In December, 2022, Rod and I chose a simpler lifestyle. We sold our recently remodeled four-bedroom home of thirty years, and moved to a two-bedroom independent living “cottage” on a senior living retirement property. We don’t live in one of those flashy places you see advertised with 50-somethings parading around a pool with drinks in their hands and wearing bikinis. Ours is a sturdy, brick four-plex, one of thirty on the property, built around 60 years ago. You might describe our place as quality, but no frills– built to last. And that same description fits many of our favorite new neighbors. Take Florence for example.
Not long after we moved in, it was my birthday. We were eating in the dining room when a flurry of activity caught our attention. Service staff with ear to ear smiles approached a table of women and presented a yummy-looking chocolate cake, complete with lighted candle. A small, birdlike woman with fluffy grey hair grinned back. (Come to think of it, that description fits a lot of people where we live!) Then the entire place erupted with the happy birthday song, cheers, and applause.
I asked one of the people at our table who that woman was. The short description I got was, “Oh, that’s Florence. She’s 102 now! She’s lived here forever and she’s still very sharp. Does have some trouble seeing now, though.”
When I discovered Florenc lives in a cottage just a stone’s throw across from me, I decided I wanted to get to know her. So, I took her a birthday card and some banana bread I’d made and introduced myself. We didn’t talk much that day, but a few months later we bumped into each other walking to the dining room in the main building. I re-introduced myself as the lady who brought her banana bread on her birthday, and we found some time to talk.
It turns out we share much more than a December 30th birthday (a few decades apart). Florence Beeman was a longtime social worker in Tulsa. She worked with adoptions, young pregnant mothers at the Salvation Army Home, and she also did family counseling. Around the time she was preparing to retire from her career at Family and Children’s Services, across town I was just gaining momentum as a marital and family therapist on a church staff. My responsibilities included overseeing support groups and helping couples prepare for marriage. I also met frequently with married couples in distress. As Florence and I recently discussed some of the talented people we have known through our careers, it seemed as if we had been ships passing in the night in the rather small “sea”of Tulsa mental health professionals.
Each in our own unique circumstances and timing, both Florence and I knew early on that the young men with whom we were dancing would be the men we would marry. And we were right. Florence married Bill in 1945 and they had three children. They were married until his early death at age sixty four. Rod and I were married in 1971 and also have three children. Both Florence and I were able to be the primary caretakers of our children when they were small. But when our respective youngest children entered school, we ventured out to utilize the masters degrees we had acquired along the way. She was 38 when she began working outside the home–I was 37.
Florence is still quite the encourager! In the short time we visited, she urged me to write down my stories, several of which I had shared. When she talked about how much she has enjoyed her nineteen years living in her cottage here since she was eighty years old, I confessed that one reason we moved here as young as we are was because I didn’t know how I would cope with such a big move alone if something happened to my husband, who is a heart patient. Her calm words assured me, “You’d have been able to do that.” She spoke from the calm centeredness that only comes from knowing something firsthand.
When I asked her what her favorite part of counseling had been, she said therapy wasn’t truly her favorite part of her job at Family and Children’s Services–she loved to speak to women’s groups in churches as well as giving talks to other organizations. Known for her direct approach, some of her favorite topics were about basic stages of families, from facilitating premarital groups through advising parents raising teens. And she worked with young, pregnant girls. The age range of those she impacted was broad, as Florence also participated in NEATS (NorthEast Active Timers) senior citizen counseling center.
I, too, enjoy speaking to groups, and, like Florence, prefer to address typical life-stage issues rather than severe mental illness.
Florence worked twenty eight years at Family and Children’s Services. After our recent conversation, I (belatedly) did my google work and discovered that, even after she retired, Florence sometimes taught courses like Human Sexuality at Tulsa Junior College (as it was known then). What fun it would have been to be a student in one of her no-holds-barred classes when birth control was a brand new reality. She also volunteered for a long time at her former workplace, and was dubbed “Queen Bee” of Family and Children’s Services in one article I read.
Ironically, I also worked for twenty eight years. My position was as Director of Marriage and Family Ministry at Asbury United Methodist Church. And I continue to volunteer there since my retirement at the end of 2016.
Without a doubt, I have a new friend in Florence Beeman. And since God created both of us to be encouragers, I have a feeling we will continue to champion each other through the days ahead.