Nearly eight years and exactly 398 posts ago, I began publishing my weekly blog, “The WOW Factor,” by interviewing an amazing woman, my friend and former student in Taos, New Mexico, Grace Fichtelberg, then ninety years old.
Initially I’d thought my blog, subtitled “Words of Women from Wise Older Women,” would consist primarily of interviews with women over the age of seventy who could serve as inspiring role models for us all as we enter the rocky terrain of older-and-older age. I believed then, and I believe as strongly now, that we women need more role models to show us ways to live our lives as meaningfully, creatively, and purposefully as possible right to the end.
Over these eight years, I’ve done many WOW interviews; but in recent years, due primarily to COVID and people’s reluctance to meet face to face (the way I prefer to interview), my interviews have been fewer. Instead, I’ve been writing mainly personal essays (“Views”), although I know I’m a long way from being the wise older woman I hope one day to be.
Today, March 18th, as I write and post this, my indomitable friend Grace — still in Taos, still going strong — is celebrating her ninety-eighth birthday; and I’d like to dedicate this week’s WOW post to her.
As I wrote in that first post, titled “Amazing Grace,” dated May 6, 2014, “I’d met Grace Fichtelberg, a diminutive woman with soft white hair pulled back in a simple ponytail, a radiant smile, twinkling eyes, and a strong New York accent […] in 2007 when she, at 83, was a student in my first Creative Nonfiction Writing course at UNM-Taos. Fortunately for me and everyone else in the class, she has attended every CNF course I’ve taught since. We’ve all learned a lot from her and her stories.
“Undaunted in her eighties, Grace was still pursuing her lifelong desire to become a writer – a goal she’d had to postpone while she was married, raising three children, and doing office work to help support the family on the East Coast. In fact, the first writing course she took […] was at The New School for Social Research in New York in the late 1940s. It was there that she met her future husband, Jack, to whom she was happily married from 1950 until his death in 1998.”
For me, the story that stands out especially among the ones Grace wrote for my Taos classes was of the work she did in New Jersey when World War II broke out, filling requisitions for Navy destroyers docked in the Hudson. Before I was born.
In that first interview eight years ago, I tried my best to press Grace for some of her secrets for successful aging. So she shared a few, tersely: “Choose younger friends…. Love animals…. Read at least one book a month…. Laugh a lot…. Volunteer your time…. Be a good human being…. Keep dancing.” When I asked whether she thought about the future, she shook her head. “I never think about the future,” she said. “I just live day by day.”
My “Amazing Grace” and I have stayed in touch via e-mail since I retired from teaching in Taos and moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, in December 2015. She writes to me once a month, telling me her news (“COVID has made me a homebody!”), giving me her Taos weather report (“brrrrrrrr!”), sharing with me her publication successes (“I had a story accepted in Howl!” — the UNM-Taos literary journal).
For as long as I’ve known her, Grace has been writing her memoirs. She’s not finished yet, but I don’t think she needs to rush it. I suspect she’ll live at least another twenty years.
When I asked in a recent e-mail what she planned to do on this, her ninety-eighth, birthday, she told me, “My son in Connecticut and my daughter in California will not be able to visit, but my daughter and granddaughter here in Taos will help me celebrate. We’ll have a birthday lunch. I’ll receive the usual phone calls, birthday cards, etc. This makes me happy. Then I’ll open gifts, blow out 98 candles (I’m only kidding!), and at the end of the day I’ll think, THIS WAS THE BEST BIRTHDAY I EVER HAD!”
Please join me in wishing my friend Grace a very Happy 98th Birthday.
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To read some more recent interviews with amazing older women here in SMA, go to:
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Lovely as usual! Kate
Thank you, dear Kate! And I now realize I was remiss in not adding a link to YOUR interview — http://www.blog.bonnieleeblack.com/kate-taylor-mills/ . So sorry! I hope you’re doing well. — BB
So lovely to hear about Grace on her 98th. And it is the case that now, more than ever, we need older women role models.
Yes, so true, Carol! Genuine ones, and not Hollywood actors.
A very happy birthday, Grace!
Thanks, Helaine! I hope she reads these comments. — BB
Another lovely post, Bonnie. I think her advice is pretty good. Much love, Sharman
Thank you, Sharman!
Keep dancing. I especially like that one.
Yes!!!
What an inspiration! Happy Birthday Grace!
Thank you!
What a pleasure to know someone who is still living fully at 98. Happy Birthday, Grace!
Yes, Be! Grace certainly deserves the title “Amazing!”
Happy birthday, Grace! So many of my older friends are in various stages of dementia that it’s good to read one who is still living life to its fullest.
Thank you, Anne! Yes, Grace certainly offers us hope!
So many wonderful comments — made me blush==thank
you, thank you all.
Thank YOU, Amazing Grace, for chiming in! You’re famous now — and deservedly so. Mucho love from MX, Bonnie
Dear Bon,
What an inspiring woman. I especially like her advice about living in the moment. But my favorite thing was that at ninety-eight she says, “COVID has made me a homebody!” Obviously, nothing short of a global pandemic can stop this woman. All I can say in response is “Wow!”
Thank you for another delightful post.
Love,
Paul
Yes, dear Paul, that comment from Grace also struck me the same way. I’m a homebody all the time — global pandemic or not! Grace is simply unstoppable. — BB xx
What a wonderfully affirmative post. Thank you!
Happy Birthday, Grace!!
Thanks, Pam. I’m sure Grace will be happy to hear from you.
Grace, We don’t know each other, but I know you are amazing! Thank you for the inspiration! Happy Birthday!
Joanna! Great to hear from you! I’m sure Grace will appreciate your comment. Thanks so much for writing.
Happy 98th Birthday, Grace! You are an inspiration to all of us! ❤️
Thank you, Arti! I know Grace is reading your comments. — xx
Bonnie, I loved your story about “Amazing Grace.” You and I share a similar love, and that is talking to the many older women in San Miguel who have inspired us. I once thought I’d do a non-fiction book of interviews with them–but got side -tracked into novel-writing. I, myself, turn 80 in one month and am happy to say I will have my second novel published in a couple of months Like Grace, I had to postpone writing while I raised two daughters, started and ran a jewelry design business, and taught art to children and adults. It’s in SMA that I found my writing voice. I would love to talk to you more about the “amazing grace” growing old offers us women!
Yes, Amazing Sher, I’d love to talk with you too! 🙂 Let’s make a plan…
I have been doing some geneology research recently, and aside from what I could find on ancestry, decided to google Grace’s name. Your article popped up. We are related through marriage, she is the sister of my uncle Alex, and her husband Jack worked for my uncle Alex and my father, Ray Lutzky. In fact, Jack commuted with my father for years, to and from work. Periodically I ask my cousins how she’s doing, I knew that she had moved to New Mexico many years ago. I’m so happy to hear that she’s doing well and continues to have many interests and friends. Please send her my regards. I think the last time I saw her was at my wedding.
Amy Lutzky Rothschild
Dear Amy — Thank you so much for writing! I’ll pass your note on to my dear friend Grace (whom I call Amazing Grace). The last I heard from her she was still going strong — in her mid-nineties now! She’s my role model. — Best wishes, Bonnie