Why women live so long in Stearns County, Minn.

ST. CLOUD, Stearns County, Minn. (December 5, 1998 00:21 a.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) -- At first, Florence Longwell thought she had made a mistake to retire "too early" -- when she was only 86.

But by her 87th birthday a few weeks ago, she was overbooked with volunteer commitments, visiting "the elderly" and taking a slew of classes, from exercise to an introduction to the humanities. She regretted having to drop tap-dance instruction, not for lack of energy or talent, but just because of her time crunch. She's on the run so much that she divides her life story into two segments -- Before Microwave and After Microwave.

Longwell is one of the long-lived seniors who have put Stearns County in the national spotlight. The women of Stearns County live longer than do women in any other place in the United States, according to a study by the Harvard School of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Why Stearns County? The researchers don't know yet, but Longwell says she knows: "Hard work."

For good reason, men of her generation don't live so long, she said. "They worked hard, but they came home and sat hard. Women had to do the dishes, see that the children get to bed, get things fixed up for the next day. Women worked all day and all evening. Now it's changing, I hear. Men help more at home."

She's lost two husbands to heart attacks. When she was widowed the second time, she realized she could go stir-crazy at home. She got a job as outreach coordinator at the Whitney Senior Center in St. Cloud so that she could be busy and be with people. Stearns County women are like that, she said. "The key is being active and doing for others and forgetting about yourself."

Minnesota ranks high in longevity studies, and the Harvard study put four Minnesota areas in the top five rankings for women's lives. South Dakota regions accounted for two more in the Top 10. Two Minnesota areas were in the Top 10 for men. The study defined regions by population; most were one county, some were more than one county and some were parts of a large city, such as the Bronx borough of New York City.

Catherine Michaud, a Harvard research associate who was one of the study's authors, said they are puzzled by the results.

"There's an enormous amount of range" in the longevity, she said. "We're looking at underlying causes of death, (and) education and income levels to see how much that explains. But it's more complex than that."

Donna Walberg, executive director of the Central Minnesota Council on Aging and a mere pup of 46 years, sees several reasons for the longevity in Stearns County:

"Is this generally a healthier living environment?" Walberg wondered. Yes, she answered emphatically. The county has strong hospitals and medical care. The people, many of whom have roots in Germany, have an ethic rooted in hard work, clean living and strong bodies. She added that the Stearns County air is clean, the water good, the education level above average and the socioeconomic status higher than most.

Many people, especially older women, Walberg said, move in from surrounding counties because of the good social services. Another is that St. Joseph is the home community to the Benedictine sisters; their nuns from around the country move here to retire and to be cared for in old age.

"So it's a good place to live," she said. One might expect to see more old people in Florida and Arizona than Minnesota.

"But what happens in Stearns County is that the snow-birds return in their late 70s and early 80s, when they need support. This is where family is, where the nursing homes and hospitals are that they're familiar with."

Sister Berno Flint, born almost 89 years ago in Stearns County and now retired (sort of) in the Benedictine monastery in St. Joseph, recently had a medical exam. No problems. Her only pill is one aspirin in the morning, "to keep my blood moving."

The number of retired nuns -- about 200, some healthy and some in nursing homes in Stearns and Sherburne Counties -- is too low to significantly influence the Harvard study, she admitted. But she believes the nuns have had a greater effect than mere numbers can suggest.

"I think it's the influence of the sisters -- the monastic model of calm, serenity, evenness, moderation, with a sound foundation of religion -- that has soaked into community life here. It's a matter of accepting life as it flows, with its tragedies and sadnesses as well as its positive things."

The middle child of seven born on a dairy farm near Roscoe, Flint joined the convent when she was 20. She taught nursing students most of her career, at the St. Cloud Hospital and in Ogden, Utah. "I've seen a lot of life, and I've held the hands of many people as they died." Death, she said, doesn't frighten her. "Not at all."

Hers was such a busy life, she explained, that she long hoped she could return to the mother house in St. Joseph in old age. She yearned for "the quiet, the serenity, the simple, unruffled flow of everyday living." She wanted to end her life in the county where it began, "so beautiful an area." Still active, she stuffs envelopes for the monastery, dispenses advice to her colleagues on common medical problems, reads, counsels and, according to the other nuns, generally serves as a wisdom figure. Time does not weigh on her hands.

"Regular work is a very positive thing," she said. "It's a necessary component of an even life."

Another example: Hilly Ehlert. She put down her tools in the woodworking shop at the Whitney Senior Center to tell about her life. "They always say that women don't work as hard as men. But I did, all my life."

Her parents and their 17 children lived on a North Dakota dairy farm and milked by hand. Her mother made 14 loaves of bread every other day and died of leukemia when Ehlert was just out of high school. Ehlert had three older sisters who were married and gone, and it fell to her to raise the younger children. When Ehlert married three years later, her father put the younger children into boarding school. Afterward some of her siblings came to visit her on weekends at the grain farm she and her husband ran in western Minnesota.

She raised a son and five daughters and thought that was the end of the lot. But 10 years after the fifth girl, at the age of 45, Ehlert had another son. She couldn't allow cancer of the esophagus to end her life, as doctors predicted, because she had that little boy to raise, she said. She didn't want to see him end up motherless, as her siblings had.

Now she's 75 years old. She walks a lot, rides her bike and spends at least five hours in the workshop three times a week, crafting everything from chairs to butcher-block tables. Her husband, Harry, is disabled. "He's the one who sits home and watches TV," she said. "I offered to teach him to crochet -- that helped me pass the time when I was sick -- but he can't stand to rip out. So he sits there."

Two of Ehlert's male friends in the class came by to rib her about taking an unscheduled break from woodworking. They had their own explanations for why Stearns County women live long. "Because they're ornery," said Earl Thompson, 72. "Because the men take such good care of them," offered Jack Fischer, 77. Ehlert smiled and shooed them away.

In another part of the Whitney center campus women were learning to paint in the old Scandinavian floral fashion. Beverly Anderson, who's 64, said that rosemaling is related to longevity: "We have to live until we get all our woodwork painted, and we have rooms full of plates and bowls and boxes. It's almost a guarantee of long life."

By PEG MEIER, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune.
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.
Copyright 1998 Nando Media
Copyright 1998 Scripps Howard

janet paterson - 51 now /41 dx /37 onset - almonte/ontario/canada
[log in to unmask]