Happy Mother's Day to the Nifty Naughty Nineties

Still out there teaching, learning, and getting it done

Marie—mother, mentor, marvel—teaching English to four-year-old Neilla and her grandmother on a recent visit to the public library in their town.

Happy Mother’s Day! (Okay, I’m a day late, but it’s because I was too busy celebrating yesterday to finish writing this.)

If my mom still walked the earth (dispensing advice, knitting mittens, reading to kids, installing plumbing, recaulking windows, and just generally improving the world by her presence), she would be a hundred and five years old. Although my head knew better, my heart always thought she would probably live to be at least a hundred. Or maybe forever.

Although, as it turns out, my own mom didn’t make it even to ninety (she died in 2004, at eighty-four), I am fortunate to know an amazing number of women in their nineties who continue to set a high bar for so many qualities that would be admirable at any age: adaptability, strength, resilience, courage, creativity, and kindness. In other words, these women, some of them a full three decades my senior, are mentoring me, whether they know it or not.

There are Beth and Rosabelle, who are both members of a local memoir writing group. They invited me to join about ten years ago, and I cherish our friendship.

Beth takes her pesky mobility issues in stride, acquiescing to the use of a walker and a stair lift, but never—never!—to withdrawing from the world. At our last meeting, she told of gathering for a birthday lunch with a group of local women who call themselves the “Nifty Naughty Nineties,” then casually mentioned that, on another recent day, she had driven a three-hour round-trip to surprise one of her daughters. Beth is the vibrant, loving, and much-adored matriarch of a large family, and she writes gorgeous essays about her life that her grandchildren and great-grandchildren will treasure.

From Rosabelle’s writing, I learn a bit more each month about her brave and intrepid spirit—working her way up to become a hospital public relations director, attending college and graduating with a degree at over sixty—and her desire to always keep learning something new, which continues unabated. She has appeared with Bethel’s Senior Players in their annual theatrical performances for nearly twenty years, is a charter member of the memoir group, and for the past eight years has also been a member of Zoom Storytellers, an online group that continues through the enthusiasm of its members, nearly all in their seventies, eighties, or nineties.

There are Amy and Jan, who are also members of the Nifty Naughty Nineties.

Amy is one of those whose birthdays were celebrated at their last gathering—it was her ninety-ninth. In a life that parallels my mom’s story in remarkable ways—from the loss of her own mother at a young age, to the raising of five children, to a beloved family camp built by her husband and kids, to sudden widowhood—she, like my mom, has always “soldiered on.”

No matter what event I attend in the Bethel area, from concerts and lectures to poetry readings and book group discussions, Jan is apt to be there, too, as lively and engaged as anyone half her age. And while I admit that I’ve been quick to embrace my generation’s tendency to blur the lines between “at home clothes” and “going out clothes,” whether Jan is going to church or making a quick stop at the library, she’ll be wearing just the right outfit, always perfectly put together—no Crocs or flannel pants for her!

There’s Debbie, a cousin of my father’s, who recently celebrated her ninety-ninth birthday, too. She raised her three boys in the towns of Freedom and Unity and, with her late husband, ran a general store for decades. She was living on her own until a couple of months ago, when her kids decided she needed help with things like meals and medications. Feisty and independent, she is settling in at a new place, but, in her son’s words, is “still pissed she can’t be alone in Unity.”

Ruth and Joan are two of my penpals. They read my Bethel Citizen column regularly and write to me to comment on my knee surgery, hiking, and other goings-on. Joan, whom I’ve never met in person, doesn’t use a computer; she sends handwritten cards and letters to a long list of friends, to which she added me a couple of years ago. She regularly admonishes me to be careful when hiking alone, and we recently discovered that we are some sort of distant cousins through our respective connections to the Mason family in Bethel. Ruth subscribes to my Substack, communicates by email, and shares stories of the building of her own family’s camp on Round Pond in 1941. Like Amy’s, her family’s history parallels my own in many ways.

Then there’s Marie…Mrs. F…Mom Funteral. She is my best friend Donna’s mom, and she has mothered, mentored, and loved me like her own for nearly sixty years.

I first met Donna on the second day of second grade, when her tiny dynamo of a mother marched her down the driveway of their house across the street from our bus stop and asked me to look after her on the bus. From that day on, we were inseparable, spending all of our afternoons and weekends together at her home or mine, just two houses apart, and Mrs. F quickly became my second mom.

When Donna and I went back and forth between each other’s houses, we always cut through the front yard of the Corlisses’ house in between. The Corlisses had a lot of cats, and a couple of goats, but not a dog, at least that I can recall. Still, one afternoon, on my way to Donna’s, I tripped and fell and landed smack in a pile of dog poop. When I arrived at her door, Donna’s mom could have taken one sniff and sent me back home to my own mother, but instead she just reached for her ever-present bottle of Lestoil. I remember standing in the bathroom while she scrubbed dog poop out of my clothes, and I spent the rest of the day smelling like pine oil.

Mrs. F has spent her whole life in Milford, Connecticut, and she and Donna’s dad still live in the same house where Donna grew up. When we visit them together, her mom wants to hear all about what’s going on in my life, and she still gives me plenty of advice, still fusses over me, and, often, still packs a cooler of food to send home with me.

Donna’s mom was a preschool teacher, and three decades of retirement have not diminished her love of teaching, or her desire to make a difference in the life of a child. When a multi-generational family from Iran recently moved into her neighborhood, she went across the street to introduce herself. Upon learning from the young father that his mother and daughter did not speak English, Mrs. F knew just what was needed from her, and she offered to teach English to four-year-old Neilla.

Now, Donna tells me, “my mother goes over on Wednesdays and Fridays from 10 until noon. Neilla has learned quickly and it sounds like she speaks well. When they’re done reading, my mother teaches her numbers and other things. Neilla and her grandmother are crazy for her.”

My friends in their nineties still have so much wisdom to impart to the world, and to me, and I am grateful for their willingness to share it:

Soldier on. Fight for your independence. Don’t let physical limitations define you, or hold back your spirit.

Keep in touch. Communicate. When you have good advice, offer it. When you love people, tell them so.

Stay active and intellectually engaged. Go to the library. Attend that lecture, or concert, or poetry reading. (And when you go, wear real pants and decent shoes.)

Be kind. Be open-minded. Be generous with your knowledge, your talents, and your compassion.

Never stop learning. Or teaching. Or mentoring. Or mothering.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the Nifty Naughty Nineties in my life!