lives.

When you move, they will let the local branch know you are coming, Ward says.

Not that she has any trouble making friends. Her first day in Lake Highlands, she dropped in on Ann Levy (whom we “should really be writing about”, Ward says) at Lake Highlands United Methodist Church.

“She had such a youthful attitude for a person of her maturity,” says Levy, who plays cards with Ward a couple times a week. She fits right in with the the 70- and 80-year-olds in the group, Levy says, and “she is a wonderful bridge player.”

Ward has shared stories and knowledge with Beta Sigma Phi members — she gave a well-received presentation on women’s suffrage, Lynn says.

“When my mother was born, women did not have the right to vote.”

She also told the organization about her trip to England during the time of Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ wedding.

“Every shop in town had wedding flowers in the windows, and we got to see her dress on display as well as the wedding gifts. I remember that a class of kindergarten students gave them a kitchen timer.”

Her daughter, Sue, who died of cancer at a relatively young age, was with her on that trip. It remains one of Ward’s happiest memories — she chokes up a little when talking about it.

Ward has spent a lifetime helping others, always volunteering with the Red Cross or United Way, but it was the things she did that no one knew about that make her so special, Lynn says. She recalls grade school, when Ward worked in the school office. There was a girl in the third grade whose parents were farmers, and she had no shoes and lice in her hair. Ward brought her home, picked the lice from her hair, made her food and took care of her.

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“That was normal — she just naturally helped anyone without a second thought,” Lynn says.

Ward says she gets that from her own mother, “the most generous and kind woman you would ever meet.”

Ward has survived breast cancer and a heart attack — though she maintains that she doesn’t believe she had a heart attack — but her doctors say she is fit and doesn’t need to return for another two years.

When Lynn was a child, Ward’s mother lived with the family.

“She told me that, when she got old, not to ever let her live with me, that it was too hard,” Lynn says with a laugh.

Ward’s greatest gift to the world, she insists, is Lynn and her other three children. That contribution and its significance was evident at Ward’s 90th birthday party. Relatives and friends came in from as far as Maryland and California and booked four different hotels.

“It was a good birthday party,” Ward says. “People always ask me when I am going to have another party.”