Encore February 2014

ENCORE What’s Inside:

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Amy Curtis compiles her grandmothers’ recipes into a memories book.

Wednesday February 12 2014

A supplement of the Lynden Tribune and Ferndale Record

A Guide to a Fulfilling Senior Life in Whatcom County

Lynden Tribune | Wednesday, February 12, 2014 | Ferndale Record

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Listening Acme native crafts book featuring recipes, memories of two grandmothers

By Brent Lindquist reporter@lyndentribune.com

Amy Curtis (center) holds her son, Ai, while sitting between her grandmothers Natalie Bryson (left) and Olive Curtis. (Courtesy photo/A. Paul Newman)

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WHATCOM — A quick glance at the new book of Amy Curtis titled “Listening: Recipes from my Grandmothers" reveals a colorful array of memories and food. In fact, much of the book consists of combinations of both.

Curtis, originally from Acme and a graduate of Mount Baker High School in 1992, tackled the book project as part of a master’s degree program at Lewis & Clark College in Portland.

“[The book] has morphed for quite a while,” Curtis said. “When my sister, Sarah, had her kids, we had a breakfast out with the boys taking the kids for a bit, and we just started talking about how she kept having these experiences where people were like, ‘Oh wow, that’s a really great recipe.’ She was like, ‘Oh, that’s from my grandma,’ or ‘That’s from my other grandma.’

That was about six years ago. Curtis and her sister began discussing combining their grandmothers’ recipes somehow.

The years went by, and Curtis eventually needed to take a number of elective credits before completing her master’s degree. She had done all the required courses, and in 2011 she took part in a new program offered by the college.

“I started taking these documen-

Lynden Tribune | Wednesday, February 12, 2014 | Ferndale Record

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tary studies classes and exploring my families and how these two really distant women in my life really did shape a lot of who I am and my experiences and what I find important as part of my family,” Curtis said.

Using the experience she gained writing in the documentary studies program, Curtis crafted a 30-page project featuring her grandmothers. She didn’t want to stop there, however.

“Then I just really wanted to continue,” Curtis said. “I also happened to have access to an amazing photographer. I don’t think that it would have come together without the beautiful images that my brother-in-law was able to capture.”

Amy Curtis and A. Paul Newman spent about a week with each grandmother, interviewing them, talking to them and cooking with them.

“They were there tweaking the recipes and making sure everything looked exactly as they wanted it to look,” Curtis said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve just had a long period of time where there weren’t other things going around. The great-grandchildren weren’t around. It was just me and them, cooking.”

Olive Curtis Born in Straiton, B.C., in December 1925, Olive Curtis was the third of four children of Stella Straiton Keeping and See Listening on D4

Natalie Bryson's half of the center pages of "Listening" features real Chinese porcelain, a representation of her background as a traveler. (Courtesy photo/A. Paul Newman)

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Lynden Tribune | Wednesday, February 12, 2014 | Ferndale Record

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Listening: Olive Curtis wrote Lynden Tribune column for 24 years Continued from D3

Olive Curtis's half of the center spread features jars filled with many varieties of food. (Courtesy photo/A. Paul Newman)

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Charles Keeping. After high school she attended a teaching college, graduated in 1944 and started teaching in Vancouver.

In 1945 she married Norm Curtis and continued to teach, even while pregnant and while traveling, as Norm was a U.S. Navy man.

The two eventually settled in Acme in 1952. Norm became a logger and Olive taught home economics at Mount Baker High School. They had three children: Patricia, Leora and Lawson.

In the late 1950s, Olive returned to college to earn a master’s of education degree from the University of Washington. She designed their home while in college, and Norm later built it in 1963.

Olive taught high school until 1981, but she never truly retired. She taught classes at Western Washington University and designed a garden that was eventually published in Sunset magazine.

She spent time quilting, and wrote a “Cooking Light” weekly food column in the Lynden Tribune from 1979 to 2003.

At age 88, she still knits, cooks and works in her garden.

Natalie Bryson Natalie Bryson was born in February 1931 in Weymouth, Mass., the second of four children of Amy and Harry Duncan. She graduated from high school in 1948 and became a linotype operator in Boston, just as her father had done. She married a young naval sailor and began what Amy Curtis refers to as a “traveler’s path.”

She moved 30 times in as many years. In December 1960, Natalie boarded the S.S. Upshore with her five children: Beth, Muriel, Bill, Rebecca and David. Amy Curtis is Muriel’s daughter.

The family made their home in the south of France until 1962. “I think of my grandmother’s cooking as being Frenchinspired,” Amy Curtis wrote.

The Bryson family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Natalie began teaching gourmet cooking classes with the Officers’ Wives Club. The group hosted luncheons, instructing each other on how to make the items they brought.

In the early 1970s, Natalie lived in Silverdale, Wash., privately teaching cooking classes dubbed “Antiques and Epicure.” She also began teaching cooking classes at Olympic Community Col-

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lege in Bremerton. The classes focused on good food, along with proper presentation and the use of antique serving dishes and utensils.

In 1979, Natalie took a trip to China.

A travel agency heard about her experience and decided to hire her in 1982 to lead trips around the world. She has been to every continent, Antarctica included, sailed on every ocean and circumnavigated the globe three times.

She has traveled to China 24 times and would love to return again.

Listening Amy’s book blossomed into nearly a 100-page showcase of text, photographs and color featuring writings by herself, her sisters Sarah Chamberlain and Elizabeth Curtis, along with recipes and excerpts from pieces written by Olive and Natalie.

The half dedicated to Natalie includes a poem titled “Antiques” as well as recipes for New England Fish Chowder, Shrimp Mold, Potatoes Supreme, Bouillabaisse, Red Current Roast and more. Amy also includes specific stories about certain dishes such as Peking Duck and a Vienna Tort.

The center of the book features two photos that separate the two halves, one dedicated to Natalie and the other to Olive.

“The center page was not planned,” Amy said. “We came across the shots as

we were scrolling through things and trying to narrow things down. We said, ‘That is so perfect.’ It could not have been set up more brilliantly for the transition.”

The center spread features blue and white Chinese porcelain on Natalie’s living room display shelves. On the right, kicking off Olive’s half of “Listening,” is a shot of various jars filled with food, including jam, salsa, tomatoes, cherries, peaches, apricots, beans, beets, chicken, minced meat and smoked salmon.

“That’s my most favorite page,” Amy said.

Olive’s section of the book features poetry, along with recipes for various muffins, sweet and sour meatballs, ratatouille, the “Liquid Pot of Gold,” rosemary baked potatoes, pies, bread, salads and more.

Writing the book and compiling Newman’s photos helped Amy explore how these two women shaped her and what she holds dear.

“Grandma Bryson is gregarious and outgoing, and likes to be the life of the party, and definitely has a way of spinning a tale. She has had some really interesting adventures in her life traveling around the world and just meeting different people and doing different things.

When there are people around, she’s very on. When people go away, she’s calmer when it’s just the two of us and we can really sit down. She’s a night owl,

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and we play cards until the middle of the night, often. Just talking about things and chatting. Playing cards and going to the movies, those are two things she could do every day of her life.”

The process also helped her see both similarities and differences between Grandma Bryson and Grandma Curtis.

“Grandma Curtis is a huge presence when she’s in a room, but not in the same way at all,” Amy said. “She has been extremely busy in her life, always having four or five or six projects going at the same time. If there isn’t something cooking, if the bread isn’t rising, and if she isn’t in the middle of a giant quilting project, it isn’t enough. She just has to have something else. She would spend hours and hours planning her garden.

Every single piece of that land around their house has been transformed. She’s always so busy and having ideas, she knew exactly the way she wanted things to be. She didn’t really teach us by saying, 'Okay, this is what you do next,' but just more working alongside of her, as she went, and showing by example, and really doing things that way.”

“Listening: Recipes from my Grandmothers” hit print last year under the Blurb publishing service.

Amy lives in Portland with her husband, Ben, and their two children, Ai and TeslaAnne.

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Lynden Tribune | Wednesday, February 12, 2014 | Ferndale Record

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Answering some myths about long-term care The facts and scenarios need to be carefully thought through

Shane VanDalen advises clients on financial investment from his New York Life office in Lynden. (Calvin Bratt/Lynden Tribune)

Long-term care issues have been much in the news lately — from stories of people needing these services to how the government is responding. But some conflicting, even mistaken, information has come out.

Misconceptions may have kept you from including long-term care planning in your retirement portfolio. However, long-term care planning can be a critical component in any comprehensive retirement plan. So this is an attempt to dispel those myths.

Myth #1: I’ll never need long-term care.

Most people can’t imagine themselves needing long-term care services.

But the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services indicates that people age 65 face at least a 40 percent lifetime risk of entering a nursing home sometime during their lifetime. Living a long life may increase your risk of needing

long-term care. Isn’t it better to insure against what that risk may do to your family and your financial plans?

Myth #2: Long-term care is only for the elderly.

Actually, a surprising amount of long-term care services is provided to younger people. The U.S. Government Accountability Office estimates that 40 percent of the 13 million people receiving long-term care services are between the ages 18 and 64. The unexpected need for long-term care could arise at any age for any number of reasons, including illness or an accident.

Myth #3: I’ll pay for my own longterm care.

In 2012, nursing home costs averaged over $91,000 a year nationally, but in some regions these costs are sometimes twice that amount. How long can those you pay for these expenses without jeopardizing your financial plan or exhausting your savings?

It may make good sense to transfer this financial risk just like you do with your homeowner’s insurance or auto insurance. Even if you can afford to pay for long-term care services out of pocket, why would you want to when you can

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transfer the cost to an insurer for premiums that may total a fraction of the cost of care?

Myth #4: Medicare will cover my long-term care expenses.

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Also, Medicare does not pay for individuals to attend an adult day care or for the room and board expenses at an assisted-living facility.

Myth #5: Medicaid will cover my long-term care expenses.

Medicaid was developed partially to cover long-term care costs for Americans of any age who need help paying for those services. Medicaid is currently the largest payer of long-term care costs in the United States, primarily for care in nursing homes.

However, Medicaid focuses on helping people with limited or minimal income and assets, and in order to qualify for benefits, you have to demonstrate a financial need for help. Qualifying means spending nearly all of your own money on your own care before the gov-

ernment will step in to help.

Myth #6: My family will take care of me.

The financial, physical and emotional stress that full-time care-giving may place on families can be overwhelming. Many families have struggled to provide care for parents or siblings only to eventually realize that the care required is more than they can provide.

The truth is that sometimes the best way for a family to take care of a loved one needing long-term care is to make sure that they have access to professional care. With the advances in home care services, many people needing long-term care are actually able to stay at home, with or near families, and still get the professional care they need.

Myth #7: Long-term care insurance covers only nursing homes.

Everyone wants to stay at home.

Long-term care insurance can offer valuable benefits that may keep you at home for as long as possible.

Long-term care insurance can also help cover the cost of care in other locations, such as adult day care centers, assisted-living facilities and hospice care.

With long life comes long-term planning. Make a plan for you and your family today.

This information was provided by Shane Van Dalen, New York Life insurance agent at 517 Liberty St., Lynden, 3544433.

Finding a proper work-life balance Five tips toward a desirable lifestyle With reports of the unemployment rate dropping to 7 percent, lower than it was even five years ago and down from a peak of 10 percent in October 2009, many are breathing a sigh of relief. But the effects of a long bout of high unemployment are sure to have thrown off the balance of employee well-being, says former Exxon executive Bob Epperly.

“Of course, the rate does not take into account those who are underemployed, including over-skilled workers in menial jobs and those with too few hours. For those lucky enough to have decent employment, many feel insecure and are willing to skew their work-life balance into a tailspin, with exaggerated emphasis on their career,” says Epperly, a CEO who realized at age 55 that even a very successful career cannot fulfill every aspect of life.

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Balance: Ambition isn't enough; self-acceptance is the key Continued from D7 these tips for correcting lifestyle imbalance: • It’s never enough.

Ambition is admirable, but if that’s all that drives you, no matter how much you accomplish, it will never be enough. If professional ambition is more important to you than anything else in your life, that’s a red flag that your life is dangerously unbalanced. The consequences will be painful feelings of emptiness, lack of fulfillment, and having missed out. Take steps now to restore balance, beginning with personal, non-work relationships.

• No one ever says, at the end of their life, that they should have worked longer and spent less time with family.

When it’s all said and done, life is short, and many realize that time is life’s most precious resource. Intense focus on work tends to deprive professionals of opportunities with their loved ones — moments and memories that cannot be replaced. Set goals for how much time you’ll spend giving your family 100 percent of your attention each day and week, and stick to them!

• Make communication a top priority.

The importance and value of real communication cannot be overemphasized.

“More important than speaking is listening,” Epperly says. “My relationships immediately improved when I began listening very carefully to what was being said.”

• Only you are responsible for your life.

The Serenity Prayer goes a long way in work-life balance. It reads: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Epperly says it was pivotal for him to recognize that he is responsible for his life and to focus on the aspects of it over which he has influence while recognizing those he needs to let go of.

• Accept who you are.

This can be challenging; it demands courageous self-reflection and letting go of the need for external approval. “When a friend asked me, ‘Do you think the world is ready to accept Bob Epperly just as he is?’ I suddenly saw that I had always felt I had to accommodate, that I wasn’t okay as I am,” he says. “I started to give myself permission to be me.”

Bob Epperly worked in Exxon management for more than 20 years, then wrote “Interactive Career Development: Integrating Employer and Employee Goals.” He coaches people who seek life-transforming career change.

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