I realized when my mother died at age 69 that I needed to pay closer attention to her peers, and to my older women friends, so I could learn how to embrace my own aging. Like the scout who goes ahead to light the signal fire, I knew these women would send me messages I could adapt to my own changing life.
One of my positive role models is my friend Bobby Bjork. We met soon after she moved to Ennis, Montana, in 1979 with her husband Ted to run the El Western Motel, following his retirement from media marketing. They thought their busy lives would slow down into semi-retirement, but their motel proved so successful they barely had time for a vacation.
“It was exhausting, fun, and life went by very fast,” Bobby remembers of those years when they were building up a vast and devoted clientele for their 29 log-cabin units.
Too soon, Ted died of Parkinson’s disease and Bobby was left to guide her growing business alone. A frequent community volunteer when she was raising her two children in Wisconsin and Georgia, Bobby had just joined the local chapter of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC), one of the world’s oldest and largest women’s services organizations.
“When Ted passed away I was surrounded by an outpouring of help, not maudlin support, but real friendships,” she recalled. “As the months passed, these women who did so much good for others helped me understand that when something terrible happens, you don’t quit just because your life has changed.”
Women’s clubs have existed in America for generations; GFWC was founded nearly 118 years ago, and now has 100,000 members in 4,000 chapters in more than a dozen countries. Last year, its members raised nearly $32 million and gave more than 8.4 million hours to community service.
Long before Title IX, bumper stickers demanding equal pay for equal work, Gloria Steinem’s Ms. Magazine, and even the Suffrage Movement, GFWC women worked for the betterment of their communities by giving their time, money, and political support to causes that benefited women, children and families.
When women such as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg couldn’t get into law school or, if they did, couldn’t get a job after graduation; when women journalists who’d filled in for men away in World War II had to give up their jobs when the men came home; when women earned 50 cents to every dollar a man earned, service organizations such as GFWC were the only places where women could learn to be team players by working together.
Through Bobby, I learned that Victorian-era clubs offered women the rare chance to affect public policies through service work. A precursor of today’s feminist movement, GFWC has long championed literacy and efforts to improve women’s health. Its official theme is “empowering women… one by one.”
Last summer, along with the National Domestic Violence Hotline, GFWC launched a “united voice” effort to help end domestic violence in America, and is co-sponsoring “Make A Difference Day” events nationwide on Oct. 27.
It was the Ennis club’s commitment to positive change that drew Bobby to GFWC, and has kept her active on its behalf for 30 years.
“When I first joined, the president, who was 80 years old, had gotten a letter from a school for blind children requesting a $25 annual donation,” Bobby said. “She asked how much the club had given to the school the previous year, and was told $10.
“Well,’” she said, “’everything is going up, I think we ought to give them the $25.’ That older woman was progressive and generous, so I decided this group of women was for me.”
It’s been a good match. Over the years, I’ve watched Bobby run her business with a fair but firm hand, treat every guest and employee with respect and equality, present her views in positive, constructive ways, and support her community in public and private ways. She integrates those qualities into her GFWC work.
When she began selling the El Western Motel to her daughter Kris and son-in-law John, she was elected president of GFWC’s Montana clubs, then became the western regional president. For the past few years she’s been traveling the globe as a liaison between GFWC’s American parent organization and its overseas affiliates.
“When you get started with a good cause, you don’t have sense enough to say ‘no’ so you just keep doing it,” she said. “Change is part of life. We all have to keep adapting and growing. I bought a new house at 71, new china at 75, and I’ll celebrate my 80th birthday next year on South Georgia Island with the King Penguins.”
“This is a delightful time of my life; I want to enjoy it to the fullest.”
Those of us watching and learning from Bobby’s example are enjoying it, too.
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posted by goinwest
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