Mahoney brings older people together to help
environment, change society's image of aging
When she reached retirement age four years ago, Connie Mahoney, a
scholar and environmentalist who lives in Sebastopol, figured there
had to be more to old age than bingo and an AARP card.
The result was Earth Elders, founded by Mahoney a year later to
utilize the accumulated wisdom of the oldest among us while creating
a new vision of aging.
"Earth Elders is a way to look at retirement as a time of
contribution," said Mahoney, 69. "A time when elders use their
post-employment years to address critical issues, such as the health
and well-being of planet Earth for future generations."
In her journey from "corporate wife and mother" to environmental
and social activist, Mahoney followed a career as teacher and
researcher that has spanned America's changing social panorama.
She worked with women and children in the Appalachian Mountains
in the 1960s. In 1981, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area,
where her research and studies focused on aging and health policy.
Mahoney's interest in age-related issues and her own aging led
her to establish Earth Elders, a small, loose-knit Sonoma
County-based organization that has grown into an international
network, its members and supporters linked by a newsletter and the
Internet. There are 700 people connected worldwide, with 300 members
and supporters in Sonoma County.
Twenty to 30 Earth Elders gather monthly for the "Circle of
Elders" at New College of California in Santa Rosa.
Gathering in a circle -- in the tradition of native cultures --
Mahoney and other elders discuss such topics as organic agriculture,
preserving the California coast and aging in the 21st century. The
idea is to glean solutions for a better world from the collective
experiences of people completing the final phase of life.
"Throughout history and in traditional cultures worldwide, elders
have been respected as keepers of the Earth," Mahoney said. "Elders
are valued as responsible members of the community, entrusted with
teaching each new generation how to care for one another and for the
Earth so it will continue to sustain life."
The modest turnout each month indicates Earth Elders is not for
everyone. Earth Elders deals more in teaching concepts and less in
practical applications.
Its main contribution comes in April during an Earth Day
celebration, at which it honors older people who have made
significant environmental contributions. This year it will be April
22 at Gold Ridge, Luther Burbank's Experimental Farm in Sebastopol.
But it's Mahoney's hope that Earth Elders will inspire older
people to find new meaning in their life. She talks about elders who
devote their retirement years to saving wetlands and preserving
forests.
The typical participant in the Circle of Elders is a
well-educated, retired professional who has been involved in
environmental preservation most of his or her life.
"It's a lot of professors, doctors and lawyers who are looking at
this mysterious time called old age," said Rabon Saip, 65, a Santa
Rosa psychologist active in the Circle of Elders.
Saip called Mahoney a visionary. "Connie is very dedicated and
consistently excited about the vision of Earth Elders, which she has
conscientiously guided for several years," Saip said.
Mahoney sees Earth Elders as a way to change society's perception
of getting older.
"There's no rite of passage to aging. You get your Medicare card
and suddenly it all becomes real," said Mahoney. "What a negative
approach because it puts in place all those thoughts about disease
and deterioration of your body."
To Mahoney's way of thinking, baby boomers have it all wrong when
they worry whether there will be enough money in Social Security
when they retire.
"Instead they should be concerned that there is clean air to
breath and nontoxic soil to grow food for our children and
grandchildren," Mahoney said.
Her arrival in Sonoma County in 1991 followed a long, circuitous
journey through the Midwest, the East Coast and the South before
landing in the Bay Area.
Mahoney said her social and environmental awakening came in the
'60s when her former husband, an executive with a major company, was
transferred from New York to a town in Tennessee that was part of
Appalachia. The couple eventually divorced.
"Appalachia was all new to me in the '60s, and I became conscious
of the poverty and chemical pollution associated with strip mining
of the mountains," Mahoney said. "Unless you were blind, you could
see the pollution coming down the mountains."
Mahoney said she began questioning the devastating environmental
damage but found strong resistance because of the money and jobs
generated by mining.
As her own five children grew older, Mahoney took jobs working
with women and children living in the Appalachian Mountains. She
learned of the problems and hardships of life in this economically
deprived region but also came to respect the Appalachian peoples'
love for the mountains and respect for family.
"In many ways it was a life-transforming experience for me,"
Mahoney said.
It also inspired her to go back to school. She earned a master's
degree in sociology and a master's in public health. After moving to
San Francisco she completed a doctorate that focused on aging and
health policy.
"I graduated from the University of California, San Francisco, at
57, an age when my peers were retiring," Mahoney said.
She taught classes related to gerontology at Cal State Hayward,
Diablo Valley College and Sonoma State University.
While living in the East Bay, she had a deep yearning to be
surrounded by trees and grass and made a conscious effort "to have
less concrete in my life."
She moved to a rural home in Sonoma and three years ago moved to
Sebastopol, settling into a country place surrounded by apple
orchards, vineyards and small farms. It brought her full circle;
born in Washington, Mahoney was raised amid orchards, sheep and
cows.
"When I came to Sonoma County it was very much a feeling of
coming home," Mahoney said.
