At 94, Woman Awaits Life’s Many Lessons

Grace Jordan retired 33 years ago to a riverside she named “Donrovin,” but at 94 she acts more like the title of her favorite soap opera--”The Young and the Restless.”

Intellectually curious, unabashedly positive and surprisingly spry, this tiny woman is a testament to the aphorism taped to her kitchen wall: “You can’t help aging, but you don’t have to grow old.”

Jordan is believed to be the oldest graduate of Dale Carnegie training, completing a 14-week course when she was 93. She drove until she was 92. At 90, she was still taking aerobics classes.

Jordan has been slowed recently by fading vision, but she had no trouble climbing the steep slope leading to her pier that juts into the clear water of the lower Corrotoman River.

As a tender spring breeze caressed tendrils of silver hair streaming below her straw hat, she sat at the end of the pier and expounded on her philosophy of life.

“Joy in the heart, pleasure in the mind, a body free of pain. If you have that you can be happy all day,” she said.

But one has to begin with an enthusiastic embrace of life.

“He who wakes at dawn with enthusiasm may expect satisfaction at sunset,” Jordan said.

“Youth is enthusiastic and old age likes to sit. It’s crazy to do nothing. There’s no enthusiasm in nursing homes. They’re just sitting around. Life is over. They’re just waiting for the end.

“Have something to look forward to,” she advised. “Before I go to sleep at night I plan what I want to do the next day.

“You’ve got to keep the mind active and exercised.”

Jordan never went to college and quit high school after 2 1/2 years, but she has taken correspondence courses in English grammar, sewing, dress design, flower arranging, interior decorating, landscaping, astrology and oil painting. Many of her paintings hang in area restaurants.

“All my life I’ve been seeking truth,” she said. “I’ve read every book I could get my hands on. If I can get one new idea out of a book I consider it worth the price.”

After leaving school at 16, the Richmond native went to work in a dry goods store for $4 per week. She later learned bookkeeping and in 1918 began a career in that field.

Her lifelong love of learning was the reason she took the Dale Carnegie course in Effective Speaking and Human Relations. “I might get something to think about,” she said.

As it turned out, she gave her 34 classmates something to think about, said instructor Buck Stahl.

“A deep respect grew from all classmates for her,” Stahl said. “When she got up (to speak) you could hear a needle drop. People didn’t even squirm in their seats. She was an inspiration to all of us.”

Lillian Taylor, a spokeswoman for Dale Carnegie & Associates Inc. in New York, said Jordan is believed to be the oldest graduate of a Carnegie course. More than 3 1/2 million people have graduated from the personal development courses since 1912, she said.

In addition to intellectual exercise, Jordan is an avid believer in keeping the body active.

She isn’t participating in an organized exercise program at the moment, but follows a home exercise routine.

Loading a cassette into her tape player, she placed a 5-foot-long wooden rod over her shoulders and started waltzing, slowly pulling the rod down her back. The exercise “keeps the chin out of the navel,” said the 5-foot woman, only slightly bowed by her years.

Her husband died in 1979 and she has no children, but Jordan said she doesn’t get lonely.

“I would if it wasn’t for the fact I’ve learned how to accept what is. I’m interested in life and learning and getting ahead.”

Another secret to her long and productive life, she said, is: “I don’t worry at all.”

She said she learned long ago to turn problems and low periods into growth experiences.

“After each problem worked itself out I had learned a lesson. I was either a little bit stronger, a little bit wiser or had more self-confidence.”