Carol White Interview, May 2015 J: June C: Carol Interview starts 15:25 J: Can you hear me ok? C: Yeah. J: Ok. My name is June Hussey and I'm pleased to meet you by phone. C: Pleased to meet you too. J: I'm talking to you from Tucson, Arizona. We're really glad that you are willing to share your story with us today for folks out there who may be interested in moving to a retirement community. They love to hear other people s stories and how they came to their decisions. So that's basically what we're after today. C: Ok. J: Ok and so you know, along the way this phone call is being recorded, as Brian probably mentioned. C: Yes. J: But if there is anything that you say that you went, Oh I wish I didn't say that just say so and we can scratch it. C: Ok good. I just came from a haircut and I thought oh my gosh she's never going get done. But she did. J: Ok good, so my first question is very simple. When did you move into The Watermark at Logan Square? C: March 6. J: Of this year? C: This year. J: Oh my gosh, you're a brand new resident. Very good, ok so where did you live just prior to moving in? C: In Southbury, Connecticut. J: Ok. We have a community there as well, did you move from there? C: I'm sorry, what did you ask me? J: I said we have a community there as well, did you move from there? C: No, I didn't live there. That community was not my choice plus it also wasn't my choice there because my daughter is here. J: I see, so you moved to be a little bit closer to your daughter? C: Exactly. J: Does she live in Philly? C: Yeah, she lives in Rittenhouse so she's really close. J: That is really close. C: Are you from Philadelphia? J: No, I'm from Connecticut myself. C: Where in Connecticut? J: Well I grew up in southern Connecticut in Old Greenwich. C: I'm from Spokane, Washington. J: I see that. They sent me a little bio on you. How did you get to the East Coast from the West? C: My husband was transferred a lot. J: And I see you moved 16 different times? C: Yes I did. J: That's remarkable.
C: Remarkable I'm still alive, right? J: You must have gotten pretty good at moving after 16 times? C: But it was very hard this time because he wasn t alive any longer and you know, you just need somebody to pound nails and do stuff that you don't want to do or can't do. J: Did you have some help from your children when you moved? C: Somewhat, not until the very end though. It was all me. But it worked out. J: Good and how long had you been living in Southbury before you moved down to Philly? C: About eight years. J: I see. C: Southbury is about an hour north of New Haven. J: Right. So did you live in a townhome there or a big house or what? C: In a condo, a good size condo. There were three condos related to each other I guess you'd say and they had 14 condos each. J: And other than moving to be closer to your daughter, what were your other motivations for moving? C: Probably I felt like I was a fish out of water in Connecticut. I felt it was way too New England-y for me. And that's an odd expression but I just felt it was, New England people, I can see it in Philadelphia because I've never lived here before but I can see it in New England people that they re rather uptight with the world. And I'm not an uptight person so. J: Yeah. So, what about living in Center City, how are you finding that? C: Fine. Shortly after being here I fell and really hurt my knee so I was sort of frightened to go out but the weather wasn't that great anyway. But now in Center City I'm, you know, embracing it more and obviously I haven't been here that long but I'm learning more and I think maybe the loop buses are the one thing that helps a lot finding things. J: So, having moved so many times, I know you've lived in San Francisco and Spokane and probably other big cities, so is city life something that you enjoy? C: I can't really answer that because you know I've always lived in a suburb of a city. But I think I do. I like the city, I like Manhattan. I've never lived in Manhattan but I do like it and we ll see how it goes, you know, but I think it'll be fine. J: And how long has your daughter been in Philadelphia? C: She went to Bryn Mawr to college. She's been there ever since. J: Oh I see so she must love it there too. C: She loves it, she does. And she lived in the suburbs, she just moved in town but she lived in the suburbs before. J: So does she like having you nearby? C: Yes she does and she's very busy. She's not working this year. Last year she taught legal writing at Drexel Law School and she's done that for a number of years at Villanova but she loves being in town. She's busy. She has three children and they re grown but still she's busy with them too. So works pretty evenly. If I want her for anything she's there and that's important. J: And how did you go about selecting The Watermark? Did she help you do that research or how did you narrow it down? C: Well, in Southbury there's a number of assisted living, independent living, whatever, facilities as you mentioned there's Watermark also. My husband had been in rehab at that Watermark but I didn't care for it and I interviewed at every place around which was very helpful. I mean not that I was going to live there but you got a pretty good idea what was going on and it was very helpful doing it in a place you were comfortable and unless things really, really changed, I knew I wasn't going to live in one of those. But it was just meeting the marketing person and then being shown around the grounds and what the whole situation was. In Philadelphia I spent quite a bit of time at Atria and was somewhat interested and then I went up to Riddle Village, which is more suburban rather than urban, and I felt well, what is the
point of my living out of town or outside of the city when my daughter is right here. So anyway, she took me here. It was over Christmas I believe and she had shown her mother-in-law who has since passed away but she had shown her Watermark but they didn't like it at the time and maybe it was because the state of her mother-in-law's health and so the last day she said, I think we came on Christmas Eve, she said, "Well, mom you've got to look at The Watermark, you're here." I said, "Oh, ok." Guess what, that's where I am. J: It just goes to show that, you know, with the right amount of looking around you'll finally end up finding the place that's right for you. C: Yeah and I must have been ready. Also I found it just, I think Joyce, who is our marketing person here, was most wonderful. She just fit with my daughter and me personally. J: That's great. So tell me about how your life is different on a daily basis now than it was before you moved. I know you haven't been there very long, but is it different? C: Very. J: And how so? C: Night and day. Well mainly I lived in a pretty rural community and I also gave up my car because it doesn't make a lot of sense having a car here. So one has to get used to that situation. I've never lived without a car before but you do because that's the way it is. But also just everything. I felt the people here are friendly. They really are quite lovely and that was a big help. I just found it I think what it is you have independent living but you still have to follow the rules. You're in a way not independent. And it has to be that way because otherwise they would have helter-skelter and so it's organized. I think it works the way they have it. I'm impressed with how well it works. J: So walk me through a typical day. What kind of things do you enjoy doing there at The Watermark? C: I like the exercise classes and now that the weather is good I like the morning walks on Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday that the bus takes you to. I think one time the walk was along the Delaware River and the other two times was along the Schuylkill. I really like those outings. I'd like to tell you a negative but maybe you don't want to hear anything negative. J: I'm open to anything. C: Ok, well I don't like having to focus on having dinner together. Normally when you live you might go out to dinner with friends once a week or whatever. Well this is kind of going out to dinner seven days a week with friends. I'm getting used to that but I find it difficult and I have one friend here who she saw me eating by myself one time and she said, "I don't ever want to see you eating by yourself again." Which is very dear of her. I appreciate it. J: I imagine that does take some getting used to. C: It really does. If you wear jeans or whatever around, you have to change out of your clothes and get something more presentable. I find that's most difficult. I haven't done a lot of times but I've talked to people about they eat lunch instead of dinner which is probably a healthier situation to have your larger meal at noon because I do fix my own breakfast and lunch. They do have breakfast here of cereal and oatmeal and coffee but I just don't want to socialize in the morning. I sound like I'm antisocial. J: You're not a morning person. C: I would just rather read the paper and such. J: Well it's all about choices and you can do that if you want, read the paper in your apartment or get up and get going. C: Exactly. You can do whatever you want. You know, you're independent. I mean, there's no question about it, which is nice. I like that. J: And what about I suppose it's too soon for you to have gotten involved in any of The Watermark University classes that they offer, the lectures and so forth. Do you know about those? C: Yeah I think I'm involved in one. I'm trying to think what it is. I don't know. I don't know if this is Watermark University but a writing class at the library. I've had to pull out of that just because I've been
in physical therapy and I'm overloaded so I had to not do that but I thought that was desirable. J: Well sometimes you have to pick and choose. You can't do everything. C: You do. There's a lot of evening, 7:30 at night they have a lot of things and it's nice. There's a lot of culture involved in it. J: Right. C: A lot of music, a lot of art. J: Good, so if you were to tell a friend the pros and cons of making a move or even complete strangers, what kind of advice would you have for them if they're looking at possibly moving to a retirement community? C: Would this friend have a spouse or not? J J: Well for someone, say, a single woman who enjoys being around people, would you say it's the right environment or what do you think? C: No question on that. I think that when I decided to move into a facility, before I had decided on which one, I said, "I want to go someplace where I want to go and not be put in someplace when I got incapacitated." And I think that's the main thing that I had a choice in coming here so that was helpful to me. J: Right. So, I see here that at one point in your life, you were in real estate sales, is that right? C: Yes I was. You wish I should comment? J: Well I think it's interesting that you probably showed, were you a residential real estate agent? C: Yes. J: You probably showed people a lot of homes and some people like them and some people don't and it's really a matter of personal preference, isn't it? C: It certainly is and I suppose that might've helped me a lot. Of course, I looked at a lot of houses myself but I think that may have helped. The reason I started in real estate is that my children, I have four children and as they got old enough to be home alone after school, my two girls were the oldest of the four. After that, I was willing to, I liked real estate because I could surprise them. They'd never know when I would be home and I thought that was kind of a safe thing as far as surprising. And after a while I got tired of. I started in real estate in three different cities and that's hard because you've got to act like you live there, like you know your way around and if you've just moved there you don't know that much. But I got into market research which I really, really loved. That was the occupation that I like the best. What market research is it's, I'm sure you've been involved in focus groups, well it's recruiting people for focus groups. It's also conducting them. It's conducting big studies where we did it for Monsanto in Los Angeles one time and they had a questionnaire. I guess someone was, I can't recall but they just assessed numerous pieces of carpeting and that was a big, I had a name for it I can't recall. I got around the country a lot. I really liked that a lot and especially this one company I was with out of Westport, Connecticut. We flew first class all the time. One time we flew first class from New York to Philadelphia. It was ridiculous. J: That's barely time to get a cocktail. C: That's right, yeah. But anyway that's what I loved the best really. And I was able to move that around really for three or four places that we lived and that worked well. J: Well I just have one more question for you. C: I talked way too much, probably more than you ever wanted to hear in your whole life. J: No, you've given us some wonderful information. I just wanted to ask you about the timing of your move. Is it a move that you feel like you made at the right time in your life or do you wish you had done it sooner or later? C: Well, my husband died a year and a half ago and so that wasn't that long ago but I just saw no point being there where he had been. People kept saying, "Well are you going to move?" And I'd say, "Well I
don't know." And so one time I was at it was before Advent and I was at church on a Saturday morning because we're going to clean up for Advent and these two women came up to me and they said, "Well, you going to move?" And I said, "Yes." And I never said yes before. It just came out of my mouth. And so I did. I don't know how that happened. J: That's interesting. Well maybe your subconscious had decided for you. C: That's a very good point. It really is, it's a good point that maybe it did. J: Sometimes it happens that way. Well, I thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to share with people that we haven't covered, perhaps? C: I just think the one thing is, come in with an open attitude because I think that's really important. You do see people that come in with, this is a positive place to live. It isn't negative. I mean people talk but nevertheless it is a positive place and people are very positive about it. I think that's one of the best things I can say about Watermark, I don't know about other places but they're very positive. They really don't say negative things and I think that's just a big help. J: Well that's great because when you surround yourself with positive people, you re positive yourself. It sounds like a great improvement. Well Carol thank you so much once again for all your time and thoughts today. We really, really appreciate it. C: You're very welcome and thank you for asking me to do this. J: Oh, you're very welcome we appreciate it and you have a great rest of the day please. C: Ok thank you. J: Alright, so long.