Barbara Restle

Meadowood Anthology 1905-2011: Memories in Miniature Barbara Restle

The short memoirs in the MEADOWOOD ANTHOLOGY gives us insight into the commonplace happenings and also the remarkable events that occurred in the lives of possibly the greatest generation in our American history. Living in Meadowood Retirement Community we have residents from a variety of professional and military backgrounds who have fascinating stories to write from the Great Depression forward to WW II, the Korean and Vietnam Wars including one on the early days of Arab Spring. We have memoirs from authors who experienced the grimness of wars and somehow were able to write with a subtle humor, and at times also with a sense of the ridiculous; as we read about one day in the life of a young woman, an Italian Resistant Fighter. We have one memoir by a resident that begins with a Jewish Russian ancestor of her husband being conscripted into the Czars Army. He eventually escaped to Israel. One half century later the descendents of this man find safety in America. These are only a few of many stories of victims persecuted for political or religious belief systems and who eventually find sanctuary in our country and later in Meadowood Retirement Community. "Aging in Place", a charming expression we have coined, does not mean we exist in an invisible cozy cacoon. We have monthly lectures programmed by one of our retired professors who invites world famous academically acclaimed lecturers, who guide us through new international policies of countries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. We also have residents who prefer to do their own "thing" One resident moved in and announced that he had never in 20 years had time to read a book. He had been one of the driving forces at NASA; as in sending a man to the moon. He now volunteers with Meals-On-Wheels. He still has not read his first book. Our miniature memoirs, our life stories, are the treasures we leave to our children: perhaps to give to their own.