Audrey Heinrichs: oral history with Molly Graham

Item Information

Title:
Audrey Heinrichs: oral history with Molly Graham
Description:
From a series of oral histories with residents and employees of the Loomis Village Retirement Community, South Hadley, Mass., regarding their lives and experience in a retirement community. (00:01:05) variety of people living at Loomis, mostly college-educated. (00:02:05) interesting lives of residents, including photographer at the Nuremberg trials, a career military woman, and more. (00:04:00) Differences between culture at Loomis and other communities: less wealth than some and less formality, but with rich cultural environment. (00:07:04) Changes in Loomis over the years: most people are local and many know one another before entering. (00:07:59) Involvement as editor with the Villager, the newsletter. (00:10:22) Arrived in 2002 with end of Phase III; lived briefly in Phase II. (00:11:28) Believes it was 1980s when people began putting their own mothers in Loomis, as opposed to servants earlier. (00:13:00) Search for retirement communities and going to a home: her son Peter, a minister in Amherst, helped look in the area. (00:14:30) Importance of being able to bring pets. (00:15:19) Memories of early days at Loomis and adjusting to downsizing. (00:16:45) Transition for married couple versus single. (00:19:12) Advice for new tenants at Loomis; return social invitations and make an effort to reach out. (00:20:44) Retirement community myths: people are too old to be interesting, many are at most interesting times of lives with time to pursue interests, but very variable. (00:21:44) Impact of death of residents; relationships are not much different; impact on other residents when someone dies. (00:23:17) How to describe Loomis to someone who had never been there? (00:24:01) Life before Loomis, meeting Waldo: education for girls stressed in her family; attended Wellesley; father never attended college and much regretted; both she and sister received doctorates (in education); work in teaching teachers. (00:27:43) Meeting Waldo, son of a professor at Middlebury; taught at Oxford while Waldo was a student there; Waldo's moves through foreign service, into advertising, to academia. (00:30:30) Waldo continuing career at Loomis. (00:31:09) Typical day at Loomis, rising at seven and exercise; Waldo writes and she works on editing the Villager, family, and projects; lunch and napping. (00:36:00) Description of their apartment.
Interviewee:
Heinrichs, Audrey
Interviewer:
Graham, Molly
Date:
June 23, 2010
Format:
Audio recordings (nonmusical)
Genre:
Oral histories (document genres)
Location:
Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries
Collection (local):
Loomis Communities Records
Series:
Series 5. Oral Histories
Subjects:
Death
Older people--Massachusetts--Interviews
Retirees--Massachusetts--Interviews
Retirement communities--Massachusetts
Heinrichs H., Waldo
Loomis Village Retirement Community
Places:
Massachusetts
Extent:
1 audio recording ; 00:43:59
Link to Item:
https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums685-o001-i017
Terms of Use:
Requests to publish, redistribute, or replicate this material should be addressed to Special Collections and University Archives, UMass Amherst Libraries.
Contact host institution for more information.
Place of origin:
South Hadley (Mass.)
Language:
English
Identifier:
mums685-o001-i017