Words to Live By : Class Helps Older Adults Preserve Personal Stories

Dan and Florence Kaufman wanted to leave a meaningful legacy for their five sons and nine grandchildren. Something beyond property, furnishings, savings--the material gifts.

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So a year ago, the Camarillo couple joined 30 other seniors in a class and set about preserving something much more personal: their stories.

Such as the first time Dan, now 75, laid eyes on Florence’s father, a pipe-smoking patriarch who lowered his newspaper just long enough to size up his future son-in-law with a dismissive “Humpf!”

Another essay recounts the camping trip when a moth flew into Dan’s ear and buzzed there all night. Only an emergency trip to a doctor the next morning released an exhausted Dan from his Kafka-esque ordeal.

And there is the moving story of then 13-year-old Florence’s crushing realization in 1938 that her mother was dying from cancer.

“I felt that I had seen the Angel of Death on my mother’s shoulder,” wrote Florence, now 70. “I have since recognized that dark angel on other people. The terror behind the hollow eyes, the fingers plucking at the sheets, as though trying to cling to life.”

Memories come welling up every time they attend the class, offered by Ventura Adult/Continuing Education, Florence Kaufman said.

“There is a lot of drama in every life,” she said. “And when you start throwing it out, organizing it and telling it, you learn a lot about your own life.”

Instructor Barbara Black began offering the classes, called “Preserving Our Past,” five years ago. Ventura Adult Education was looking for ways to expand its offerings for older adults, she said.

“I had always listened to my grandparents and great-grandparents tell their stories,” said Black, 39. “And I always wished I had written them down.”

The classes, held at the Ventura Townehousein Ventura, are offered free to adults 50 or older. State education funding covers the costs, Black said. About 30 regulars sign up for each eight-week session, she said.

People younger than 50 may also join, but must pay a $25 fee, she said.

However, the class is geared toward adults nearing retirement because that is when people enter a natural process called “life review,” said Black, who holds a master’s degree in family relationships.

“They say ‘What was my life about?”’ Black said. “ ‘Did it mean anything? Did I accomplish anything?’ This gives them a legitimate forum to consider those questions.”

Black urges her students to use their own voices when writing, as if recounting events for a friend. She pays little attention to sentence structure and grammar, Black said.

“I do gentle critiques,” she said. “This is for their own enjoyment, for families and friends.”

A summer session--created last year due to popular demand--just ended; the next class begins Sept. 8, Black said.

Betty Hutchison, 83, has attended five sessions. A retired librarian, she had thought about recording her personal history for several years but never got started, Hutchison said.

After taking a few classes, she said, “I was so motivated I wrote 15,000 words before I returned to school.”

The easy part was putting down the facts, Hutchison said. She was born in Indiana in 1912 and was raised on a sprawling but isolated farm. She moved to California in the Depression-era 1930s and settled in Ventura County in 1947 with her husband, James, before becoming a library administrator for the county.

During her years at Whittier College, she was in the same class as Richard M. Nixon, who later became President. Even then he was an ambitious, if somewhat distant, classmate, Hutchison recalled.

But plumbing her memories for the emotional ups and downs proved more difficult, she said. In a 1,000-word essay recounting her growing-up years on the farm, Hutchison goes into great detail about daily chores or annual events, such as butchering a pig.

She talks little, however, about whether she enjoyed living in the country or whether she had secret yearnings for a more cosmopolitan life. Florence Kaufman’s compositions, on the other hand, are filled with personal insights.

Writing about her mother’s death and the later passing of a dear friend was a cathartic experience, she said.

“I realized that when my friend died, it was like my mother dying all over again,” Kaufman said. “I really felt healed when I was through with it.”

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FYI

The next eight-week session of “Preserving Our Past” begins Sept. 8 at the Ventura Townehouse, 4900 Telegraph Road, Ventura. The weekly classes last two hours, beginning at 9:30 a.m. Free to people 50 and over; $25 fee for those under 50. For more information, call 641-5200.