From Cattle Ranch to Coastal California

An interview with Nancy Alquist, Jenner, CA

Nancy Alquist was born in southeast Arizona in 1925 and lived her first ten years on her father’s cattle ranch. At age 10, her mother decided it was time to move into town so Nancy and her brother could “learn how to get along with other people our own age.” She graduated from high school in the small town of Douglas, AZ on the Mexican border. She then went on to college; first to a “finishing school” in Hollywood, California for junior college where her most vivid memory was of graduation when they marched in to the Triumphal March from Aida, rather than the expected Pomp and Circumstance tune. Nancy went on to complete her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Arizona in anthropology, thanks to the inspiration of a “magnificent professor who taught one class in ethnology,” providing Nancy with an educational framework for better understanding her experiences as a child, having grown up around three distinct cultures: Anglo-American, Mexican, and Yaqui Indian.

After graduation, Nancy moved back to Los Angeles, found clerical work, married for five years, and eventually discovered social work as a career to support herself and her son based on the advice of an “astute counselor” at the California Department of Employment. At one point, Nancy became disgruntled with the way she and other county employees were treated and she joined the efforts to bring the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to the area in 1966. The main concerns of organizers such as Nancy were related to the lack of recognition and value placed on the work they were doing in the field. Core values Nancy was raised with were to work hard, do the right thing, and in turn you could expect decent treatment and fair compensation; yet she knew this wasn’t happening. Prior to collective bargaining, Nancy described their annual process of “collective begging” as going to the board of supervisors to beg for an increase in allocated funds. Written job descriptions and expectations at that time did not reflect actual field experiences, and field workers were not allowed to provide input to more accurately reflect their reality. For one thing, the field of social work at the time didn’t take into consideration cultural differences that were very much a reality among client families in L.A. County. Also, employees had no medical insurance, the civil service rules were not necessarily followed, and some employees received less compensation than comparably sized families on welfare. Eventually, the union made a difference in all these areas.

Nancy’s life changed abruptly when her mother had a stroke and Nancy returned to Arizona to care for her. Like herself, Nancy’s mother was an independent spirited woman, and the role reversal was a bit of an adjustment. She eventually found a good caregiver and was able to return to L.A. where she embarked on a 10 year active volunteer career for the American Red Cross. Her first relief effort was back in Arizona after the Tucson flood of 1983, and her last assignment was in the Caribbean after Hurricane Hugo.

When Nancy’s son and daughter in law moved to Northern California in 1988, they helped her look for affordable investment property on the California Coast and found a 40+ acre property to purchase near Jenner. After a series of health issues, Nancy moved to this property a decade later, and she still resides there. It’s not a cattle ranch, but it’s definitely rural! Since then, she has struggled with other health issues, including a significant bout with pneumonia which required surgery and extended rehabilitation at Golden Living Center in Santa Rosa. She couldn’t say enough good things about the therapy staff there, stating “they interviewed and tested me to find out what I could do and encouraged me to do something daily, but didn’t push me beyond what I was capable of doing.” She was equally pleased with the care she received at a local residential care home, Elsa’s, where she continued her recovery under 24 hour supervision until she was able to safely return to her home just weeks ago. Nancy admitted feeling some concern when social workers initially approached her about the idea, because she recalled a rather “grim” experience at a care home back in her social work days when she visited a disabled client. Fortunately, her recent experience was “180 degrees different; the complete opposite.” She described “friendly, fantastic” caregivers and “very well prepared, balanced” meals. Other residents were also “fun” company at meal times, while maintaining a sense of independence and privacy at other times, which she appreciated.

Despite her own experience with aging parents, Nancy openly admits she didn’t connect her experience with aging parents to her own reality today, and her son still worries about her despite having in-home care. Her advice for other seniors is to “find some means of comprehending what’s going to happen down the line” and discuss future care needs and options with family members because “it will never happen to me” thinking is unrealistic, particularly as we live longer and lack the extended family living arrangements of prior generations (and some other cultures). She also encourages people to keep their bodies and minds healthy to avoid some of the preventable problems associated with aging. Nancy keeps her mind active by reading, computer games, and the World Wide Web. Yes, she’s a self-described “computer illiterate” but has a computer and regularly searches the Web, which is up and running most of the time thanks to Sonic.net!

Nancy also encourages other retirees to apply their work skills in some form of volunteerism. “It gives you a reason to get up every day and get out of the house. You’re doing and learning something worthwhile, and particularly in our country where we’re being exposed to different cultures every day. So much is fascinating!”

One of Nancy’s primary guiding values is to respect other human beings who earn respect. Not because of culture, skin color or language, but because of the way they behave; their moral conduct. She lives up to her own moral standard and is clearly a survivor, having survived numerous medical challenges. Nancy has a contagious enthusiasm for life and living, which is wise, indeed!

Lois Parks, Tomales CA Historian

An interview with Lois Parks
Tomales, CA Historian

Lois Parks was born in Rochester, NY on October 16, 1919 and embarked on a 6 ½ yr adventure in Suifu, China with her Baptist missionary parents at the age of 10 months. Her father, a Baptist pastor, established churches in China while her mother raised Lois and her two siblings, both of whom were born in China. Lois’ most vivid early memory was when two local war lords began fighting in the mountainous area where they vacationed during the summer months, and they were briefly separated from their father in the pouring rain as he arranged transportation via river boat back to Suifu.

The row boat they used to access the river boat had no oars, so they had to pull up floor boards to use as paddles!

Upon returning to the U.S., Lois’ family moved every 2-3 years based on her father’s parish assignments. She graduated from Tamalpais High School, commuting from Fairfax daily via train, and attended Marin Junior College one year before the family relocated to the Monterey peninsula and she completed her AA degree at Salinas Junior College. Lois then found work and paid her way through college at the University of Redlands, where she received a BA degree in English. With the war in the Pacific escalating, her parents decided to move from Monterey County to Oregon, and she followed them briefly after becoming engaged to her “true love,” Roy Parks, whom she had met at Marin Junior College. Roy worked for his father, a chicken rancher in Tomales, and in 1943 Lois became a rancher’s wife and active in civic affairs. The ranch’s direct contribution to the WWII war effort was to ship chicken eggs to Australia.

The Parks’ chickens were free range, and when ranchers popularized the practice of raising chickens in cages, the Parks family switched to raising sheep because they disagreed with the practice. History has a way of repeating itself! Roy also attended courses in pasture development and animal husbandry at UC Davis, while involving their four children in 4-H.

Meanwhile, when Lois’ oldest son, Bob, started school, she became a local school board trustee and served in that capacity for the next 15 years. Never one to stay idle, Lois was also the choir director and organist for the local Presbyterian Church. When the State Board of Education tried to consolidate school districts with fewer than 1000 students, she and others spent 10 years trying to get the state to allow them to vote on maintaining an independent Tomales Unified High School District. Once approved by the State, Lois reports that the ballot measure passed the first time it was proposed, and the district continues to this day.

Another one of Lois’ projects was the Tomales Regional History Center, which she and others started at the grammar school in 1977 and moved to the former high school auditorium in the late 1990s after numerous fundraisers. The History Center includes a visual and oral history of the geographic area from Point Reyes to Bodega Bay. Historically, this was a dairy and potato growing region, and boats traveled up Tomales Bay from San Francisco to bring these products to the City.

After Lois’ husband died in 1981, her boys continued to worked the ranch and Lois began to travel with either her sister or a close friend who shares her interest in genealogy. Lois stayed at the ranch until about four years ago, when she moved into town to be near her daughter, Sharon, and then to Santa Rosa earlier this year. Her most memorable trip was back to her childhood home in China which remained much as she remembered it (including the family home, which had since been taken over by the Government). In the past three decades, Lois has traveled to China (2x), Europe (3x), Australia, the Caribbean, and throughout the continental U.S.

Reflecting on the pace of change during her lifetime, Lois openly wonders if children today have the opportunity to fully enjoy the simple pleasures in life she enjoyed growing up, observing that it “seems to take so much to entertain them.” She also wonders if children are being challenged enough. For example, it’s almost too easy to find the answers to questions via the internet at the push of a button without having to research the answers yourself. Of course, she also appreciates technology advances, such as being able to instantaneously send letters to her friends via email, and was able to experience her granddaughter’s wedding in Southern California via Skype when she couldn’t be there in person.

Lois’ advice for the children of today: (1) you can’t learn too much; (2) take time for simple pleasures; and (3) keep smiling and think on the bright side.

Now, that’s Upbeat wisdom at any age!

Ahead of their Time...

Keith and Carmen Taylor, who will celebrate their 60^th wedding anniversary next year, met in 1951 at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He was an Indiana-born senior and she was a college freshman from the Island of Guam. After Keith graduated from Antioch with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, he enlisted in the US Air Force and they were married shortly thereafter. Their respective choice of Antioch was based in part on its unique cooperative work program, and the school’s hallmark values of gender equality and individual expression are reflected in the people they are today.

The Taylors spent their first few years of marital bliss traveling throughout the western United States with the Air Force, starting a family, and establishing early households in military-supplied ‘homes’ which included a converted chicken coop and converted WWII barracks. 3 ½ years later, with two children in tow, it was time for Keith to fulfill the promise he made to Carmen when they married: to provide opportunities for her to complete her own college education.

Education runs deep: When Keith left the Air Force at the end of his 4 year commitment, he worked as a sales engineer, traveling three weeks each month while Carmen raised their three children (a fact he’s quick to acknowledge and praise her for). As a result of subsequent job changes, Carmen attended a total of 10 different schools before completing her undergraduate, master’s and post-graduate education over the next 20 years. She majored in education with an emphasis on reading, motivated in part by their daughter’s learning disability.

Keith’s own quest for knowledge led the family to sell their home, pack up the kids, and move to Glendale, AZ for nine months so he could complete a Masters Degree in International Business at Thunderbird School of International Management to prepare for a career abroad. Founded in 1946, Thunderbird is now widely recognized as the world’s No. 1-ranked school of international business.

After completing his advanced coursework, Keith landed a position in his home state of Indiana, which provided a springboard for management opportunities in Brazil, Venezuela, and England before returning to the United States in 1972. Moving every few years can be quite a challenge for any family. When asked how the moves affected her, Carmen simply replied, “Since my family had lost everything during the War (WWII), starting over was just part of life.” Keith had also moved with his family several times during the war due to his father’s work, so it was no surprise that “we never bothered to put down an anchor” (until they discovered California, that is.) Years later, their children acknowledged they were less than enthusiastic about the moves, but didn’t complain either.

Despite wonderful international experiences, Carmen felt a bit “cheated” because they were unsuccessful in establishing close friendships with native residents in South America. Instead, American and British ex-patriots formed their own social network. Carmen and Keith’s fondest international memories were of the time they lived in the village of Ryhall, England, where they were almost immediately embraced by several “curious” villagers whose friendships have continued to this day. Carmen and Keith quickly adapted to life in the village, and found it easy to become involved in community affairs.

When Keith worked himself out of his job in England, the family returned to Arizona where Carmen continued her education and worked as a bilingual interpreter. Keith was 45 and still didn’t know what he wanted to do when he “grew up,” so he contacted a management search firm. After much thought, one of the consultants proposed that he consider becoming a college professor. So casually dropped by Arizona State University the next business day (Monday), and began his Doctoral program that week!

After graduation, Keith landed a job as Assistant Professor at Utah State, and Carmen worked as VP, Student Services and in the reading lab. Six years later, in 1985, a professorship opened up at Sonoma State University for Keith, and Carmen joined him a year later when her contract expired.

Now retired, Keith and Carmen still keep full schedules. Keith has served on the board of Becoming Independent and Santa Rosa Sunrise Rotary, Carmen volunteers regularly at Becoming Independent and the Council on Aging, and they both volunteer for various projects including SRJC-sponsored dental clinics at local elementary schools. Their interest in sharing knowledge and serving others spans the generations!

Still Running at 84...an Interview with Bill Evans

In more ways than one, Bill Evans of Santa Rosa is a distance runner. He started running at age 40, and still runs an average of 15 miles per week (=780 miles/yr), not to mention his golf addiction (yes, he’s the man you see regularly on the Bennett Valley golf course, running between holes).

Naturally athletic, Bill has always been physically active and played just about every sport imaginable in his youth. He took up tennis and golf in college at the University of Toledo, but it wasn’t until he turned 40 that he really started paying attention to his health. Perhaps the magic 4-0 was a wake-up call, since his own father died at age 48 of a heart attack.

Bill was born in Toledo, Ohio in 1926. His father was an aspiring performer who had difficulty finding work during the depression, but his mother found steady employment as a secretary for the local newspaper to keep food on the table and provide shelter for their family of four. From an early age, he learned to truly appreciate the sacrifices of working women of that generation, as he witnessed his mother coming home after work to cook and clean. Growing up in Ohio was a far cry from Northern California: he recalled the winters being so cold and coal so hard to come by that his father nailed the front door closed during the winter so they’d preserve the heat!

The single life event which left the longest lasting impression on Bill happened during his service in the US Navy, which he entered in 1944 at age 18. He was in the Battle of Okinawa toward the end of WWII and the Japanese were dropping bombs all around them. While some other soldiers seemed to panic, Bill suddenly realized he wasn’t afraid; he was prepared to accept the situation, not worry about what he had no control over, and do what he could within his control. Since that snapshot in time, he has lived his lived his life with acceptance; beyond fear.

After the War, Bill became somewhat of a self-described “playboy,” enjoying the single life through college and a career in newspaper reporting, writing and sports editing in Indiana and Texas, and then back in Toledo with Dun & Bradstreet as a financial reporter before taking advantage of a transfer opportunity to their San Francisco office in 1961 (where he could golf year-round). Once in San Francisco, Bill experienced a longing he had never felt before: he was ready to settle down and start a family. Within a year, he met Diane, a local nurse, who’s been his wife since 1963. They’ve raised “four wonderful kids,” whom he considers his single greatest accomplishment in life.

One’s heroes say much about a person and what’s important to them. When asked if he had any personal heroes, Bill was quick to name three, all of whom he admires for the courage they demonstrated by speaking out: Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers); Mahatma Gandhi (India civil rights and independence); and Daniel Berrigan (anti-war protester). His own greatest concern is the growing gap between rich and poor in this country, and the trillions of dollars we spend on foreign wars vs. direct aid to people both locally and globally.

And now, for the $100,000 question: what is Bill’s secret to living a long, healthy life? While I admittedly expected him to say “exercise,” he actually surprised me when he said he discovered the secret rather recently: “It’s FUN to do more than you have to” for others, as demonstrated these days by the many things Bill does around his community to help neighbors and keep it clean and beautiful. He takes pleasure in the appreciation he receives, and also enjoys random “anonymous” acts. His volunteer work beyond neighborhood beautification has ranged from volunteering to help immigrant adults improve their English skills, to driving neighborhood children to/from school and appointments, Forgotten Felines volunteer work, and many other contributions, large and small. Reflecting on the marathon of his life, Bill shared only one regret: spending much of his youth and young adulthood engaged in activities for his own pleasure rather than doing for others, which he finds much more gratifying. I personally think he’s done more than his fair share already, but know he’ll always go the extra mile.

Run on, Bill!

Honoring Dad on Father’s Day

Tell me, what’s in

Your little black bag

That travels

Near and far?

We pile in the wagon

Wait for minutes

Maybe hours

Seems like forever

Cramped quarters quarrel

Averted by a promise

An ice cream cone

Perhaps?

Eyes glued to the window

Hoping they’ll be better soon

So the little black bag,

and its owner, will return.

It seems like only yesterday when we did just that: four of six children, 2 years apart, would pile into my father’s Chevy station wagon to accompany him on “house calls.” This was back in the 1960s when house calls were a common occurrence among general practice MDs in the upper Midwest. Dad carried his medical supplies in a black leather “doctor bag.” He was dedicated to his practice and patients in a way I admired but never wanted to emulate. We spent hundreds of hours, summers and weekends, waiting in his office, the hospital waiting room, and on house calls; reading Highlights magazines from cover to cover, watching the people go by. But it was all worth it, because we were waiting for Dad.

J. Kent Tweeten, M.D., was born in Rochelle, Illinois on December 17, 1915 to an authoritarian Lutheran minister from Iowa, and his wife, Maud. He respected his father, but deeply admired his mild-mannered mother who was raised by family friends in a sod house on the plains of South Dakota in the 1880s after her immigrant parents and siblings succumbed to an epidemic when she was only one year old. The childhood death of his youngest brother, Paul, influenced his interest in pursuing medicine as a profession.

Shortly after graduating from medical school, Kent received his military orders to report for active duty in the U.S. Medical Corps and served in Europe from August 1944 through March 1946. His favorite “war story” was his memory of the evening he spent in a “very nice foxhole” which had been built and occupied by a German soldier the night before.

My father grew up during the depression, but his frugal parents managed to support all three children through college. Dad “paid it forward” by supporting all six of his own children through college. Not going to college was never an option. The value Dad placed on education was that great, yet he never pressured us to attend a specific university or pursue a particular course of study. In his own quiet, steady way, Dad held high expectations of each of us to do our best, and we never wanted to disappoint him.

Mother died when my youngest sister was only 4, which increased my father’s responsibility that much more to become both Provider and Parent. As stoic as his parents, Dad had minimal assistance around the house (other than from us kids with regular ‘chores’) and never remarried. I vividly remember Dad scrubbing the kitchen and bathroom floors on multiple occasions as I finished homework in high school. He never complained, and didn’t expect us to, either. I recall when he finally replaced our thread-bare wool carpeting, only after a family friend commented that it might be time for a change. I honestly don’t think he had the time (or inclination) to even notice the wear and tear! His Depression-era and Midwestern values seem fleeting at best in today’s fast-paced consumer-driven society, but he prepared us well for the “Great Recession.”

Dad also always paid cash for his cars (and paid off his mortgage in about 5 years on a house he owned for almost 50). He taught us to balance our checkbooks (to the penny!), limit credit cards, and pay them off monthly to avoid interest charges. Frugal? Yes. But at age 95, he is still living life on his terms, to the extent his body will let him, without financial strife. Growing old has its challenges, but he’s wearing his age well.

Thanks, Dad, for teaching your children well. You’re my hero. Happy Father’s Day!