Fountain Hills, AZ
| Ann Morley Simpson Schweers | ||
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Fountain Hills, AZ |
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I was born in Henderson, Kentucky in 1940. About a year after I was born we moved to Spottsville, Kentucky where my grandfather built an oil refinery and a house in which my mother, brother, grandparents and I would live.
I attended school in Spottsville through 8th grade at which time the new Henderson County High School was opened and, along with my classmates, I ventured out into the great unknown, mixing and mingling with people from Corydon, Weaverton, and other distant places. Though I entered County High with some apprehension and nervousness this turned out to be a wonderful experience and I made many new friends.
After graduating from high school I attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison and learned the meaning of the word “cold.” It is a mystery to me why I went back for my Sophomore year since I can still remember the sheer pain of frozen legs on my early morning walks across campus to my 7:45 a.m. class. It started snowing in early October my Freshman year and the ground wasn’t visible again until late Spring. The snow just kept piling up and up until it covered the steps to our dorm and we walked out over the frozen snow as though the dorm had all of a sudden become handicapped accessible and we were walking down a ramp instead of down the steps. The wind that constantly whistled across the lake introduced me, for the first time, to the idea of a “wind chill factor” which made it seem much, much colder than the actual 20 to 30 degrees below zero.
I persevered however and graduated with honors in May of 1962 with a Bachelor of Science degree and a major in Social Work. In fact, as I learned to dress warmer I came to love the beauty of the Madison campus, snow-covered and situated as it was on a hill overlooking beautiful Lake Mendota.
I met my husband, Bill, during the first part of my Sophomore year and we went together steadily for the next three years. We were married on August 4, 1962 which means we will have been married 46 years this coming August. Wow, it’s hard to believe! Three years later our first daughter, Lora Ann, was born and 21 months after that I gave birth to our second daughter, Lisa Kay.
Believing that the world was already overpopulated enough we then decided to adopt. Scott Allen came into our lives in 1969 at the age of 3 weeks and it was immediately apparent that he had severe problems. Bill and I spent 4 hours every night walking him and rocking him in an effort to comfort our screaming child. After 6 months of telling the doctors there was something wrong, Scotty was finally hospitalized and after two more weeks of testing and evaluation it was discovered that he had a large cyst in his brain (there since before birth) which was blocking the flow of cerebral spinal fluid and allowing it to build up. He was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, hydrocephalus, epilepsy, and asthma. What a wonderful combination! To make matters worse, the doctors advised us not to proceed with the adoption and to institutionalize our son. They said he would require total care and it wasn’t fair to the rest of the family. I can’t begin to describe our overwhelming sense of devastation. There was never a question in our minds however as to what we would do. Since Scotty was our little boy from the minute we brought him home, in every way that’s important, we continued with the adoption. Scotty was involved in everything our family did and was a real joy, flashing a big smile at everyone in spite of his pain, frequent sicknesses and surgeries, and severe limitations. When Scotty was 10 years old and was getting harder and harder to care for and more and more uncomfortable he had a bad reaction to a medication they were trying for his painful muscle spasms and he died.
Backing up a bit, we adopted our second son, Christopher John, in 1972 when he was 2 ½ years old. He had been removed from his biological parents by the state after being abandoned by his mother–his father was in prison. He had been in three foster homes by the time we met him. His parents had a background of alcoholism and manic depression (which the social services agency neglected to tell us). Life with Christopher was a constant challenge and required lots of structure but we were able to get him through high school. He was a good athlete and this helped a lot. He kept so busy that he had little time to get in trouble and he had a good outlet for all his excess energy. College was another matter however. Once out of our supervision, he began to party and, after drinking himself through his first semester, he was asked to leave. He is currently working very hard to get his life on track but he has an uphill struggle, having been blessed with some very problematic genes. Things are going very well at the moment but we’d appreciate your keeping him in your prayers. He needs all the help he can get.
Bill went into the health insurance business right out of college. He worked for Wisconsin Physician’s Service for 25 years, with responsibilities for claims, sales, computers, what have you, and ended up serving as Senior Vice President during the last 10 years or so.
As you might have guessed, my social work career consisted of work with my own family and advocacy for needed services for our two sons. I was a full time homemaker and mother until 1980 when Scotty died. I did the whole bit of Brownie Scout leader, tutor and chaperone at their schools, Athletic Booster Club member, and chauffeur for three children who were involved in absolutely everything. After Scotty died I began working for the Wisconsin Conference of Churches where I was, among other things, responsible for getting them computerized and writing and producing several different newsletters and directories for the various Commissions that were a part of the Conference. (I knew my newsletter experience at County High would come in handy.) I also threw myself into volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity which was just getting started in the area and had a core group of only about 10 people. (I needed to fill up a lot of empty space in my life.)
Before long my husband, Bill, took over as President of the local Habitat for Humanity affiliate and I was their volunteer coordinator. During the next 9 years our Dane County Habitat affiliate grew to the point where we had over 800 individual volunteers plus about 46 churches and other groups who contributed their talents and resources. At that point we were “bumped upstairs” and asked to take over as State Coordinators for Habitat for Humanity in Wisconsin with responsibility for 24 different affiliates. We traveled the state meeting with the various groups, helping new affiliates to come on board, troubleshooting, etc.
My husband and I were also active with our church outreach committee serving meals at the homeless shelter and in the low income areas of the city. In addition we did grocery shopping, lawn mowing, and snow shoveling for the elderly. I eventually became a volunteer guardian for an elderly developmentally disabled lady and her developmentally disabled adult son. I spent 5 years visiting them almost daily, taking them out to dinner, shopping, to church or for walks, doing their laundry, and handling their correspondence with relatives. I also found myself having to advocate for services for them which included going to court.
Eventually I left Wisconsin Conference of Churches for a 1/2-time job with Wisconsin Coalition for Advocacy, which advocated for people with disabilities. Right down my alley, and it gave me more time for my volunteer work.
My health began to deteriorate and I started having migraines, very painful muscles, and various and sundry other complaints. The humid weather in Wisconsin seemed to make everything worse. Since our youngest daughter was living in Tempe, Az, pursuing her acting and dancing dreams and working at America West airlines to put food on the table, we were able to fly for free so we made many trips to the sunny southwest. Eventually it became harder and harder to go back to gloomy, damp Wisconsin. After Bill’s mother died we began looking around for a house and in May of 1995 we moved to Fountain Hills, Arizona, which is just over the mountains from Scottsdale. (We had both already taken early retirement some years earlier in order to do full time volunteer work with Habitat.)
Soon after we arrived in Arizona I was diagnosed by a doctor at the Mayo Clinic as having Fibromyalgia. The good news is that it is not a progressive disease–the bad news is that there isn’t a lot that they know to do for it yet. I have tried various medications and supplements and have forced myself to stay very active and I now feel pretty good most of the time. Moving to Arizona is absolutely the best move we ever made! We just wish we’d done it sooner. I feel so much better in the dry air and we can finally sit outside in the evening and enjoy the sunset and the night sky without being carried away by mosquitos (Wisconsin’s state bird). Our house is situated on a desert wash allowing us frequent visitors such as coyotes, bobcats, javelinas, rabbits, and many, many birds. We can look out our front window and see the Four Peaks mountains which can be snow-capped in the winter while it is nice and sunny and warm at our house. We can take a short walk out our front door and connect to a system of trails that goes all through the beautiful Sonoran Dessert and ends up at the Regional Park. Hiking is one of our great loves. And the really great thing is being close to family.
About a year after we moved to Arizona, our oldest daughter and her husband and our new grand-daughter, Britta, moved down to north Scottsdale from Portland, Oregon. My mother moved here at the same time we did and now lives in Mesa so we have most of our family in the greater Phoenix area. Our son, Chris, is still in Wisconsin but he is talking about making the move west at some time in the future and he visits us every year.
We believe, Lora, who loves school just as I did, may have decided to become a professional student. She got her doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Minnesota, did her post-doctoral work in Portland, had several research papers published, then she decided she didn’t like her field and went back to school to become a nurse. We’re wondering what she will decide to become once she graduates from nursing school. Since Lora is busy with her nursing studies we babysit Britta, who is now almost 5, and our two grand-puppies frequently.
Lisa, who has participated over the years in such performing arts as dancer with Ringling Brothers Circus, dancer with a professional opera company, Phoenix Suns Dancer, actress with a murder mystery theater, and jazz and ballet teacher, now has a more stable job with an employment agency. She is still active in theater and print ads however when she can fit them into her schedule. We are now in the process of helping plan her wedding. She will be marrying the son of friends of ours so that’s kind of nice. His dad also happens to be the minister at the church we attend. All in all life is very good for us right now!
We’re still very active with volunteer efforts as is my mother. When we first moved to Arizona we worked with the local Habitat affiliates helping them establish a state-wide organization. Then we moved on to driving a Red Cross van which transported kidney dialysis patients to and from their appointments. We now spend most of our time volunteering with Glendale Family Development Center which provides a comprehensive program for at-risk families (mostly Hispanic) and with Save the Family which provides transitional housing and an equally comprehensive program for homeless families with children. In addition we work with Volunteer Interfaith Caregivers Program where we provide transportation to shopping and doctor appointments for elderly or disabled people or just visit them or take them out to lunch. We actually are much busier since we retired than we ever were before but we are also much happier!
We spend our spare time attending ASU football games, watching professional basketball and baseball games, and exploring this beautiful and diverse state both by car and on foot. We do all of our volunteer work together, as a couple. It is a great mystery how we have managed to stay happily married all these years given our constant togetherness. Wouldn’t you think we’d be sick of each other by now? We’re always very excited to hear from old friends from both Wisconsin and Kentucky so we hope you’ll all be sure and write or call if you will be in the greater Phoenix area. (Webmaster note: The above was written several years ago. See below for a 2008 update.)
2008 UPDATE:
Bill and I have operated a non-profit Thrift Store for Save the Family Foundation of Arizona for the past 6 plus years. We are full-time "volunteer" managers. We set up the store from scratch and staffed it
entirely with other volunteers. Just last month we topped $1,000,000.00 in gross sales. The store has been so successful and we surprised everyone
that we could do it without paid staff. We just love what we're doing now.
We meet so many interesting people from the homeless guy on the street to
one of Charles Barkley's bodyguards. The store provides much-needed low
cost furniture, clothes, and household items to the many low-income people
in the neighborhood and at the same time makes money to support the programs
of Save the Family--transitional housing and support services for homeless
families with children. It is really the greatest program we have ever been
involved with. We have so many regular customers at the Thrift Store who we
know by name. It's just like one big family.
Our daughter, Lisa and her husband, Matthew, now have a son, Kolton, who is
a very tall 5 year old, a good athlete, and is very bright. Lisa is a 4th
grade school teacher at a very high-risk school and loving it. Quite a
change from dancing and acting and the circus. Lora and Mike now have two
children, Britta who is almost 13 and Anders who is 5. Britta is an
excellent basketball player--fortunately, since she is already taller than I
am and has a size 10 shoe (her dad is 6'6"tall). She is in a club team that
plays all year long. She's a natural athlete and has set records in track
as well like her mom. In addition she also is quite smart being in several
honor's classes. Anders is just starting to play basketball and is our
family comic. He looked like a cupie doll when he was born and his smile is
the greatest and, also being quite intelligent, he says the most hilarious
things. Lora has settled down as a Research Coordinator for T-Gen, a large
bio-tech company headquartered in Phoenix. Our son, Chris, has moved out to
Phoenix and is currently staying with us trying to get his life back on
track. His struggle with bi-polar and a tendency to alcoholism makes things
very complicated. He has been working very hard at getting the right
combination of medicines to help him stabilize his life.
We are truly blessed to have our whole family in the same general area and
to have work we love. We are so very busy with the store, children, and
grand-children though that it doesn't leave time for much else except the
occasional hike in the beautiful dessert and mountains of Arizona or just
reading a good book on our back deck while watching the wildlife.
I'll miss seeing everyone at the reunion. I can't believe it has actually
been 50 years. Where did the time go? I can't be that old--how about you?
Ann