Photograph by George Sakkestad
Student Kelsey Stillinger included Dust Bowl remembrances in the biography she wrote for Mary Marquis.
By Sue Fagalde Lick
When students in Tonya Silva's freshman English class at Los Gatos High School were assigned to write biographies of residents at Los Gatos Meadows, they had some doubts. Would the seniors be decrepit, boring and hard to talk to?
Meanwhile, the seniors may have wondered if they were trusting their life stories to a bunch of young hooligans.
Both groups found out the stereotypes aren't always true. By the time the students presented the seniors with finished biographies May 28, new friendships had been formed.
It was a privilege to meet such a successful person, said Stephanie Cheung of her partner, Helen Steiner. In their talks, Cheung learned that Steiner had been a teacher and world traveler.
"It's been one of the most delightful experiences that I've had," Steiner said, adding that she was as interested in finding out about Cheung as Cheung was in finding out about her.
None of the seniors interviewed led dull lives. They have traveled, held high-level positions in government and industry, achieved great things in the arts and raised families.
Joan Hoffmeyer was an English teacher; Johanna Sander came from Germany at age 21 and is a painter and sculptor; Philip Farley worked in atomic affairs for the U.S. government; Virginia Wood did cancer research; Robert Beresford was a Superior Court judge; Marian Taylor has written 22 books and Arnold Zahorsky was awarded a Purple Heart in World War II.
The senior biographies were part of a community service project that Silva initiated last year. Students were asked to study a group that suffers from prejudice, such as the homeless, the handicapped or the elderly, write about them and spend at least six hours volunteering to help them in some way.
Approximately 14 chose to study the elderly by doing biographies. Other students helped seniors at the Meadows and The Terraces with everything from serving meals to publishing the newsletter.
Those doing the bios met with the seniors several times to talk and gather information. .
The project was a great success in bridging the generations. Jim Hemplar, executive director at the Meadows, said young people benefit from being able to sit and talk with older people, and older people benefit from meeting young people who are "enthusiastic, vital and brilliant."
Copies of the biographies will be placed in the library at the Meadows. Silva also urged the seniors to share them with their families.
The following are excerpts from student writings.
Skeptical at First
I signed up for the biography program at the Meadows with a skeptical mind. I did not know if I would be uncomfortable sitting in a person's home while they told me their life story, but I decided to give it a shot.
The first time I walked into Leslie Knott's home, I was greeted with open hands. I was shown to the den where the interview was to take place. I noticed the computer, and Leslie and I started to talk about it. I then noticed something happening. I was relating to and enjoying this man who is 80 years older than I.
We talked about many of the things that I would talk about with my friends. Well, it ended up being a great success. He would give me information every meeting, and then we would conclude the meeting with him showing me things in his house. On his wall, there is a picture of Leslie and Jimmy Carter holding hands while in Kenya building houses for the poor. He showed me a variety of ancient artifacts that he excavated from sites in the Middle East. My point is, this man is the most interesting person that I have ever met, and I'm not just saying that.
. . . From now on, I will not call them elderly, just very experienced in the art of life. Learning through the elders is a great way to learn, because you are actually hearing the experiences as they happened, from the perspective of a real person, not a historian. There is no way that any television show or book could do a better job in describing them."
--Eric Shoemaker
Dust Bowl Childhood
During Mary Marquis's early childhood, she lived in the town of West Texas, where she loved dolls and enjoyed making houses out of rocks. Life in Texas, however, was not always easy, and there was always work to do around the house. Mary had many chores from an early age.
Because of the extreme amount of dust, everything needed constant washing. A windmill was used to pump water into the house. However, water still needed to be heated on the stove for bathing, as well as for cleaning. There was no indoor plumbing , and using the outhouse in extremely cold weather was not much fun.
The temperature at times was scorching, occasionally reaching 120 degrees. During the time of the "Great Dust Bowl," Texas suffered from many of the same difficulties as Oklahoma. Sometimes when walking to school, they even had to wear handkerchiefs to protect themselves from the dust and wind.
Before the 1920s, Mary and her family lived in five different houses in Texas and New Mexico. They moved many times because of her father's work with the railroad. Mary's position in these railroad towns was also unique because her father did most of the hiring and firing for the railroad.
Despite the fact that Mary's father made more money than most of the townspeople, Mary often wore old clothes to fit in better.
During Mary's high school years, several difficult circumstances arose. A railroad strike in the late '20s particularly affected her family because of her father's position as superintendent. When the strike was at its height, no trains were moving at all, and the cattle were in jeopardy of dying without food or water.
Mary's father brought in conductors and firemen to run the trains to get the cattle to their destination. The strikers were extremely angry at these "scabs" and were hostile enough to shoot at Mr. Anton. They missed him, but did leave a bullet hole in the windshield of his car.
After graduating from high school, Mary attended college at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. During her freshman year, her father died at the age of 46. Not only was this an emotional blow to the family but also a financial one. Mary's father had left very little money, and she had to leave college to help support the family. She quickly enrolled in a nursing program at the University of California at Berkeley. Although she wasn't necessarily inclined to become a nurse, it was a much faster way to earn money, since she could get her degree in two years.
--Kelsey Stillinger
Born to Fly
As Arnold Zahorsky was growing older, he developed a great ambition to fly. He had pictures of every airplane in the world on his wall, just like kids today have posters of their favorite sports stars. He made a promise to himself that one day he would somehow earn enough money to buy an airplane.
At school, he met a friend who loved airplanes as much as he did. They saved their money for over 10 years. When he was in his late teens, he and his friend, Jack Thorton, bought an airplane for $200. They would fly it any chance they could get.
Mr. Zahorsky would use the bad oil taken out of his father's tractors to use in his airplane. Even though this was bad for the plane, it was the only oil they could get. They were very pressed for money, so whenever the plane broke down, they would have to fix it themselves. Mr. Zahorsky would get up at sunrise every day, oil the tractors, go to school and then come home and fly the rest of the afternoon.
Mr. Zahorsky and his friend would use the plane as a teenager would use a car, and they would fly to dances. They would always be forced to land in wheat fields because their plane was in such bad condition that if an air traffic controller ever saw it, they would be grounded in no time at all.
They would also use the airplane to make quite a bit of money. Every Saturday, they would charge two dollars to any farmer who would want to see his farm from the sky. Many of the farmers did this every weekend so they could see if their land was getting enough water or if they were growing healthy crops. With the money they made, they would pay mechanics to fix the plane when it really broke down.
--Scott Buxton
Writer Reminisces
As her first marriage began to fall apart, Mary Ann [Taylor] divorced her husband and took care of her children by herself. Now that she had three children who depended only on her, she quickly found a job as the editor for the Los Altos News.
During this job, she had the opportunity to greet Madame Chiang Kai-shek, who was delivering speeches about China's need for U.S. assistance against Japan. While juggling the responsibilities of having a job and three children, Mary Ann still found a way to continue taking night school to further her education.
She had been writing a novel with the assistance of her teacher. One day, her teacher called her up to her desk and told Mary Ann that she should publish her novel. Although she had been quite proud of her work, never had she dreamed that it would be of good enough quality to publish. But, much to her surprise, it did get published and became Romance in the Headlines.
Mary Ann Taylor is probably the only woman who has ever spent her honeymoon alone on a ship with four children. As her [second] husband was involved in the Army, he had orders to go to Alaska directly after the wedding. So poor Mary Ann was left alone with four children to look after when she should have been alone with her husband. She later followed her husband to Anchorage, Alaska and lived there for three years. With not much to do there, Mary Ann passed the time by writing more books.
. . .Currently, Mary Ann Taylor lives happily at the Los Gatos Meadows. Under different names, Mary Ann has published over 22 novels. Among them are: Love's Glittering Web; My Enemy, My Love; Hawaiian Interlude; Appointment in Verona; Portrait of a Dead Lady, and Aloha to Love.
Mary Ann has also traveled all over the world. This summer, Taylor plans on taking a cargo ship to Buenos Aires, so she can meet new people and visit an exotic place.
Having led an exciting life, she wouldn't mind starting from the beginning and reliving her life in its entirety. Mary Ann Taylor has accomplished much during her lifetime and continues to strive for more success. She is writing yet another mystery novel about a retired investigative reporter in a retirement home who still has very much life in her.
--Tammy Jih
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, June 19, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved