In our youth-obsessed culture, we can easily bypass some really great stories—the stories of our community’s guardians and sages; stories with historical merit and depth of perspective. Whether they are helping out, giving back or still working nine-to-five to fulfill their life’s second act, they are amazing examples of every stage of a life well navigated and purposeful. Shine on.
Six months after Pearl Harbor, when Japan took over two of the Aleutian Islands off Alaska, Americans were shocked at the foreign occupation, however remote. There, U.S. Army troops fought the only battle of World War II that took place on American soil. Backing up the troops was the Ordnance Division, in charge of ammunition, transportation and weaponry. Just after the invaders were expelled, Dick Schmoyer came onto the scene, doing what he does best—helping.
Attached to the 404th bomb squadron, Schmoyer repaired jeeps and trucks and watched for snipers. “It was no picnic,” he says of the battles and the assignment. At one point, the squadron received orders to ship out, taking most of the supplies—including their makeshift kitchen—with them. That left Schmoyer and his unit at a loss, without a cook or a building to cook in. When his superiors discovered he had been a Boy Scout, they assigned him to cooking duties. He used only what was at hand: the unit’s field stoves. “They were desperate,” says Schmoyer, but he must have done well because he filled the job until an official replacement could be found.
His years in the Boy Scouts had taught him the value of service, and he remained devoted to his boyhood organization. Over seven decades, he moved up the ranks from tenderfoot to scout-master, later playing a role on the troop committee. As one troop folded, he moved to another and then another, serving for 78 years.
Schmoyer remembers walking a mile home and back, just for lunch, when he attended elementary school on Fulton Street, which had no cafeteria. By the time Schmoyer was attending William Allen High School, he was filling in at his father’s printing shop. He eventually took the shop over, working there for more than 50 years. Simultaneously, Schmoyer served for 35 years as an elder and deacon at Trinity United Church of Christ, sharing his time and his faith, and getting to know Evelyn Rabenold, whom he later married.
Now, 27 years after retiring, he is a regular at Phoebe, a senior care community in Allentown, assisting with anything they need. His wife had volunteered there, and together she and Schmoyer started an arts and crafts class. Later, when she passed away, he continued. He credits Evelyn with getting him started there, saying, “She broke me in right.” Last year, at 92 years of age, he logged 1,300 volunteer hours.
His years in the Boy Scouts had taught him the value of service, and he remained devoted to his boyhood organization.
Joan Wickel, Director of Community Life for Phoebe Allentown, says Schmoyer, “…helps out with anything they need. He’s very handy. He’s that whole Boy Scout guy. I appreciate his loyalty and commitment, and the other volunteers think very highly of him.” She offers as evidence the 100 or so volunteers who showed up for his 90th birthday party at Phoebe. At the arts and crafts class, Schmoyer hands out a sample he made for this month’s door hangers. Changing with the seasons, the hangers decorate more than 100 doors at Phoebe. He also makes notebooks from scrap paper and sells them at the on-site gift shop. “It’s right up my line as a printer,” he says, then uses the proceeds to buy supplies for the class. In 1999, he received the Community Spirit Award from The Morning Call and the Towel and Basin award from his church’s National Council for Health & Human Services. He may have slowed down a little since then, but not much.
Most days he walks the few blocks from his home, reporting in to fix anything that’s broken, to install shelving or to customize or repair wheelchairs. “I like to keep busy,” he says, “and I love mechanics. I take things apart and put them back together all the time.”
Wickel describes Schmoyer as unassuming, true to his word and reliable. “If he says he’s coming, he’s coming,” she says. “He stays active, and he’s very inspiring. The thing is, he would never tell you all of this. He just wants to give back.” She sees value in the way he lives, observing, “As people get older, they often feel they don’t have anything to contribute. Dick is contributing. But he’ll say, ‘I don’t do anything.’” It’s not clear how helping four organizations for more than 80 years means not doing anything, but it’s a free country, thanks to people like Schmoyer, so even if everyone else disagrees, he’s free to keep on thinking that.
Every morning Margaret Teitsworth gets up, gets dressed and is ready for action. Action often comes in the form of a spur-of-the-moment phone call from across the street, at Phoebe House Allentown. “Can you come abide with a resident?” a staff member asks.
Abiding, at Phoebe House, means sitting with someone who is dying, being a spiritual resource, offering comfort. Many people would shy away from this, but Teitsworth merely answers, “I’ll be right over,” and walks across the street from her home. She’s so quick to respond that, once, the staff member arrived at the resident’s room and found Teitsworth already at the bedside. She is that eager to do her job.
Teitsworth wasn’t always an abider. Her husband, a pastor, received a phone call one night shortly after he was appointed to his first parish. “Can your wife come sit with our father?” one congregant asked. “We don’t think he’s going to make it through the night.” Their father lived by himself, and they were concerned about his being alone. Teitsworth’s husband looked at her questioningly, and she just nodded, drove over and let herself in. “It was a territory they weren’t prepared for,” explains Teitsworth, who says she didn’t start out being comfortable with the role but grew into it.
Teitsworth’s schooling helps. A trained nurse, she pursued graduate work because she wanted to understand more so she could become a better nurse. She says, “I fell in love with psychiatry, so I didn’t want to go back to the medical/surgical section any longer. Looking back, it was a good choice, because psychiatry is something I use practically every day.” Teitsworth has learned when to listen and when to speak. First, she listens; when a person is no longer able to talk, she shares what’s on her heart, believing he can still hear it.
Abiding...means sitting with someone who is dying, being a spiritual resource, offering comfort.
Over 14 years, she has abided with more than 400 people. “Some of these people are really old,” she observes, and then admits, “like me”. (Teitsworth is 91.) “Sometimes they feel afraid, so we need to work at that real hard because there’s nothing at all to be afraid of. I tell them that God loves them and offers them the gift of eternal life.”
She assures them that God will never abandon them and that they are “completely safe with God”. She tells them what she believes—that, in heaven, “They will have no more pain, no more problems of this world. It will be just joy and a wonderful reunion with their loved ones and friends.” She tells the person that his body “is all worn out and he doesn’t need it anymore, and that means he has come full circle. This seems to have meaning. The last time I said this it was to a wife, and the husband found that so meaningful he could hardly find words to express it. Often we’re ministering to the family almost more than the person.”
Dismissing the idea that the role is difficult, Teitsworth says, “How could anything so wonderful be depressing? It’s never been anything but joy.”
When she retired from psychiatric nursing, she knew exactly what she wanted to do to fill what she called “a huge hole” in her life, becoming a hospice volunteer for 16 years. When her husband developed dementia, they moved to Phoebe Terrace to be near their son, and she missed volunteering at the hospice. When her husband transferred to the dementia unit, Teitsworth appeared in the chaplain’s office with a question: “How can you hook me up with hospice work?” The chaplain had just started the Abiders Program. He explained it to her, and she declared it to be perfect. Quick to divert praise, she says, “One thing doesn’t count for more than anybody else’s job. We just need to be doing what we can do.”
Teitsworth is big on growth. “I’ve always wanted to learn,” she says. “Just because I’m soon going to be 92, that doesn’t mean I’m not going to keep growing. If we stop growing, then we stop being interesting.”
She has no plans to stop sitting with the dying. “I’m going to keep abiding as long as I can walk across the street,” she says. These days, when people ask her if she will abide with them when the time comes, she jokes, “If I’m around longer than you, yes, I will.”
If you tune in to WDIY 88.1 FM on Monday nights, what you’ll hear first is a few seconds of piano music on the NPR station. Next the warm tones of the show’s host greet you: “Good evening, everyone. It’s time to ‘Take Charge of Your Life’.” The voice you hear is that of licensed clinical social worker Eleanor Bobrow. Featuring a variety of guests on her show, Bobrow adds her upbeat energy and articulate phrasing to the interesting topics her guests address, aimed toward taking control of whatever life sends your way. Subjects vary widely, from overcoming learning disabilities to being active in your senior years to bullying or self-compassion. Bobrow developed the radio show and has been hosting it there since the first week the station came on the air in 1995.
What drives Bobrow, who is a marriage and family counselor by day, is helping people improve their lives. On the show Bobrow often quotes the “90 percent of life’s events happen to us and 10 percent is what we make happen” saying. She explains, “I try to give people options to up the ratio from 10 percent and to understand what’s in our control and what’s not. I’m here to be supportive and helpful. I guess that’s how I look at my role in the show.”
Bobrow is quick to point out that she doesn’t have all of the answers. “Although I’m a therapist, I rely on the wisdom of my guests,” she says. “We all struggle, and I think each of us at different times in our lives needs guidance. I believe we each have our own answers, but sometimes we need someone to guide us to them.” To that end, Bobrow brings guests onto the air who have started organizations or written about topics that can, as she puts it, “shed wisdom and knowledge” and answer questions listeners might wish they could ask.
“Good evening, everyone. It’s time to ‘Take Charge of Your Life’”
A third role prepared Bobrow as a supportive person—being wife to the late Rabbi Jerald Bobrow. She never expected to be the wife of a rabbi. “When we met, I was enthralled by the fact that he was interested in Israel and Jewish history and was not interested in being a rabbi,” she says, laughing. “We were both teaching, and I expected to be the wife of a high school teacher.” That high school teacher turned into a college professor who turned into a rabbi. “We were married two years and he made the decision to become a rabbi,” she says, pretending displeasure. Her husband suggested starting the program to her when she was suffering from insomnia and wanted a late-night show to listen to. When he died, she took his advice; by its very existence, the show pays homage to Rabbi Bobrow, who was reported to have fought in the Israeli war of independence and been a freedom rider with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Although she’s celebrating 19 years on the show this year, Bobrow has no problem coming up with topics. “Life is brimming with ideas,” she says, “It’s what’s going on around us—what problems we face, marriage, family, things in our community.”
Interviewing luminaries such as Rabbi Harold Kushner and Bernie Siegel, M.D., Bobrow is “always looking for things that other people might be interested in and which interest me”. Bobrow continues to be active with both the radio show and her counseling practice, and credits this involvement for her vibrancy.
“As we age, it’s important for us to be involved with something that we’re interested in. The most difficult thing about retirement is not finding a focus for your attention,” she says. She believes people need to “have a focus and be interested in something that makes them thrive, whether it’s a community or religious affiliation or involvement with friends, families or hobbies.” For herself, she has found that on 88.1 FM.
To hear Take Charge of Your Life, tune in to WDIY or listen as it is streamed live on the Internet; podcasts for previous shows are available online.
If Alyce Tokus can’t make it from her apartment in Phoebe Terrace to the main office, they will go get her. That’s how much they want her to continue to volunteer at Phoebe, as she has for more than 23 years. A modest woman, Tokus has a sweet disposition and isn’t easily rattled. She often tells Maureen Stauffer, who oversees her work, how lucky she is. Tokus says she had one of her best birthdays ever at Phoebe—her 99th, last December (hints about a surprise at her 100th have been floating around the office). Stauffer describes this good-natured volunteer as someone who has “a fantastic sense of humor and does not believe in worrying.”
Tokus has what it takes. She’s got typing skills and people skills and a gratitude attitude. She treats all of the residents with dignity and respect. According to Stauffer, she never complains and never gossips. What you have right here, folks, is the ideal employee. And she doesn’t even get a paycheck.
The life Tokus has lived hasn’t been one that would develop thankfulness in everyone. Raised by her aunt and uncle, now a widow with a stepson who lives hundreds of miles away, Tokus has had to cope with much, including her late husband’s struggle with Alzheimer’s. When he came to Phoebe for treatment, Tokus began driving from Schnecksville to visit him, and that’s when she began to volunteer there.
Tokus has given little thought to why she is able to take everything in stride. She offers, “Volunteering at Phoebe has given me a positive attitude. But maybe it’s just me, I don’t know. I was always positive.” She thinks she might have gotten it from her mother and recalls her uncle telling her, “You can do anything you want to do.”
She works every weekday, and lives in a studio efficiency apartment with “I guess you call them senior citizens. Not me,” Tokus clarifies. “It’s convenience so I can get to work.” Over the years, she took lessons on the computer—twice, she admits—but is not interested. Instead, she uses an electric typewriter, preparing records of the residents and cards to be posted on activity boards.
What you have right here, folks, is the ideal employee. And she doesn’t even get a paycheck.
Tokus learned to type in 1929 when she took a business course in high school and graduated in 1933. From there she became a management analyst for the Federal government. She downplays the title, calling herself “basically a glorified clerk,” and later worked at a hospital in Philadelphia. Originally from the Ardmore/Radnor area, she and her husband moved to the country—i.e., Schnecksville—in 1960.
Over the years, the Lehigh Valley native has traveled quite a bit, visiting Rio de Janeiro, the Caribbean, Canada and Europe. Some of her favorite trips involved riverboat cruises with a friend, where she relaxed while watching the sights of Germany, Austria and Romania slide by. Tokus says, “Traveling is probably the most important thing I’ve done. I’ve been fortunate to do a lot of traveling in my later years.”
She keeps her mind stimulated by doing crossword puzzles but mostly by working, explaining, “It gives me a purpose in life. I enjoy doing what I do. It’s really a pleasure to work with the people there. I can go in when I want to, but I try to make it five days a week.” She has no plans to retire.
Tokus has consistently shared her joy with others, boosting their spirits and demonstrating generosity. Stauffer feels Tokus is a role model and has “shared her wisdom with everyone in the Community Life Department.” She says the standout volunteer donates funds to make it possible for some residents, who can’t afford to go out to eat, to do so.
Stauffer’s favorite trick is to ask strangers how old they think Tokus is. “You would guess her to be about 30 years younger than she is,” she asserts. “Once, I asked her what her beauty secret is, and she told me she washes her face with soap and uses the cheapest hand cream she can purchase. Alyce could drive the makers of Oil of Olay out of business.”
Stauffer concludes, “Alyce is 99, and she reminds me what to do each day. Her co-workers describe her as energetic, dedicated, friendly—and sometimes it seems to them that she is the happiest woman in the world.”
If David Mann had a motto, it might be “Never stop”. Certainly he never has. He began as a kid by milking cows—by hand—at 4:30 in the morning and hasn’t slowed down yet. These days he commutes by plane to Ohio every week, flying home four days later. In between, he flies to Miami or Portland or LA or anywhere his mass transit clients need him. The remarkable thing about this schedule is that David Mann is about 23 years past the age when most people retire.
Mann is as far from a slacker as you can get, joking that the first break he got was in the Army. “I didn’t have to get up until five,” he says wryly. “I got an extra half-hour.” Born into a washbasin in the kitchen of a farm without electricity in Seemsville over in East Allen Township, Mann was one of 12 boys, and the family had little in the way of material means. Mann learned the value of a dollar early and determined that he would learn how to provide for his own family when the time came.
For 37 years he built his career at Everson Electric, working his way up from winding coil into sales. Just before he accepted a job with Swiger Coil Systems in Ohio, Mann married his wife of 35 years, Sally Ann. At 57, with three children from a previous marriage, Mann added one more, a daughter, Jen. Jen, as it turned out, was really good at winning blue ribbons in a range of extra-curricular activities. David and his wife were there to see it all. Swimming and diving meets. Softball in the spring. Singing performances. Field hockey in college.
Mann is as far from a slacker as you can get, joking that the first break he got was in the Army.
“Jen kept us going,” says Sally Ann, adding, “she still keeps us going.” She says Mann’s hobby is “Work, work, and more work.” He thrives on it, keeping to his active work schedule despite the occasional suggestion—from others, not his company—to retire. Jen says, “He’s been threatening to retire for the last 10 years. Every year we say, ‘He’s going to retire at the end of this year’.” Straight-faced, she predicts, “I think he may retire at the end of this year.”
Mann explains. “They’ve asked me to continue on, so I sort of do it to humor them.”
When he’s not working, he reads the Inquirer religiously, takes his wife out for breakfast regularly and hangs out with Maggie May, the family Yorkie. His most difficult challenge is technology, so don’t look for him on Facebook. “I use none of the electronic gadgets. I don’t touch ’em, because I made a decision not to. I’m an old Pennsylvania Dutchman,” he offers. “Does that explain anything?”
When asked if he has a smart phone, he quips, “It’s not smart. It’s one of the least intelligent ones. All I have to do is say hello. And no. And yes.” Mann hand-writes his correspondence and other notes and faxes them to the office, where his secretary brings them into the age of the Internet.
Mann makes sure to stay on top of things, observing: “I think you have to stay with things as they move ahead”—obviously, email notwithstanding. “Every business changes. It used to change every couple years; now it changes almost every year—different equipment, different systems; it’s forever changing. You must constantly keep up; you have to stay sharp. If not the world will run by you—or run over you.”
Certainly the world is not running over Mann. He’s the man who never stops.
