Posted By: ladylightkeeper
Would you enter into a gerontology project with your postcards? - 11/25/01 06:34 AM
I don't belong to the postcard exchange, so don't really understand how it works. But--- could you do a goodwill gerontology project within your activities?
Most of you by now know who Connie Small is: wife of a lighthouse keeper; now age 100 plus; responsible for getting the Coast Guard to donate/sell non-wanted Maine lighthouses to non-profit groups to preserve, so we can enjoy them today. HL just made the Portsmouth, NH, lighthouse this year in her honor, as she and her husband Elson were the last keepers there, and presented it to her at her 100th birthday celebration in June.
Yes, she is still sharp as can be and can talk for hours about her lighthouse experiences. But there is that loneliness there in not having any family to visit her; not having her contemporaries alive to come chat with her; not having fellow retirement home residents on her alert intellectual level and able to converse on interesting topics. This we discovered within our chatting with her during our visit yesterday.
She loves to read; she loves to know about lighthouses from all over though she was not able to have traveled to many; and she loves to hear from other people who love lighthouses, too.
Is there any way you can work her into each of your postcard exchanges, so that she would receive lighthouse postcards from you from all over the U.S.? And would receive them throughout the year? You could just write a note on the card itself, as she would not "collect" them as seriously as you do, and would not mind them being written on. But neither would she be able to afford to send out cards to you. It would be a one-way mailing from you to her. But one that would mean a lot to her, believe me. She told me yesterday of how surprised and thrilled she was to receive birthday cards this spring from strangers (you all) in far away states and even one foreign country -- after I had posted about her 100th birthday.
Her address is: Connie Small, c/o The Mark Wentworth Home, 346 Pleasant Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801
Please see my Christmas post on the Personal Forum; and how to get her book for your Christmas stocking on the General Forum.
Thanks loads for being so generous and kind to her.
Barb Hupp
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ladylightkeeper
Most of you by now know who Connie Small is: wife of a lighthouse keeper; now age 100 plus; responsible for getting the Coast Guard to donate/sell non-wanted Maine lighthouses to non-profit groups to preserve, so we can enjoy them today. HL just made the Portsmouth, NH, lighthouse this year in her honor, as she and her husband Elson were the last keepers there, and presented it to her at her 100th birthday celebration in June.
Yes, she is still sharp as can be and can talk for hours about her lighthouse experiences. But there is that loneliness there in not having any family to visit her; not having her contemporaries alive to come chat with her; not having fellow retirement home residents on her alert intellectual level and able to converse on interesting topics. This we discovered within our chatting with her during our visit yesterday.
She loves to read; she loves to know about lighthouses from all over though she was not able to have traveled to many; and she loves to hear from other people who love lighthouses, too.
Is there any way you can work her into each of your postcard exchanges, so that she would receive lighthouse postcards from you from all over the U.S.? And would receive them throughout the year? You could just write a note on the card itself, as she would not "collect" them as seriously as you do, and would not mind them being written on. But neither would she be able to afford to send out cards to you. It would be a one-way mailing from you to her. But one that would mean a lot to her, believe me. She told me yesterday of how surprised and thrilled she was to receive birthday cards this spring from strangers (you all) in far away states and even one foreign country -- after I had posted about her 100th birthday.
Her address is: Connie Small, c/o The Mark Wentworth Home, 346 Pleasant Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801
Please see my Christmas post on the Personal Forum; and how to get her book for your Christmas stocking on the General Forum.
Thanks loads for being so generous and kind to her.
Barb Hupp
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ladylightkeeper
