Old People Alone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 526, 22 July 1949, Page 14

Old People Alone

] Written for "The Listener’ by |

ELSIE

LOCKE

€¢ APPALLING conditions of squalor and misery" are strong terms to be used in New Zealand, yet they have been used by a competent committee in Auckland, and echoed by the Wellington City Missioner, to describe the plight of thousands of old people living without adequate attention and often in unsuitable apartments. Any of us who have looked around the corners in our towns and cities know that they do not exaggerate. I spent a long time in a hospital ward where most of the patients were elderly, (Few under ninety will admit themselves ‘"old"-all power to them!) I saw many lonely ones to whom accident or serious illness breught an acute crisis in their way of life. Never again could they completely care for themselves. What would they do? gs would you do in their situa- | tion

I write here of women, whose histories I know; and their stories are paralleled,

orten more tragically, by those of solitary and ageing men, whose domestic resources may be still more rat ted. Mrs. A. was in her seventies, and widowed not long before her entry into hospital. She pos-

sessed a vigorous mind and a compelling personality; she had a house, a few savings, and the pension. She was discharged able to move around a little with the aid of a stick, and subject to heart attacks of such severity that immediate attention would be a life-and-death matter. She had no relatives in this country. Moreover, her home was her treasure-her dearest link with her past independent life. To tear her away and to house her in an institution would be to put unbearable chains upon an intrepid spirit, The problem might appear an easy one. Hasn’t she that priceless asset, a good, well-situated house’ which soméone will be glad to share? But wait. After unfortunate’ experiences of drinking and quarrelling she will not admit a married couple. She seeks a woman, or perhaps two women, mother and daughter. This companion will have little to do, yet she must share Mrs. A’s restricted existence. Will it be easy for a stranger to enter the home on those terms? Will the two temperarments-one of which, at least, is a decided oneblend harmoniously? No doubt there is a "Mrs. Right"; but how, and where, is she to be discovered? The Failing Body Mrs, B. is also a widow, but of longer | standing. Her husband’s last illness and her own difficulties lost her their home and transferred her, with a few belongings, to a city rooming-house. Here, lonely and without stimulus, she spent many miserable years, Then she broke her leg. This calamity pitchforked her among new associates, in whose presence she re-discovered a lively wit and a broad interest in other people, Mrs. B. would never again allow herself to be confined to a solitary back room, But

when the mind was ready to live again, at that very time the body failed her. Long months in hospital have failed to re-educate the damaged leg. She has learned to walk no more than a few yards at a time, and with great difficulty. hat then?- Mrs. B. is in an old people’s home. She is not unhappy there, having companionship and all necessary attention. But she, too, dreams of independence, of a room where friends may share a cup of tea, where her own pictures and crockery and knick-knacks will surround her, where her routine is not mapped out by somebody else, And she is saving up, hopefully and with careful husbanding of her pension, against The Day. If that day should come-what then? Another dismal apartment house where her self-chosen tasks are just a little too great to be coped with successfully? Memory recalls another room where I used to visit a similar old warrior, Mrs. C.- She was eighty-three and in appearance, as well as in. outlook and™ in the life she*had led, she made me think of Annie Besant. She lay in a bed that appeared néver to be made. Books and papers and dead flowers and clothing were bundled in reckless confusion over every article of furniture in the room. When she was unable to rise for meals, a young man in the house brought her food. No one in the street seemed even aware of her existence. Mrs. C, was educated .and accustomed to clean, gracious living; but the situation was beyond her. She, too, had an accident. I saw her in that same hospital ward where I was afterwards to spend so many months, In the white bed she now looked peaceful; her body rested with her mind. And I could scarcely regret it when, a few days later, she died. Late Romance Miss D. came of a long-lived family. She cared for her parents until both were over eigh hers was the familiar story of the fai uemerried daughter. Left alone, she maintained their country cottage, she read, embroidered and found life pleasant until well into her sixties. One evening when she fad been gathering sticks to kindle her fire a certain neighbourly bachelor, engaged in the same pursuit, walked home with her. "It seems a bit odd, don’t it," he said. "Here’s me carrying home my bundle of sticks, and you carrying home yours-for one little fire apiece, when we could have a good fire for us both." Miss D. was amused at this unorthodox proposal. "It ‘wouldn’t be any use our sharing a fireside," she said, "if there wasn’t love between us." _ ge aes Miss D. met with an illness; and she who had been sturdy was now too frail to live in an isolated country cottage. Her brother invited her to come to his home. They got on well together, but that, said Miss D. doggedly, was just the trouble. Though the heavens fall, she was not going to spoil the family happiness by unloading an ailing, Auntie upon her sister-in-law and her nieces. She went to a

convalescent home quite | undecided as to what would follow. There is a sequel to | this tale. One day I was shown. some wetiding — photographs — of Miss D. herself! Her girlhood — sweetheart, given up, perhaps, because of her | filial duty to those age- | ing parents, had been a widower. And’ here she was, with her bridesmaid and her bouquet and her new cottage, yes, in the country; and her smiles showed that this would be no fireside without love. There is a common

denominator to all these stories -and to that of almost every elderly person whom I have known. It is home. It is true, as the Rev. Harry Squires has said, that giving old folks a few pounds does not automatically open the way to heaven for them. It is also ‘true that having insufficient pounds to pay for necessities can doom old folk to misery. That is one side of the story. On the other side, the key point is housing. If possible, the ageing woman (or ‘man) wishes to retain the old home. Failing that, she wants a new home, not merely a bed in an institution. Many achieve contentment with their song or daughters and "Nanna" becomes a truly welcome and beloved member of the household. But this cannot be made a universal solution, and nothing is gained by delivering lectures about the dissolution of family life or the weakening of a sense of responsibility where difficulties of housing, economics, temperament, and so forth, make it impossible for a home to take in an ageing relative. (I have met a girl of seventeen who became a nerve case because from her early childhood her own home had been a chaos through a domineering, selfish and physically helpless grandmother.) Nor do we want too many Miss D.’s, whose own. lives must be sacrificed in the name of filial duty. Housing schemes for pensioners are the order of the day. Some, for married couples, are achieved or in progress, and there is the Burnham experiment for the single and able-bodied, Others are being considered. What then shall we advocate? My own ideal is a com-

bination of flats and hostel. Each flat is a ptivate domain, furnished by its occupant in her own way, and provided with facilities for making a simple meal ot entertaining friends. For the combined flats every service is available: laundry, dining-rooms, social rooms; and -this is important-staff is available to clean the pensioner’s room and look after her if she happens to be sick. There are gardens, a delight to tend for those who are fit, a delight to look upon for those who are not. Discipline and routine are at a minimum, for these are people who have been through the battles of life. The doors are open for the free entry, not only of old cronies, but of the young. This I have learnt from long association with the ageing: those who have kept their own flags flying are fascinating companions for young people. I have known as many as fifteen men and women under the age of thirty to visit a patient of seventy-five in a single afternoon. Some were relatives, some comparatively slight acquaintances. Why? Not because these visitors were sentimental or charitable, but because they really enjoyed the unfaltering freshness of conversation and the laughter that rippled round the bed. The young are often chided for a failure to understand old age, They will never understand what is beyond their experience; but they will be attracted without compulsion if the aged are enabled "to rivet and publish themselves of their own personality." For springtime and autumn are of the same yearly cycle; and autumn is the time of golden leaves. eee oa ee