Some Seniors Pass Up the Sun Belt to Put Down Roots in Great Plains

When a heart attack prompted J. Pat McCarron to retire, he was ready to move to sunny Florida or Arizona.

A trip through Nebraska changed those plans.

“It was an Indian summer day in October when I came driving over the hill from the east,” McCarron recalled. “The village was laid out before me in the valley. I fell in love with it at first sight.”

McCarron became enchanted with Verdigre, a village of about 600 people nestled along a tributary of the Niobrara River in northeast Nebraska, about 140 miles northwest of Omaha. After visiting the area again and subscribing to the local paper, the 66-year-old Chicago city administrator decided it was the ideal retirement place.

“I’ve got a big old house, a big wooded lot, a garden, my dog and a blind cat. I’m active in the community and I have a lot of friends that I hang out with at the cafe,” McCarron said. “It’s wonderful here. I’m in heaven.”

With their low-cost living, little crime and a relaxed lifestyle, Verdigre and other small towns across the Great Plains have become popular retirement destinations, according to area experts on aging.

Many of those who decide to retire here have roots in the region, while others, like McCarron, simply seek a slower pace.

“It’s just a lot easier living here,” said 80-year-old Kenneth Peterson, who retired to Verdigre in 1980 after working 26 years as an electrical mechanic in California.

“I’m five minutes from a fishing hole,” he said. “When I want to do something I can do it, and I don’t have to deal with the traffic and crowds.”

While communities like Verdigre cannot offer the perpetual sunshine and warmth of the South, they do offer a strong sense of community that often is missing from planned retirement communities in the Sun Belt, said Connie Cooper, executive director of the Northeast Nebraska Area Agency on Aging.

“Winters can be harsh up here, but people are still willing to live here because other factors have a higher weight over the weather,” Cooper said. “Everybody takes care of their older neighbors in these communities, and that’s most important.”

The community caregiving parallels the medical support that planned retirement communities stress. The closest hospital to Verdigre is 15 miles away in Creighton, but the village relies on Dr. Kenneth Pavlik, a hometown boy who returned to care for village elders.

The town also has a 70-bed nursing home with plans for a senior center that would feature a physical fitness area, public kitchen and meeting rooms.

For recreation, there may not be shopping malls, live theaters or museums, but there is the Niobrara State Park up the road and social chatter down at the Rainbow Cafe or, on Fridays, at the sale barn.

And when it comes to public transportation, there’s Mildred Krupicka.

At a rate of 27 cents per mile, the 75-year-old retired social worker gives rides to anyone who is too old to drive. She uses her blue 1986 Chevy Cavalier as a makeshift taxi.

“I take them maybe to the beauty shop or uptown to the store or sometimes to Norfolk,” 50 miles away, Krupicka said.

Her clientele has totaled more than 80 senior citizens. She had to cut back when her grandchildren and 85-year-old husband, Ed, asked her to stay home a little more.

“I still don’t see her,” Ed Krupicka said. “She’s involved in six clubs and drives everyone around. We don’t sit in rocking chairs around here. Everyone’s busy.”

Verdigre has the highest percentage of senior citizens (47.9%) of any Nebraska community with more than 500 residents. Residents over 60 also make up nearly half the population in the nearby towns of Wausa, Bloomfield and Plainview.

Towns often consider a large aging population a sign of a dying community, but many more are realizing it can an economic plus, said Jerry Ryan, executive director of the Midland Area Agency on Aging.

“You’re starting to see some of the rural communities beginning to market themselves as great places to retire at,” he said. “It’s a new trend in economic development.”

Ryan also noted that retired couples can bring greater economic benefits to small towns than young families, since they tend to have greater financial assets and less need for such expensive services as public schools.

“Retired people require less from a community, yet provide more,” he said.