“What advice for the future would you give a woman currently middle- aged?” That’s a question I asked of Vanessa Calderón-Rosado, a researcher at The National Center on Women and Aging.

“Take care of your health,” she answered. “Exercise and adopt a healthy diet. If you are working, save for retirement. The bottom line is you have to make it a priority.”

The Center, located at Brandeis University in Waltham, focuses on three issues: economic security, health, and caregiving. Not surprisingly, the three turn out to be intimately related, as Vanessa’s answer to my question suggests.

Through research, policy analysis, and community education, six staff members, with cooperation from some thirty organizations, work to promote the well-being of women as they age.

Another researcher, Arnaa Alcon, answered questions about building financial security. “If you haven’t started yet, start,” she advised. “Take whatever longevity expectations you have and add ten years. It’s better to overestimate. Get some help, hire a good financial planner.”

Katherine Burnes added, “Attitude is everything.” Explaining this axiom, she said, “So much negativity starts creeping in, it’s important to keep everything in perspective.” That’s how she sees the challenges of later life for women.

As Vanessa summarizes it, older women’s finances are often precarious because their employment history does not provide enough support. Typically, they have worked at lower salaries than men so that, when they retire, Social Security payments are low. Often, too, women have worked only part-time and may have taken years working without pay at home to care for their children.

When you add to these factors the inexperience with money matters that many women acknowledge, then the challenges become even greater. As one woman, quoted in a Center report, says, “I’m not that knowledgeable in financial things, situations. I’m not even good at math.”

Another, looking back, says, “When you are young, you think day to day. You get around forty and you think, ‘Oh my God!’ Women don’t have the skills or don’t think they do.”

The center staff sees long-term care as a vital part of the financial situation, especially for women. According to the director, Phyllis Mutschler: “Long-term care needs hit women twice, first in providing care for parents and other older loved ones, and then later in life when women may need long-term care themselves.”

Valuable testimony about the three issues of finances, health care, and caregiving emerges from a detailed study of some seventy women over fifty who belong to labor unions. Researchers found that “caregiving plays a major role in the lives of older working women – enriching their lives, yet depleting their financial, physical, and emotional resources.”

One woman told surveyors: “I lived a three-and-a-half hour drive from my mother. She refused to move to my home. I went to her place after work and returned at 1:00 am. Often I’d receive a call during the week and I’d have to leave work. This went on for two years or more.”

On the subject of retirement income: “Most women respond that paying for necessities is a major reason that they are unable to save more for retirement.” As one individual said, “I’ve got an 11 year old, and it seems between my 11 year old and my credit cards, I’m just blown away.”

About financial planning another women complained, “I think that the tone of what’s written in the media  .   .   . about financial planning makes it sound as if it belongs to the upper 10 percent and not us lower 90 percent.”

One edition of the Center’s newsletter focuses directly on finding a financial planner. The wrong way to do it emerges clearly, merely relying on  recommendations of relatives or friends without checking the planner’s past performance.

A 64-year old divorced woman named Judith is highlighted as an example of good planning. During the 34 years when she was married, “I had let my husband do the bills and I just signed on the dotted line as needed.” But after starting with an individual retirement account, Judith found her way around several other types of investments. Eventually, she took a seven-week seminar and wrote a financial plan for herself. Sticking to that plan has proven valuable for her and she has actually enjoyed doing it.

She now gives this advice, “I urge young women not to fall into the trap I fell into. I was of the old school. You marry, you stop teaching school, you have babies, and you let your husband take care of all the financial matters – while you manage the household, entertain the guests, and do lots of volunteering.”

Subscriptions to the Center’s “Women and Aging Letter” are available at five dollars for six issues or nine dollars for ten. You can call (800) 929-1995 for information. An informative web site is located at www.brandeis.edu/heller/national/ind.html.

Richard Griffin

When it became evident that his wife, Virginia, had Alzheimer’s disease, Elbert Cole responded by proposing a pact. “Let’s split things up,” he said.  “What do you think about making your task to enjoy life, mine to manage life?”

That was back at the beginning of a seventeen-year-long siege that ended with Virginia’s death in 1993. During almost all that time she went with her husband on his daily ministerial rounds and accompanied him on his professional travel. When he gave lectures or workshops, she would sit next to him or in the front row.

Thus Elbert was able to continue his work as minister in a large Kansas City Methodist church and Virginia could enjoy the company of other people and feel stimulated from these associations.

Elbert also initiated a pact with his adult children. His daughter, who lived in California, agreed to serve as consultant for her mother’s dressing, grooming, and hygiene. A son, based in Illinois, for his part pledged to keep up with the latest research into the disease and treatments.

From the beginning Rev. Cole, long active in the field of aging, was aware of the institutional options for people with Alzheimer’s. And he does not think badly of those who send family members to nursing homes. But he thought it possible in his circumstances to create a better environment for his beloved wife.

She herself, on first discovering the truth about her condition, briefly considered suicide. But in talking with her husband she realized that this route would not accord with the values they had always believed in.

As time went on and Virginia’s ability to do basic tasks for herself lessened, Elbert learned how to take care of dressing, bathing, toileting, and her other needs. Every night, he would put her in bed, alternate saying the “Our Father” and “The Lord is My Shepherd” psalm, kiss her good night as she fell asleep. By establishing a gentle routine, he was able to allay the anxiety she often felt and to keep her peaceful.

Theirs was a marriage that began in 1939, before Elbert left for service as a Navy chaplain in the South Pacific during World War II. As they grew older together, the original bond grew stronger, preparing them for the difficult times ahead. That they carried it off so well together stirs my admiration. Whenever I see my friend Elbert, I feel inspiration at the creative and courageous role he played in his wife’s last years.

Elbert has written several articles sharing his experience with readers across the country. He shows himself modest about what he did. “No big deal” is his way of characterizing it. But anyone who has tasted the experience knows better.

From it all, Elbert has listed the needs of people with Alzheimer’s, while pointing out that all people have these same needs:

“To know that they are loved. To feel good about themselves. To be respected. To have the approval of others who are important to them. To be stimulated in body, mind, and spirit. To feel secure. To be included, not alienated and maginalized. To celebrate the joy of life. To be needed.”

Spiritual motivation exercised a strong influence in Elbert’s actions and, I suspect, in Virginia’s as well. Their life together had always been oriented to the service of those in their religious communities and beyond. When the time of crisis came, they were enabled to draw upon this experience and turn it to good use.

In recent weeks, reports have emerged about promising new research into ways of blocking Alzheimer’s disease. Experimenting with mice, scientists have found how to stop amyloid plaques from forming in the brains of these animals. And through tests with human subjects they have discovered that no harmful side effects resulted from the vaccines used.

The next step will be to see if the vaccine will stop plaques in the human brain. If so, one can envision a possible breakthrough happening in a few years. What a benefit for the human family that would be!

In the meantime, reliable medications are already available to treat some behaviors and conditions of those who have the disease. And new methods of care have been developed that can help those who have responsibility for seeing to their welfare. These are benefits that everyone concerned should know about.

However, even if a cure for this agonizing disease should be discovered someday, what Elbert Cole did, and Virginia too, will not lose its relevance. Theirs will remain a model of a loving relationship that met the challenge of crisis and remained strong till the end. As he moves through his eighties, Elbert has good reason to look back on Virgina’s last years and to feel blessed that they were able to persevere through such hard times and even to grow in love.

Richard Griffin

“People have the same desire to enjoy life and be healthy – to make the most of their God-given talents – at whatever age they happen to be.” This is the lesson that cardiologist Robert Lees learned long ago about his older patients.

His insight corrected a view that he held when he was a young doctor. Then, writing in the “New England Journal of Medicine,”  he had suggested that the benefits of controlling high cholesterol apply only to people under age forty. Of that view he now says: “I look back on my foolishness and smile because, of course, life begins at sixty-five.”

Dr. Lees, during the course of a wide-ranging interview at his office in the Kendall Square section of Cambridge, emerged as the kind of physician who brings to medicine what is missing in too many doctors’ offices these days. Granted, he has the advantages of an academic base at MIT and Harvard and does not work under constraints imposed by the managed care system. The directive to increase the “relative value units” and other jargon-laced requirements inspired by business management fortunately have no effect on his practice.

Instead, this middle sixytish, mild mannered, genial veteran of his profession believes in giving his patients all the time they need. This unhurried approach allows patients to share with him their hopes and desires for the future, as well as their anxiety and fears about their ailments.

Beyond that, he believes it desirable to become friend and confidant to them, something that gives him much satisfaction. He often finds himself treating several members of the same family in relationships that last a long time. And one of the major things he does for his patients, and a service they appreciate most, is to find other physicians for them, specialists whom he knows to be outstanding in their fields.

However, Dr. Lees recognizes his limitations. “I don’t try to substitute for God,” he says. “I certainly try to help God along as best I can but God helps me more than I help Him.”

In keeping with this philosophy, Dr. Lees takes a realistic view of the human condition. “Nobody gets out of this world alive,” he observes. “The doctor’s goal should be to realize patients’ limitations but to maximize their ability to meet expectations. Many older people have heart disease that cannot be reversed, but that does not mean they can’t be treated and cared for and made to feel comfortable.”

Dr. Ann Lees, Robert’s wife and collaborator at their nonprofit Boston Heart Foundation, graciously took part in the interview. She is a researcher rather than a clinician but thoroughly approves of her husband’s approach to medical practice. Often during our three-part conversation, she offered supporting views drawn from her own experience.

Asked if being a friend to his patients sometimes causes problems, Dr. Robert Lees admits that he does get emotionally distressed. However, he says, “I don’t think it has affected the way I take care of them.”  He likes to bring others into difficult decisions: “It’s an interactive thing,” he explains, “I’m not acting on high.”

Thus his common practice is to involve other family members to help the patient with such decisions. He approves of patients’ asking for second opinions and says their doing so would not hurt his feelings. He himself habitually consults other doctors about his own recommendations.

Asked about the influence of spirituality on health care, Robert Lees readily admits its importance. “It’s the sense that there’s some meaning to life, there’s something that goes beyond them” – this is what he thinks contributes to people’s good health. However, despite his having mentioned God several times in the interview, he feels reluctant to discuss his own spiritual life.

Asked what the interviewer should have asked and failed to, Dr. Lees raises the problems people have with the way many physicians practice in this era of  managed care. He clearly has little tolerance for the “get them in and get them out fast” approach.

“Do not be satisfied,” he would advise people who receive hurried treatment. They should “find another doctor who will take time to help them.” He also agrees with me about the importance of patients bringing an advocate with them, if possible. If social service agencies can find volunteers or others to serve as the patient’s companion and facilitator, that is a fine idea.

I came away from this interview, initiated by the Boston Heart Foundation, encouraged to have discovered an older physician who is both in touch with up-to-date medical science and, at the same time, deeply committed to health care that is personal, humanistic in its goals, and aware of the part that spiritual values play in overall well-being.

Undoubtedly, many other physicians approach these ideals of health care but, at a time of widespread dissatisfaction with the system on the part of both the professionals themselves and their patients, it is reassuring to talk with a doctor who gives every evidence of putting these ideals into practice.

Richard Griffin

“I was frightened,” my college classmate told me, “but you develop a certain numbness to it.” This friend, a Boston native, was responding to my questions about  his experiences in the front lines of the Korean War in 1952. (Since, for reasons not altogether clear, he does not want his name used, I will call him “Ed.”)

Though an officer in the field artillery, Ed moved with the infantry because he was a forward observer for his battery of six 105 howitzers. In this position he faced constant threats to his life. As he himself was well aware, the mortality rate of forward observers was very high.

The worst incident, he says, occurred when he advanced with the infantry against the North Korean/Chinese lines. He saw an American soldier blown up in front of him by a mine, one of many whom he would see killed. Ed had a radio operator with him but discovered that the radio had gone dead. Before jumping  into a trench, he saw another soldier torn apart by a mortar shell.

The dead man had a radio with him and, fortunately, that one still functioned. “The good Lord was working,” is the way my friend explains this piece of luck.

After the sound of bugle calls came from the enemy, the Chinese troops swarmed toward the American forces. That is when Ed called in artillery fire on the attackers but the shells had to fall close over the American trenches too. First, C47 planes flew over and dropped flares lighting up the advancing troops. Then came the shells from which the Americans took cover by burrowing down deeply into their trenches.

In the face of this fierce bombardment, the Chinese attackers withdrew and, after another day and night, the American troops were relieved. Thus came to an end Ed’s time of greatest peril. However, he later received another assignment that put his leadership abilities to the test.

He was appointed executive officer (second in command) of six howitzers, each with eight men. They fired a distance of three miles. Not long afterward, Ed was  promoted to first lieutenant and became battery commander at age twenty-two. Of this assignment Ed now says, “It was a challenge – 120 men under me.” But, because of what he had already accomplished, “I felt I earned it.”

His batteries had to be moved half a dozen times. He must have managed this and other demands on his abilities well because, in an onsite ceremony, Ed was awarded a Silver Star, one of the Army’s highest commendations. A fellow officer borrowed Ed’s 8 millimeter movie camera to record the scene.

What motivated me to interview Ed was the recent fiftieth anniversary of the Korean War’s beginning. I wanted to get some sense of what the experience was like for someone much like me. By contrast, however, while Ed was fighting the war, I was as far removed as another person could be – living in the seclusion of a monastic community. Some of my college classmates were dying in that conflict while I, literally, did not know the war was going on.

The timing of my interview with Ed turned out to be inspired. “I’ve thought more about it in the last week,” he told me, “than in the last forty-eight years.”  Not without reason he added, “It really is the forgotten war.”

Ed confided to me that our conversation marked the first time that he had told another person about some of his experiences. He had not even shared this with his adult children. They may not be aware that their father won the Silver Star on the battlefield for his bravery and leadership skills.

Since our interview, I have wondered about his refusal to let me use his real name. At one point he muttered something about the matter being private. My best surmise is that he does not wish to call attention to himself as having done anything extraordinary. His seems to be an old-fashioned humility whereby he does not expect others to regard him as different from other people.

How does Ed see the geopolitical significance of the Korean War from the vantage point of almost half a century later? He does not harbor any doubts about the cause. “It was necessary at the time,” he says. “That was part of stopping Communism.” Then, quickly switching back to the personal, he adds, “It was a job I had to do and you did it to the best of your ability.”

When, after a voyage of two weeks, his troopship arrived back in Seattle, “three office girls met us with ribbons.” That’s the closest he came to any hoopla returning from a war that featured grinding combat under nasty conditions. But Ed did not see himself as a hero then, nor does he now.

However, he cannot stop this classmate from regarding him so.

Richard Griffin

His father, by profession a plumber, wanted his son to follow his trade. Instead, Arthur Griffin, in 1923 at the age of twenty, enrolled at the New School of Design on Boylston Street in Boston.

If this decision to become an artist disappointed his father, that feeling did not last long. One day, when Arthur was in class drawing a nude model, he felt someone come up behind and put a hand on his shoulder. It was his father who told him, “Now I see why you wanted to be an artist.”

This anecdote, shared with me last week by the 96-year-old Arthur Griffin (not one of my relatives), was one of many fascinating facts that I learned about this dynamic man. We talked for hours at the Arthur Griffin Center for Photographic Art in Winchester, a museum adorned with the artistry that has made him New England’s most celebrated photographer.

His friend John Updike says of Arthur, “He could have been an acrobat or a tightrope walker.” Herb Kenny, another old friend, takes issue with a neighbor who pronounces “Arthur is more an artist than a craftsman.” Not so, says Kenny, “He’s both, there’s no distinction between them.”

Arthur loves to dress flamboyantly. At his most recent birthday party last September, he wore a green jacket flecked with white, yellow shirt, and a gold crown. That’s the kind of person he is, this Wizard of Winchester, as I like to call him. High achiever and, at the same time, a dedicated self-promoter, Arthur says he confounds many people who meet him. “It’s impossible,” they tell him, “You can’t be that old.”

Meeting Arthur, you can look into the future and see what most people will be like when they approach their hundredth birthday, one or two hundred years from now. He carries on with his life as if old age were not a factor except that it has furnished him with a long lifetime’s varied experience.

Blessed with physical and mental vigor, Arthur gets up each day with enthusiasm. “I just can’t stay in bed.” he claims. “What keeps me going is I have so much to do.” Asked if he is shooting at a hundred, he promptly replies, “Of course I am.”

What most impresses me about him is his satisfaction with the life he has lived. “I was born at exactly the right time,” he judges. When he came along, the world was ready for him to make his mark. And that is what he has done, mostly through creative use of what was, when he started, still a relatively new art – photography.

He has managed to live a highly creative life despite a life-long severe stutter. This handicap does not stop him from being adventurous; far from ignoring it, however, he and his friends like to joke about it. During our long conversation, I took it as a sign of the man’s authenticity.

When he first came to work at the Boston Globe in 1929, he drew illustrations for ads. Only after several years of this kind of art work did he become a photographer. At first, he took photos for himself as he learned how to use his camera most effectively. By the late thirties, the Globe was publishing his photos, many of them showing his distinctive creativity.

Among these works, he feels special affection for those he took of Ted Williams in 1938. Williams was nineteen years old then, a Red Sox rookie, and, according to Arthur, “the nicest person I have ever seen.” That’s when Arthur took color films of the slugger that hold a unique place in baseball history.

Using some new color film sent him by Eastman Kodak, Arthur worked with Ted for two hours. The resulting color shots were not published at the time; in fact, they disappeared for fifty years. When found, they gave memorable evidence of Arthur’s creativity. Ted appears as the gangling, amazingly thin young man he was; his perfect swing showed the tremendous power generated by the torque of his body.

Many other famous people have posed for Arthur or been caught unawares by his camera. Heavyweight champion Joe Louis, newly elected president Franklin Roosevelt, and Boston legend James Michael Curley figure prominently among them. So do Bette Davis and Elizabeth Taylor.

Arthur also has a wide reputation for his outdoor scenes of New England. Seeing the houses, snow covered fields, and seascapes of this region as Arthur has captured them, I felt a renewed sense of regional beauty. Many of these scenes were featured on the covers of national magazines for which he worked as a freelancer.

In recent years he has established two foundations, the first to ensure that his center lasts. His second fundraising success has provided money for his home town of Winchester to make it more beautiful. “The best thing I have ever done is fundraising,” says this adventurer who has accomplished so much else.

Richard Griffin