Spelling Out the Accomplishments of the Mind and Heart

Janice Paknik enunciates slowly, loudly: “EX-AG-GER-ATE!”

A spellbound Vida Chenault presses her fingertips to her blush pink cheeks. She purses her lips and readjusts the Jackie O sunglasses that cover half her face.

“E,” Chenault begins and ticks off the letters “V-A-P-O-R-A-T-E.”

“No, dear, EX-AG-GER-ATE,” Paknik repeats carefully.

Chenault fires back: “E-L-A-B-O-R-A-T-E.”

Paknik softly squeezes Chenault’s hands, now on top of a rainbow-colored blanket covering her legs. She knows the third time will be the charm for Chenault, one of her hot-shot spellers.

“Oh, my goodness,” Chenault says, embarrassed by her hearing, which is failing after 102 years. “Did you say exaggerate ?”

She promptly calls out the letters, repeats the word and smiles.

Every Thursday morning--after breakfast and before chapel service--Chenault and a dozen friends roll their wheelchairs into the activity room at Glendale’s Windsor Manor for their weekly stab at words many have difficulty hearing, or can no longer see in print because of poor eyesight.

For two years now, Paknik has pronounced words from a paperback Webster’s dictionary for the weekly ritual “that gets their minds working.” The contestants’ combined ages reach almost 850 years.

“Some of these women don’t like to come to many activities, but if you tell them that there is a spelling bee, they are here all dolled up with makeup, their hair made up and their slippers on their feet,” says Paknik, the retirement home’s activity director.

“Their minds are sharp. They’re hard to stump.”

She turns her attention to Dorothy Thomas, 91. Her word is combat. Thomas tags an e onto the end of it.

“No e at the end, honey. Drop the e “ Paknik advises.

“I wasn’t too sure about that one,” Thomas replies. “Give me another.”

Confirm.

Thomas spells it correctly and, quickly, before Paknik walks away, innocently asks, “Do you know where we are?”

Paknik kneels in front of Thomas and holds her hands: “You’re at the spelling bee at Windsor Manor and you look just beautiful,” Paknik says, gently stroking her palm on Thomas’ cheek. “And, boy, can you spell.”

For a brief moment, it doesn’t really matter where Thomas is. The compliment makes her feel right at home.

Paknik heads across the room, stands before each speller with a dictionary in hand, speaks into their good ears. In rapid-fire succession occasion , pharmaceutical , expectant and assassinate are spelled letter-perfect.

The women are on a roll, eager for the challenge. Alert.

Well, most of the time.

“Oh Helen,” Paknik whispers to Helen Walker, 92, who is comfortably asleep, her chin resting on her chest. Except for a chirpy canary and parakeet, the room is silent.

“Good morning!” Walker says as she opens her eyes, appearing somewhat surprised to find herself in the room. “Oh my,” she says and giggles after realizing it’s her turn. “I guess I was catnapping.”

Paknik assures Walker that it’s OK and asks her to spell matches .

“M-A-T-C,” Walker spells, stumped by what comes next. She pauses, looks heavenward and repeats the word. “M-A-T-C,” Walker says very slowly.

Hazel Geyer--who won’t confess to an age beyond 21--sits in a wheelchair in front of Walker. The former schoolteacher can’t help herself and completes the spelling with a blurted “H-E-S.” Like a national bee contender she concludes the task by repeating the word.

“Yes,” says Walker. “That’s it!”

Paknik says the weekly spelling bee provides numerous rewards: “It’s a challenge for them. . . . It gives them a lot of self-esteem and we can make jokes and socialize at the same time.”

The spellers do have good senses of humor.

Paknik to Judith Coulson, 85: “Spell the word impress .”

Coulson to Paknik: “It’s a little too early for me, dear.”

Paknik to Rhea Reed, 98: “Spell field .”

Reed to Paknik: “That’s an easy one, but I’ll take it. Sometimes we need a break.”

Paknik to Mary Powell, 92: “Spell the word English , as in ‘I speak English.’ ”

Powell to Paknik: “That’s wonderful, dear. What other languages do you speak?”

Mary Rahm, 95 and an L. A. native, says she has been at Windsor Manor “for as long as I can remember.” Her technique, she says, is speed spelling, and she never misses a bee because “I like joking around with Janice.”

Paknik says Rahm is a prankster: “If she doesn’t know how to spell a word, she mumbles the last few letters. I’ll tell her, ‘You’re trying to trick me,’ and she’ll go: ‘Yeah, well, I was hoping you wouldn’t catch it.’ ”

Replies Rahm: “Yeah, well, I wasn’t raised on spelling.”

Chenault was.

“Since the age of 4 I went to spelling bees,” she says. “My mother was a speller and from the time I was but a toddler I can remember reading. I read, read, read. I read my eyes out. I can’t read any more because I can’t see the words. But you know what?

“I’ve never forgotten how to spell them.”