Faces of Retirement
August '03
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Ask anyone why he or she decided to retire in western Virginia, and you’ll hear the same themes: the scenery and the people. People are what make this region so unique – people who’ve seen the world and chosen the quiet mountains and sparkling lakes of our area, who bring their enthusiasm and energy to volunteer organizations, universities and communities – and people who’ve grown up here and chosen to stay because they know there’s no other place they’d rather call home.

Grace and David Helmer                      Gene Herricks                                  Delores Smith

“People Really Care”

Grace and David Helmer
Roanoke—When Grace said “I do” to David Helmer, she was also saying “I do” to trains.
They’ve traveled to all 50 states and most of the Canadian provinces; they’ve made three trips by train across the United States.

But most of the time David and Grace are busy volunteering at the Virginia Museum of Transportation where Grace is the manager of the gift shop. David is currently working on the restoration of the old N&W passenger station, which will house the O. Winston Link Museum.
When they aren’t volunteering at the Transportation Museum, Grace and David keep themselves busy, whether it’s working in their garden outside or collecting Oklahoma State University memorabilia (they’re both alumni). Grace is also an active seamstress.
David volunteers with the Kiwanis Club in Roanoke and has helped with the Junior Achievement program for about five years.

Grace and David always come back to the Roanoke Valley, with its beautiful outdoors and large multicultural community.

“It’s small enough that you know someone anywhere you go,” Grace says. David: “People really care about what happens in this city.” Good Soil, Good People.

Gene Herricks
Smith Mountain Lake—“At night I looked up to the sky and the moon was 60 miles wide and 60 miles high, hanging over the lake.”

It was Gene Herricks’ first night at Smith Mountain Lake, 31 years ago. With his wife and a station wagon full of six boys, Herricks had traveled down to Virginia for a vacation and found “Smith Paradise.”

“I felt good about the soil and the people,” says Herricks, who was working for the Board of Mental Health and Retardation in Columbus, Ohio at the time. A writer and photographer for the Associated Press for 28 years, he eventually made his way back to “Smith Paradise” to stay, only about half a mile from his original vacation spot.

Now Herricks is finding things to do around Roanoke. He is director of the Voice of the Blue Ridge, chairman of the board at the Perinatal Center and secretary of the board at Helping Hands.

As director of the Voice of the Blue Ridge, a service for the visually impaired, Herricks does a little bit of everything. He supervises all of the audio tapes that are made, organizes the mailing list for the 6,000 calendars and helps design new programs.

“That Lady With the Dogs” - Dolores Smith
Salem—At the Salem Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the patients know her as “that lady with the dogs.”

Her name is Dolores Smith and every Monday she’s at the VAMC with Dolley and Angel, her two Yorkshire terriers.

After Dolores’ father died, her doctor recommended she get a pet. She chose Dolley, the runt of a litter, with other health problems.

“She needed me and I needed her,” Dolores says.

Angel (a terrier Dolores acquired from her daughter) and Dolley have logged more than 300 hours of service at the VAMC. The dogs work with patients including Alzheimer’s and cancer patients.

“One man refused to go to his physical therapy session because the dogs were going to visit his room that day,” Dolores recalls. Another patient in the Alzheimer’s ward remembered Dolley’s name every time she visited.

“If you could be there and see these people light up,” Dolores says. “It’s amazing that 10 pounds can bring that much joy to their lives.”

Aside from volunteering at the VAMC, Dolores is actively involved in both the Daughters of the American Revolution, Fort Lewis Chapter, and the Daughters of the Confederacy, Southern Cross Chapter.

“I think it’s very important that we preserve our past,” she says. Her interest in genealogy grew after she retired from teaching in Roanoke County for 31 years.

Dolley is also an active member in the Daughters of the Confederacy – three years ago she became their official mascot. Dolley and Angel usually attend the conferences with Dolores.
“They love it when we go for an R-I-D-E,” Dolores says in a whisper, spelling it out. “If they heard me say it, they’d get excited and want to G-O.”

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The Formula: Big College, Small Town - Emily and Bob Stuart

Blacksburg—For Emily and Bob Stuart, the YMCA is certainly a place that brings people together – at least in their case, it brought a future wife and husband together.
Sixty-three years ago, Emily met Bob, now a retired city planner, at a YMCA conference in Georgia. They live in Blacksburg where they volunteer at the organization that brought them together.

“I wanted to give the college students something to do,” Emily says.

Among the four programs the Stuarts started at the YMCA are its arts and crafts fair and thrift shop at Virginia Tech. The thrift shop is intended primarily for international students that come to the country and don’t have furniture or winter clothes.

Outdoors enthusiasts, Emily and Bob also created the Hunger Hike, a hike that started in Blacksburg and ended in Radford (25 miles). They have worked on finding trails and areas where property owners allow students and people in the community to hike – these areas are still used today.

At home on 2.5 acres of land, Emily invites students and senior citizens to grow gardens in about 27 separate plots. At one time she had around 57 different gardeners on her land.
“We’ve lived everywhere,” Emily says. As they moved, she either volunteered or worked at YMCAs whenever she could.

They came to Blacksburg around 1970 and after 17 years decided to retire and stay in the area.

“Big college and small town was in the formula for us,” Bob says. They love the college atmosphere, the many different cultures and things to do.

“It’s our friends that kept us here,” says Emily.

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A Musical Life - Erma Styles

Lynchburg—“We have more costumes than street clothes.”
They should – Erma Styles and the Ageless Wonders have performed at four World’s Fairs, on the Capitol steps, at the White House, in Canada and Disneyworld.

In the 1970s, they were known as “Lynchburg’s gift to Virginia.” In the ’80s former Governor Chuck Robb dubbed them “Virginia’s Ambassadors.” (They market themselves as America’s Timeless Ambassadors these days.)

Erma has loved music since she was born in Burnsville, N.C. Her grandfather, mother and sisters were musical performers. It was only natural that Erma too, followed.

After Erma graduated from college with a major in music, she found her way to Lynchburg where she got a job as minister of music at College Hill Baptist Church. She also taught private piano, voice and organ lessons.

“I’ve trained half the organists in Lynchburg,” Erma laughs.

Erma and a group of young women at the church tried a “musical experiment” one week in 1970 with the large number of senior citizens. After their first performance, the program grew popular.

“All they needed was the applause,” Erma recalls. They were invited to more events, including Chuck Robb’s inaugural breakfast.

“They are amazing,” Erma says of the Ageless Wonders, “a special breed of people.”
On the home front during the 1970s, Erma discovered the historic Plantation Gardens and made it her home.

It was once the home of Patrick Henry’s granddaughter, Amanda, and was visited a few times by Thomas Jefferson. Built in 1790, Plantation Gardens still has many of the original walls and rooms in it.

“Everything’s antique in here,” Erma laughs, “and I am too.”

For more information on the Ageless Wonders, call 434/821-0528.

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Dropping Anchor Together - Bill and Carol Tice

Smith Mountain Lake—After two weeks, he knew he couldn’t live without her. After nine months, he proposed. And after five years of living aboard a boat with her, Bill Tice came back to Virginia with Carol.

Still near the water, in the community of Smith Mountain Lake among friends and neighbors, Bill and Carol dropped anchor and stayed.

“I don’t really see or consider myself as retired, just evolving,” Bill says about his life, which has evolved from a masters’ degree in music and voice performance to maitre’d of the Annapolis Yacht Club to yacht broker and later captain of the Virginia Dare, a dinner and tour boat docked in Moneta.

Bill discovered his love of culinary arts while pursuing the idea of a musical stage career. He was working in a restaurant at the time and decided to study under a master chef. It was there that his voice performing skills paid off.

Bill: “I sang show tunes while preparing flambe meals tableside.”

Now Bill is a captain for Virginia Dare Cruises and has completed more than 1,292 cruises for them.

“I can think of no finer place to be and thing to do,” he says, “than ride above the water on the face of the wind.”

Bill also gardens, and when he isn’t cruising on the Virginia Dare, he’s working at Fallon Florist part time in downtown Roanoke, enjoying the atmosphere and the fresh flowers.

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Working and Preserving the Land - Edith Noble

Botetourt County—“This land has been my home since 1948,” says Edith Noble, when asked why she donated a Conservation Easement to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF) on her 229-acre Botetourt County Farm outside of Fincastle.

“I didn’t want to see developers tear it to pieces one day like what has happened to other farms around here.” Noble and her late husband farmed the property together for many years.

Now 76, Edith still works the land, driving a John Deere tractor during haying season as she works alongside her son Bruce. She has lived in the area her entire life.

When not manning a tractor, she’s likely to be walking the pasture, hayfields and woods on her property.

Noble’s easement, which is permanent, states that only one additional house can ever be built on the property, which can never be subdivided further.

“I walked about two miles the other day, wandering around looking for cows,” she says. “As far as I’m concerned, I have the most beautiful land there is.”

For more information on land trusts:
www.virginiaoutdoorsfoundation.org
www.westernvirginialandtrust.org
www.valleyconservation.org


—Bruce Ingram
 

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