The slightly incredulous but good-humored tone came through clearly on the phone. “You want to interview me?” exclaimed Marjorie Hybels. Then, good will taking over in her voice, she added, “Well, fine. When do you want to do it?”

Despite an almost lifelong interest and involvement with concerns of the elderly, Marjorie Hybels does not see herself as an “Elder of Norwich,” since she only arrived here eight years ago. “When we were turning 80, the kids thought we should move to be near them,” she says. She and her husband, Robert, who died a year ago in January, assessed the locations of their three sons, and decided to move to Norwich, also the residence of their son Ralph. Grand­children helped tip the scales.

While not showing any apparent incomprehension, Hybels had apologized on the phone for difficulty hearing. As conversation began at her dining table, she excused herself to replace a battery in one of the hearing aids she wears. “These are new,” she explained. “They’re very powerful hearing aids. I’ve had them less than a year.” Hybels has had hearing difficulties since college, but she has used her experience to develop a career of helping others. She is of the “Use or lose it school,” embracing the use of hearing aids, because “the more you use them, the better you’ll be able to hear. Hearing is a matter of experience. If you’re not working at it, it gets harder.”

Hybels served as a consultant to the government of Massachusetts for several years, and for many years as Executive Director of the Council on Aging in Needham; she was responsible for expansion of the Needham program and the move to a new facility. For over 20 years she was a volunteer lipreading teacher. “Lipreading is a skill; people have it to varying degrees. People who are deafened later have to be taught,” she maintains. “Exaggerating speech (overenunciating in an effort to be clear) makes it impossible to lipread.” She points out other techniques to expedite communication with the hard of hearing: Avoid background noise such as radio and TV, and face the person directly.

Hybels met her husband in Battle Creek, MI, after World War II when she was working as a year-round counsellor in a camp for young children supported by the Kellogg Foundation. “We were trying to demonstrate the some things are better learned outdoors,” she says. “We ran one- to two-week programs where kids would come with their teachers. We taught nature and square dancing, and how to set and clear tables, and how to live amicably. It was effective but expensive,” she recalls, adding the perennial lament: “It didn’t get as broad acceptance as we’d hoped.” Robert was substitute teaching in the area, before entering graduate school at the Uni­ver­sity of Chicago. While the couple lived in Chicago, Marjorie pursued her interest in education and community as an organizer of the Campfire Girls.

Hybels and her husband came to Norwich after his academic career had given them the excuse to travel over much of the country. A professor of history and sociology, Robert Hybels taught in Newton Junior College. After retirement, he taught Elder­hostel courses through much of his seventies, delighting in the broad interest and experience these senior students brought to discussions. “We’d been in many different states for [Elderhostel],” says Marjorie. “We traveled by car in the 48 contiguous states,” seizing opportunities to visit new places. Her husband had Parkinson’s disease, but “medicines were effective at holding it back. He even survived a fall in the driveway, where he broke his hip!” Eventually, however, medications failed to stop the progression of the disease.

One great pleasure for the family was a camp in Richmond, NH, that they bought when the children were young. The simple cabin had a sleeping loft for the boys, but no amenities like electricity or indoor plumbing. Even though the cabin is a mile from a maintained road, the family spent time there year-round. Since “it was woods rather than lakefront, the land was much cheaper,” says Hybels, adding an understatement, “It was a contrast to suburban coast living.”

So the couple knew what they were getting into climatologically by moving to Vermont, and were unfazed by snow or cold or being housebound. “We looked at a lot of houses, and we loved this house,” Hybels smiles, sitting in the sun-washed dining room of her tidy house on Hopson Road. “It’s pleasanter than Needham (MA), where we lived before—and we have excellent neighbors. Janet Flanders (whose fabled flowerbeds are across the street)—the gardening that she does is our asset!”

“Norwich is good for older people in several ways,” notes Hybels. She mentions the monthly community lunch at the Congregational Church as a pleasant vehicle for sociability and exchanging information. An informal group is working on easing aging in place (being able to stay in one’s own home), by connecting volunteers with seniors who have small projects [see the Goodness InDeed article on page 3]. Even an hour of moving seasonal items into and out of the attic can be very helpful to someone who cannot manage stairs while carrying things. And in Norwich, “When people see me or another old person crossing the street, they stop!” Hybels exclaims. “Okay,” she admits, “you wouldn’t expect them to run you over, but in other places, you do wonder.” She also speaks gratefully of the town clerks who will bring papers out to her in the car, and the postmaster who arranged that mail could be put inside her house as her mobility became more limited.

Hybels admits to the infirmities of age, but she does not dwell on them. Far more important to her are her sons and her long marriage—over 62 years. Asked for advice for successful marriage, she considers briefly, then suggests, “Choose carefully,” and adds, “No matter how long it is, it’s never long enough.” n