Students Keep History Alive in Talks With Seniors

Hi Hand was nearly 13 years old when the stock market crashed in 1929. He can recall the stillness of his parents’ dry goods store in Chicago that saw few customers in the subsequent months. He can still hear his parents discussing whether they could make the rent payment and the kind landlord who told them not to worry.

In the end, his parents didn’t lose the store. And to this day, Hand doesn’t worry about the future, because he figures he made it through the worst.

These are just some of the hundreds of snapshots etched in the memory of Hand, a retired businessman who came to California in the early 1940s with $60 in his pocket. He ended up with a conglomerate of 10 companies, including an aerospace manufacturing firm, a car dealership and a lingerie business.

During his long life, the 87-year-old Encino resident taught navigation skills to Army Air Force enlistees during World War II and was active for many years as a Boy Scout leader. He also survived a heart attack and several close calls with death, such as nearly driving over a cliff.

Although he and his wife, Bea, have been working on a video to document the family history, it’s now up to a stranger to write it all down.

“It will be curious to see how it comes out on paper,” Hand said. “We figured this would be a short cut.”

Since February, Hand has been meeting at a Reseda coffeehouse with Andrea Neal, 25, a Pierce College student who has become his personal biographer. With tape recorder in hand, Neal interviews Hand for more than an hour each week.

As part of a sociology of aging class, Neal has to write a 20-page biography of an older person who is neither a friend nor a family member. Students also do an analytical paper comparing sociology concepts to the life of their so-called “senior partner.”

In addition to the usual three credits, students also earn one service learning credit for doing a project that will benefit the community.

“There’s a value to society in recording oral histories,” said Jim Dawson, who is coordinator of service learning at the Woodland Hills school.

Neal, who has never before written a life history, said she believes the communication skills she’s honing while doing the in-depth interview will be helpful when she attends film school someday.

Besides chronologically documenting Hand’s life, Neal plans to highlight the senior citizen’s good-natured personality.

“It makes it more interesting that he’s not a relative. It’s not like my mom and dad trying to tell me stories I don’t want to hear,” said Neal, a Northridge resident who plans to finish her Associate of Arts degree in December.

The college class exercise is designed to benefit both young and old. Students can master interviewing techniques while examining the past and seniors reminisce about their triumphs and failures, which can lead to reconciliation, says instructor Anne Marenco.

“It’s actually very therapeutic at any age,” she said.

Marenco, who also teaches at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, got the idea from Patricia Robinson, who chairs the sociology department there.

For some seniors, the sessions provide an opportunity to ponder what they still want to accomplish.

“It’s a wonderful way for students to learn historical events in a personal context. Older adults can begin to figure out where they will be in the decades ahead,” said Donna Benton, a USC assistant research professor in gerontology. She runs the Los Angeles Caregiver Resource Center at USC’s Andrus Gerontology Center and is familiar with the process called life review.

It also gives students a chance to dispel stereotypes about seniors and become more comfortable with the aging process, Benton said.

“[Before the interviews] young people might think that older people aren’t sexual or that they are all bad drivers. By talking to this generation, they learn from them,” Benton said. “It teaches people that aging doesn’t mean you just get old and sick. It takes away the fear of getting old.”

To find a partner, the 24 students in Marenco’s sociology class met with participants of the Encore/OASIS Older Adult Program at Pierce College, which offers classes, lectures and workshops to adults 50 and older. They talked among themselves until they found a suitable partner.

Before the mingling began, Cassandra Christenson pulled Marenco aside and asked if she had any lesbian students in her sociology class. Christenson wanted to be able to share her life story with someone who could really relate.

Marenco suggested Alyssa Mazur, 20, who is open about her sexual orientation. The match has worked well.

“Knowing that she’s lesbian makes me free to say things I wouldn’t say to my straight friends,” said Christenson, 69, a retired Van Nuys nurse who gives workshops on helping the dying during their last hours. “Sharing with someone who has the same sexual bent is quite comforting. As I tell her things, I see things that I might not have seen before.”

They have talked about her chance meeting with the late Mother Teresa in a Miami airport, her work with dying AIDS patients and personal struggles she’s endured.

For Mazur, it has been eye-opening to hear the life story of someone who didn’t reveal her sexual orientation until later in life.

“I’ve realized it’s been way hard for her. I’m lucky that I can be out,” said Mazur, a sociology major who is considering becoming a teacher, coach or actor.

Occasionally, there have been mismatches. Hand was interviewed in the fall, when the class was first offered at Pierce, but he wasn’t pleased with the results. His interviewer lacked strong English skills and the finished biography was quite short.

Some of the senior partners regularly attend Marenco’s class lectures, even though they aren’t enrolled in the course.

Nathan Jaffe is fascinated hearing Marenco discuss the aging process.

“I went one time and I was hooked,” said Jaffe, 86, of Valley Village, who co-owned a construction company. “The instructor has caught the gist of older people, their likes and dislikes. The class fits me like a glove.”

During a recent class, Marenco explained to students that they are performing a valuable service.

“Grandparents used to pass down oral history, but people don’t do this anymore. You’re helping these people pass down traditions and history so they can give it to their grandchildren,” Marenco said.